“I’ve made a horrible mistake”

“I’ve made a horrible mistake” — That’s something I usually say after caving in an eating my comfort foods. Let’s face it: Pasta and cheese are amazing. If you can have them together, that’s just perfect, right?

This is the type of thinking that gets me into trouble on the daily. Like most of you, I live a pretty hectic life. My work/life balance skews towards the work side of things and when I get home I feel like being lazy. Sometimes I can’t even do that. Here I am at 10:30pm on a Tuesday night sending work emails for a last-minute, early-morning meeting that just has to happen.

This type of lifestyle, or lack thereof, doesn’t exactly lend itself to working out everyday. But, to be fair, I’ve never really been in the habit of working out for a long period of time. I’ve always been a pretty lazy geek/nerd. I prefer video games, documentaries, and books to treadmills and sweat. My metabolism was pretty fast, I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted and life was good.

These feels.

That is until I became an adult. Suddenly my metabolism started slowing down, my tolerance for greasy, high-carb, high-fat foods diminished and I’ve now found myself in this transition phase.   I have to learn how to eat right and exercise now, before I do too much damage.

This is particularly difficult for me because I HATE cooking. I’m not good at it and it’s really disappointing to cook something and find out it isn’t even decent. Although, I have to wonder if I just hate doing dishes. It seems like a lot of hard work to cook something and clean up afterwards with the reward being a proper portion size and NOT pasta.   When I had more time and a dishwasher, I cooked way more often. So maybe I just have to learn to cook quick, easy meals that don’t make a lot of mess, right?

To be fair, I did take a step in, what I believe to be, the right direction by becoming a pescatarian last year.   What is a pescatarian, you ask? Basically, I eat fish, eggs and dairy but I avoid all other kinds of meat. Being more open to the pescatarian, vegetarian and vegan meal plans has inspired me to try new and exciting things that I would have never tried as the T-Rex I was before.

There is another side to this though, since I live in LA (land of the fad diets) I have tried some of them and they also leave me saying “I’ve made a horrible mistake.” I tried one of the juice cleanses and by the 3^rd day I was so hangry I could have eaten my own arm.   It wasn’t for me.

My resolve is to find a balance. Slowly learn to cook more, eat more vegetables and cut out the pasta and cheese. I love it, but I always regret it a few hours later when my body starts rejecting it like an organ transplant. It’s not worth it… and my bank account will probably thank me if I stop eating out so often.

Lifetime movie idea: ‘A Life Without Cheese’

Another thing I’ve done to help my bank account and waistline is to start biking and walking to work.  I realized that I’m pretty fortunate to live very close to my place of employment, so I’ve taken advantage of it.  The only downside to biking and walking is all the sweat I deal with when I get to work, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Hopefully I can find other means of tricking myself into working out as time goes on.  If I can’t, I’ll just have to use all that money I’ll save from not eating out to join a gym.  Maybe I’ll actually go if it’s convenient enough?  That’s something to figure out another day.

-Gretchen

What Went Wrong

When I came to college, I was fairly well put together. I worked out, I ate fairly well, I took time for all the right things. Three years of year-round college combined with a few injuries (including, but not limited to being hit by a car) and then taking on 3 jobs at once, it’s hard to keep myself together.

Part of the reason I wanted to get this blog started was the need to hold myself accountable. To have record of the positive advances in my life, but also take responsibility for the relapses I have. That being said, the process going forward is going to be extremely tough, but I have at least the framework of a plan. Please, come on this journey with me.

Step One: Eliminate Temptations

A HUGE part of what has led to me getting out of shape is that I’m addicted to sugary drinks. In a recent trip to Wal-mart, I actually bought 4 12 packs of Baja Blast. Until I get rid of all of it, it will be a temptation, but I’m on the final 12 pack and I’m not sure if that should be considered progress or just sad. Once I start drinking water, I am hoping that my BELLEH gets back in control.

Biggest weakness, no joke.

Step Two: Get Active

One thing I have found out over the years is that I LOVE two forms of working out: Basketball and Mountain Bike Riding. That being said, I hate to do these activities alone, and I’m going to just have to get over it.

Basketball is actually how I was injured a few years ago. When I say injured, I don’t mean an ACL tear or anything too serious, I just fractured my foot and had to be in a boot for several months. What happened was, my game was built less on skill and more on being in constant motion and hustling for every loose ball. Unfortunately, I turned the wrong way and SNAP, I barrel-rolled on the ground in pain inside my college’s gym. Then, due to a doctor telling me basically “its just bruised, take some tylenol and get over it,” I played basketball and worked out on my fractured foot through the pain. Truth be told, even when I was in the fracture boot, I still worked out and played basketball like I was fine. It is sad that I loved the game so much then that I would go to such lengths to play it, and now I barely play every two to three weeks.

Biking is better in a group! Pro-tip, I’m not in this pic.

Riding my bike is a completely different feeling. Instead of the awesome feeling of making an explosive play or making a terrific shot, my brain takes time to de-stress. It’s almost as if while I’m on the trail, nothing else matters. It’s a similar feeling to going fishing or playing golf. Its good to remove from the world. I need to take more time away from things like my cell phone and Facebook and start finding the things that make me happy.

My hope is that when I become more active, I’ll stop taking so many naps and instead start feeling better about myself.

Step 3: Take time for the RIGHT things

I need to take time to see my friends. I need to take time to visit my family. I miss my dog.

Graduating college at 20 years old, its been a little hard for me to adjust to adult life. What I mean is that, most people my age are able to work hard and play harder. Right now I work, complain about my life but ultimately do nothing, and forget to make plans with the people important in my life. I’m blessed to have a co-host that is a very close friend of mine, but when we hang out, its still about work. Part of what will help me stop being so negative is just seeing my friends again.

Snooze Buttons are beautiful, but there isn’t one on life.

The thing that I, and anyone who is on this type of journey with me, need to understand is that these stages are fairly simple but take time. It means that I’ll need to be a little less lazy, and maybe even sacrificing a little bit of my time sleeping (can I change my mind already?); HOWEVER, I think getting back in shape and taking steps in the right way will make my life infinitely better.

With all that said, I’m going to go work out.

-Dave