Resolutions

It strikes me as I read other people's blogs today, that it is New Years Resolution time. I do not as a general rule make resolutions because (a) I do not actually follow through and then I feel guilty that I didn't do what I said I was going to do, and (b) either I will do something or I won't, resolving to do something is not really helpful. Anyway, I am going to make a small exception this year in terms of the weight loss goals. As of Monday, Jan. 3, 2005, I am going back to what I like to think of as "Kat's pain in the ass hard core plan". It pretty much works as follows: 1. 6 days a week of working out (that means 30 minutes minimum at the gym a day which I have been slacking on since I moved here) 2. No bread, sugar, and minimal amounts of rice (a huge staple in this culture). 3. No eating the food at work, back to strictly controlling my diet. 4. No alcohol, I am going with this one because I spend a lot of time going out and I think I am drinking a fair number of calories that I do not need. That is pretty much it, I aim for simplicity in all things, and this is very simple and straightforward so I know that I can abide by it. I have been letting things get away from me since I moved and started the new job but I am hoping to get completely back on track and lose the remaining weight that is hanging around. I have already bought new running shoes for my gym workouts (you really don't want to know how nasty my shoes are that I run around in the jungle in) and I should be all set by Monday with everything else. I picked Monday only because today and tomorrow are really hectic and there is no way that anything is getting done before then in terms of general life stuff, but I will be organized by Monday and so that is a good start date. Oh, and I am going to try and blog more regularly, no really I mean it this time.

Happy New Year!

Today is in fact New Years day where I live, it is a very nice Saturday if you were wondering about it. I am stuck at work , one of the joys of being an attorney is that sometimes you have to work on weekends. Since I was also out until about 1:30 am yesterday and got up at 7:30 this morning I am rather tired. Hopefully I will be out of work by four and I can go running on the hash. Yesterday we went on a pretty mellow hike and climbed down and around four waterfalls. I sort of view yesterday as my saturday since I am at work today while my roommates sleep in until about noon. On the plus side, getting up and going to work means that I have had to be pretty organized today and get things done rather than lazing away the weekend. The only bad thing about working is that I have the pager for work and I have to walk around with something that makes an awfully loud racket and requires me to hunt down a phone a.s.a.p. Anyway, I have to go check on work things now and probably sign some papers.

Disco Inferno

Last night after work my roommate and I went to aikido. Basically aikido consists of me being thrown around by higher ranked individuals and then developing bruises. Last night was especially good because I kept turning in the wrong direction and not moving quickly enough. However, after a good solid hour and ten minutes of that foolishness, we went home and then went out dancing. There was a big disco party at one of the local hotels so of course we went with a bunch of our friends. I figure that we danced for about two hours on and off (the first hour pretty much consisted of us jumping around the dance floor and the second hour we took a couple of breaks. Today we are going hiking, probably a pretty mellow hike because one of my friends is injured and is having her stitches removed today. Here, tonight is New Years Eve so we will probably go out somewhere but I don't know how late I will stay out because I have to be at work at 8 am on saturday. Saturday and Sunday are jam packed as well this weekend. I have to admit that my social schedule is becoming a little bit excessive, hopefully next weekend will not be this busy and I can get some more sleep in since I feel a little tired today.

Yet another party

My office in an attempt to help me gain ridiculous amounts of weight by holding yet another party this week (I think we are up to five or six office parties in the last two weeks). I am bringing fruit because it is both healthy and easy. However, I have no doubts that there will be a ton of fattening food which I will have to avoid because I am attempting to go back on my regular diet now that we are through the holiday season. Anyway, I feel more like I am back on plan today, I had tuna and brown rice for lunch (yes, I know all about mercury in tuna but I am choosing not to care) and cereal for breakfast and no snacking in between meals. I am going to eat fruit at the party which is the major reason that I bought it as my contribution to the meal. Tomorrow, I have the day off, so I am going to hopefully get in some exercise and working out (especially since I have to work on Saturday). Anyway, back to work I go until the party this afternoon.

Merry Christmas to me

I just gave myself a christmas present, I may never go shopping again. In case you are puzzled, let me explain in detail. I paid off my credit card bill to the tune of several thousand dollars (for the record, you try moving halfway around the world and then we will talk about your credit card bill). The only good news is I get paid tomorrow so that this whole experience will be slightly less painful by Friday or so. Anyway, I am very pleased with myself that I could finally take care of the bill, I have to say it is just amazing what you can do when you have an actual job that pays actual money. On other fronts, such as the diet wars I have nothing to report other than I am attempting to stay on track and getting interupted by parties and celebrations. However, I have been maintaining and I am getting back on track with my eating as best I can right now. I have been having some ankle problems but I expect to be going to the gym by the weekend. I can't go today because we have a lunch time work meeting but I may go for a jog depending on what time I get home tonight. Anyway, got to run to my meeting.

Out of the dark

I survived running around in the dark intact, then again I was not really running around in the dark since most of the trail was set through a well lit section of town. I think there is little better than seeing the puzzled look on tourist's faces as a group of men and women tear past them clad in athletic gear, camel backs, carrying flashlights, and madly screaming "On on". As one of my friends was heard to comment last night, we really look like a very strange cult. Tonight, I have aikido and then another birthday party (this one at a bar) for a friend. I am rather banged up after last night, but sadly not from the run, rather my air conditioning unit leaks and I have a tile floor, so I slipped on my floor last night. It was really rather graceful except for the moment where I totally banged up my wrist and ended up with bruises every where. So, back to work I go, I have to be in court in an hour and I have a lot of work to do before then.

All my friends

I have to say that this whole having a job and life thing is getting in the way of the updating of the blog thing. Anyway, I am back and have survived Christmas more or less, large amounts of food and beverage but I did alright. Besides which, my friends who were immensely tired of my whinining about not going to a gym got me a gift certificate for two months to the nearest gym. I am going to try and start going during my lunch hours. Not today however because I am going on a hash run tonight which will probably take about an hour. It is actually a run in honor of my friend R.R.'s birthday so I have to go and participate. However, this fact brought me to an interesting realization the other day which I thought I would share. ALL. OF. MY. FRIENDS. WORKOUT. No, really, they all do and most of the things we do together involve working out. I have friends who play rugby, friends who do aikido, friends who dive, friends who play frisbee, friends who run around in the jungle, and friends who do all of the above and more. I don't hand out with anybody who is sedentary or anybody who would consider just sitting around on the weekend. This is an extraordinary thing for the girl who grew up with friends who pretty much avoided exercise, (thus allowing me to avoid exercise). Anyway, it was a reminder that the best way to change is to surround yourself with similarly minded people who enjoy the same things. So, on that note, back to work I go for another hour and a half before I leave to go run around in the dark.

Where was I again?

Um, yeah, I have no excuse for having been away this long. Well, maybe a little excuse, I was in trial last week and that took up all my free time. This week has been equally insane at work, I never even stopped for lunch today. I have been working out, running in the jungle, frisbee, and aikido as always. Not great on food but it has been balanced out by a continuous lack of eating meals (not a good plan) yesterday I barely ate lunch or dinner. However, that was probably balanced out by the three hour brunch I attended this last Sunday. I had to celebrate my friend's upcoming birthday afterall. I have two parties this weekend, another one tomorrow, one next monday, and another one next tuesday. However, at least I worked out like an insane maniac at Aikido yesterday and sweated up a storm. One of my classmates at the dojo was doing a belt test so we did not get as long a workout time, which meant that my sensei decided to make us work harder when we were practicing. I have the huge purple bruise on my shoulder to prove it. Can you believe I actually pay money to get tossed around and bruised? I am really that crazy. Anyway, I have to get back to work now, I have huge stacks of paper all over my desk.

Incoming

Just popping in briefly to mention that I may not be posting for a bit. It appears that once again a tropical storm/typhoon is rapidly approaching my little corner of the globe. Power is always a dicey propostion during such events as is leaving the house. Today, we play frisbee but tomorrow we may well be cooped up and playing large amounts of trivial pursuit. So, today was a mad rush to the store to purchase all relevant items such as water and dried/canned food in preparation. A little hard to get really healthy food that does not require a lot of prep but I tried and purchased canned fish, low calorie snacks, and extra cereal (because seriously I could probably live on cereal even though it wouldn't be healthy). Anyway, if we are lucky the storm will miss us entirely, if we aren't lucky there will be a lot of wind, rain, and no electricity. either way, it is always an experience but at least the island I live on is pretty prepared for these sort of storms. Anyway, I am off to get a few more things done and I will be back later (provided I have electricity and a working internet connection).

Then again maybe not

So, I've been away for a bit, it has been pretty busy at work. Anyway, I went and observed rugby practice and I think that I will not be joining up after all. Too much potential for injury and frankly too much team sport focus. I think I will join the gym near work instead of killing myself by having people hurl their bodies at me. I am just really not competitive enough for rugby and I am frankly not sure that is a bad thing. Anyway, I decided that I have been trying way too hard to join team sports I don't really want to do and should get back to focusing on the type of exercise I enjoy (most of which takes place in a gym) and stop trying to prove that I have the potential to be the world's best athlete (because frankly I don't have any real athletic ability). So, that is my new plan as of today, we will see how it works out over the course of the next few weeks but I think we can definatively say that I will not be playing rugby or any other sport involving tackling and serious hand/eye coordination. Well, except for frisbee but that isn't really competive right now.

Working girl

I just want to mention that I have been ridiculously productive at work today. Cleared a bunch of cases off my desk and worked up pleas for others. On the other hand, I did not have to go to court today and that probably helped quite a bit. Anyway, that was totally un-weight related wasn't it? I ran around a lot playing frisbee yesterday, we were missing a lot of people and that always means a lot more running around than normal. Tomorrow, I have aikido and Wednesday is Rugby practice so I feel like I will be pretty active this week. I am working on the food thing still, especially since I ran out of breakfast food yesterday and did not have breakfast today. So, the secretaries brought in food and I ate some for breakfast but I have been okay for the rest of the day and we will probably go food shopping tonight so I can buy more food. I don't think that there is currently any real food in the apartment with is kind of sad but we have not been around much recently. Anyway, I have to get some more odds and ends tied up before I leave work for the day and go crash at home (well, unless something comes up and I end up going out which happens a lot).

Now doesn't that sound like a good idea

Today, in my true idiotic fashion I went hiking and ran around in the jungle and only ate lunch. No breakfast, no dinner, just lunch. Oh, and apparently last night when I was out, I agreed to join a women's rugby team being started by one of my jungle running friends. That is right, rugby, so when I severely injure myself at some point, remind me that this seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyway, I needed another athletic sport to help beat my body into shape. Anyway, I am going to go to bed now because I have a ton of things going on tomorrow and it is either go to bed or eat dinner and I am a lot more tired than hungry. Besides which ten o'clock is way too late for dinner in my view and really sleep seems a lot more important right now. That is what running around in the jungle all day will do to you.

My problems with food

So, you know my whole brilliant plan to balance out my meals yesterday with a bigger dinner. Never happened. Now, before you assume that I careened madly off plan and ate everything in sight, I remind you that this has not been my pattern recently. Nope, I just didn't really eat much dinner, I had some tapioca root, and a smoothing type drink (no ice cream involved). I think if I am really lucky I ate 1,100 calories total yesterday and that is only if I am really lucky Today, I am not doing much better, I ate breakfast, lunch, and admittedly some small pieces of chocolate due to hunger pangs prior to lunch. I think maybe I have hit 900 calories so far today, and again I think that maybe generous on my part, especially giving my lunch was a drink and four pieces of sushi at which point I was not hungry anymore and threw out the rest of the sushi. This is not a healthy dietary plan, I know this logically. I also know that I only ate the chocolate because I was stressed and hungry, so I am working on making sure that does not happen again. I having been slipping up too much foodwise recently and I need to get back on track and make what I am eating more nutritionally healthy (oh and possibly over 1000 calories a day, that would be good too). Anyway, back to work especially since I have some big cases coming across my desk right now.