Day 75: Me, A Vegan???

Sorry for the lack of posts on my part! Have been busy with school and everything. I hope I will be able to become more active henceforth. :-)

I have suspected for a long time I had an allergy to dairy. It can be rather intermittent, but lately I have been having severe GI issues, sometimes for several days at a time, and I couldn't figure it out. Well, I have discovered I'm allergic to dairy and possibly have a soy/grain allergy as well. It would explain why I feel allergic to everything! So, on that note, I have decided to eliminate some things from my diet, mainly meat, dairy, and as much soy as possible. So, this gal will be vegan, again. :-)

I am a little nervous about this transition. My fiancé and I eat out a lot, and so does my family. I am, however, looking forward to trying my hand at some new vegan recipes. I used to run a blog that had all kinds of reviews of vegan recipes, vegan products, and all kinds of fun stuff like that. However, when I stopped being vegan I stopped maintaining the website. Now, it seems that my life has inevitably been turned in that direction again, and I may be reopening the website. :-)

It will definitely take some effort and some tolerance. But I think it will be a positive thing for me. I have impacted a lot of people through the Girl on Fire site and I think I will be able to make a positive impact with the V365 site as well. I have always been supportive of animal rights issues in various avenues, and I totally think its a great thing to be vegan. :-)

In unrelated news, I am doing well staying below 200, have been in the 190s for several days now. However, I can't seem to move from there! It may be to my benefit to change my diet up for that reason as well, maybe it will move the scale. But for now, I'm all about taking care of my body and doing what is best for it. :-)

Hope everyone has a fantastic day! Be blessed and enjoy the journey!

Day 74: "And the introspection. The introspection was killer."

I guess I'm shamelessly quoting myself. That was from a book I wrote eons ago called Red Rivers. It does kind of embody my mood tonight, being shamelessly introspective and retrospective. My protagonist introspects about why she had gotten from one place in her life to another, and was briefly reminiscing about the steps that had caused her to self-harm. She said that quote, and although I no longer struggle with the demons that Melanie Parker does, I am occasionally inclined towards sadness and difficulty with change.

The later books show a well-adjusted Melanie with a strong faith and a warrior's spirit. I seemed to see something even then in myself that was hidden from view. Melanie lost a ton of weight, began working out, and was happily married. Keep in mind that I wrote this 5 years ago!! The novels were strongly autobiographical but badly written, and I would love to continue the Red Rivers/Redemption/Renewal series but encountered a severe blow to my ability to write that has kept me from it for years. But I digress.

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I am reaching a crossroads in my life. My fiancé has graduated college and joined the workforce, and I have been struggling with my writer's block for some time now. It has actually created in me a bit of a fear of writing, that if anyone actually read my work they would punch holes in it and tell me it was bad. I failed a Creative Writing class because I was so scared to let anyone read my work and eventually stopped going to class because I was embarrassed. It has also kept me from submitting my novels for publication. My degree is in English and my trade is technical writing. I love it. Like, mindnumbingly love it. I love my creative writing with equal passion. I am one of those eclectically-minded people who can shift from creative to technical writing on a dime and I totally don't mind. It's my life and my passion.

And yet, I have been spending my life running from it. :-( I'm freaked out by what would happen if I found a job, if I was no longer miserable and broke and did end up well-adjusted with a strong spirit. My fear isn't so much that I will suck at writing, I've been writing since I was 5 years old. My fear is that my whole identity was bound in being a victim. I carried around this huge chip on my shoulder for many years, and that I was the victim of one circumstance or another. To break with that, to take responsibility for my own life and acknowledge that I didn't get a great start but WILL get a great finish, scares me shitless. Excuse my French. :-)

I know this sounds like a random post and I apologize. But running from the things I love for fear of success is a frequently occurring theme in my life and one of the reasons I couldn't lose weight for the longest time. I was literally afraid to succeed. Which is a sad position to be in, to be honest. I truly want to stop that. I want to finish Redemption and Renewal and write more books. I want to be a successful technical writer. But first I must get my bum in gear and realize that being successful really isn't something to be afraid of. :-)

Thanks so much for wading through my deep posts again. I appreciate it so much. Have a fantastic evening and sleep well. :-)

Day 73: Keeping it Amazing

It has been an awesome day. :-)

I found out today that my mom will continue to fund my education after way too many years in college. I've finally found my niche in Chemistry/Biology and enjoy every day that I'm there. I was shocked, because for awhile I thought she wasn't really that interested in my going to school, but my mom's and my relationship has been growing by leaps and bounds every day. I am continually amazed at my mom's positive attitude. She hasn't really had an easy time of it with my grandpa being ill, but she is there almost every weekend and takes care of him. :-) My mom is such an amazing, strong person and I feel blessed to know her. My dad too! He's funny and way smarter than me, lol. :-)

I went for a short run today. I intended to break records today, and I felt God telling me to put away the timer for the run. I was not keen on this at all, I have always run with a timer and it is super glued into my hand most of the run. I finally decided to heed the feeling and put the timer away, only to discover when I took it out a minute later that I had accidently deleted my running apps from my phone! What are the odds? I was even more frustrated and ticked, but I went with my instinct for how far to run and when to stop. And I still had a good run even without the timer. In fact, it felt so good I think I will be running "naked" from now on.

Not to worry, I won't be running without clothes on! To run "naked" means not to track time, calories, or any kind of distance. You simply run until you feel like stopping, and walk some, and run some. I liked the freedom of running without a timer, there was no sense of failure because I hadn't accomplished my 30 minute distance that has been eluding me for weeks. I enjoyed being outside, enjoyed the weather, and just relaxed. :-)

My fiancé is coming over Saturday to see me! I have missed him since he started work. He seems to be having a great time at his new job, but he still misses me a lot. I miss him too! I keep hoping for a job with relatively flexible hours so when we get married in a year that I will actually be able to see him. :-) I'm still keen on being a Beachbody coach, lol! Maybe someday. ;-)

I hope everyone has a fantastic evening! I will be buried in Chemistry homework land as usual. Be blessed and enjoy the journey!

Day 72: Busy Bee and 199 LBS!!

I finally hit 199 lbs.

Granted, I hit 198 yesterday and went up a little bit today, but considering I haven't worked out in awhile I'd say that's pretty good. I got a little bit discouraged when I couldn't hit the 30 minute mark and decided to take a break from running for a little while. I am looking forward to getting back into it soon. Anyhoo, I hit 199 lbs and am excited to report I am still there today. I took some progress pics but am a little disappointed with how they looked. My hair was kind of all over the place and I wasn't wearing any makeup. So I will be sure to retake them tomorrow and post them on the blog.

I have been dealing with a lot of things outside of the blog and the Facebook page, none of them being particularly bad or good. I have decided to work within my original degree and try to find a technical writing job through Career Services at the community college. They have been very helpful thus far and have given me a few leads and suggestions for how to find more. I plan on getting some sort of degree while I'm working, but I'm not sure how that will pan out. I will keep up with my classes and do some job-searching while I'm not in school. It will be difficult but I am positive about the future. Plus, my fiancé is starting his first job out of college and the hours are a little bit wonky, all nights for now. I am not concerned about it but he is, he's worried he won't get to see me and everything, but I think it will all work out.

I have been dealing with a lot of family issues, which are positive for the most part. My parents and I are starting to reconcile our relationship after it being rocky for years. I don't think it's necessarily that either one of us are at fault, it's just that we are SO different in personality and because I am disabled (I have mild autism) I want to be independent from them and start my own life but I just tend to do things a lot slower than most people and sometimes that is frustrating. And I think I carried a lot of that frustration with me and just had a lot of anger about it. But I am glad I am starting to get some help for that through my church. I have an outlet and it feels a lot better.

Wow, this is a pretty deep post tonight. If you waded through it, I appreciate it and I hope you will continue to read subsequent posts. Trust me, it will be a lot lighter fare than tonight, lol! I will have my photos and hopefully some running news and it will be awesome.

Blessings to ya'll, enjoy the journey, and enjoy the beautiful fall weather!! xx

Day 70: A Long Time Coming

I had an interesting weekend. Over the past few days, Bryan and I went hiking at Cuivre River. Or at least attempted to. We went to this lakeside trail that looked interesting but it was overgrown and covered in bugs! We only made it around 0.2 miles before we gave up on the trail and went over to City Hall Park to play around. We had fun and even got to find a new trail there. My fiancé's friend decided to invite us to this hole-in-the-wall bar in Maryland Heights and we had a pretty good time. I can tell the BMR Bliss has sped up my metabolism because I had two Midori and sprites which would have made me crazy drunk before, but I was just fine. :-) I had a good time, even though I had more soda than I have had in a long time. :-)

Today I was mercifully free of caffeine withdrawal and all that jazz so I decided to go to church. It was the first time out of a handful of times that I have ever gone to church two Sundays in a row. I had fun and got to know some of the people from the church. I am starting to enjoy going to church, even though the church is huge. At first I was miffed because no one would talk to me, they were busy talking to their friends and I kind of got lost in the shuffle. Now I like the time to meditate and get close to God without everyone invading my personal space, lol!

I did some Chemistry homework and then I decided to go for a run. Or rather, I tried to go for a run, realized halfway there that I had forgotten my timer, went back for my timer, went back to the park and then discovered that there were about three different meetups going on in the park. There were even people who were at a whip meetup and were learning to crack whips. There were sailboats on the lake and the place was packed. I like my space when I run so this kind of stressed me out. But I laced up and went anyway.

It started nondescriptly. I ran for seven minutes, and just ran out of steam. But I decided that I was not going to let it get me down. I walked for five minutes, then ran another fourteen minutes before my foot started going numb and almost gave out on me, and I decided to stop and let it get feeling back. Then I thought, why not do a slow interval run? I did an additional 15 minutes for a total of 36 minutes, 2 miles, and about 1.7 of walking. :-)

An unusually mellow-looking post-run picture, lol!

 

I finally got to the two-mile mark, even though it was kind of a roundabout way to get there. :-) Either way, I left it all on the track and am feeling much better.

 

Hope everyone has an awesome day! Be blessed and enjoy the journey!

Day 66: My Triumphant Return

...was, um, rather short-lived. :-D

I went running again this morning after doing sprints last time while my knee recovered. I was going to go to the gym this morning, but I decided to walk in the park nearby and keep it nice and slow. Slow is quite an accurate description, I averaged 19:34 while I was running, lol. Either way, I got to about 26:42 (not that I was counting or anything ;-) ) and my body decided then was a good time to go, so to speak. So, I had to find a restroom to take care of business and I just couldn't get my mojo back after that. So, 26:42 instead of the full 28. I guess that's not so bad, but next time I will make sure to make proper use of the facilities before I go running. :-D

Not bad for a post-injury run! Nice and sweaty here.

 

 



I got really close to Onederland again today. Meaning, the scale didn't budge an inch. Sometimes when that happens I end up dropping more weight the next day, but we'll see. I'm hoping I don't plateau right before I get to Onederland! But then again, I ate totally unhealthy yesterday. Found my mom's Starbucks cookie stash and well, you can guess the rest. :-D I felt really gross and such.

I kind of tend to do this if I set a goal for myself or am about to hit a milestone, I will binge eat a little bit. Maybe this is a weird self-sabotage thing for me, I am really not sure. But today I have been good, ate lunch and some apples and grapes with peanut butter, and some cantaloupe (without peanut butter). I am hoping today before I go home tonight to find some fresh carrots and a big thing of hummus, because it is my favorite snack! :-) I have had to resist heartily the pretzel and hummus containers in the cafeteria while I wait for class, but so far so good.

I go see the Career counselor on Friday to get an initial consultation. It will be so weird to be back in the habit of working, especially after being out of work for at least 3 months. I'm not sure I'm entirely looking forward to it but it will be nice to have a little spending money for running clothes, fuel, and races. I kind of have a one-track mind, lol. :-D

I am thinking of doing some cooking while my parents are out of town, so I will be able to eat healthy. There is something about having the house to yourself that makes you want to take on many tasks. I have been wanting to try some clean eating recipes or some chilis or soups so I will do that this weekend! And of course, there will be pictures.

I wrote a lot today! But sadly, I must draw it to a close as I have class in a few minutes. Have a great day all, be blessed and enjoy the journey!

Day 63/64/65: Keeping it Real

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. :-) I get busy some days, and then remember I haven't blogged at all. I will try to be more on top of things henceforth.

I have been injured for the past few days! I had problems with one of my knees, and I decided to take a rest day and go hang out with my fiancé. Well, after several games of basketball, air hockey, and other active games, my other knee started hurting! That one has been a little slower to heal for some reason, so although I have been running I have decided to take more rest days until the knee heals up properly, and then hopefully go back to my 6-day running regiment. But in the meantime, I am having a good time spending time with my family and enjoying myself!

In case you don't follow my Facebook page, here is a recap of some of the things that have happened in the past three days:

**I went to church for the first time in probably 3-4 months. I liked my previous church, but I needed a change of scenery as I felt sometimes that people were a little too intrusive and sometimes overtly rude to me. I went to a larger church over by my school and so far I am very impressed. Everyone seems so much more relaxed, more comfortable with their faith, and pray boldly. The minister is very interesting to listen to, he preaches loooooooong sermons, but I was able to concentrate on his message and not be bored. I will be going there next Sunday and attending a class getting more information about their church.

**I went for a sprint run after being out of commission for 2-3 days after injury. I had no idea how much harder it is to sprint than to do a long, steady run. My intervals were anywhere from 11:00/mi to 8:34/mi, though I generally stayed around 10:00/mi the entire time. I'd say after 8 weeks of C25K that isn't bad at all! Today I will be going to work out on the dreadmill at my gym just because it's slightly easier on my knees than running on pavement. I will try for 28 minutes again but we will see. I'd say after being injured for so long that any running is doing well! :-)

**I am at 200.4 after wandering around between 201 and 203 for the longest time. I have this weird habit of eating more when I get closer to a milestone or a goal, maybe some weird form of self-sabotage, but I will make sure to do better this time. I am so close to being in the 190s for the first time in three years! With any luck, I will be there tomorrow. I looked at myself and realized how much thinner I actually look! With the running and various other forms of toning I have noticed that I actually look thinner at 200 than I did at 186! That's why it is very important to work out while you are losing weight. :-)

**I had a good lunch at the Peruvian restaurant yesterday afternoon, and decided after a fairly big food baby that I was not going to eat at the basketball game. Well, I was true to my word. I got a bottle of water and enjoyed that while my uncle and my dad ate some food. Even with the yummy smells of food everywhere, I wasn't particularly tempted. I just enjoyed myself and ate a few almonds when I got home. And I still lost weight! :-)

I hope everyone has a fantastic day. Be blessed and enjoy the journey!

Day 61/62: Back in the Saddle (Again)

It's been an interesting weekend. I have been without one of my supplements for some time, and it has been an unrequited disaster for me. I am normally very mellow, having a good day all the time, but today my mood has been all over the place, moody and temperamental and everything! It totally sucked. I went running this morning, and since my fiancé was in the "guest room" where I normally sleep, my phone charger was in there, and my phone had completely crapped out. I had no timer, and not having a timer is like kryptonite to me. I only made it for a little while and felt completely discouraged. The negative self-talk made a guest appearance, and I was just berating myself for not being able to make it as far. I know now that it was a lot warmer and more humid than I was used to running in, and that probably slowed me down. Plus, I have been down for several days due to injury, so the fact that I had a pretty good run was not bad! I just couldn't wrap my head around it that morning. Add it to perpetual problems with my perpetually dishonest bank and I just couldn't handle it. I was emotionally worn down and thought I wouldn't be able to even get my supplements.

My fiancé was a perpetual blessing to me, calming me down and eventually paying for my supplements, which was a godsend. My mood is back to normal, and so is my appetite. Before I was ravenous and craving pretty much anything that was bad for me. Now I have only eaten a light meal this afternoon and have been fine. :-) I will have a protein shake for dinner since I missed it this morning.

I plan on picking up some hummus tomorrow and some veggies of some sort. I love my hummus and veggie combos, they really hit the spot when I'm having a bad day or just need something that tastes good. For those of you that don't know, my name is Shelly (AKA Girl on Fire) and I'm a hummus addict, lol! I had no good words to say to a certain retail chain that replaced the classic hummus and pretzel combos with the red pepper hummus. Thankfully my school stocks all three flavors of hummus and pretzels in the cafeteria, so there is always something yummy and healthy at school. :-) Plus, I notice a huge drop in my weight when I go to school, must be that brain food!

I have to admit, I never knew how much I needed the little buggers until I was unable to get them! I know people hate on supplements, and say you don't need a magic pill and all that, and I get that, but these have put me in a really good place emotionally as well. I have been able to get out and run everyday, I am always in a good mood, and I don't eat bad. Don't knock it til you try it. :-)

I hope everyone has a fantastic day. Be blessed and enjoy the journey!

Day 59/60: Time with the Fiance and Time to Myself

Geez, three blog entries in six days. Ah well, been a little bit busy!

Yesterday my fiancé and I decided to go out. I had hurt my knee and wasn't able to run for a few days, so I was eager to get out of the house instead of just chilling at home. We decided to eat homemade spaghetti at home, and then go out to Dave and Buster's to play games. :-) I have noticed that my choices of games has changed somewhat. Before, my only interest was games where you could stand or sit down. The fiancé and I are huge fans of Deal or No Deal, Ball Drop games, and Plink-o. I actually won 750 tickets out of the Plink-O machine once. But this time we added some active games like air hockey, a full size basketball game and a mini basketball game. The full size basketball game was much harder then the mini one! It worked me out hard core in the core (hehe) and the arms. :-) We ended up getting a ridiculous amount of tickets since the fiancé generally saves his tickets when he gets a ton of them, and I decided to get me a sweatshirt. I usually wear mediums in t-shirts but larges in hoodies, but I decided to get a medium hoodie since it was the only size they had. :-) I will fit into it, by goodness!

Speaking of the fiancé, he is now gainfully employed. I am so proud of him! It took him no time at all to find a job and he is even close to my house. Now it's my turn to follow suit. :-) I have an appointment with career services on the 11th and I think I will hold out for something using my previous English degree (yup, I have a bachelor's in English) or something where I am not necessarily doing retail. I've had it with retail, people are always complaining or just plain rude. I want a change of scenery. I have done a lot of medical data entry in the past, but a lot of that is now work-from-home now and full of scammers. Not really what I'm interested in! :-) Either way, I will try to work something out with career services next week and try to follow suit. I would love to be a Beachbody coach on the side, it just sounds like fun! I loved working with Primerica, and they seem to have similar setup, just in different business ventures. But since you have to make an investment beforehand, I will have to have a regular job first.

I have my second chemistry exam this Monday, on various and sundry things like nomenclature, Lewis dot structures, and all that jazz. I still haven't decided between biology and chemistry, I like them both and it's hard to choose between Microbio and Biochem! I will be sure to let you guys know when I've made up my mind, lol.

I also did my Biggest Loser workout today. I have been doing more strength training to make up for the deficit in running due to various injuries. I think I may do some interval running tonight though, on the dreadmill. Anyhoo, I did Level 1 of Strength Training on the Biggest Loser DVD, and I was nonplussed. I thought there had to be more to the workout, but it was short and kind of easy. I will do Level 2 tomorrow I think, it will be more challenging and not leave me nonplussed. Tonight I may do the Zumba DVD for a workout, I haven't done it in awhile, and I feel bad for losing half the DVDs over 2 years! :-) It was a gift from my fiancé at our first Christmas, and I never used it. But now I will be able to put it to good use.

I hope everyone has a good day! I have Lil Sis for the evening, so I'll be staying home. Be blessed and enjoy the journey. :-)

Day 57/58: Last Day of September and First Day of October

I seem to be getting into the habit of posting every other day. Nothing personal, just had other things come up and blogging kind of took a backseat. Still, I'm going to be updating whenever I can.

I walked/ran a total of 8.1 miles in the past two days. Yesterday I ran 1.68 miles and walked 2.74, and today I walked 3.7 miles. I got injured this morning though, a dull pain in my right knee when I straighten it all the way, so I've decided to take a few days off running and just work on my upper body. Today, however, will be a full rest day. Just chilling, putting a bag of frozen green beans on my knee for a little while (isn't that what we all do? I'm too cheap to buy a fancy ice packet, lol) and watching some good videos on YouTube.

Later this week, I am going to Career Services and looking into some job placement type of things, either using my previous degree or not. Either way, it would be a step in the right direction. I had some really bad experiences with jobs in the past and I needed some time to recover emotionally and mentally from that. I won't reiterate all the gruesome details, but it really sucked. I finally feel comfortable enough to be selective. I remember having similar issues with my relationships, just dating whomever came along first, until I got into a horrible relationship and realized that I could be selective. Two and a half years ago, I had my choice of three different guys. Two of them were D-bags, and one of them was super nice, and one of the most fun guys to be around. I decided to be selective, and two and a half years later, we're a year into being engaged and happy as can be. I chose my fiancé because he was the best choice. Now I will do the same for my job situation. Find the same equivalent and not choose a job because they were the first to offer. :-) It should guide me towards something amazing.

I am also considering going back to church, although a different one this time. It was nothing personal against my old church, I just didn't see eye-to-eye with them on a lot of different things, I thought it was a little too politically charged and a little too legalistic. But there were some great people there and I really liked them. However, it just wasn't the church for me. I have been listening to some sermons online from the church that I am considering going to, and I really like the minister who delivers them. Granted, I don't want to base the church solely on the minister or fancy lights or anything. I'm a little too cynical for that. I just want somewhere where people won't judge me or my disabilities, and just where I can grow as a Christian. That seems like a good place to start. :-)

I hope everyone has a good day. Be blessed and enjoy the journey!