Day 7: Sloth

I can't remember what I did today because once I was on the bus for school, all I craved was a good, long nap.
Ever have those days? No?
It feels so unhealthy, and I know it is.
I stayed up late working on a paper, and then I watched Friends until 6am.

Shhh, let me sleep...

Day 6: House Work

I spent my day cleaning my den/bedroom, and honestly, it felt good. I've gotten lazy and neglectful of my surroundings, so to take care of my home environment was like a breath of fresh air.
I had piles of clothes, some empty red solo cups crowding the tables, and makeup I stopped using. I think I'm going to feel so much better once I get this room cleaned and organized so I can do my Pilates in my own room in front of my own TV... and MAYBE I won't be so shy to actually vlog myself like I told myself I'd do (I'm starting to really feel guilty about not doing that).
Unrelated to house work: I really wish I had actual active wear to workout in. It's just, I don't know, like when I would buy pretty notebooks as to enjoy writing in them more. My mother doesn't really understand that - oh, well. I'll get myself some gear once I start getting paid; speaking of which, I'm speaking with my teachers and supervisors about my resume, and I'm confident that I can nail that and the application (since that's the easy part), but I'm nervous about INTERVIEWS. I have never had a job interview, and I don't know what kind of questions to expect or how to answer difficult questions.

I Broke Up With My Boyfriend & Joined A Lesbian Dating Website

[WARNING: somewhat sexual content?]
I truly loved my ex-boyfriend, but I knew I could not give him all of myself, and I didn't want to prolong the relationship once I knew I was going to hurt him by breaking up with him. I was hurt, too, but - and I feel kind of guilty saying this - I felt relieved and a sense of freedom?
I identified as gay for the longest time in my high school years, but recently, I "updated" my sexuality as bisexual. True, I do feel attraction to men, but I'm starting to recognize it as me gravitating to their vibe/personality, and I usually desire a friendship with them - NOT sex; affection, on rare occasions, but NOT romance; I can grow to care for men, but I love women. I think I've only felt true love when I was in love with ex-girlfriend., who was my best friend. Sadly, that feel apart horribly, and I avoided relationships for a long while.
I reconnected with a male friend over the summer when we were taking the same summer classes; we bonded over failed relationships/messed up friendships, and we grew close as we started realizing we liked the same music, we liked the same kind of movies, and we were both pretty big nerds. It was a friendship that was growing close, and I mistook that as romantic chemistry.
We transition from friends to "friends with benefits" when he gave me a strong drink, and in my tipsy state, I made out with him. I'm not saying it was a drunken mistake; alcohol makes me more confident and sure of myself. However, I was not at all ready for another romantic relationship, so I avoided bringing up the "what are we?" talk. He assumed we were FWB, but really, we just hung out and made out. We engaged in sexual acts several times, but sex was... Just, no. (Let's just say, I think he seriously needs to see a doctor about the little blue pill.) It was NOT the fact that he couldn't... "perform" that made me question my attraction (okay, maybe a little bit) but the fact that I never really wanted it. I'm not saying he forced me into anything; he never did that, but it never excited me, or hell, it even disgusted me sometimes. I would enjoy pleasing him, but overall, it felt like work. I don't want to hear, "of course, it's work, sweetie; it's called a blow JOB" ugh.
Sexually, when it comes to women, I would feel lucky that a girl let me see her naked and let me touch her and let me please her.
I don't have sexual desires for men; I don't picture myself being married to a man.
I see myself falling in love with a woman, traveling and  taking pictures and making memories together. I see myself waking up next to a woman, sneaking out of bed, and cooking breakfast for her. I see myself laughing with her, trying to cheer her up when she's sick, going out to bars together, showering together, making love together. I have an image of me lounging on the couch, working on a project for my job, and her snuggled in a seat nearby, doing something she loves, in comfortable silence.
Wow, I'm a hopeless romantic, but I recognize that. Hopefully, I'll meet someone who loves that about me. One day, I will meet a woman and fall in love with her; I will give all of myself to her, and I will be so happy.

Day 5: Threes

I ran/walked 15 minutes:
I walked for five minutes as a warm-up; I did step-ups for a minute, rest for a minute, jumping jacks, squats, rest, jumping jacks, rest; ran as long as I could then walked the rest in a five-minute time frame.
My body hurts so bad that I kind of want to cry.

Day 4: Sore...

If you look over my last post, you'll remember that I said I didn't want to be too intense at the start; that workout wasn't intense, BUT oh my, I my legs and abs are SO sore! Every time I sat down, I felt it in my legs, and every time I would sit up from laying down, I'd go, "Wow, I didn't know I had those" because I would feel my ab muscles working and hurting at the same time. I used to have a remedy for this so I could continue working out the next day without hurting so much, but I've forgotten what it was (cries).
I didn't work out yesterday(I've been posting the day after the fact since day 3). I went to school, rushed around the studio, getting things done as usual, before going home, finishing up an assignment and my resume, and cooked supper.
Supper consisted of pan-seared steaks and potatoes (YUM). I had one serving size of steak, and several baked potato rounds with yum-yum sauce (a mix of mayo and sriracha sauce, pretty much).
I didn't do any exercise because I was so sore from the workout the day before plus the fact that I walked around Atlanta and CNN studios with my video classmates. I was also spent because I didn't sleep at all the night before the tour, so I skipped breakfast at school because I had to wait for my ride, I was driven to a nearby mall (where my classmates were meeting), and once we got to CNN studios, I gravitated right to the Dunkin Donuts bought a small Wake-Up Wrap and a large mocha ice coffee - no sugar or cream - and that lasted me an hour through the tour, and immediately after the tour, I bought a large peppermint mocha iced coffee WITH sugar and cream, and that was YUMMY, and it also lasted me another hour, but at that point, my friends and I were back at the mall and walking around F.Y.E., and I was a dead woman walking, basically. My friend gave me a ride home, and I crashed around 3 in the after noon... So, I skipped breakfast, had a small brunch, walked around all day, had coffee for lunch, and slept through dinner.
I didn't exercise as much, but I also didn't eat much.
Oh, I was going to vlog when in Atlanta, but CNN did not allow it. Also, the filming my friends and I originally planned to do just didn't happen.
Yesterday was also running day, and that didn't happen, so I WILL make it up today. I will run today, damn it. Yes.

Day 3: Fives

Today's workout consisted of fives; I focused on my abs, waist, and thighs. It's not too intense, but I didn't want it to be because I said I wanted to ease into this.

Abs:

5 roll ups

5 ankle reaches

5 double leg lifts

Waist:

5 eagle abs

(I couldn't get my legs as twisted as shown above, but I did my best with my legs crossed).

5 reverse crunches

5 double D's

(This is almost like a double leg lift, but your legs will draw two D's in the air as you go back up).

Thighs:

5 plié squats

5 leg swings (for each leg)

5 side lunges (for each leg)

These images are NOT me; they are demonstrations done by Cassey Ho.

Day 2: RunHappiness

I woke up today thinking, "I'm going to run today; I'm just going to do it." Remembering what I stated yesterday, I did intend on my run-for-1-walk-for-2 pace, but it didn't quite work out like that. (Lol, "work out" like that, ha...). I also forgot to vlog the whole thing, sadly.

I started off running 2 whole minutes before walking for 6 minutes then repeating a few times. In a 21-minute time frame, I'd say I did pretty well; it was one-thirds running somewhat like I planned yesterday.
Next time I run, I'm going to go for 2 minutes running and just 3 minutes walking; let's see if I can last 25 minutes next time.
That was all the exercise I did today as I woke up around 1pm... Low key high key really proud of myself for waking up today and going, "I said I was going to run today, and I am going to run today." I hope I keep this motivation up; it's only day 1.

I should squeeze much, much more workouts in tomorrow being that it's a school day, and I'm actually excused because my class is taking the day off to tour CNN in Atlanta. My teacher picked the best/worst day: the day right after the election. Tomorrow should be fun; maybe I'll vlog some of it.

Day 1: Now, Here's the Plan

I didn't do much today, seeing how I woke up at around 3pm because of various reasons: I slept through my 7AM alarm, it's Senior Skip Day, and I woke up feeling sick. I felt better after laying in bed for a few more hours and watching 'Friends', but I was mad at myself for not being as productive as I wanted to be. It wasn't a TOTAL bust though; I wrote up my first post for this page, I came up with a schedule I want to stick to, and I did a short arm workout (it burned SO bad).

Now, here's the plan:

I want to start running tomorrow, so I'll begin with walking five minutes as a warm-up before starting a pace of running for 1 minute then walking for 2 minutes in a 30 minute time frame, which equates to 10 minutes of running and 20 minutes of walking. It doesn't seem like a lot to me compared to what I used to do, but I want to do it and see how comfortable I am with that to start with. I'll decide how much I'll want to up the ante after tomorrow.

How many days a week do I want to run? Well, ideally all of them, but I doubt I really could...

I'll start with 3 days: Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

In the previous post, I mentioned that I'd be incorporating other exercises, and by that, I meant working out along to videos from Cassey Ho (also known as blogilates), and I will also be making workout vlogs myself with non-blogilates routines. I say that now, but I may get cold feet when uploading because I'm not completely sure I'll want to show my current body sweating on the Internet... I can do this; I got this.

I feel like hell right now with hiccups and a migraine, but I took two Ibuprofen, and hopefully, I'll feel better by morning for my run.

The Reason

I created this blog because I wanted to start journaling online and documenting my journey of ups and downs and successes and setbacks. The name of this blog was coined after I realized that I only wore Reeboks for exercising and Converse the rest of the time (I'm a collector).

I'm currently unhappy with how I'm treating myself and my body. I used to enjoy the feeling I have before, during, and after running; I used to enjoy feeling put together when I planned an outfit and do my hair and makeup; I used to look in the mirror and enjoy what I saw. However, after a sad event took place in my life, I couldn't bring myself to enjoy those things anymore. I would just get out of bed, throw on clothes, throw my hair up into a ponytail, go to school, come home from school, and lay around all day, then the cycle would repeat. I was basically running on auto-pilot for months. I gained a lot of weight back that I had lost over the summer (I don't know the exact amount; I got rid of the scale a long while ago). It got to a point where my unhappiness was affecting my relationship, my attitude at school, and my mindset. Once I finally recognized all of that, I decided I didn't want to be unhappy anymore.

Last week, I watched a documentary titled "From Fat To Finish Line", and throughout the entire film, I found myself relating to every single runner in a way regarding why I started running in the first place; my love of running was realized again. I found my Reeboks collecting dust under my den couch, and set them on the steps beside the front door. As to not overwhelm myself, I decided to first develop a schedule and decide at what pace I wanted to start - I know I can't run for a straight 15 minutes like I used to during the summer. Of course, I'll be incorporating more than just running into my exercise routine, but again, baby steps. I also want to make dietary changes, but I know from experience that will be something I'll want to ease into later, slowly but surely.

I didn't have a scale when I first began actively exercising, so I don't know what my starting weight was or "ending" weight was (I prefer "during weight" instead of "ending weight"); I just know I looked slimmer in the mirror. Now that I've gained a lot of weight back, I look about the same as I remember I did starting out earlier this year, maybe even more... I pulled a scale out of the attic, and I will be using it for starting weight and during weight updates. So, starting weight right now: 201 pounds. Wow, that's actually not as high as I thought it was going to be but high nonetheless.
[ADD ON: I am 5 foot 9 inches, 18 years old, Endomorph body type.]

Well, here I go. Join me on my journey if you'd like.