Reheating a Tater

I have been a neglectful tater. Not only have I not been updating this blog, but I have been slacking off fitness wise. I have an excuse. I bought a house. Not a house I love, but one that makes sense and has everything that we wanted. It was a mad, frantic search and finally I’m here.

The purpose of this blog was to keep me writing and to motivate/ keep me accountable to get healthier and in shape. Through the stress of the house buying and the upcoming move and I was just in wedding, I did not deal with my stress in a healthy way. No running. Slacking on the push-ups for the #2011pushupchallenge. No yoga. Mostly, I just frantically searched for owner financed homes on har.com and consoled myself with Ben & Jerry’s.

Whenever my mom has one of her pity parties as she calls them, she sees a blind person.  To her, this is God’s smack to the back of the head (NCIS Gibbs’ style) for her to stop feeling sorry for herself, be thankful for what she has, and keep on trucking. Well, hopefully God doesn’t say keep on trucking, but you get the idea.  It sounds crazy, but several people, myself included, have seen this happen. 

That seems like a strange little story to put in there, but I have gotten my own blind person/smack to the back of the head recently. I was stressed and unmotivated to the point of not exactly giving up, but not putting forth any effort either.  In my head, I was going through the speech a coach gives their team when they’re down by 20 with a minute left in the fourth of their playoff game. You had a good run, let’s finish this game with your heads held high.

Perhaps I spent too much time around coaches in my formative years.

I was just entertaining those thoughts when fate smacked me.  It came in  a few different forms.

1.                    Annie and Becca, the evil genius minds behind the #2011pushupchallenge, decided to switch things up a bit on the challenge. As we get further along on reps, a few people are needing an extra day of rest. Enter a few tweets/Facebook messages and I have been recruited to be the leader of the third team. What does this mean? It means no more slacking on sculpting my guns (side note: with crazy real estate happenings this week, I did slack, but I’ll be back on the wagon now that I am moved from the hotel to the house),

2.                    The smack for this one happened in a series of light smacks from several different sources.  I keep slacking on running.  I had originally planned to run a 5K at the end of April in Fredericksburg.  When I figured out that I could not afford a weekend jaunt to Fredericksburg, my training fell to the wayside. I had been doing three or four runs a week increasing my distance and my time spent running each time (I utilize a walk/run method). I hadn’t built up a lot of distance but I was going a little over two miles which would have put me on track for completing a 5K.  My runs dwindled when my goal disappeared. In the back of my mind though, I remembered the Rock N Roll Half Marathon in Vegas. I believe Annie was the one who brought it to my attention first then I looked at the website- stripatnight.com.  Running the strip at night! How fun, but it seemed out of reach- physically and financially. Once the 5K didn’t happen it seemed even less likely. Then all of a sudden the RNR half seemed more prominent. I kept seeing great deals for Vegas airfare (it is way cheaper flying from Houston). We talked about it at work; my manager has run several half marathons and when he found out it was at night in December, he was intrigued.  Then my cousin Missy started running again. She had to take a time out earlier this year after a surgical procedure and now she’s back and I see her updates on Twitter and Facebook. We talked this last weekend and once again the Vegas Half popped up which just so happens to be on her birthday.  She suggested we could do it economically if we split the hotel room. The half takes place in 6 months less a day; I know I’ll need to throw a 5K in the mix somewhere but this is my new goal.  So running tomorrow (or today as I’m typing this on a Saturday night (try not to be jealous) and will post this when I can find some place with free Wi-Fi).

3.                    As I had mentioned initially, this blog was about my being more healthy and getting into better shape, but it is also about my writing.  I started slacking on keeping up with the blog back before I had a decent excuse. Then my head smack came in a rather delightful, non-smack like way. SpokenFor gave me a great comment that was incredibly encouraging.  It was just what I needed to get going again.

So in lieu of getting a concussion from the smacks to the head, I have decided to surrender.  I tried to be lazy, but apparently there are other plans and I am back on the way to being a hot potato (considering that we’ve already reached 100 degrees twice, I do mean that).

Smashed tater

Not smashed, maybe just slightly maimed.

I have fallen way off on my fitness, health goals. I've only run twice in the past two weeks and my eating habits have sucked. I've even fallen off the push-up wagon- not completely, but I used to never miss a day and I definitely have lately.

My stress level has increased and for awhile, I was handling it well. I was running, doing yoga, push ups, ab work etc to work off the stress.  Then the past three weeks I have been using chocolate therapy and have just felt exhausted. Intellectually I know this is the wrong move.  My energy level increases when I increase my activity level, yada, yada.

I have been dealing with a housing situation.  I got an offer for my house in the old city BUT it was below what I owe, but it's the only bite in six, nearly seven months so I'm negotiating with the mortgage company to accept it. My real estate agent in the old city while a nice lady is not one I could recommend, I feel like I am nagging her.With that in mind and that my credit is going to suck once that goes through, I am looking at owner finance homes in the new city. Thankfully, my real estate dude here is very eager and seems to have a good handle on things even though he looks 12 (we call him Junior or Doogie).So the stress has increased and like I said, not handling it very well.

Even though I have good reasons for stress, I realize that these are just excuses. So, tonight I bought some new running shorts and a shirt, yesterday I browsed Sports Authority, and tomorrow I'll begin attempt #3 to get back on the fitness track again.  Third time's the charm, no?

Tonight's blog is brief and not terribly witty but it was an attempt to get back on the writing track.  I talked to a patient today about how I like to write and then smacked myself upside the head (mentally) when I realized there was no good reason why I wasn't doing something I enjoyed.

Pushing up Tater

I have a vague recollection of a random tweet from @annieology about push ups- doing one on 1/1 then two on 2/2 and I was thinking, hmm, she has a goal of a dozen push ups? Oh- kaay. Like I said the recollection was vague and I am a natural (and artificially enhanced) blonde. A week or three later, I paid more attention.

A push up for every day of the year. 1,2,3... 365 push ups?! In one day? Crazypants!

Yet, intriguing.

So, around the end of January I went for it. I did about ten push up all on my knees. Then I did a few more until I caught up with the rest of the crowd and then I did push ups every other day on my team's day (team odd).  Yesterday, even though it was an even day, I celebrated day 100 with 100 push ups. Yep, celebrated. With push ups. Our cult  fun group is wild like that.

What is amazing about the push up challenge is how it creeps into other areas of your life.  For me, it helped lead to other things. I have always struggled with my weight and for the most part the weight has won. When I started the push up challenge, I was half heartedly giving the weight loss thing another whirl. With the #2011pushupchallenge, I did my push ups if I did nothing else. I have more than once gotten out of bed at 1130 or 1150 (or 1230 am and I pretend I'm in a different time zone) and finished (or started) my push ups.  It inspired discipline for me and I found myself ready to do more things.

I never anticipated being able to do so many push ups at one time before so I decided to try something else I did not anticipate being able to do- run. I'm a fat girl, I have a bad ankle, and I'm truly klutzy. Running and I should not really mix.  That being said for the past few years I've wanted to be a runner. So,  I gave it a try. My first few days were not fun at all. My ankle did indeed hate me with a fiery passion that reflected within the joint itself.  Then my ankle calmed down and my hip decided to tighten up to within an inch of its life. Luckily, I'm in physical therapy and know really cool stretches that helped that out and was able to analyze my own gait to see what was bugging me. Now, a couple months later, I'm still not running a mile without pause or anything close to it, but I'm utilizing a walk/run method that works for me for two miles. I still walk most of it, but I'm running more than I thought I would.

The #2011pushupchallenge's method may seem very simplistic and not challenging to some of the more hard core athletes, but it builds a great base. Before I may have gotten frustrated with not being able to run a 5K in a month(I may have a bit of an issue with patience), but now I look at running in steps. In January I could not have imagined finishing 100 push ups, but that's what I did yesterday. Knowing that means, I know I'm able to reach my goals. I'll be able to run a 5K by mid May and if another of @annieology's crazy ideas comes to fruition, I'll run Beach to Bay with her next May and MAYBE a half marathon in December.

So this is my invitation, my challenge for all my friends and family, etc, join up with @annieology or @beccascrazyboys and push up.  Start today with one or tomorrow with two and end the year with 265 push ups! Or if you want to be hard core, catch up with us!

PS As far as the weight loss thing goes, I am down two sizes since the holidays. 

Papas y Huevos (Potatoes and eggs)

Easter is my favorite. Not holiday, but my favorite for the candy it brings. Cadbury eggs, Reese's eggs, Starburst jelly beans, and a newly discovered favorite. Glorious, delicious sugary goodness and a few thousand calories.

I've mentioned before that I'm a brat. I get cranky and downright ugly (I'm from the south; we use phrases like that and we pull it off) when denied something I really want. With that in mind, I have bought Easter candy. My Starburst jelly beans lived in my cabinet for three weeks before I opened the bag.  Then I gleefully opened the bag of regular and the special bag of red fruit only and mixed them in a Gladware container. I will admit to days where I stop eating them because my teeth ache from the sugar, but my Gladware container is still over 80% full. I've also bought Reese's mini eggs and Butterfinger eggs. All of the candy I've bought has already lasted at least 2-3 weeks and there's still some left which is remarkable considering how quickly I used to plow through it. In general, I keep indulging, but am limiting myself to a piece or two at a time.

Until last night.

Last night, I left work with a headache. I popped three Ibuprofen as I drove down I45 and decided to stop at SuperTarget. My conditioner was nearly gone and I would need kitty litter by the weekend.  Maybe a quick side trip would also give me time for my headache to decrease and I could run as planned. I wandered aimlessly through Target. I picked up my conditioner, looked at the shoes, and checked to see if they had organic bell peppers (they do; but I held off). I decided I needed cereal as well and then thought it was absolutely necessary I check to see what flavors of Ben and Jerry's were available.  I picked up a pint of Half Baked FroYo (I am SO healthy). Then I spied an empty cart and grabbed it and picked up the kitty litter I had come in for originally.  On my way to the check out, I casually strolled through the Easter aisles. Then I saw it.

Coconut cream filled Dove eggs. In the time it took for my brain to register the words, the bag flew into my cart. I checked out and loaded the kitty litter in the back of my SUV and the other bag (with the stuff) rode shotgun. My headache still going I decided therapeutic chocolate might be the wise choice. At the stoplight I opened the bag of Dove eggs and unwrapped one. Delicious! One of the great things about where I live is location.  Supertarget is a mere two miles away. By the time I got home,  my headache was gone.  The miracle of chocolate coconutty goodness!

I got home, threw the bag of groceries on the table and changed into my running clothes.  I fired up my IPOD and started up the mapmyrun app on my Blackberry and hit the road. I felt better; the chocolate coconut eggs worked like a magic elixir.

To be honest, my runs are run/walk.  I'm a beginner; I've utilized the walk/run strategy; run for a minute or so, recover walk until you can run again, repeat. On Monday, I got my highest run time so far- 7.5 minutes. On Wednesday, after eating the Dove eggs, I ran even further- 10 minutes!

Maybe it was a coincidence. But, I think it was the power of the Dove coconut eggs.

That bag is so not lasting the week.

Mo-tater-vation

My hometown city has been number one for many things. When I was a teenager, we were number one for teen pregnancy for the entire country (and several times since; freaking Laredo tries to take our crown though). Most recently, Corpus Christi (ie my hometown city) has been named the fattest city and the city for the worst hair.  No wonder we don't have the highest teen pregnancy rate anymore.

I vaguely remember the mayor taking some offense to the fattest city title and proposed an initiative to get people moving. Health fairs, areob-a-thons, etc have popped up, but I'm not sure how the city's doing with the whole not being fat thing. Sadly, I added to the fat of the city.

In September, I moved to Houston and became a little more aware of my bad habits. But it wasn't until late January, early February that I really committed.  I've started running, I'm doing pushups (#2011pushupchallenge - join on day 100- peer pressure!), and I've started adjusting my eating habits. Everything's been working well for me. I've lost weight, my arms are not nearly as jiggly, and I'm in better shape than I've been in many years.

I have visited Corpus the past two weekends and I have to say I fell off the fitness track while I was there.  The weekend before last was jam-packed. I saw relatives I had not seen in years  (that's another sordid tale; listen to the banjos play a haunting melody softly in the background to give you a clue). For the first time, I missed my push-ups and all my intentions of running fell through with laundry, relatives, housewarming party, and talking about relatives with other relatives. Then I came home to Houston and felt uninspired. I did my push ups on Monday, but I didn't mix it up at all and I made myself go to the exercise room and get on the treadmill but after a measly half mile I was done.

I had been doing well with staying motivated and disciplined. What had happened to me?  Did I linger too long in CC? Was the fattest city a bad influence on me?  I felt sluggish and very unmotivated.  I didn't do much the next day, but then on Wednesday I got home and put on the exercise ensemble and hit the road. I  ran my usual route plus a little extra and something very odd happened.

I felt better. I had more energy and I slept better that night. I am a person dedicated to the couch. Lying down makes things better. This has happened to me in the past. I used to belong to the Y and was going two or three times a week and I noticed the increase in energy, but obligations got in the way and that habit died. Now, I feel a little more dedicated to my new changes.

I will do push-ups every other day and go for a run/walk/crawl several times a week. Part of it is for ego.  I like the way I look better and compliments are awesome. Moreover, I like the side effects. I'm stronger and have better endurance and have more energy. Also, in order to stay motivated, apparently I need to stay moving.

Tater Psych

For nearly a semester, I majored in psychology and from time to time I analyze others and myself. Or if I'm analyzing someone who did something bad, I profile them. I also watch a lot of Criminal Minds. 


I have been single for a long time, six nearly seven years now. I ended things and despite my persistent singleness have been happy with that choice.  I look at it as I saved myself a ton of money and future awkwardness if we shared custody of a kid after divorcing which I feel like that's where we would be if I hadn't broken things off  (or in an unhappy marriage). Truthfully, I had stayed with that guy too long and no one in my life thought too highly of him. He was a nice guy, but not right for me.  Luckily, I did not have to deal with any physical abuse or infidelity (that I knew of).

I did not date in high school. I wish I could say my parents wouldn't let me or I was too focused on school or in the words of Clueless's Cher "high school boys- as if!" I wanted to date in high school; my parents probably would have allowed it, but I didn't.  No one was interested in me. I hung out with the boys' basketball team for three years and unfortunately instead of that making me seem attractive to them it gave them a protective vibe. Which was good in some ways. When I made the switch to be a trainer and worked with the football guys as well, none of them harassed me the way they did every other trainer. But it also meant, I was getting harassed by any of the football guys.

By the time I got a boyfriend, I held on. I held on for nearly five years. He was mostly a nice guy but I was annoyed with his need to get drunk and/or high every weekend for no other reason than to get drunk and/or high.  More than once I thought of breaking up with him, but something like an upcoming sporting event would make me hang in there.  We would have a great time at the game and I would stay.  I also realized that I was not high on his priority list.  Finally, I got to the point that instead of hoping he would propose, I was scared to death he would. I had actually thought about moving in with him because I felt like we would need a trial run before we got married.  I'm not clear cut into whether or not you should live together before you get married, but I did want to be sure enough in my relationship that I didn't treat living together as a test. That thought made me start to seriously reconsider the relationship. I had to admit to a lot of things.  One of the things I admitted to was that I was still with him because I didn't think I could do any better and thought being unhappily with him was better than being alone. The trial run thought, the whole lack of self-esteem thing made me really question whether those were good reasons to continue a relationship.

Then one night we were supposed to work out together at my clinic and I cancelled on him to baby-sit my godson Landen. We worked out often and Landen was my godson and therefore a high priority in my life.  He was incredibly mad about it and I knew right then and there, that was it. If something had happened to Landen's parents (my cousin and her husband), I was responsible for raising him and he acted like one missed workout was a huge inconvenience? Uh, no. After a back and forth of a couple months, we'll try to make it work, we're broken up, now we're on a break, we finally broke up.

Now through the grapevine and technology, I know he's married and has a baby (and at least a couple of years ago, his friends liked me better than the new girl). I'm actually good with that because I don't want to be married to him.  I felt pretty good with myself and I sincerely believe I would rather be single than be with the wrong person.  I have seen too many people get married because "it was time." In fact one of my cousins gave me that exact reason for marrying their spouse.

I feel like my self worth did not make it out entirely intact. I've always been a chubby to fat kid, teenager, then young adult.  The ex boyfriend made a few comments from time to time about a shirt being too small for me and then something un-weight related that when I talked about my family I was boring (my family is chock full of  scandal so not sure WHAT that was about). When I was with him, I gained about 30-40 lbs. When we broke up, I probably gained another 30 lbs. I attempted a few dating type ventures, but my overall feeling was "why would someone even want to be with me?" I had gained enough self worth to know I shouldn't stay with someone like my ex, but I wasn't at the place where I felt like I was worthy to be with anyone.

I have come to the point in psych-major-for-a-semester awareness where I realize I was sabotaging myself. I could shove anything into my mouth and then sit on my butt because I didn't care enough about myself to treat myself right.  If I didn't think I was worth enough to take care of myself, why should anyone else? This thought isn't about trying to land a man, but it's about treating myself like someone who deserves love. I am a Christian and believe that Jesus died for our sins. God loved me enough to sacrifice His Son for me, but I can't love me enough to take care of myself?

I have started to care a little more about myself.  I have lost weight, gained muscle (thank you #2011pushupchallenge), and gotten more in shape. I have also started caring more about my appearance. Doing home PT, I got into the habit of throwing on scrubs and tossing my hair up and that was it. Now that I see my coworkers every day and my patients have better eyesight I take a little more time with my appearance. It's actually bugging me (and pleasing me) that a few of my shirts are probably two sizes too big and extremely baggy. I feel like I'm almost to the point where I might try the whole dating thing. I feel more confident and I like myself better. I don't kid myself; I have a long way to go, but to quote an old shampoo commercial, I'm worth it.

Tater in the Dressing Room

In general, I do not watch a lot of reality TV. Some of it I think is insipid; other shows sound interesting, but I already watch a lot of TV. You have to cut back where you can. I would love to write for living so I like to watch scripted shows. Every once in awhile, I get drawn in to a "real" TV show. On the Food Network, I love seeing Ace of Cakes  and my new Sunday addiction is Cupcake Wars. I know, I know. Of course, the fat girl likes shows about cake. I'm also a little addicted to HGTV, HouseHunters International particularly. My other "real" show I love is What Not to Wear. I was beyond excited when bloggy friends of mine knew a blog friend that was on the show recently.

What Not to Wear is a show I tend to gorge and starve on though. Right now I am in starvation mode because the hotel does not have TLC. One of my very infrequent complaints about my extended stay hotel is the selection of channels (no TLC, A&E, or Comedy Central, but I have Lifetime, USA, HGTV, and the Food Network).  I do remember weekends with marathons on of  WNTW  that I would have to turn the TV off in the midst of a commercial in order to do things like, ironically enough, get dressed.

With this in mind, I am aware of bad fashion choices of others and my own. I have been losing weight and have been ecstatic about it. I just got work clothes in August/September because I worked in scrubs before so things like pants had to be bought. Even then I was down from my heaviest, but now my pants and shirts are pretty big on me. It leaves me conflicted because I love seeing that these things are too big on me which is a nice change from utilizing any speck of elastic or spandex in the fabric, but WNTW has taught me wisely that swimming in your clothes is not flattering.

Still, I hesitated. I want to lose more weight and buying clothes in between would be a waste of money. I reconsidered this briefly when stopping at the store and had to rescue my pants from sliding down my hip. On Friday, I wore the same pair of pants (they weren't dirty or smelly) when I drove from Houston to Austin to go to my adorable godson's birthday party.  I arrived at my cousin's house and my mom and my sister both declared my pants too baggy (awesome compliment in this instance).

On Saturday, we went to the outlet mall in Round Rock and popped into Lane Bryant. I decided to try on pants. I went a size smaller than the pants I had gotten for my job interview last July (a size smaller than I had been previously) and Mom talked me into the next size down as well to take into the dressing room. I also saw a dress that I absolutely loved, but there were only four dresses on the rack- one two sizes bigger than the last dress I had bought there, one four sizes smaller, and one three sizes smaller. I took the three sizes smaller as it was  the same size as the smaller pant size I was trying.  I tried on the one size smaller; they fit and were still a little loose. I tried on the two sizes smaller and they fit- snugly, but I could breathe and move with everything appropriately buttoned and zipped. I danced out of the dressing room to show Mom and Tori.  Then I tried on the dress. It fit tight across my chest (the ladies are on the large side), but it fit! It is the smallest dress I've bought in probably five years if not longer!  I have absolutely no place to wear it at the moment, but it looks really pretty hanging in my closet.