exercise

Eleven Twelfths

You are the reason I’ve been waiting all these years. Somebody holds the key. Yeah.

As we come to the end of another freaking year (seriously, how the hell did this happen?!?!) and I enter my 48th year on this wacky rock, I’m figuring out who the you and the somebody is. Spoiler alert: they’re both me.

Huh? Yeah. I’m the reason that I procrastinate. I’m the reason I’ve been waiting all of these years/months/days/hours/minutes to do ‘that thing’ that I’ve been meaning to do. I hold the key. I have the time. I’ve just been lazy. Or perhaps lazy is extreme. I’ve been floating without direction is probably more accurate.

Every year, or close to, I talk about what I’m going to do in the next year. I have taken New Year’s Resolutions out of my world and replaced them with New Day Resolutions. I simply stopped remembering this concept and let myself slip and slide down the hill to mediocrity and below. It took way too long, but I finally realized what the hell I was doing to myself and dragged my ass out of that darkness.

Not an easy task, ok? I hate this time of year. From November 1 through January 1 could literally be removed from the calendar and I would be cool with that. It’s even taking my birthday off the calendar. I’m cool. I’m not sure when it was that I went from ‘Yay Christmas’ to ‘oh, ok, Christmas’ to ‘FFS is it over yet?!?!’ but that last one is where I am. Not the most fun when it’s your other half’s favorite holiday. But, I deal. And then I can go back into my dark, hermit cave to recuperate from this mess that is the holiday season.

This year, I’m doing something that I’ve never done before – taking the last week of the year off of work. I’ve had the capability to do this for well over ten years now, but for whatever reason, I just never did. We’ll see how it goes, but having that whole week to set up my routines, get my planner all pretty, get everything in its place to start 2022 strong (really hoping to get some of these things implemented in December so I can cement them into place in January) and kick ass the whole way through. Yeah! Go me!

Something I’ve been asked a million times and I’ve never had an answer for (and still don’t) is “What is your why?” I hate this question. Partially because I think it’s just a stupid question and partially because I don’t have an answer. I suppose it would be neat to have that all wrapped up in a nice package, no? Some people do and can rattle off that answer no problem. Me? Uhhhhhhh, *shoulder shrug*. Is this really the end-all and be-all of life? Some of us are quite happy with just floating through, helping where we can, throwing in a laugh here and there. What’s wrong with that? Guess it depends who you ask.

I thought that this question was really geared more towards sales because that’s where it was pounded into me. Twice. (That’s what she said) First time, I made up an answer because I had to have one. I might also have been on or near my period so any and everything that was said got taken to heart with some tears. I coulda won an Academy Award then. The second time, I just didn’t answer it. Why lie, right? I don’t have this deep down desire to fix or rule the world because I know I’ll do neither. There isn’t some grand achievement that I’m striving for. I’m just living. Minute by minute, hour by hour. Why? So I can eat and keep a roof over my head. So I can pick up a toy or two and not worry about being broke afterwards. So is my why comfort? Could be. Seems selfish, but so am I.

Looks like I’m headed into December ’21 and all of ’22 on my usual bullshit with some extra corn on the side lol. The usual bullshit = work, exercise, pole dance. Extra corn = more fans/fabpole/handstands/poi/leviwand plus aerial silks, tarot and crystals. Still running my own personal PT with all the tools (and I found a video to reset my SI joint on my own and it is LIFE CHANGING!, nothing personal Dr. Z, I’ll still see you) and pushing to see if I can find the physique I had 10 years ago. A whole entire cob = finding that new house. Fingers crossed, y’all! I gotta go get on my shit!

Where Did Half The Year Go? – Journey 8

While I’m at it, where did half the day go? I always open this window up around 8am, thinking that I’m going to go ahead and bust out these notes/comments/random thoughts right quick, only to get blasted with work things the moment both cheeks hit my chair. Oh well, I’m here now and that’s all that counts.

It’s August, y’all! As in half the year is gone. As in half of the baseball season is already over. As in it ain’t gonna be but half a minute before football season gets started. (No shit, HOF game is in 3 days. THREE!!) They say time flies when you get old and when you’re having fun. Perhaps I’m doing a bit of both these days.

Let’s get down to business. (I don’t got no time to play around, what is this? Must be a circus in town, let’s shut the shit down on these clowns. Can I get a witness?) Weekend is gone and it’s time to keep it real. The exercise weekend is really only ever one day. It’s Sunday. I make some sort of effort to not make an effort on Sundays. Does it work? No, not usually. Why not? Because there are places to go, things to see, and my house needs cleaned. And no, Saturday isn’t a rest day either. That is an actual workout day for the program. I then follow it up with teaching two hours of pole dancing because I’m a fucking maniac. Those three hours of work meant I could eat whatever I wanted on Sunday though! (Spoiler alert. I ate all the sweets.)

All that being said, I still managed to come off the weekend without having gained a zillion pounds. Any time that happens (and it’s the moon cycle flow), I’m calling it a win. So yep, the last workout of week two happened on Saturday and I’m back at that shit this morning.

Still having my Shakeology. They say it takes 21 days to build a habit, but in this case, it might be less. Now, in all truth, I almost forgot this morning until hubby reminded me. But I am pretty certain that at some point today, I would have remembered. Like when I turn around at my desk and see the big tracker that’s posted on the wall. Or, when I started to crave it. Yeah, that’s a new craving. The whole point is to knock off cravings for sweets and stuff like that, but I don’t go hard for those in the first place. But now, my body is all, hey, gimme all that superfood shit you put with the fruit. So I do and my belly is happy.

Everything else is on track. Weight is good. Mood is good and actually might be getting better. No cravings (except for the shake). Still with near excess amounts of energy, yes, even after 3+ hours of working out on Saturday. Huh, body might be getting used to getting worked again. It’s just missing the flying part to really know we’re putting in work. But hey, maybe I’ll get to that soon too. Cuz I do miss flying. Even though it costs an arm and a leg here.

It’s already mad late in the day and I still have a ton of things to do. This list never ends and I keep tacking shit on at the end like I ain’t got no damn sense at all. A couple hours to go. Git er done.

The Journey Begins

Well hey there reading friends. How ya been? I know that I go and leave you all alone with no warning after I get you into a habit of checking what silly shit fell outta my brain on any given day, and for that, I apologize. Will I do it again? Oh, 100%. But that’s simply how I roll so round off your edges and just roll along with me.

What’s with the 30 days, you might ask? Well, for as long as I’ve been doing these Beachbody workouts, I’ve always heard about Shakeology. I did try it twice before and it wasn’t my jam. BUT, for the sake of research and actually seeing if it makes a difference in me personally, I decided to suck it up and try to have one of these shakes every day for a month. I’m going to make my best effort to blog about it daily, although it’s highly likely that Sundays will be a rest day for writing the same as they are for working out.

Maybe you know, maybe you don’t that there are several different flavors of Shakeology. I tried four of them and decided that vanilla would be my best bet for this trial. While chocolate seems to have more recipes, I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate and fruit seemed like it would go better with vanilla. In that vein, I stocked up on my frozen fruit. For the beginning of the challenge, I have strawberries, blackberries, mango, banana, and peaches. I think that fruit can always use a little spicing up, so for that there’s the always available cinnamon, honey, and some crystallized ginger.

I started the week with just strawberries. It isn’t that the shake has a bad flavor. It is, however, pretty whey forward. Which leads me to wonder if I should try the vegan one since it’s made differently, but I digress. I feel fairly certain (no I didn’t read the label) that there isn’t caffeine in this, per se, but there is definitely something in there that gives me a somewhat caffeinated feeling. It’s made with Madagascar vanilla but I feel like it could still use more. Mmmm, might have to get some Mexican vanilla extract, ooh look a squirrel! Anyways, day 1 shake has been consumed.

When you get an order of Shakeology, you get a tracker to see how you’re feeling over the course of the month. They touch on four topics: energy, cravings, mood, regularity. Over the course of the next 29 days, I’ll keep track of those four things plus trying to make sure I get 64 ounces of water a day. Yes, I’m legit gonna talk about pooping. Hooray!

The first one here, energy, is going to be interesting. Why? I don’t usually have energy drains. I have a schedule and my body is pretty accustomed to it. We get up at 5:30 and we’re back in the bed by 10. Sleep is key. Like I said, I feel as though there is something energizing in the shake, how much it affects me remains to be seen.

Next up is cravings. Again, kind of a weird spot for me. I’ve trained my body and mind to know that we know what we’re gonna eat and when we’re gonna eat it. I’m not someone who has a sweet tooth – I am really picky about my sweets. I will admit to having cravings for steak about once a month. You go ahead and do that math. That’s actually calmed down also now that I’m on my iron pills.

MWAHAHAHAHAHA MOOOOOOOOOD! If we were at two years ago, if we were at 4 years ago, my mood would, without a doubt, be something I needed to take a look at. However, current day, I work from home so no traffic and no germy office. I don’t have to be concerned with what I wear to work. I can step outside for fresh air any and every time I feel like it. If I need a day off, I can take it and no one is an asshole about it. If I’m simply not feeling well, they say go lay down. It’s kinda like working for family (with that every now and then annoying cousin popping in). Perhaps the hubby should be the better monitor of my moods, lol.

SHIT! Hahahahahaha, oh yes, I’m a child. 30 days of hearing about my poop. Are you not excited?!?! For the sake of the science, I’m a one-a-day’er mostly. Right about 5:45 before I can work out, lol. Every now and then, I’ll catch a second visit to the porcelain lair if I’ve had a particularly strong coffee. But yeah, I’m pretty regular.

All of those things, we’ll see how they go, but the most important ones for me are the scale numbers. Pounds and percents. Today I’m at 137.6 and 27.8. I would love to see some magic at the end of this 30 days. I’m going to be eating well (that doesn’t change), drinking lots of water, exercising my ass off (nope, exercising one ON), and having these shakes. My first goals are 130 and 26. (Next goal is to stay there) I invite you to read along, ask questions, or maybe even join in? Until we meet again….

It’s My World

Uuuuuggggh. Over the course of the last 11 days, I have started three blog posts, this being the third. Let’s see if this one gets all the way to completion and posted. I really would have been great on Tumblr because I don’t always have enough thoughts for a full blog post, but I have some super one-liners. In my opinion, anyway.

So back on the second, I had my video and everything. Living On A Prayer because we were halfway there. Halfway through the year. And honestly, about that, WTF?!?! How did half of the year get by us already? Yikes. If I made New Year’s Resolutions, now would be the time I would look at them and go, oh shit, I haven’t done any of this. But, I decided back in January that I wasn’t going to do that. I was making New Day Resolutions, giving myself 365 chances to get it right instead of one. I think my NDR was to simply be better than the day before or something like that. Probably not, dammit. Now I have to look.

Ok, I had 5 NDRs. Exercise/yoga, meditate, handstand, write/blog, flow. As we sit beyond the halfway point of the year, I probably haven’t been doing well with my NDRs outside of exercise. I think today just happens to be an “on” day for me as I will likely hit all the points today. I guess that the halfway point of the year is a great point to get back on track since I completely forgot about those things. Mind you, even though I forgot about them, or I haven’t been actively thinking about them, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t been happening. The writing takes the biggest hit, followed by flow. Exercise happens 6 out of 7 days because that’s an ingrained habit already. Handstands happen here and there. Man, I gotta get on the fucking ball. Anywho….

Yesterday, I had started another post as well. Monday is the day that the landscapers come, so the video was for Oh So Quiet because OMG why can’t they STFU. Yes, I realize they have a job to do but come on, Mantequilla, I have work to do also. I have this thing about silence and how much I enjoy it. I mean complete silence. At most, nature sounds from birds. I don’t want white noise, the tv, the radio. Just shhhhhhh. For whatever reason, me and focus aren’t friends, so any little thing is shiny and a squirrel for me to look at. I’ve been trying to get better at focus, but that is a really long work in progress.

Back to today, I’m for sure going to hit those NDRs. I might even pull the tracker back out because I’m feeling a little bit encouraged. I love to fill in a block or use coloring pencils or crayons (and I have a ton of them, lol) so yeah, that sounds like a good idea for today. Or maybe even the whiteboard (I have three. I’m mildly odd with office supplies. We have more writing utensils in here than Office Depot.) Come on, excitement train! Keep on rolling!

So yeah, this is my world. Some days it’s mad hectic and some days it’s shut all the fucking way down. That’s just how I roll. That sounds worse than the reality is, but I’ll paint outside my lines and you can paint outside of yours.

While I’d love to stay and chat, I have several things to accomplish including getting myself prepared to teach three pole classes over the next 7 days. One of those is my normal class and two are levels which I don’t usually do – one beginner, one not so beginner. I love planning classes but I hate the stress of planning classes. Fortunately, everyone is laid back and will enjoy whatever we do. Feels like a shit ton of conditioning before we do anything though. HAHAHAHAHA. Yeah buddy. Level three? You oughta be strong by now. You aren’t? You oughta be working out with me, lol.

Well, none of the things I need to do are gonna get done while I’m sitting here writing things that no one is going to read. Have a wonderfully magical day, imaginary readers!

Work, Work, Work

You tell ’em, Dolly. All that work to do and only 8 hours in a work day. What are we, superhumans?

But seriously, as a society, we place so much pressure on ourselves to do so much. And of course, as a member of society, I do this same shit to myself. Ok, so perhaps it isn’t ALL society on my part. There are just so many things that I see that I want to do (because I might have some sort of activity ADD if that’s a thing) that it’s difficult to sit still sometimes. And then when I do manage to sit still, I don’t feel good about it because there are 25 million other things I could be doing besides, oh, you know, resting my body. I’m a mess. I get it. I acknowledge it. Hell, sometimes I even embrace it.

In my race against myself to drive myself crazy with activities and knowledge, I made myself a daily schedule. It’s been on for about a week now and I’ve seen that I need to swap the activities in the first 2 hours of my day (the day that starts at 8, not the one that starts at 5:30 – I’m still trying to fix that one too). I think that swapping those two focus hours will help my day start off a little more smoothly. Today was an outlier day. I don’t think it would’ve followed a schedule no matter what. But that’s ok. I still got things accomplished that needed to happen and I’m still catching up on the things that I missed. Look at me go!

Under my list of today’s accomplishments include really setting a strong structure for teaching my FabPole classes. I love structure but I also hate structure so I built it in a way that says ‘hey, do this sort of thing next’ but I still have a ton of options for what the sort of thing is. The hardest part is having multiple levels of each of the sorts of things because not every student has the same range of strength or flexibility. However, that is one of the things I would call my “specialties” – being able to teach to multiple levels in the same class. Everybody gets some personal attention in my class…whether you like it/want it or not, lol. I gotta know that you’re understanding the words that are coming outta my mouth (!) and enjoying yourself at least a little bit.

Another accomplishment for the day is not getting sucked down the YouTube rabbit hole. Today, I found Dolly, got the link, and closed the damn window. Yay me! That certainly doesn’t mean I didn’t get sidetracked with other things though. I’m starting to reach out to see who’s trying to get in shape with me. I put together an intake form and everything! You want to get in shape? Go fill out this form.

It seems that for every accomplishment I add to my list or item I check off of my to-do list, 2 more pop up in its place. (See paragraph two about doing too damn much.) For instance, I need to revamp my schedule. Sure, it only takes a few minutes, but paragraph three made more tasks. Having a class structure is great, but I still have to review my options for “sorts of things”. That intake form, it still needs tweaking. Oh yeah, there’s a whole different website that I need to put info onto. Ohhh, yeah, and I’m also learning some WordPress development. Ummm, and maybe affiliate marketing. While I have a 9-5. And teach on Saturdays. And a functioning marriage. Right, I guess this is why I don’t have friends, lol. (I have a couple. Sheesh. Don’t get mad, Christina!)

Considering that I do still have just under a million things to do today, I’m gonna go ahead and wrap this up for today. I hope that you’re having a great hump day. We’re on the downward slide to the weekend, baby!

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