DAYS 28 & 29

Day 1 back in Los Angeles required a lot of adulting. More than I was prepared for, to be honest. Although I knew it was going to be a transition to get back to my "normal" life, without the help of my mom and sister, I wasn't really happy about the lack of motivation that greeted me in the morning.

Curled up with my puppy as my little spoon, getting out of bed and heading to the gym seemed like the last thing I wanted to do. My "normal" life, I figured out really quickly, was no longer normal.   But after making myself my sister approved breakfast of chicken apple sausage, egg whites, and avocado (as well as a side of strawberries I cut up for myself), I decided it was time to start the day. But come on, you'd have trouble leaving this face too.

I dropped the puppy off at the groomer for a haircut and made my way to the gym (boyfriend in tow). Before arriving in LA, I had made a new exercise plan for myself. One that now required exercising 5x a week. I figured while I was temporarily unemployed and had my days truly free, it would be the best time to go hard. I did a lot of research before deciding on a new exercise regimen - one comprised mainly of circuit training.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with circuit training, it's a series of exercises performed in quick conjunction (in a circuit, if you will). By only resting about 15-30 seconds between each exercise, it utilizes HIIT or high intensity interval training, which is the most effective in fat burning by combining quick spurts of maximum efforts with a short rest period to keep energy levels up.

On this new schedule, I would be circuit training at the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while doing cardio on Tuesday and Thursday. Leaving my weekends for total rest and relaxation. And by training every other day I would be able to give my muscles rest time to build strength. That's something I'm very excited about doing - building strength.

So, my leg circuit was up first. Monday morning. I had looked up a few beginner's circuits, and chose the one that seemed the most interesting to me. And though it was interesting, it was HARD. Good lord. I thoroughly underestimated how difficult a beginning circuit would be. By the time my hour was up, my legs felt like jello. I actually had to use my boyfriend as a railing in order to go down the stairs. He laughed at me, but understood.

He's in his own process of training, too. In fact, right before we met he had lost 80 lbs and so he is extremely familiar with the struggles I'm going through, and I couldn't be more grateful to have him as an inspiration, motivator, and teammate in this journey. After the loss of his father last fall, he spent time in Texas with his family and unfortunately lost some of the progress he had made, but now we're both at it and have double the motivation. We unintentionally matched yesterday. Don't judge.

After the morning workout, I was totally wiped out, but I remembered before leaving for my three week cross country sojourn that I'd made a doctor's appointment. Last year, I went to my doctor and asked her about my 50 lb gain. She chocked it up to being depressed and added an antidepressant that was also an appetite suppressor to my regimen. All in all she was pretty dismissive of my concerns with my weight gain, and never even asked me about the source of my depression.

 Now 100 lbs later (well, 90 now!), I was more prepared for interacting with my doctor (a new one, thank god). He was great. We talked about my weight gain, my problems with depression, anxiety and overeating, my current medication and what my plan to lose this weight is. He was incredibly supportive, and ordered a thorough blood test to be done later this week to just make sure nothing is going on physically that I should be aware of. He said, "Most patients wish that something is wrong with them, something that they can treat and fix and explain their weight gain, but the truth is...you DON'T want that. You want your body to be working properly." He sent me back home feeling much better and confident in my journey. I would eliminate the option for anything else to be wrong by doing an extensive blood test (seriously, he sent me home with a paper that looks like everything is circled on it...not sure what they're NOT testing for). And in the meantime, I'd continue as I had been.

After that much adulting, I was anxious to head home, but I needed to do one more adult thing on my to-do list before calling it a day. Grocery shopping!

I took the meal plan V had expertly prepared for me a few weeks ago, and finally put it in action. I purchased everything I'd need for the week and headed home to do my meal prep. Dinner #1 this week was sauteed zucchini and mushrooms with meatsauce. Because I love pasta SO much, eating bolognese sauce tricks my brain into thinking I'm having pasta, even when it's just veggies. I portioned out 4 nights of the meal before partaking in this one (and topping it with 1 tbs of pecorino romano).

It was so incredibly filling and delicious. Plus...the nutrition facts were crazy. Only 277 calories, 16 g of carbs, 10 g of fat, and 30 g of protein. Totally sated, I decided that I could take the rest of the night off (even though I had plans to continue writing my spec script). And that was totally fine. After so much adulting (and still partially on east coast time), I was totally wiped out. Plus, I knew that I had cardio plans the next morning (an 8am hike with an old co-worker!), so I wanted to get a good night's sleep.

Luckily my old co-worker pushed our hike to 9:30, so I was able to sleep in a tiny bit more than originally planned. What I totally forgot is why he was so gung-ho about hiking with me, though. He is incredibly in shape, and brought his giant hiking dog with us. He asked if I wanted to try a new hike instead of doing Runyon, and I said sure! Excited to try something new, I was disappointed pretty quickly. The hike was HARD. Like...really really hard. More of a narrow path through the trees, my legs ached and burned merely 1/4 of the way up. I had totally forgotten how sore my legs would be after my hard day of training at the gym yesterday.

Needless to say, I did not complete the hike. We ended up turning around and attempting Runyon. But by that point, we'd already added an extra mile and a half to our hike, and my legs gave out somewhere near the third hill of Runyon. He was incredibly understanding, and it actually gave us time to really talk about our lives and everything that had been going on since we'd stopped working together (four years ago!). And though I immediately felt like a failure, he reminded me that our first and second hikes combined were way more challenging than just doing Runyon once through. And I should be proud of myself for waking up and making good on my promise to hike with him. My disappointment faded away pretty quickly, seeing as when we arrived back at my apartment I'd burned over 1000 calories in 90 minutes.

The rest of my day will include catching up on the writing I did not get to do yesterday, as well as enjoying my second portions of my meal plan meals. Though the routine is not 100% yet, I've only just returned to this new normal, and I am positive I will continue to persevere. As always, let's keep doing this!

DAY 15

I've never really held much stock in the phrase, "There's no place like home." Unlike Dorothy, my friends and family left the small town where we grew up almost as soon as they could. With my sisters in LA and Chicago respectively, and my best friends spread across the nation, I'd never really seen the point in coming back to Connecticut. Though my mom remained, it wasn't like she still lived in my childhood home (neither the first, nor the second), and I'd much rather spend time with her in LA where we had better weather and much more to do.

But after my mom visited LA in March, she begged me to come home. Really, truly begged.
"It'll be like a spa vacation," she said. "You can relax and go to they gym and work on your writing!" Since I was on hiatus, waiting to hear if the show I worked on was going to return for another season (it did, btw--yay Faking It Season 3!), I figured...why not? I knew she was anxious to keep an eye on me; I'd never seen her as worried about me as when she was leaving LA this time (and that's saying something because I'm ashamed to admit I've put that woman through a LOT to be worried about). And as the weeks passed, I realized I couldn't remember the last time I'd spent any time alone with her. Because of my crazy television work schedule, all our time together had been as a family, and I lacked any one on one time with her. I was excited. And I was not let down.

My mother is not a cook (she was quoted saying she prefers cleaning dishes to cooking tonight), but using the meal plan V and I had come up with a few days before, my first day home turned into a magical delicious feast.

Breakfast (top left): 1/2 cup of steel cut oats cooked in 1 cup of skim milk. 1/2 of a chopped granny smith apple, and 1/8 cup of walnut halves.

Lunch (bottom left): 4 oz. chicken breast, 2 tbs. 0% greek yogurt, a dollop of fresh pico de gallo, on top of 1 cup chopped romaine.

Dinner: 6 oz. filet mignon, with mixed veggies (1 cup of sliced mushrooms, 1/4 cup of red bell peppers, 1/2 cup of green beans) cooked in 1 tbs of olive oil and 2 tbs soy sauce, on top of 1/2 cup brown rice.

I was seriously astounded at how delicious my meals were. Not only that, but since they'd been planned before time, they required about zero thought. And my total intake was only 1390 calories, even before my exercise. The spa vacation sentiment was pretty true. Plus, it felt amazing to be taken care of by my mom. That sounds pretty silly coming from a 27 year old adult, but there's something so intensely gratifying about it. My mom is the first to support my goals and my journey, and a large part of this has been influenced by her, but being with her was suddenly incredibly low pressure. I felt like we could just enjoy being together.

This morning we accomplished my first and most important mission. New sneakers. My brother in law promised I'd tell my mom I needed new sneakers after the bloody foot incident of this past Sunday, so that's where our day began. And it was quite an experience. For the past three days, I've done extensive research on which gym shoes are best for overweight women. Which shoes have the most shock absorption to decrease pressure on joints. Which shoes have the most stability. Which shoes come in fun colors (I'm sorry, but that's important to me!). The most valuable piece of information I learned in my research was to go to a running store and have someone evaluate my gait. It sounded silly to me, but I figured why not? So, I went to the closest running store and took my chances. Let me just say, if anyone ever needs any new sneakers, I cannot recommend this experience more. Not only did the salespeople know everything there is to know about different sneakers, but she first had me stand on a computer scale, which projected an image onto a screen to show me where most of my weight was distributed (my heels), the length and width of both my feet (9M forever despite my weight gain), and if I needed extra arch support (nope, my arches are high as hell). Because of my weight, she picked a few sneaker options that were high in stability and cushioned soles, and I went to town. After finding a pair that felt like I was floating on a cloud or walking on a pillow, she put me on a treadmill to run for 15 seconds. My feet were filmed, and when I got off, she played the video back in slow motion, just to check and make sure my alignment in the sneakers were good (toe lining up with ankle, heel, and knee). They did! And this was the glorious result.

Anxious to try them out, I convinced my mom to do the 3 mile loop around Tod's Point Beach with me. I put on my heart rate monitor, my new shoes, and grabbed my water bottle, ready to enjoy some quiet time with my mom. The view wasn't too shabby either. Plus, I managed to burn 500 calories.

 On our way home, I asked my mom to show me where her gym was. She knew she was going to have to go into work tomorrow, so I wanted to be prepared for my workout without her there to push me. Turns out I probably won't need a push. As soon as we stopped in the gym, I was taken aback by my urge to really break a sweat. My three mile walk had felt more like a warm up than true exercise, and I decided to do a quick weight training session while my mom went upstairs to start on dinner. I grabbed a pair of 15 lb weights and went to town. 4x12 sets of squats to shoulder press, straight leg deadlifts, lateral raises, lateral dips, lateral pull downs, bicep curls--and finishing things off with 100 crunches holding the 10 lb plate above my head. My quick session raised my total calories burned to nearly 1k calories. Far more than I'd originally anticipated.

And though I'm sitting in bed now, soreness starting to creep into my muscles, I feel incredibly accomplished. At no point did I feel like I was being forced into eating something healthy or working out. After two weeks, it's simply part of my routine--something I HAVE to do, just as important as sleeping or showering or watching all my shows!

Something I haven't done yet, however, is weigh myself. It's something I'm still a little scared to do. What if the numbers haven't changed at all? What if they've changed too little? What if I've gained weight (I know that's implausible but my brain works in crazy ways). One of my promises to myself is that I will weigh myself this week. By Sunday, I will have a weigh day, and that will be my new weekly weigh day for this journey. I decided that with each 10 lbs I lose, I'm going to treat myself with something (non-food related, of course). For my final goal, I want to take a weekend trip away somewhere. Santa Barbara or Palm Springs or Vegas? But with my current bank account's state, I need the treats leading up to that final prize to be somewhat economical. If anyone has any suggestions, I need 9 more treats/presents to myself to fill in! Because, as always, I'm going to keep doing this.