It's been another one of those days I guess. Everything started off well this morning though-- I was up at 8:30 doing Turbo Jam, and then finished picking up a few things around the house before leaving for work. I got to the office and as the hours passed I got more and more bored, and then I got even more irritated by my boredom. And that sort of spilled over into an overall "what the hell am I doing here?" attitude which, frankly, I haven't entirely shaken yet today. I feel bad that I let my bad mood somewhat damper my lunch break with Chechu. I'm just tired of being irritated.

My adjustment to life here in Spain has been a longer process than what I originally thought. Living overseas temporarily as a study-abroad student versus building a life and a family in another country couldn't be anymore different. There are days when I just love it here; I feel totally integrated in the culture and way of life, my Spanish is on point, I understand 110% of every conversation and I just feel at home. Then there are other days, like today, where those feelings are the exact opposite and I feel like a fish out of water-- like I don't belong anywhere, least of all here.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend's retreat- more than I ever have since signing up. It'll definitely be the disconnect I need from everything, where I'll be able to focus solely on me and God. I'm excited about everything we're going to receive there, and I'm anxious to come back feeling renewed.

The box has been opened since Saturday and unfortunately I haven't abstained as I had so hoped I would. There's undoubtedly something addictive about these cookies/crakers because it is humanly impossible to eat just one. Put some ice cold milk with that and it's all too easy to down half a pack. The hardest part for me is that I only crave them at night. If I'm going to eat them at all, ideally it should be in the morning. But as of lately that just hasn't been the case.

Yesterday was pretty long, but it ended better than it started. At first I was frustrated with everything and just wanted to go home and curl up in the bed. But progressively things got better. Although I did lay down for a little while after lunch, I didn't fall asleep. Afterward I got up do do some additional house cleaning and then headed back to work. Last night I got home and did Power 90 Cardio, only a 30-minute workout, and I really enjoyed it. It's been ages since I've worked out with that program. Since Chechu needed the laptop for school this morning I wasn't able to exercise before coming in to work. I will do either TJ or P90 this afternoon or tonight (or both). I'm really trying to focus on my WI next Monday, keeping in mind that the goal for the end of the month 210 lbs.

This weekend is going to be very exciting-- our church is going to be holding its annual women's retreat for those of us who are 30+ or married. Since I fall into the latter category, it'll be my first time attending. I feel so grown up! The retreat is going to be held here:

This is the same hotel in Almuñécar where my friends got married last September (theirs was the first of three weddings at our church last year, ours being the last). Usually our church retreats are held at rural campsites, so this is definitely a welcomed change. Having the retreat here of course means buffet libre, and several of the girls are already talking about how much they can't wait to try all the food. I however plan to be the exception to that rule. Since the weather is getting warmer I also want to take advantage of it and walk. I feel confident going into this weekend knowing that I've made it up in my mind that I'm going to maintain control.

Monday

So I've felt kind of irritated this past weekend, due to my seemingly endless weight loss saga, a little homesickness and just an overall sense of blah. I feel totally exhausted this morning. The AM workout was beyond out-of-the-question as I was physically unable to get out of the bed until the last possible minute. Amazingly enough I had time to make the bed, pull out a few things from the freezer for lunch and down a couple gulps of coffee before heading out the door.

I got another irate "you don't call home enough" email from my mom this morning. Not exactly the boost I needed to get me out of my funk. Marissa and mom (totally alike in personalities)constantly butt heads about this and usually in those instances I take on the role of mediator-reconciliator, although in the end I naturally tend to always side with Mom. I totally understand my mom's perspective: my twin sister and I are her only kids. We've always been a closely-knit family. The three of us were born and raised in the same small town in rural PA. We all graduated from the same high school and university-- anyone would have guessed that at this point we'd be living within a 5-10 mile radius of each other. Enter winds of change. Between studying abroad and grad school, Riss and I have been all over the place. I'm now living in Spain, a good 3500mi from home, and Riss has since moved out to L.A., about the same distance away. A lot of parents in my mom's position probably would have gone nuts over the idea of having their kids so far spread out over the world, but my mom has graciously accepted it all and has never stopped being supportive. We speak on the phone once a week and try to email, but as of lately my emails haven't been as frequent. I could take on the attitude of "I have my own life now, I don't have time to email or call all the time," but that would be unfair and selfish on my part. As a parent, whenever that day comes, I think I would expect to hear from my children on a regular basis too.

I haven't exercised all weekend either. On Saturday afternoon before church I started to work out with TJ, but I just wasn't feeling it at all. I did maybe 10 minutes of the workout and quit. I totally need to do something else now, as I'm starting to get bored with the same movements. Weather permitting, I'd really like to get out and walk in the mornings and just save the workout dvds for rainy days or nights. I have to find my mp3 player and put in some new songs.. My goal tonight after work is to do either Slim in 6 or Power 90.

For WI today, I don't have any astounding results to post- I'm still at 222.8 as of this morning. Will the numbers ever go down?

Sigh...

Yesterday was a great day.



I got up around 8:15am, and without even thinking about it I put my workout clothes on and put in my TJ dvd. I was excited to work out, and even more excited about how I was going to feel afterwards. As I expected, my shower was fantastic, leaving me feel even more motivated to start the work day. I had a very productive morning at the office and on my way back home for lunch I convinced myself that regardless of how much I wanted to take a nap I was going to stay up and do some other things around the house. After we ate (roasted chicken, rice and black beans, salad) Chechu went directly to the bedroom to lay down. I mulled it over for a while and decided that I was going to stick to my original plan. I really wanted to sleep, but I didn't. I ended up washing the dishes from lunch and doing some other light cleaning to keep myself awake. After having a small cup of coffee I went back to the office early just to eliminate any temptation to sneak in a quick cat nap.



I got back home from work just after 9pm. And what did I do? I worked out AGAIN. I happily put in my TJ dvd again and sweat my you-know-what off. I was on fire. And it felt great.



This morning, however, I got an unexpected surprise. I wanted to sneak a peak at the scale, just to see if I lost, you know, 10 pounds after my two workouts yesterday. To my dumbfounded surprise, however, I didn't lose a single one. Not ONE. I'm still at 222.8 pounds, and yes, I'm pissed about it. While I understand that weight loss can be sporadic at times, regardless of how much or how minimal of an effort I make to exercise, it still sucks to put in work and not see any results.



This morning after my encounter with the scale I had a small cup of coffee and Danacol for breakfast. Chechu (not Marianna this time) opened the pack of Tosta Rica cookies and I didn't have ONE. I feel pretty good about that because those are definitely a weakness of mine. The hard part of course will be seeing the now-open box and keeping my mits out of it.



Keeping things on the positive, in spite of the let-down this morning, I am happy about a few things:

• I'm going to exercise my butt off (literally) from now on. In the past, disappointments like this would have led me to another binge. Today I choose to channel that energy positively and make decisions that will benefit my health. Let's face it, exercise has never made anyone fat. Donuts and embarrassingly huge spoonfuls of peanut butter however...


• I'm going to make good food choices. This morning's cookie refusal has motivated me even more to do well today. The hard part, as usual, will come around 10pm tonight when I have to decide between the lomo (cured porkloin) and a bowl of sugarless Special K. Or better yet, nothing at all.


• I'm not going to give up. Frankly, I feel hugely obese today. I feel like I can't fit in anywhere and regardless of what I wear or how much I try to cover it up, my ass is just insane. It has to call attention to itself. Nevertheless, I'm not going to allow those feelings to fool me into thinking that a bag of doritos and white chocolate are going to make me feel better or thinner. That would really be insane.

Facing the giants

Last night's dinner was actually a lot of fun. Avelino let Cristina and me leave work around 8 instead of the usual 9pm and both of us were all too eager to get an extra hour out of the office. At that point I wasn't all that excited about going to the dinner. Cristina was already convinced that she wasn't going to go this time around, after having a negative experience with a rude acquaintance of Avelino's who was invited to attend last year's Christmas party. After listening to her tale of woe, I was hardly excited about the possibility of running into this guy, who, from the sound of it, surely would have no problems being rude to a foreigner-- a brown-skinned, overweight americana at that. At least I wouldn't be going alone, I thought to myself, knowing that if I had to jump to my defense in the face of a rude comment I'd have my husband there to back me up. He's the sweetest, most gentle thing on this earth, but his wild streak can definitely come out when provoked.
So I went home, washed up the remaining dishes from lunch and relaxed on the couch for a while with a cup of my favorite Brazilian coconut/vanilla bean flavored tea. (Yeah, that does sound amazing, doesn't it?) After getting dressed, Chechu came by the house to pick me up and we left, gift and all, to go to the restaurant.

When we walked in I was pleasantly surprised to only see familiar faces. Apparently Avelino had rented out the entire restaurant for that evening, and at the center table he was seated with his girlfriend, his son and son's gf and Alfonso and gf. We all sat down to watch the rest of the Real Madrid vs. Rome soccer game (which RM LOST- silent victory dance for moi) and then continued with dinner. I behaved very well. Against my will I ate fish. I hate fish. Well, that's not entirely true- I do enjoy tuna, bacalao (codfish) and perch, but that's definitely the extent of it. I have never been a seafood lover-- that's the only type of food that I'm extemely picky about. Take me to Red Lobster and I'll surely go hungry. My husband however, like any other coastal native, would go nuts. Peeling shrimp and prawn, chopping off heads, sucking the supposedly amazing juice that comes out of I-don't-want-to-know-where and leaving shells complete with little black dots for eyeballs and antenae all over the place. Yeah, my thoughts exactly. So last night I tried to shield my eyes during the shrimp massacre (I was the only one who didn't partake) and focused on my bland fish fillet. Blah. The baked potato and sautéed mushrooms were pretty good though. Oh, and there was a slice of birthday cake involved and just a tad bit of red wine and champagne.

In terms of the ambiance, I was really surprised. I came in ready for battle, and ended up having a great time talking with everyone. It's so funny how much my boss LOVES Chechu. The two of them get together and you'd think he was another one of his sons. Avelino and I have a very positive boss-employee relationship, but nothing like how he and Chechu interact. Obviously they understand and relate to each other better on so many levels, which is obviously a positive thing. The main objective of course is to be witnesses of God’s love and life-transforming power, and I think that in a lot of ways Chechu is an example for Avelino, even in spite of the age difference between them.

We got home last night after 1:30am- way later than either of us initially anticipated. Needless to say, the late night work out was definitely out of the question as both of us nearly fell in the bed. I questioned whether or not I’d be able to get up and exercise this morning but set my alarm early anyway.

As expected, I got up late- at 8:45am with not an ounce of motivation to exercise. I mulled it over lying in bed for a few additional minutes and eventually decided that I wasn’t going to come to work and blog about yet another exercise-less morning. So I got up, put on my exercise clothes and worked out with TJ. My shower afterward, albeit lightning fast since I was running late for work, felt amazing- mostly because of how great I felt having been able to overcome my “don’t feel like exercising” excuses.

That was exactly what I needed to jump-start my day.

This afternoon we had Alejandra over for lunch. I made chicken breasts with alfredo tortellini and spinach. I’m not sure if it was because we had a guest over or not, but Chechu and I both were very good at controlling our portions and eating only one small plate of food. I had about a cup of the tortellini, a half cup of spinach and one breast fillet. I should have reversed the measurements for the tortellini and the spinach, but oh well. I didn’t have any bread (normal for me) and I only drank water. After doing the dishes I had a small glass of iced tea with Alejandra, and for work this afternoon I’ve brought a peach yogurt with me.

Tonight is going to be another long one because after work I have class with Jennifer. Tomorrow is her English exam and we’ve been studying extra hard this week so that she’ll do well.

It’ll definitely be after 11pm when we get back home tonight, and I’m praying that I’ll have enough will power resist the urge to nibble. I’m excited about working out tomorrow morning!

Exercise angels vs. lazy demons

It's so crazy to think about how motivated I was to exercise this time TWO weeks ago. My desire for working out is slowly but surely coming back though which, at the very least, is a start. From the looks of it, however, I won't be getting back into the routine until tomorrow, which I find excitingly irritating. Why? Because two days ago I couldn't have cared less.

In the course of an hour, my schedule today has become completely full, therefore making it essentially impossible to do anything that even resembles exercise today. My original plan was to work out tonight after Bible study, but it turns out that today is my boss's birthday and he's graciously invited all of us, spouses included, to dinner tonight. So that translates to no evening workout. After lunch Chechu and I will be going out to find some kind of birthday gift for Avelino and immediately afterwards I have to meet Alejandra at church from 4-5 for our GOE. So no afternoon session of Turbo Jam either. Damn.

I suppose that I could squeeze in a super late night workout, seeing that it'll probably be midnight before we get back home. But, at the end of a non-stop day that just wouldn't be very realistic. Given the fragile, budding state of my newfound motivation I'd hate to set myself up for failure this quick. I'd rather plan to get up earlier tomorrow morning to exercise- a more practical challenge at this point.

So here are some positives, big and small, that I'm noticing about myself thus far:

1. I didn't take a nap yesterday, and I won't be taking one today either. I see how much more productive I am without the mid-day siesta, and in using that time more efficiently I'm undoubtedly doing myself a favor for weight loss. Since the weather is getting nicer I'd really like to get out and start walking / jogging in the afternoons before returning to work. The key (and challenge) will be getting Chechu to join me.
2. I'm starting to go for more fruits and salads. My salads are becoming more and more creative. Balsamic vinegar is amazing.
3. Chechu bought more Tosta Rica breakfast/snack crackers yesterday and I haven't touched one. I REFUSE to open the box!
4. I got up "early" this morning at 8:15. I didn't want to get out of bed at that hour, but I did anyway. Thanks to that, I had a very productive morning cleaning the rest of the house, putting in a load of laundry and cooking lunch for this afternoon.
5. I've come down .2 pounds since yesterday. Every tenth counts.

My conclusion: In spite of my roller-coaster week, I see how my habits are changing. I'm winning the war against the lazy demons, as I'm growing more and more disciplined with each passing day.

Coming full circle

There are so many thoughts going through my head right now about how I want to focus this morning's entry. The past few days have been long and somewhat difficult, and I'd like to organize my thoughts somewhat to eliminate my tendency to ramble. So here's what I'll talk about this morning: Friday-Tuesday recap, current weight, new motivation and plan...

Weekend in review: My friend Courtney spent the weekend with us. She and I met in Granada in January through Amalia, the translation/interpretation program director there who I studied with in 2005 before heading off to Monterey for grad school. (Got that?) Amalia contacted me initially because Courtney was looking for an evangelical church to attend in Granada, and I was more than thrilled to introduce her to our church, Centro Familiar Cristiano. Since all students had a long break last weekend, she asked me about coming down to spend time with us and visit Almería, and we were more than thrilled to have her. Knowing how stressful life can be in Granada, our goal was for her to relax and disconnect from everything school-related, which I think we were able to achieve.

Yesterday was somewhat long. I got up with the intention of doing Turbo Jam and only got through the first five minutes. I didn’t stop because I was tired- it was more like a lack of motivation to finish. Plus I was pressed for time since I had to get ready for work. I thought about exercising after lunch but that didn’t happen either-- I fell into the nap trap again, staying in the bed until it was time for me to head back to work. In retrospect however, the extra sleep was a good thing since I came back to a pretty chaotic afternoon. Cristina and I ended up leaving the office later than usual, and instead of heading home I went back to Almería for English class with Jennifer from 9:30-11pm.

During our class my brother-in-law called me to let us know that Quintino, one of the teens at our church, had lost his battle with cancer and passed away. It’s hard to believe, frankly. I didn’t know him on a very personal level, but it is still quite a shock. The hope in it all, of course, is knowing that Quintino is with the Lord. He is now in a place where there is no more crying, pain or suffering. The burial is this afternoon at 4 and Chechu and I will be attending.

I titled this entry “coming full circle” because, in essence, it’s what I have done over the past couple weeks. I got on the scale this morning and I’m back up to 223.6 pounds, my “starting” weight. Of course I’d like to blame that on the hormones, the excess water, etc., etc., but I can’t in all good consciousness. I know that this has happened because I haven’t put my all, or even half of that into this. That’s the honest, mirror-in front-of-your-face truth. And I accept that.

It’s back on the wagon for me. I count all of these moments as part of the journey, so I don’t agonize over them. I do, however, want to be conscious of the time I spend finding my way. I want this blog to be positive and show results—I don’t want to ramble on endlessly about how much I want to lose weight, all the while not being willing to make the sacrifices and put in the extra effort that it obviously entails.