The New Year is Almost Here

It's had its ups, and its downs. I'm ready to bid 2015 adieu. Just a few more days until 2016 begins!

Also, happy Man Bun Monday, Jen! ;-)

Closing A Christmas Carol was bittersweet for me. While I really did miss everyone from the 2014 cast, and I can't match the magic or the melancholy from last year, the 2015 production was really fun and wonderful. I loved playing the Ghost of Christmas Present, and I loved making some new friends. I hope they'll have me back next year.

Sigh. I love this set.
I wish we had the production photos, but alas we probably won't see them until they start marketing for next Christmas.

I've eaten. So. Much. Junk. These last few days. I'm actually looking forward to eating healthfully again, so I won't feel like such a fat slug. Don't get me wrong, the holiday food is delicious and I enjoy it (and I feel like I definitely earned it!) but yeah. Definitely food hangover-y.

I need to re-evaluate my goals for the next WholeSomething. Since I didn't meet my goal for the Whole75 (25 lbs) it would be odd to anticipate meeting my next goal for Whole50 (an additional 5 lbs, which subtracting the 11 lbs I actually lost would mean losing 19 lbs in 50 days. For a normal person this may sound plausible, but for me it's pretty ridiculous.) I still can't believe I only lost 11 lbs after all that. I very much hope that was 11 lbs of PURE UNADULTERATED FAT, and that it's never coming back. Ever.

Stupid dumb numbers. Bah humbug. :-(

Anyway, I ran my very first 5K the day after Christmas! I posted about it on Facebook, and to my surprise it got WAY MORE ATTENTION than the fact that I'd lost over 100 lbs. I don't know if the way things display on FB (not chronological, not quite logical) had anything to do with it, or if people are just more excited about The Color Run than a big weight loss milestone, but people were very encouraging and kind and seemed to like my big dorky smile wearing my medal.

I ran the whole thing! Not very fast, but I ran!

I downloaded the companion app, 5K to 10K, to my phone and will begin training with that soon. If nothing else, and even if I don't end up able to run an entire 10K, it'll be better for weight loss than just doing NOTHING.

Also I'm considering imposing additional food restrictions (nothing crazy!!) on this next WholeSomething. Like, avoiding white potatoes and sweet potatoes, limiting fruit to just at breakfast...basically lowering my overall sugar intake, not because those foods are unhealthy but because I tend to lose more weight when I avoid starches and extra sugar. I was able to lose (...some) weight while eating starchy vegetables and sugary fruits, so perhaps it'll accelerate it a bit more if I focus on vegetables with lower overall carbohydrates, and am more choosy with fruits. 

Meat I'm fine with. I'm great with eating meat. Hooray for chicken and beef and such.

Oh and ham. SO MUCH HAM this Christmas. Of course the way it's prepared, it's probably loaded with sugar, but yeah...we had a lot of ham. Heh. I think I'll be ok sticking to chicken for a couple of months.

What else. I'm not sure what else, but when I think of it I'll let you know. Technically the Whole50 will begin on January 1st but I'm hoping to get back on track with clean eating early, this week, so I'm not falling over in a food coma on Day One.

Centurion.

Well, I didn't lose 25 lbs on the Whole75 like I'd hoped to. I lost 11.

...actually, since I didn't weigh myself on Day 1 and was going from the last Day +1 results, I may very well have lost 25 lbs and just not known it. I'm a little bummed that running every day and eating so clean for 2 and a half months didn't net me an average of 10 lbs per month.

But honestly that doesn't matter too much, because...

As of this morning I've lost 101 pounds.

I've lost over 100 pounds.

There is still a long way to go, but I'm going to celebrate this milestone and have an awesome Christmas. I hope your holidays are tremendous.

Lots of love.

This comparison website only goes up to 100 lbs, so I have to divide it up.

There we go. A horse and a Guinea pig. WUT WUT.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an unhealthy delicious breakfast to imbibe.

It's Almost Over (Whole75, Day 75)

I made cookie dough for my grandma's Christmas cookies today. I think it's the first time I've made cookie dough and not licked the batter, once. It's strange. Tonight or tomorrow I'll bake them, then frost them and put the sprinkles on.

I also didn't eat any cookies (or drink any cocktails) at the Cookies & Cocktails party we attended last night. Also strange. Food is an even more political thing than I'd thought.

Shortening, white flour, sugar, etc..... most definitely not Whole30-friendly. But quite Christmasy.

It was kind of nice only having to work for a few hours today! I mailed off my final package (to my aunt), got some chores done, and I'll go for a run in the park in a little while.

Tomorrow I have a Christmas Carol matinee, then we have the whole day off for Christmas! Also tomorrow: weights and measures. Fingers are crossed that some serious progress was made. Please, please.

Regardless: it'll be nice to indulge in some sugar and booze to celebrate the holiday. I'm trying very hard not to make myself sick with worry.

The Power of Three (Whole75, Day 73)

Three more days. (Including today.)

And today I ran (jogged) for thirty straight minutes. I just need to do that two more times (Wednesday and Friday, which is actually Christmas, but that's ok) and I will have completed the Couch to 5K program. Then, the day after Christmas, I'll actually run my first 5K (a "virtual 5K" with some friends.)

I'm also hoping to be in triple digits in terms of weight loss when I check on the morning of the 24th. Here's hoping. The goal for this Whole75 was to reach a 115-lb loss. I think learning to run has absolutely, positively helped with the weight loss.

I wore the next-size-smaller jeans this weekend. They are 12 sizes smaller than my old (starting weight) jeans. And they fit and are comfortable, even though they're snug around my butt and thighs (the next size up is really baggy...I don't know why there's not a size in between the two but I'm trying to be braver and more positive about wearing clothes that actually fit.)

With the accelerated weight loss over the last couple of months, my skin has become more ...of an issue. I'll be keeping an eye on it and considering my options in the coming year (although hopefully it'll catch up with the weight loss and save me a huge surgery bill).

And on Saturday I got remeasured for a bra. I've gone down another band size and *almost* another cup size.

Part of me is excited to see my results in weight and measurements on the 24th. But most of me is terrified. And the rest of me is desperately craving chocolate, hot wings and a massive cocktail.

Did I mention I ran for 30 minutes today? It was torture but I'm pretty proud of myself.

Another First (Whole75, Day 69)

The other night at rehearsal, an actress and director with whom I've worked several times didn't recognize me. It hasn't even been that long since I last saw her (and we're friends on Facebook) so it was really strange and kind of funny.

Limelight has several projects going on at once, so our rehearsal for The MoMologues was booked after a rehearsal he was holding for a special event for a local philanthropy group. I walked in and saw a few people I recognized, including this lady, and smiled and waved at her. She smiled back at me but looked distracted (she was working, obviously.) So I watched their readings and hung out while they got notes and chatted with Kev afterwards. A few others whom I hadn't seen in a while came up to hug me, including the couple I worked with on Weekend Comedy a couple of years ago (I did get a "where did Dana go?!?" which was sweet.) The actress I'd smiled and waved at was working on something at a table by herself, so I waited for her to pack up, then went in for a hug with my arms out to her...and noticed her vaguely terrified and nonplussed expression as I moved in.

There was an awkward pause, and then shock crossed her face and she yelled "Oh. My. GOD" and finally hugged me.

"Did you not know who I was?"
"No!!"
"...then why did you smile when I...were you just tolerantly smiling at the weird stranger waving at you from the audience?..."
"YES!"

This is the one-act play in which she directed me, in March 2011

Granted, I was also wearing my glasses, which are sort of new (when I worked with her I didn't have them.) But yeah, that's the first time anyone I know has straight-up not known it was me, up close. Kinda weird and wonderful.

She was very complimentary and that was another nice thing.

For reference, here is what I looked like in my last production of The MoMologues (in 2011) vs. what I look like now. The later photo was taken on the night I was mistaken for a transient who'd wandered in to wave at people. ;-)

The MoMologues 2011 (I'm in the center)

The MoMologues 2016 (I'm on the right)

I vainly posted the above 2 photos on my Facebook wall as a sneaky "throwback Thursday" way to show off the progress I'm making. It's slower than a tortoise on Qaaludes, but it's happening.

Incidentally, I realized I was telling myself these past few days to simultaneously "just keep swimming" and "just breathe." No wonder I felt like I was drowning. Heh.

Six more days.

Crogging, Scream-Breathing, and Other Forms of Anxiety (Whole75, Day 67)

I think something snapped in my brain shortly after I wrote my last entry a few days ago. I seriously considered writing another entry later that day, about the...episode I had, but ultimately decided against it.

I've let my anxiety and stress get the better of me too much these last few days weeks for a while now, and it's impacting my health (...and appearance) in a negative way.

I've kept up with the jogging program on my Couch to 5K app, and it's been getting more and more challenging every week. Last week it was 25-minute pops, this week it's 28 and next week, the final week, it's 30. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be able to jog a 5K in 30 minutes...but to be honest that's pretty unlikely. In order to keep up the jogging motion and not switch to walking after 20-something minutes, when I feel like my body's going to flop into pieces on the trail around me and my lungs are going to implode, I tend to slow my pace down to an exaggerated Baywatch-looking run that I'm really glad people don't see. It's fairly ridiculous. (But I'm trying, dammit.)

Based on the stats logged in the app (which aren't perfect but use the phone's GPS navigation to track my workouts, which is helpful) I ran 2.53 miles yesterday during the 28-minute jogging section, with an average running pace of 11:04 minutes per mile. In order to run about 3.11 miles (5 kilometers) in 30 minutes, I would need a running pace of under 10 minutes per mile. I'm not sure I can get quite that good in a week and a half. And even the 11-minute mile feels like misery and self-pity for the last 12 minutes or so. And my breathing turns into cartoonish scream-huffs just trying to get air in and out.

Maybe I can figure out intervals of running faster/slower the way the program had me running and walking? I don't know. I'm thinking about investing in a Garmin or some kind of "running watch" that tracks your pace and distance, which might be more reliable than an app on the phone. Although in terms of making myself run for longer spaces of time, Couch to 5K has been invaluable. A year ago I probably couldn't run for 30 seconds, let alone run a mile. Now that I think about it, I don't know that I've *ever* been able to run a mile. Now I can run two and a half. That's kind of cool.

Anyway the running doesn't exactly help with the stress, but it does make me exhausted and sweaty enough that it distracts me from the ten million other things conspiring to go wrong during the day.

Here's the thing: it's important for me to be able to control things in my own life. The food I eat, my activities, my calendar, my budget, that kind of thing. I know there are a fuckton of things beyond my control, and I try hard to work alongside those things, but I feel better knowing what I'm responsible for and taking comfort in the fact that "at least" I know I can walk and run and work on my health.

The thing is, what with the aforementioned ten million things conspiring to go wrong, things that are within my control are trying hard to get out of my control. And that's when, I've discovered, my brain tends to go nuclear.

Example: after writing my most recent entry I got changed to go do my afternoon run. I didn't have a lot of clean clothes so I had to use an old pair of workout pants, which are now much too big. I have a little tub of safety pins I bring with me so I secured these stupid-looking things (or so I thought) with big cartoonish pins and headed out to the trail, where I turned on my music and the C25K app and began to jog.

Almost immediately I felt a stabbing pain in my hip; the second I started running (not during the walk, mind you), the safety pins had come unhinged.

They hadn't broken, they hadn't bent. They had literally unhinged as though a ghost hand had reached down and gone "NOPE," applied dextrous pressure and moved the pin part out of the catch. They had one job to do, and they failed, and my frazzled brain was CONVINCED they were doing it on purpose. I reiterate: safety pins.

I kept grabbing at my pants and trying to re-pin them as I ran (because if I stopped running I'd have to start the workout over), and it was fruitless. They wouldn't stay pinned. And then my phone fell out of my pocket and smacked on the ground and ripped the headphones out of my ears. And then my shoe came untied. And then and then and then...

I stopped and restarted that run three times. Finally when I was like "fuck it, the pants are just going to be really loose, I have to run, I HAVE TO," and they literally were falling down and were headed towards my knees, I stopped, turned off my phone, and burst into tears.

I had this ridiculous certainty in my heart that some invisible force was sabotaging me, taking the ONE THING within my control and fucking with it, so I couldn't run, ha ha, isn't it funny, you're going to be an obese fugly pachyderm failure forever, how cute that you're trying so hard, ha ha ha. And I could not talk myself out of that tree.

I said many curse words, very loudly, many times over, and was later extremely grateful that I was alone on the trail (I have not since seen any videos on YouTube featuring a crying weirdo having a mental breakdown on the Coyote Creek trail, so hopefully no one was hiding in the bushes watching me.)

Walking/ jogging back to the office while crying and saying "fuck you" to those stupid pants was the strangest experience. I later discovered that "crogging", or cry-jogging, is a very real thing and often trends on Twitter. So weird.

At my lunch break I drove to Ross and bought new workout pants (surrendering control of what size pants the store carried, which is either clown-pants-falling-down or HELLO-MR-CAMELTOE), found the least-offensive ones, drove back to the office, put them on, and completed that stupid 25-minute run. I was glad to have it finished, but still felt like I'd failed because of earlier.

Keep in mind: my pants being bigger is a GOOD thing. The whole reason I'm doing this stupid fitness thing is to lose this goddamn weight. I'm confounded that THAT was the catalyst for my brain going bye-bye.

Each day since I'm reminding myself to breathe, to be prepared, and to control what I can and work around what I can't. It's much, much harder than usual lately and I think it's just from overstimulation: craziness at work, performing in one show and rehearsing another, prepping for Christmas, everything.

Last night Panda and I got a Christmas tree (the first tree we've had since we moved into our apartment a few years ago.) He declared (for both of us) that we were going to have a stress-free evening "even if it fucking kills us," and he was right to do it. We had fun. And now we have a pretty tree, and the apartment is decorated, and we neither of us had a tantrum or an anxiety attack on the trip. He was seriously a lifesaver last night (yesterday was another harsh one at work.)

Eight more days. And I am having the biggest glass of whiskey you ever saw.

A (Very Late) Thanksgiving Rundown, and Crazy Life in General (Whole75, Day 61)

Two more weeks. Holy shit.

In other news, I completely suck at updating. There's been no spare time to do anything, even listen to audiobooks, between A Christmas Carol and the unholy circus of chaos that work has become and, now, the first few rehearsals of MoMologues...craziness. Anyway I'm really sorry I haven't posted.

Here's what our little Thanksgiving spread looked like:

Yay!

Clockwise from the duck, we have:

Simple baked mashed sweet potatoes (no chipotle peppers this year because the adobo sauce is questionable on Whole30, sorry my beloved Alton Brown!)

Crispy smashed potatoes with avocado garlic aioli (adapted for Whole30 and made with my homemade mayonnaise!)

Good Eats roasted turkey (adapted for Whole30 by omitting the brown sugar from the brine and swapping candied ginger for ground). This is hands-down the best turkey recipe ever...I've tried numerous ways over the years, and while Nom Nom Paleo's spatchcocking method looks awesome, I frankly like the look of the whole bird all trussed up and pretty on the table. The high heat at the beginning makes for yummy crispy skin, and the meat is so juicy and awesome.

Basic underturkey vegetables (purchased in bags and heated in the microwave because I am a fancy fancy lady)

Stovetop stuffing for Dave (not Whole30 so I didn't partake)

Curry roasted carrots (SO FREAKING GOOD)

We had lots of leftovers to last us the following week, and it was really nice to feast and relax and not stress out. The next day we had people over for "Slack Friday" and we watched movies and played cards for a while, which was great. Everyone brought leftovers (my friend Anthony brought a lot of beer and wine which I will definitely be enjoying this Christmas,) so our fridge has been nice and full since then!

My "smaller" jeans can now be removed without unbuttoning or zipping, which is kind of cool, but the next size down is just a squidge too tight so I've been wearing a lot of leggings and skirts...and safety pins...these last few weeks.

A Christmas Carol is going well. Opening weekend was well-received. I'm really looking forward to seeing the production stills taken by one of my favorite theatre photographers, Evelyn Huynh. This is the first time in a long time that I've felt confident and pretty in my costumes. (NOT that I didn't have nice costumes in the past!!! I've been fortunate enough to work with some incredible designers and dressers.) Especially for The Ghost of Christmas Present. I feel attractive in it. It's kind of a nice change.

The MoMologues just began rehearsals on Monday (we run late Jan-mid Feb) and I'm really excited about it. I did the show in the company's first season, when we were performing upstairs of a Spanish tapas restaurant, and it holds a lot of really fond memories for me.

And work...look, I love my day job but even the best jobs can be clownfuck insane sometimes. This is one of those times. My whole department is going to need a stiff drink when 2015 finally comes to a close.

I'm in the middle of Week 7 in my Couch to 5K! Running 25 minutes at a time, which is something I've never been able to do before. FitBit step goal has been reached every day so far, and I can absolutely do it for another 2 weeks. Some friends and I are thinking of doing a virtual Color Run at the end of the year.

I think that's it....gotta get back to the absolute craziness of life. Thanks for reading.

Two more weeks. O_O