I'm Back!

I apologize for my six month hiatus.  Life got crazy and summer was even crazier.  I thoroughly enjoy my weekends off in the summer, however, my bank account does not appreciate it as much as I do.  It was a spring and summer full of weddings and bridal showers, bachelorette parties, trips to the islands, VIP excursions, hanging out with Olympians, enjoying the Olympics, working ten hour days and yea, whew, I'm ready for a break.

I'm definitely excited to go back to my fall schedule today and just get my life back in order.  I may be going back to giving up my Saturdays but I am gaining so much more me time during the week that for me it makes it worth it.

Something I am very excited about beginning today is a workout regimen and diet plan.  Working 10 to 7 all week long took a toll on my diet as I spent everyday at lunch at a fast food place.  Even though I tried to make healthy choices such as whole grain grilled chicken sandwiches, sushi and turkey subs, it most definitely is not as healthy as home cooking meals.  And at 7 when I would get off work, the last thing I wanted to do was grocery shop, cook or even work out and my gut is showing my disdain for such organization.

So this morning I was up early.  Was able to sit around and "pin" and peruse my favorite social networking sites and this morning I started my workouts.  I am going to dedicate an hour a day to working out.  No more excuses.  I'm back blogger!

Workout:
25 minutes of Insanity Cardio Plyo (it kept cutting out and I couldn't take it anymore, this is what I get for trying to "borrow" it from the internet)
3 x 15 Squats supersetted with 30 seconds of wall sits in between sets
2 x 20 lunge walks with weights
1 x 15 Hamstring curls
20 minutes of pilates for abs

Diet:
B: 1 slice whole grain bread with 1 egg over medium and 1 slice weight watcher cheese
Post Workout: Cupcake protein shake (vanilla protein, sugar free cheesecake mix, 1 scoop cottage cheese (2tbs), 1/2 cup coconut milk and 1/4 water
Supplements: B vitamin, multi vitamin, chromium picolate, acidophilus and shot of apple cider vinegar
L: Mixed green salad with grape tomatoes, cucumber, blue cheese and italian dressing
Breaded tilapia (pan seared and whole grain flour)
Snack: Green apple with almonds
D: Grilled chicken breast (george forman), wild rice and steamed broccoli

My goal is to look like this...by Halloween!

The perfect Friday night

Me, a bottle of bohemian highway merlot, edamame and some sushi.

I have yet again gave up sweets for lent (minus the one hershey kiss I ate today. Yes, only one, I swear)! But today made me realize that I need to give up two other things...even if I am two days late.

Drum roll please.....

1. Sushi

2. Shopping

That's right. Two of my latest and greatest vices. Paying bills tonight, as I ate my sushi, I realized in checking my bank account that I could have made my car payment with the amount of money I have spent in sushi this last month (ok maybe not that much), but I definitely could have paid my cable bill, or bought a really nice pair of shoes. So tonight I ate my last sashimi for 38 days. Ok I'll add two for cheating.

And shopping, well it's no surprise that I am a shopaholic. But this week alone I bought myself some Juicy, Gucci (possibly Pucci), and Nike. Um, hello Michele! You just dropped enough money to feed ten children in Africa for a year!

So no sweets, no shopping, no sushi! Ugh I am doomed! And I am embarking on a new project. In the next 40 days I have to volunteer somewhere. I have to give back. I have been so blessed in my life and I need to respect that and so I am going to find something I am passionate about and give back (not through money), through time, my time, the time I waste oh too often on tumblr and facebook. I also am going to embark on a positivity path! That's right. I will not say anything negative for the next 40 days. If I have a negative thing to say about something I am going to keep it to myself! We'll see how this goes because in my experience the only thing people hate more than negative nelly's are positive polly's!

Toodles for now. Going to finish my manicure and start packing for my descent home tomorrow afternoon. I am so excited to be going home!!!

Is the grass ever really greener?

I am a firm believer that there is a balance to life. A yin and a yang, take the good with the bad, the ups and the downs, and any other cliche saying that comes to mind when you are trying to make yourself feel better about a decision or choice gone array.

This is life right? Whether we can justify its purpose or we just go with the flow, we as humans have to come to expect that sometimes things may not always turn out the way that we wanted them to. We can admit defeat or we can try and do something about it.

I feel like sometimes you start out in life with a vision on the type of path you want to travel down and then of course life happens, shit happens, you fall off wagons, you stumble, you screw up, you get up, you dust off, you jump, you leap, you make mistakes, you correct them, you face them, you conquer, you submit and soon you have taken so many short cuts and long ways home that you don't even know which direction you are facing anymore. So you have a choice. You can either keep going forward, hoping to find the path you seemed to have lost and pray that perhaps you actually find a better one to follow, or you can turn around and weep on your way back home. Either way, you are off course and sometimes you find yourself doing things you love that you never realized you would ever be able to do.

Then there are days, like today, when you wonder if you made the right choice to continue walking forward on the path that you found yourself on so many years before. At first the path looked so promising but even the calmest of seas have their storms, and each night the sun sets, and then there is darkness. It can be eerie and you find yourself walking alone and nothing looks familiar anymore and you wonder if turning around would have led you to your destination quicker. And is turning around now too late? Should you keep moving forward? Keep hoping for a sign, wait for the sun to rise, for the fog to clear?

Perhaps the solution is to find strength in your moment of weakness. To build a fire and create your own light. Maybe it won't stay lit for long, or maybe it will be just enough for you to catch a glimpse of where you are to go from this point, and then again maybe it won't. But truly what else is there to do?

Happy (late) New Year

I realize I have been pretty M.I.A for the last two months but I was trying to emerge myself into getting fit and so I started a fitblr blog and have been giving that a lot more attention than this blog. Actually if you want to check it out its...www.tumblr.com/blog/bitterbridesmaid.

I also realize it is seventeen days late to be posting this, but I saw this a few weeks back and something the other day reminded me of something on this list and I had to find it and repost it. It's honestly great advice.

20 New Years Resolutions for 20 somethings...

1) Before you status update, Tweet, Tumble or Instagram, pause and say to yourself, “is it entirely necessary that I share this morsel of thought with my entire social network?”and if the answer is not, “yes, I absolutely must,” then step away from the Internet.

2) Know which candidate you’re going to vote for in the upcoming presidential election, and know why.

3) Enough with the 14-day juice cleanses. If you want to lose a little weight quickly, eat less and exercise like crazy. If you want to lose a lot of weight slowly, do whatever Jennifer Hudson did.

4) If you really like the person you’re hooking up with and would like them to be your boyfriend/ girlfriend, find a way to tell them, and hope for the best. If you don’t and wouldn’t, stop.

5) Find a way to save approximately 300 dollars and spend it on a flight to see a friend or family member who lives far away.

6) Please stop liking the Kardashians, all of them. It’s not helping anyone, least of all the Kardashians.

7) Spend less than or equal to the money you earn each month.

8) Wear clothes that fit you, especially to work.

9) Call someone on the phone at least once a week, and speak to him or her for at least ten minutes.

10) Start preparing now to get over the fact that Facebook is probably going to change again in six months. You’re not going to deactivate your account. You don’t know how.

11) Wait 30 seconds before you look up a fact you can’t remember on your phone, and try to remember it using your brain. This is what the olden days were like.

12) Replace one terrible reality show you’re currently watching with one wonderful scripted show currently available on television. Swap suggestion: Real Housewives of Anywhere for HBO’s Enlightened.

13) Try that food you think you don’t like but have never actually tried, unless it’s brussels sprouts. They really don’t need any more attention.

14) Cut one person out of your life who you truly do not like and add one person who you truly do. Note: not on Facebook, on Earth.

15) If you’re still blacking out regularly, you should stop.

16) Volunteer once over the next 90 days. You’ll feel really good about it, and probably end up volunteering again over the next 275.

17) Tell someone who you love that you love them on a more regular basis. To their face, not in a text.

18) Back up your entire online life onto an external hard drive, especially your photos.

19) Crap or get off the pot. This applies to whatever thing you’re not doing that you should just sack up and do already.

20.) And in the eternal words of Tom Haverford, “TREAT YO SELF!”

Back from Houston

My trip to the Olympic Training Center was amazing. It was great weather (70 and sunny), a little cold at night though, especially when you are given only one sheet and one blanket to sleep with on bunk beds.

My gymnast did great and I got to meet Bela and Marta Karolyi (I dream of mine since I was little). I also got to work side by side with National Team coaches like Tom Forster, Tammy Biggs, Niel Resnick and Valeri Liukin. It was an amazing experience and I am so blessed to have been offered such a fantastic opportunity.

My roommates were so much fun to hang out with which made the experience even better and I am finally taking steps forward in my career of Elite training.

I couldn't have asked for a better trip. Pictures to come soon.

On another note, I am going to begin a new blog today called "The Bitter Bridesmaid" a diet and exercise blog to better track my progress and post recipes to. That way it's not all mixed up in my personal blog and I am not blog savvy enough to learn how to separate it. Perhaps one day. I'll add it to my list of things to do.

Amazing Day...

My perfect day...wake up early to a hot cup of green tea...go to my TGM hot leverage class...come home and clean while listening to the sultry voice of Adam Levine...write and drink a cinnamon coffee...and then go to "work" which isn't work when you love what you do! I have such a blessed life!

I made the most amazing Chocolate Banana whole wheat flax seed pancakes after my workout today...can you say unbelievable!!! They are just as much a mouthful to eat as say, super healthy and so delicious!

Now I am just packing and gearing up for Houston. I am so excited! Not only have I not taken a trip in forever, but I have dreamed for so long about going to the Olympic Training Center and it is finally happening. Six months ago when I was contemplating applying for this job (actually a year ago was when I first saw it listed and just couldn't leave my then job mid-season), I never in a million years believed I would get the opportunities I have been offered so soon. Visits to the OTC, trips to the fiesta bowl and an Olympic Hopeful for 2016!!! Sometimes when I sit back an acknowledge all of the opportunities I have been given I am so blessed. It makes all of those missed chances and what ifs slip away. I truly feel that at this very moment, this is where I am supposed to be. Will this be so forever? Perhaps not. But for right now I am confident that I am finally doing something right.

We all fall off the wagon sometimes...

I went shopping...and at half a chocolate cake that I baked at 10 o'clock last night. Think I'll at least go for a run after work tonight to try and compensate. Ah tomorrow is another day...and I get to go home tomorrow!!! I'm so excited! Going out with friends tomorrow night for our annual thanksgiving eve get together and then spending all day Thursday with family and my mom doing our "projects" and then shopping on Friday before I head back to Columbus...Cannot wait!!!