I'M JUST A GIRL

I'd already run my 2 miles this morning on the treadmill and was in the middle of my full body workout with dumbbells, finishing up my 1st set of one-armed dumbbell rows, when a large meathead walked up to me.

"You're training your back again?" he said. "Didn't I see you in here just the other day doing your back?"

"That was Wednesday," I replied, as I mopped the sweat off my forehead with a towel.

"How often do you work your back? Do you want to look huge? You shouldn't work your back that often." the meathead said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Do you want to look like a flying squirrel? You're going to develop muscles so huge, you won't be able to fit through a door."

At this point, I tuned him out. I know that physiologically, women can't develop muscles that huge, unless they're using steroids.

He went on. And on. He started drilling me about what exercises I do when I lift, and said that I shouldn't ever work the same part more than once a week and accused me of not giving my muscles enough rest. All the while, he was wrapping his wrists with the most skanky, frayed piece of cloth I'd ever seen.

Meanwhile, I sat, staring at him blankly, trying to figure out a way to make him go away.

He stopped, finally, and made some other comment about me turning into a flying squirrel before he went over to play with his weights. I glanced at the clock while he was walking away and realized that he'd wasted the final 15 minutes I had left for my workout. I put away my weights and hit the showers.

I kept thinking as I was showering how irritated I was at that guy. Here I was, all proud of myself for finally getting the nerve to go work with the free weights, and then he has to come over and give me some un-asked-for "advice" on how to not be a flying squirrel. And I already have a bit of a complex about my shoulders - I think they're very broad for a girl.

After my shower, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought I looked like a huge, hulking beast. I've never been so conscious of my back before. I felt like it sticks out a mile. I felt like I had a huge Proton Pack on my back (obscure Ghostbusters reference).

As soon as I arrived at work, I referenced my favorite women's weight training site where I got sound advice from Mistress Krista. She writes: "You can indeed train a body part more than once a week, perhaps even several times a week, if you use a manageable or varied intensity. So, for example, you can squat without consequence 3 times a week if you use heavy, medium, and light squat workouts. Or you could train the chest area twice weekly, once with heavier bench presses and dips, and once with pushups. As long as workload is carefully controlled, there is no reason why you cannot work body parts more often than once a week. You may even find that depending on your goals, more frequent, less intense training can be more beneficial and yield more progress than less frequent, more intense training." I was vindicated. That tool didn't even ask me if I varied the weight I used.

I always heard that you'll get a whole lot of unwanted "advice" from people - especially guys - at the gym and that most of it is inaccurate. But this was my first experience with it. I just let him talk because it was easier to be a doormat than a bitch. Also, I figured that since this guy is at the gym all the time when I am, it's better to not be a bitch to him. He probably honestly thought he was helping me out. He probably could have come up with a better analogy than "flying squirrel". That doesn't make me think of large backs... It makes me think of odd web-skin from wrists to ankles... It sort of creeps me out that he'd apparently been watching me over the past week (at least) and that he'll probably still be watching me as I work out.

But whatever. I'd watch me too. I'm hot. ;)

I EVEN WENT BRA-LESS, BUT IT WAS TO NO AVAIL

I thought that this would be the week that I'd finally make my 10% goal at Weight Watchers. The first long-term goal that you have when you join Weight Watchers is to lose 10% of your body weight. I should have hit this goal months ago, since I'd (re)joined in January and I can usually lose an average of about 1.5 lbs a week. But oh, then there was St Patrick's day and all that Guinness and I got a bit sidetracked...

But then I got back on track! It hit me one day that if I wanted to be anywhere near my goal on my 25th birthday (this July 17th - mark your calendars!) I'd have to get my butt moving. So I did. With a vengeance! And I was sure that this Tuesday when I stepped on the scale it was going to say that I lost 1.2 lbs and that I'd made my 10%!

So I even dressed all "cute" for the occasion... I wore a skirt and a twinset that has a tube top with a cardigan. I stared at my one strapless bra in the morning: should I wear it? It was a push-up bra from Victoria's Secret, so that meant that there were gel inserts in it to aid in the whole pushing-up thing. It was heavy. Heavier than my other bras. So I decided to forgo the bra thing. No need to add unnecessary weight on such a big day!

Throughout the day, I cursed my decision to go bra-less... Why didn't it occur to me to just wear the bra and then take it off before I got weighed?

I watched the clock as the end of the day drew near... The second it turned to 5:15, I was out the door, speed walking to my car, and then speeding out of the parking lot. The meeting started at 5:30, and I'm always late to it because of my work hours, and I didn't want to get there so late that I'd have to wait until the next meeting to weigh in. But traffic wasn't cooperating with me, and it took longer than usual to get there.

My fears of having to wait until the next meeting were banished as I walked into the Weight Watchers center and saw that there were still lines at each scale. I grabbed my card from the bins and stood in line. I was nervous as I got closer to the scale... I distracted myself by thinking of the things that I'd say when I raised my hand in the meeting and told everyone that I made it to 10% and then had to tell about what I do differently now that I'm on Weight Watchers. Suddenly, it was my turn at the scale.

I handed the receptionist my card and put my water bottle and keys on the counter. I kicked of my kitten heeled flip flops and took off my cardigan and waited for the signal from the receptionist that she was ready for me to step on the scale.

I stepped on the scale, praying that it would be 1.2 gone. 1.2 little pounds. That's all I needed. I watched as the receptionist wrote down my new weight on the scale, and my heart sunk. "You're down 1 pound. Very good!" she said to me. I wanted to tell her, "no, it's not good, it sucks!!" but that's kind of the wrong attitude... I thought about asking her to re-weigh me, but that seemed kind of condescending towards her. So I just accepted it. And slunk into the meeting and sulked in my seat.

As I sat through the meeting, my mood slowly improved. Other members were raising their hands and telling of their successes, which reminded me of all the success that I'd already had. So what if I didn't make the 10% this week? I'd make it next week!

And next week, I'll make it wearing a bra...

...and you're working for no one but me.

It's no longer the "Tax Man" that we're all working for. It's the Debt Master (because "master" sounds scarier than "man").

Who isn't drowning in debt? Or if not drowning, then at least wading up to your knees? We've got school loans, car loans, mortgages, personal loans, and the worst of all of them: credit cards.

We get a new car because our current one isn't shiny and new anymore. We buy a big house because all our friends are doing it. We take out school loans and go to school to avoid dealing with the "real world", unable to really conceive how much debt we're getting ourselves into.

We buy on impulse. We buy because Carrie from Sex and the City had one just like it. We buy because at that very moment, we needed that item more than we needed to breathe.

And what do we have to show for all our debt? Mountains of stuff.

And the thing of it is, we don't really need all that stuff. I live in a one bedroom apartment, been living there for almost 2 years now, and it's pretty much filled to the brim with my junk. I've got no room in any of my envelopes. And when Alex and I first started talking about him moving in, I started thinking of how I should look for a 2 bedroom apartment. I was prepared to shell out more money a month, to house stuff that I don't really need. This article deals with that very issue: the hidden cost of all our stuff.

I'm going home tonight and purging my closets.

dear sir or madam will you read my book

So, I've started another little project - something else for me to love for a while until it becomes boring to me and then I'll neglect it until it dies (I suck at plants. And pets. But that's why Alex rules.). I decided to cut out any Weight Watchers or Exercise talk on this blog because I understand that it can be annoying to read about if that sort of thing isn't your bag, baby. So I started Metamorphosis. Take a look if you're interested.

No further posting just now. I'm at work and I've not been as productive as I'd like and I only have 45 minutes left to correct that.

Argh.

I BET YOU'RE ALL WONDERING WHY I'VE ASKED YOU HERE...

I'm a loser. I've lost weight. I'm losing weight. And one of the many things that I've discovered during my weight loss journey is that not everyone wants to hear about it.

People don't want to hear about your weight loss for a variety of reasons. Some people think your way of losing weight is stupid. Others are jealous that you're losing weight or may feel guilty that they're not. Others may think that your talking about weight loss means that you think they need to lose weight and they get offended. And then, of course, many people might think it's boring to hear you blab on about yourself and what you've been eating and how you've been exercising.

Also, I once critisized another blogger's blog to my friend, Beck, because I thought he talked an awful lot about what he had for dinner daily, and she said, "so do you."

So I figured that - to avoid being a hypocrite and to avoid boring people - I'd take any talk about food (except for funny cooking stories because my adventures in cooking are not all about the dieting... they're also about how I managed to not set the kitchen on fire this time while I stumbled my way through a recipe) off my main blog, and start this new blog which will be devoted to my adventures in weight loss.

So what will you find here? Well, you'll find my favorite dieting bloggers, sites devoted to weight loss and muscle gain, pages with collections of "light" recipes, before and after pics of me, and my sporadic spews of thought regarding weight loss, eating, and exercising.

So if you'd like to hear about how I'm a loser and how my metamorphasis to a new, healthy, lifestyle is going, read on. If not: Screw you, you unsupportive bastard. Just kidding ;)

When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads...

It's entirely pathetic, but I'm so excited that it's thunder storming out because that means there's a (small) chance that somehow the power will go out and if it stays out long enough we can go home.

That. Would. Rule.

Not that I'm not having a good day. Got to the gym (I rock), been fairly productive (though not as awesome as I was Friday)... But I'm still a kid at heart who's waiting to be saved by the bell.

Oh! Another wild crack of thunder! It's just like horror movie thunder. Everyone in the office gets quiet after each boom, like their waiting for something to happen... a ghost to come out of the floor... or, you know, the power to go out... it's so creepy!

Seems to be winding down now. Crap. Back to reality... work, work, work...