Who was I kidding? Absolutely no one.

I must have had something seriously wrong with me to actually think I could give up drinking over St. Patty's Day... well good news, I gave up at least two weeks before that! Yay for failure. But to see the positive in the situation, I've changed my diet, got myself running outside again, and on Monday I started Insanity. So far, so so so so sore in my calves. There's a reason for that, I'll come back to it.

My new goal is having fun while taking care of myself. Lots of water, veggies and fruits, high cardio workouts, punishment runs for drinking excessive amounts. Had a bonfire about two weeks ago... made myself run the next morning UP cemetery rd (from where I live) which is a big ass hill, followed by a long ass gradual hill. That's what I get for nearly lighting my yard (and possibly house) on fire, getting the cops and fire dept called on me, THEN knocking back like ten beers, and making a fool of myself as usual.

Oh and to finish the calves complaining from above... I recently read Born to Run by Chris McDougall and ohmyGOD, I could NOT put it down. He is such a compelling writer and it was so interesting that I pretty much marathon read the entire book. I want to read it again (maybe I will start tonight)! For those who aren't familiar, the book covers a whole lot of topics that are interconnect: this super awesome tribe of unnaturally awesome runners in Mexico, the super athletic nut jobs who run ultra marathons (50 & up miles), running barefoot (or at least without traditional running shoes), the evolution of homo sapiens to be natural marathoners (AH!), and so much more. So yeah, I decided to start doing more things barefoot, which includes Insanity, which means after only one day of bopping around on the balls of my bare feet (that never get that much action lol) my calves were tightttttttt today. After TWO days of bopping around on the balls of my feet, I can barely flex my toes back towards my knees. Tomorrow is going to be roughhh. And if you're wondering, Insanity is pretty tough. In no way, shape, or form can I do every part of the workout all the way through with no breaks. Give a sista a break though, some exercises are ridiculously hard to do after one or two or three sets. But I think I'll be able to stay with it. Just have to figure out how and when and where I'll do my Friday and Saturday workouts ... cause guess what???

It's finally JT weekend!!!!Yayayayay!
Starting off an extended weekend tomorrow down in Glenside, PA going to the Guster concert with my old Hood buddy Mr. Steve Delaney. Next, meeting up with Nate after and crashing at his place before we head to SU on Friday and begin our challenge of finding someplace to crash for the night while drinking of course. Saturday is the meet where we will OF COURSE daydrink (discretely Marto) and cheer on our pride and joy, the SU Crusaders. I'm going to head up to the lax game as well and watch my good ol' neighbor Carl tear it up against conference rival Goucher I believe. Then a fabulously rowdy night of drinking and home again Sunday. I miss college, but HEY, I got into grad school so I have another year and a half (granted the first year is NOT traditional college/grad school).

Okay that was really long, doubt anyone will read it or read it all the way through buttttttt, it felt nice to update.

Keep it real and always love,

Laur

I kind of cheated...

....which makes me a failure. BUT HEAR ME OUT! I had signed up for my first Susquehanna University alum event weeks before I had this grand idea to be sober for a month. It was held last night at the River Horse Brewery in Lambertville, NJ and I've always wanted to try their beers because their hippopotamus logo is so cute! (Such a great reason to try a beer... "Why, you had me at 'hippo'...").

Come on, how adorable!

And a hippo dressed up like a yeti... i love it!

 So I made myself a deal. I would still go and I would sip their samples and not drink the whole cups and it wouldn't be cheating. Yeahhhh, well then I really liked their double wit and I loveddddd their chocolate porter, which is part of their brewer's reserve series. Seriously, I was so screwed after the first sip of double wit, and I just threw in the cards after the chocolate porter hit my tongue. 

So I cheated. I got tipsy last night. 

Damn it. 

I'm debating whether to keep with this sober thing or not. The idea of missing St. Patrick's Day is slightly killing me. What if I don't drink until the end of March EXCEPT for St. Patty's Day... there's still a lot of days to not drink?

Weigh in my friends and go ahead, tell me I'm a failure. 

Oh and if you want an interesting side story, I was told by two creeping alumni from like 1986 that I won the hottest alumni contest... and then one of their wives walked up and they didn't notice and I had to turn away to keep from laughing in their faces. Silly men...

Short post. Brain fried.

So tired. 11.5 hours of SERVING today. hooray. anyway I wanted to share that tidbit and this quote from a documentary I watched tonight called "Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction".



A little bit of background, the documentary details how we humans majorly suck (we're the worst species on earth in case you haven't figured that out yet) and we are creating an extinction right now that is bigger and more irreversible than anything the earth has faced before. ANYWAY the quote.

A man emailed the one scientist and was talking about his twenty year old son. He said "How do I teach him about hope when I have none?" The scientist answered: "Don't teach him about hope. Teach him love. If he loves, he will fight for it."

Wow.

Seriously that moment in the documentary resonated with me, because I feel completely hopeless 89% of the time. Seriously. But I love. I love a lot of things and I'm willing to fight for a lot of things. And sometimes you fight for things you know you won't win, but you're going to fight like hell anyway. Because of love.

Hope somebody else is enlightened by that as well.  Or you could roll your eyes and close my blog, never to return. That's fine as well.

sleep deprivation.

As I sit here contemplating my day...

I can't help but be mildly happy I wasn't t-boned by the red pick-up truck this morning... it totally would have ruined my day. Not kidding though, that jerk pulled right out disregarding his stop sign because he couldn't see through the tunnel, saw me, and kept going. Good thing I have catlike reflexes! Crisis averted!

I made it through yet another day of office tasks and Pinterest oogling. And by oogling I mean drooling over the food and drinks section. I have a huge page of recipes to try and if I end up trying them, I'll surely gain 50 pounds straight to my ass. BOOM! ass fat. Whatever we all know I'll get around to trying the recipes slowly. Let me know if you want a pinterest invite and don't feel like waiting the day or less to get an invite from the site.

So it was absolutely lovely out today... I almost ran outside. Almost as in not quite. I'm afraid running outside is going to kick my ass now since I've been a baby and have been treadmill running, elipticalling, and stationary biking at Retro. But there is such a huge difference in the ease of running outside vs a treadmill. I am straight up suicidal on a treadmill (or as the famous Mart-o would call it.... the DREADMILL). But once I get outside I'm relaxed, I'm happy (for the most part), I have the sun in my face and breeze activating my lovely wings (aka my obnoxious wispy hairs that frame my face). Insert happy memory from senior year with Casey Hess acting out my life, eating a snickers bar, and walking towards an extremely attractive person. ANYWAY, soon my hour long torture periods of doing cardio in a stuffy room with strangers will be over and I will be running outside! And running hills! And hopefully shrinking my thunder thighssss!

I just made a really nice dinner. Three egg omelet with fresh spinach, a little Monterrey jack cheese, big glass of chocolate milk with a scoop of strawberry protein mix, and a biscuit. oh and I forgot to mention a lot of bbq sauce 'cause I'm silly and don't like eggs much. Yeahhh buddy, breakfast for dinner like a boss.

Throwing in some nostalgia... happy times and a flat stomach. 

Keep it real, my dears. Oh and I'm so excited for Jim Taylor!!!!! AH!!!

One weekend down...

So the first week wasn't rough. I think I needed one week/weekend to be really chill and be relaxed after the weekend I had with the Walsh's in south Jersey. SO other than not drinking, I've changed a few other things. I've really up my consumption of protein which I usually don't get much of at all. This is kind of tough because although I'm not a vegetarian, I don't eat a ton of meat. And I hate eggs. I know right? Who hates eggs? THIS girl. I can handle eating them now, with lots of salt and pepper or ketchup or bbq sauce, but it's still difficult. But since Monday, I've made a dozen hard boiled eggs and have eaten over half of them and HOLD THE PHONE, I made a poached egg this morning and ate that. Another more pleasant way I've upped the protein is making quiche! I love quiche, even with its egg content, but the one I made was loaded with spinach (yay for vitamins and healthy stuff). 

Yo. Not to brag, but I'm becoming the next Martha Fucking Stewart. Minus going to jail.

I've also gone back to my daily lunch salad routine (fresh romaine, red leafed lettuce, spinach, a handful of cherry tomatoes, with an ounce of low fat salad dressing (usually vinaigrette). I should add protein into that, I know, but I have yet to cook up some chicken and tuna smells and I'm making excuses. Again, yay for vitamins and healthy stuff.  Now if only I could get my dad to eat some of this. That mans arteries better last long enough to walk my ass down the aisle and that's going to be awhile seeing that my dating life is next to nonexistent. 


Let's see what else. I came down with a head cold the day after I made the blog so instead of being a nut at the gym, I've been taking it easy. I did go one night and I kind of hurt my knee. Not seriously but enough that I wasn't finishing my core workout that I was pumped to do. I had planned on doing 35 bicycles, 15 squats while balancing on two of those half medicine ball things, 15 burpees, and then 25 toe touches with a weighted medicine ball... 3 times round. Wellll that didn't happen because while I went to sit down while holding the medicine ball, my knee made a big pop and it hurt! My first thought was "Are you fucking serious, Lauren? You made it through 4 years of college, running year round with no injuries, and now you do something in your knee SITTING DOWN?!" Yes, pathetic, thank you I'm well aware. Well good news, I don't think it was serious, it doesn't hurt now a few days later but I haven't done squats since, so I'll let you know when I go to the gym later. 


I probably won't right every day, cause let's face it, I'm lazy and who's going to be interested enough to read this every day? BUT, if you're interested to know, I think I look better all ready. My stomach feels flatter, my love handles don't bother me as much, I woke up this morning without the extra weight of a liter of alcohol in my body. Life is good, now I want to go for a hike with my dogs. WHO'S COMING WITH ME!?!?

And so it starts...

To start off, I don't think I have awful body image. I'm no model, but I'm not huge. I'm athletically thick if I had to define myself. Having a pear shape doesn't help but I'll take what I get. I still get the snappy "shut up you're so thin" remarks, but standing next to my sister who thinks SHE is chubby (and trust me we'd all kill to be in her body), I'm a cow. Frankly though, I've gained like twenty pounds in about two years, even with ample exercising. The reason? Well... I'm banking on awful genes and unluckiness, but the probable cause is I turned 21 and started drinking a lot more. Like alotalotalotalotalot. And even though I'm still running or doing an hour of cardio at the gym like 4-5 nights a week and core exercises to boot, I'm not liking what I see in the mirror everyday... or trying to wear my favorite jeans...or trying to wear the cute dresses I keep buying. Heavy drinking on Friday and Saturday nights and not having intense running workouts every week seem to have finally caught up with me.

As I sat home last night contemplating Mardi Gras festivities, but recounting how shitty I felt about myself getting ready to go out in AC on the previous Saturday night, I had an idea. Now, I don't have a religious cell in my body and I've never participated in Lent, but I began to wonder if I would be able to give up drinking until Easter. Guess what? Not a snowballs chance in hell. I've been waiting three years at Susquehanna Uni for the chance to come back for the Jim Taylor meet (aka Alumni Weekend for track people) and drink with my friends track side while WATCHING everyone else run and not have to do it myself. St. Patty's Day I can deal with, Jim Taylor weekend... yeah, not giving that up. 

So that gives me five and a half weeks of no alcohol...  no beer, no wine, no beloved tequila and whiskey. And throughout this time I'm going to get my ass outside and run more (5 to 8 mile runs), do more toning (these thighs have GOT to shrink), more ab work, and try to eat healthier. Sincerely try. I have such a bad sweet tooth and a father whose idea of grocery shopping is the chip aisle, the Entenmann's display, white bread, and nothing from the fresh produce side of the store despite bananas. I plan on posting everyday (possibly), with weights, maybe measurements, recipes and exercises I've tried, who knows what else...probably a healthy dose of sass. I have the mentality that if I'm going to broadcast myself to all my facebook "friends" and twitter, I'm going to work my ass off to actually prove that I can do it and not embarrass myself (and I literally hope I work my ass off).

So raise a glass for me, I'll miss it.

The high school body I'd love to go back to and the girls I'd love to see again!