Brazilian Bummer

I called the spa today to set up an appointment for my semi-monthly brazilian, low and behold my esthetician, Cathy, isn't there anymore! This is a complete disaster. Not only does this lady use hard wax [virtually painless ladies] but I freakin love her! No lie, I'll be sitting on the table bare assed after my waxing just talking to her about life, she's a riot. I know that they probably won't give me any of her contact information because they don't want to lose business but I need to get it somehow. My sister is going in for a wax at 4 so I'm going to tag along and make up some story to hopefully get at least her e-mail address.

My dad and I went to yoga this morning followed by a late lunch about an hour ago. I had grilled salmon on top of a heaping plate of mixed greens with orange vinaigrette. As per usual I'm flying solo this week [my dad goes away on business monday-friday almost every week which basically means I get to live in a house all by myself]. I'm gonna miss him but at least I can take my bananas out of their hiding spot haha. If I leave them out in the fruit bowl he'll eat them all before I even get to one!

This is me and the banana stealer at our favorite post-ski/boarding bar in Vail, Colorado

Death By Trainer

I just got back from the gym [read: getting my ass kicked]. Today I worked with my trainer on back and biceps, with abs too of course. Let me tell you, I will never slack off on my daily ab workouts ever again! For me it's one of those things where when you've been on track for a long time you love doing them but once you stop for a couple days you never want to even think about crunches or leg lifts again. In addition to this pain I also expect my biceps to fall off my arms some time between tonight and tomorrow morning haha.

I'm contemplating yoga tonight but for now off to planet smoothie for a frozen goat...yum :]

For your entertainment: a funny picture I took of my cat a couple days ago

I've Reached a New Low...In a Good Way!

148.6!

It took me a week to get back down to my weight before Pittsburgh [149.8] but today I surpassed it! This is the lowest I've weighed since I've started college, I feel absolutely fantastic. Especially since I've been busting my butt ever since I've returned; My daily [well 5-6 days of the week] routine is yoga in the morning followed immediately by the gym and 30 minutes of cardio. It feels really good to be working out this much and I get to treat myself to things that I was previously afraid to consume when I wasn't working out nearly as much. Yesterday I had a chocolate elvis from planet smoothie [frozen probiotic yogurt, banana, chocolate, and peanut butter!].

While this is a great achievement, I can't slack off now. My goal is to stay between 125-130, so I still have some pounds to shed, especially before vacation. The photo below is a picture of my sister and I on vacation in 2008, I weighed 128 pounds then and felt amazing. I know that I won't have that kind of bikini body this year but hopefully next year [that's my second goal]. Either way, I like to look at this picture for motivation and relief when I'm feeling frustrated, it reminds me that I can get to goal because I did it before. Do you girls have anything that helps motivate you in moments of weakness?

Melanie [left] & I in Atlantis :]

Worst Day of My Life...

No, I am not being over-dramatic. I honestly think this could be one of the worst things that could ever happen to me, absolutely heartbreaking; Simon Gagne has been traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Ugh. I know this may sound ridiculous to most people thinking "he's just an athlete get over it", but he's so much more than just and athlete.

Drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers in '98, Gagne is the player with the longest history playing for any Philadelphia sports team. Not to mention saving the flyers from defeat multiple times in this years playoffs. Also, Simon Gagne scored the game winning goal in legendary game 7 against the Boston Bruins after being down 3-0 in the beginning of the series. Only two other NHL teams have ever pulled of such a feat.

I have been a loving fan of his since I was nine and will continue to be. Gags you'll be missed :[

I'm In Miami, Bitch?

This afternoon my mom and my sister left for a little 5 day vacation to Miami. I didn't go because two years ago just my mom and I went to Atlantis for a week, leaving my sister behind since she was still in school. So this trip was supposed to be the "make up" for that. Anyway, they have probably been there for about 4 hours and are already telling me to find a ticket for tomorrow so I can fly down and join them haha! Of course I would love to, I mean really who wouldn't? However, it seems that the cheapest flight would be around 700 dollars, which I guess is kind of a blessing in disguise because I have so much stuff to do this week and if I went down there I would most likely end up partying way too hard and consuming way way wayyy too many calories.

Switching topics

Sunday is the day of the week where my dad and I go to yoga followed by croissants at this amazing little cheese shop down the block from the yoga studio. I usually get the raspberry and brie croissant but today the lady had made blueberry-lemon-coconut cream croissants! Obviously I had to try this and I must say it was phenomenal!

Lazy

Well, today was a total bust. After working out extremely hard yesterday [yoga, lifting, and 30 minutes of cardio...about 750 calories burned] I get on the scale and gained 2.2 pounds over night! Really?! I considered my intake yesterday and it wasn't too bad considering the amount of exercise I had done. I probably ate between 1,400 and 1,500 calories. Today I was way too sore to even think about going to the gym but tomorrow I'm going to yoga bright and early, followed by cardio and a back and bicep workout at the gym.

Today's intake was a little higher than what I would like on a no exercise day [about 1,250 calories], we'll see how the scale treats me tomorrow morning. Another thing that really pissed me off this week was the FOUR re-runs of chelsea lately. That's an entire week for that show, so disappointing.

In other news, and on a brighter note, I have doing a lot of online shopping in the past few days. I'm most excited to get my yoga towel from manduka. I sweat a lot when I practice and my hands and feet tend to slip on my mat. A couple months ago a woman in my class had this cool looking hot pink towel over her mat. I asked her about it after class and she said that she also slipped on her mat and that the manduka towel was the solution. They come in all sorts of colors too, I ordered mine in lilac. Can't wait to try it out :]

On the Books

First day back at the gym yesterday = death! I worked on chest and triceps with my trainer and once I was done I felt like my breast bone was going to snap in half. I've never experienced that kind of pain before, it was a good pain though. Today was a bit easier, I worked on legs and put in 35 minutes of cardio.

I realized that I usually do better when I track my intake and plan out my exercise, so I made this handy spreadsheet [pictured below]. It has a few tabs; one for writing down my exercise/workouts daily, another to track everything I ate in a day and count calories, and a third to track my measurements every month. The front page is a basic schedule for my workouts and also tracks my weight loss and intake/output every day. I usually avoid excel at all costs but I actually enjoyed doing this and I'm pretty proud of myself :]

Fact of the Day: [yes it's back!] My favorite color is purple, and has been since I was in preschool. I have a purple striped room [lavender and dark purple] and I love it!

Bitter Sweet

So today was the day. The day I've been dreading since I first arrived in Pittsburgh. The day I had to leave my boyfriend to go home. Now don't get me wrong, I love where I live, I love my friends where I live, I love my family that I live with, and I love being at home. However, I wish that Mike could be a part of that life too. Unfortunately we are currently separated by about 320 miles of Pennsylvania, something that will hopefully change by the end of next year. Spending 11 days and nights with him was so amazing, we did so much; dinner with his family, baseball games, water parks, lotssss of eating at a variety of different places, concerts, fireworks, and plenty of chill time. All of this adding up to the hardest goodbye ever. Did I mention the drive sucked too? Pretty much rained, correction, monsooned for over half the drive [the full drive takes about 5 hours].

But now that I'm back I have some serious shit to focus on. I am afraid to get on the scale for fear of how much weight I gained. I haven't worked out in over a week [ughhh] and I've been eating crap for about a week. I need to get back on track, now that summer class is over I'll be able to put in double sessions at the gym and attend yoga a couple times a week. I also plan on drastically healthifying [yeah I made that up haha] my intake until I leave for vacation on August 7th. Gotta get bikini ready!

miss him already...

Crunch Time

Wow, so I got on the scale this morning and realized that I have reallllly let myself go over the past week in Pittsburgh. Three pounds worth of letting myself go. Ugh. I leave for my annual vacation to St. Marten on August 7th, clearly not leaving me a lot of time to get to my original goal of 130. However, I'm not giving up, I'm just making a more realistic goal for this time frame. I would at least like to be IN the 130's by the time I leave. I'll probably start planning meals and things when I get back home in a few days, but any advice or awesome diet recipes you girls have would be extremely helpful :]

My sister and I in Turks and Caicos for spring break [around 168]

Western Bound

Hope everyone had a wonderful fourth of July! I know I did, some starbucks for breakfast, movies, then back home to cook dinner [extra lean turkey tacos and my signature avocado, lime, mango salsa], then into the city for fireworks over the river :]

Last night was awesome, got to spend 4 hours in the emergency room [note the sarcasm haha]. But everything's good now, leaving for West Virginia in a couple hours to see my best guy friend, Steve. He's basically the older brother I never had. He graduated from Pitt 2 years ago, and now he goes to WVU for grad. Funny thing is he used to be my ex-boyfriends best friend, ha. Either way, I'm expecting a great time as always!

the fireworks in pittsburgh

our dinner & beautiful roses from Mike :]

Light Up the Sky

Happy fourth of July everyone! I hope you guys all have something fun planned for tonight, including fireworks. I love this time of year mostly for that reason. I got to see a fireworks show last night at the baseball game, and again tonight. I don't know if any of you know that Pittsburgh is called the city of bridges [also the steel city], but they have a millllllion bridges. Apparently they close them for the fourth of July so people can watch fireworks over the river on them :]

About to kick off my fourth of July by getting breakfast at a crepe place on campus [I know, not very American], then forcing my boyfriend to see eclipse haha, followed by the regatta and fireworks!

Pittsburgh Sound

After five hours of driving yesterday I finally made it to Pitt. For once it is not grey or freezing here, I brought multiple hoodies just in case. I'm sure I will be needing them. This morning I watched Julie & Julia for the first time, it was fantastic! Maybe i'll try something like that [but on a smaller scale and with a diet cookbook instead haha].

Mike is at class until 1 o'clock but afterwards we're hitting up the gym then going out to dinner with his parents and brother :]

the cathedral of learning on campus, oh how I missed it

First Day of July

149.8!

So not only did I make my goal, but I also just took my final for summer class and I think it went pretty well. I needed to get a 60% to pass the class with a C but I definitely feel that it's going to be an A or B :] Now to the gym then driving to pittsburgh for a longgg visit with my snugglepuss [haha]. I'll probably update later tonight once I get there. Hope you girls have a wonderful day!