Operation Bikini: Update 1

For the purposes of my weight-loss plan, I decided that the week starts on Monday.  As I wrote, on Monday I went on an 11-mile hike, so that was my first “flex day” for the week, meaning I didn’t count calories.  I enjoyed some pizza and a margarita but didn’t go overboard.  Tuesday I did a great job eating (under 1000 calories), and went mountain biking with Zach.  Unfortunately I tripped on the rutted road and fell off, with the bike pedal hitting me right in the upper arch bone of my foot.  Ouch!  That was swollen and kinda sore until mid-afternoon today.  It kinda led me down a bad road, since instead of going for another bike ride I decided to make Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Filling and Chocolate Ganache (recipe: Ming Makes Cupcakes) for Zach!  I didn’t actually eat a cupcake, but of course I consumed a good amount of the batter, filling, and ganache.  (Baker’s privileges, you know.)  So today became my second “flex day” already.  I did kick myself in the butt and got outside for a 30 minute walk, plus did 50 pushups and 150 crunches for at least a little exercise.    I definitely indulged a little too much today and need to work more on the moderation thing for my flex days next week.  So now I am facing a stretch of at least 4 days eating strictly (1000 calories or less).  It’ll be hard but I can do it!  Writing these posts will definitely help me stay accountable.

The dreaded diet post

Guys, I hate writing this.  But I feel I must.  Things have come to the point where unless I start making some changes and exercising some accountability I am never going to be happy with my body.  My bad habits and severe lack of self-control have been WINNING (Charlie Sheen, anyone?).  I really really want to turn things around and drop 20 pounds so I can cross #17 (Wear a bikini and look hot) off my Thirty by 30 list.  The thing is, I just SUCK so much at losing weight.  I try really hard for a few weeks, then have one bad day, feel bummed, and continue the badness for a whole week.  Hence the horribly unoriginal and boring blog post about “my new diet plan!”  Honestly though, I’m writing this for the accountability.  I just want to put my goal out there on the internet for all to see AND make myself post updates as my goals are accomplished.  And they will be!!!!!!!  (Woo, positive thinking.)

So here’s the deal.  After my junior year of college I did lose my freshman 15 (I’ve since gained it all back and more) and what worked for me then was calorie counting.  Ugh, I know.  But it’s the simplest and most logical method to me with the least restrictions on WHAT I can actually eat.  So that’s what I’m gonna do.

THE PLAN

1. Count calories and eat 1000 calories or less at least 5 days per week.

2. Exercise every day. (gym, hiking, biking, yoga, something!!!!)

3. 2 days a week can be a little bit more flexible.  If I want to have a treat, some drinks, or go out to eat I can.  This will help me stay sane and have things to look forward to.  BUT these days are also a tool to help myself learn moderation.  Just  because I’m not counting does not mean I can fully unleash the munchie monster.  If I stuff myself silly 2 days a week it will totally undo the benefits of the other 5 low-cal days, so I am going to really concentrate on being REASONABLE!

4. I’m not going to weigh myself obsessively.  I’m going to wait to weigh myself until I notice some changes.  I think this will help me focus on sticking with the plan just to be healthy, not to achieve specific numbers.  (Although theoretically if I do this right those numbers will come!)

5. All bets are off for my birthday week.  My best friend and her hubby will be visiting and there will probably be lots of treats.  But it’s my birthday and I will not care!!!!  But that is the ONLY week I am allowed to go off-plan until I meet my goal.

6. If I get to where I want to be before we move away from Flagstaff, I’m rewarding myself with a brand new outfit from this AWESOME but slightly expensive store in town, The Rainbow’s End.  (I haven’t bought any clothes not from Kohls or the thrift store in years.)

That’s it.  Seriously, I KNOW I can do this because I’ve done it before.  If I can just make myself buckle down it should only take around 3 months to get back to where I want to be.  That means I could get my bikini out by the end of this summer!  I would LOVE that!  I just really need encouragement.  So please, if you read this, send me some happy thoughts AND make sure to ask me how things are going once in awhile.  Hopefully I’ll have some positive changes to report soon!!!  Thanks for bearing with such a superficial post!

Orbital Gyroscopic Action

Is it bad that I kind of really want this?  It’s so ridiculous, yet so…awesome.  And where the heck is the male narrator from?  Weirdest accent ever!

Easter/Gross Sensory Memories

Zach and I started a new tradition today…an Easter picnic!  We drove down the mountain to Sedona after I got off work at 3 and had just enough time to find a nice trailhead, eat a delicious picnic dinner (deviled eggs mmmmm!!!), and go for a short hike among the red rocks.  It was peaceful and lovely.

On to the second half of the post title…we saw a jeep tour vehicle drive by and joked about the company name: “Arizona Safari Company.”  I was like, “Ha, I wonder how many animals they saw on their ‘safari’!”  A moment later the jeep zoomed past us and kicked up a ton of dust from the dirt road, flooding our car with it before I got the sunroof closed.

As soon as I felt the layer of dirt settle over the seats, my forehead, everything, I thought, “Wow, it kinda does feel like Africa now!”  I remembered something my friend Kristie said when we were in Kenya about how her boogers were black from the inside of her nose being constantly coated in dust.  I totally felt that way after that jeep gave us a dust-bath and it did bring me back to Africa in such a quick, sensory way.

So yeah, black boogers and a sweaty layer of dust on your face.  That’s the feeling.

Ming Makes Cupcakes

I have a new obsession:  Cupcake Baking.

It’s all thanks to stumbling upon this site one day at my old job where I surfed the Internet all day.

Ming Makes Cupcakes

Go there.  I dare you.  There is a never-ending list of amazing cupcake recipes.  All so creative and unique.  I think my new personal mission in life is to try all of them.

So far, I’ve made three different recipes: Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting and Ganache, and Coffee Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting.  As you can tell, I’m now a big fan of baking with booze.  If it’s in the frosting it still gets you tipsy too!!! Yay!!!

Here is my picture of the Coffee Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting that I just made today:

I'm not very good at taking pictures of my food yet...I'm trying to get better!

Cupcakes are amazing!!!!!!!  Does this website make you want to get baking as much as it makes me?

Disclaimer:  I do not know who Ming is and this post is in no way sponsored by her.  I just love love love her cupcake ideas and wanted to share them with the world!!!!!

April (Snow) Showers

Zach and I were both supposed to work Saturday, but when we woke up at the dreadful hour of 5:45am, there was a foot of snow outside.  By the time we got the car down the driveway there was no hope of Zach making it to work by 7 so he called off.  I was determined to still make it to my new job so Zach somehow drove all the way to the interstate on our crazy unplowed roads.  I was already questioning whether I should even try to make it when we saw the highway wasn’t even plowed yet.  Oh, and it was still snowing.  So I called off.  Criollo didn’t care, they knew it would be dead anyway.  Phew.

Yay!  An unplanned but much-needed day off!  Since we had already braved the treacherous roads and were awake from digging out the car we decided chow-time was in order.  We had some delicious breakfast and coffee at the Pine Country Restaurant but what I really got excited about was this:

Look at that plethora of PIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alas, apparently normal people do not eat pie at 7am, so our server dropped the check without even asking if we wanted dessert.  Don’t you know we’re not normal????  Don’t worry, we ordered a huge piece of Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie to go and enjoyed it at home later.

When we got home Zach made these:

Don't they look professional? He makes the best Bloody Marys ever!

Then we proceeded to watch the final 3 episodes of Big Love (what will I do without those crazy Mormons in my life?????), cuddle, nap, and make more yummy food.  So as crazy as a foot of snow in April is, we were both grateful for the day off.  We live together but we don’t often get enough time to just chill out.  We end up arguing more when we’re both so busy that we don’t do anything fun together.  It was a much-needed day to reconnect and it got us rejuvenated to face another crazy week.  We can’t wait for South America when we’ll be together 24/7 for a whole year.  We like each other way too much.

Viva Las Vegas

A few weeks ago Zach and I had the privilege of attending an authentic Vegas wedding-chappel wedding.  It was the wedding of a Peace Corps friend of mine and her girlfriend.  They went all out with the Vegas “theme-wedding” idea and had a “Pimps and Hos” wedding.  So this was not only our first Vegas wedding but also our first gay wedding and first wedding where we got to dress in costume.  It was basically just one of those ridiculous situations where we had no choice but to throw caution to the wind and go all out, because when would we have this chance again????

The whole weekend was crazy, as Vegas is supposed to be.  Highlights included: a night-before cocktail party in the “bridal suite” at Hooters Hotel and Casino, walking down the strip and into casinos with our own bottle of wine (cause it’s perfectly legal to BYOB everywhere!), our couchsurfing host bailing on us at the last minute and having to find a seedy motel, stuffing our faces until we literally couldn’t stand up straight at the Circus Circus buffet, wandering the strip watching all the insanity, Zach telling all the Mexicans handing out hooker cards “Quisiera hombre!” then of course, THE WEDDING!!!!

Post face-stuffing. When you pay $13 for lunch you must get your moneys worth. We didnt eat again for 24 hours.

Scandalous!

The wedding took place at the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel.  Half the wedding party dressed as pimps and the other half as hoes, with my friend, the bride, in an awesome white tutu wedding dress and white boots.  The officiant was dressed and acted as Shaft.  It was super funky and fun.  They wrote their own vows and despite it not being your typical, traditional wedding in any way, it was still super heartfelt and very them.  It made me wonder whether the fact that they’re a lesbian couple whose marriage is already not accepted by many people or by their own state government helped them feel enabled to throw out convention for the wedding and just do exactly what they wanted to do.  It was refreshing to watch and was probably the most unique wedding I’ll ever attend.

Of course the best part was that we guests also had to dress up.  In the spirit of embracing the opportunity, Zach and I did some thrifting and went all-out.  I pretty much couldn’t sit down in my dress or walk in my shoes.  I would NEVER EVER EVER have been comfortable wearing this outfit anywhere other than Vegas.  The fact that I had some alcohol in my system and another bottle of wine in my hand also helped.  Zach was gifted his pimp cane and chain by the wedding party since they thankfully had extras.  As for his robe…well that was definitely from the bathrobe section at Savers and is definitely part of a Santa costume.

The shoes stayed off more than on my feet. I thought I was gonna break an ankle when I walked in them.

Pimp-a-licious

We had a ton of fun, although we both still agree that Vegas is a no-more-than-once-a-year place to us.  It’s waaaaay too tacky and materialistic for more often than that.  We definitely had a memorable weekend being there for this wedding though!

Serving is awesome because…

I recently started my new job.  I worked two weekends “in training” before getting the go-ahead to give my 2 weeks notice at my receptionist job.  So now I’m in the midst of my last 2 weeks here AND working weekends at my new job.  It’s crazy exhausting but I LOVE my new job and can’t wait to be there full time.  I’m working at Criollo Latin Kitchen as a server.

 

I hate it when people judge me because I’m a college-grad who’s still serving tables.  I got one particularly condescending response from a current co-worker when I told her I was leaving.  Of course she didn’t say it to my face, but to my friend Matt, who in turn told me.  She flat out told him I was “stupid to leave a job with benefits” and should “stay and advance my career.”  Totally sounds like me, right?

So now, I present to you, my list of reasons why I ACTUALLY LOVE restaurant work.

1. Travel is my priority right now.  I don’t want to start a career and get tied down to it.  I don’t want to have a job I will feel particularly bad about leaving if I decide I want to say, go backpack through South America for a year.  Restaurants are used to high employee turnover rates and are usually full of cool people who will encourage my adventures and are often planning their own.  For me right now, work is a means to end to support my travel habit and independent filmmaking, and not much more than that.

2. Tips tips tips.  I can make SO MUCH MORE $$$$ than I can working at a desk job, or even an entry-level film job.  At my old restaurant, Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers, I averaged $20/hr in JUST TIPS on a bad night.  Criollo is going to be even better.  With $30 steaks and $150 bottles of wine on the menu, I’ll hopefully average about $30/hr just tips for dinner shifts.

3. Benefits are not an issue.  Obama’s health care reform included an awesome idea to make parents’ health insurance cover their children until age 26.  So I get to go back on my dad’s health, dental, and vision, and it’s all WAY BETTER than my $3000-deductible insurance from my current job.  Yay Obama-care!!!!!!!

4. Flexible schedule.  I can work different days each week, pick up shifts when I need some extra cash, and request days off whenever I need them.  None of this “you have 10 vacation days a year” nonsense.  If I NEED a few days off, whether I’m getting sick or I’m going to Mexico, I can get a few days off.  I get paid for the days I work and don’t get paid when I don’t. Makes sense to me.

5. No desks!!!!  I HATE sitting at a desk all day!!!  How utterly unhealthy!!!  Of course serving is the exact opposite…you NEVER get to sit down and are running around the restaurant for up to 12 hours a day.  But being active, busy, and up talking to people all day is just so much more fun than sitting at a desk staring at a screen until your eyeballs burn out of your head and you turn into a big fat blob of mashed potatoes.  Ick.  Moving makes the time go faster AND burns more calories.  Hurrah!  Plus, I swear my back hurts more now just from being in the same position all day than any of my muscles ever hurt when I was serving.

6. Learning opportunities.  At Mellow Mushroom I learned all about microbrews and now I can say I really understand and enjoy good beer.  Criolllo is much classier and thus is all about fine wine and liquor.  So now I’m going to get to learn all about that stuff.  And in the interest of “learning” all of Criollo’s servers get to do a mandatory weekly wine tasting.  Hoo-yeah!  Last week we tasted tequilas rather than wine.  Did you know that expensive tequila actually tastes good to sip?  Shocker!

7. Future.  Zach and I definitely have nomadic tendencies.  He now has tons of experience as an electrician and I have tons as a server.  With these skills we can find jobs anywhere.  Criollo is definitely gonna class me up and hopefully after this I’ll be able to find work as a fine-dining server or bartender.  Mucho peso, baby.  Plus, I could see myself being happy as a restaurant manager if it was at a cool place like Criollo.  And Zach and I have been known to dream about “our bar on the beach” in some expat-friendly area of some developing country.  So I AM developing skills for my future.  And that future, hopefully, will never involve a boring desk job again.

What do you think?  Am I extremely naive and shortsighted?  Or can you see where I’m coming from?

Dumpster Diving

A few nights ago we made some delicious and spicy veggie curry with rice with our 2 Canadian couchsurfers.  They arrived at the same time we got home from work and immediately asked if we had ever heard of “dumpster diving.”  I said “Yeah, of course,” and they replied that they had just raided a grocery store dumpster, so did we “want to make a feast?”

OF COURSE!

They had TONS of stuff, all in totally fine condition and safe, clean packaging, that they had picked up from the dumpster behind one of Flagstaff’s smaller grocery stores.  Broccoli, potatoes, squash, onions, celery, canteloupe, strawberries, and even bagels and and unopened package of DONUT HOLES (demonstrating their Canadian taste buds, hahaha). 

We had a great time cooking and getting to know each other, and we picked their brains about dumpster diving since they were clearly experienced and I have always kind of wanted to try it but never felt gutsy enough.

Apparently they never pay for groceries while on the road and two of their best finds were several bottles of wine and a whole crate of unopened boxes of chocolates!!  (WHAAAA????  Who would throw those out!!!)  Here are their tips for successful dumpster diving:

1. Smaller grocery stores are better because they are less secure and care less.

2. Don’t worry about getting caught- most security guards are on your side andwill just “go inspect the other side of the building” while you’re doing your thing.

3. You do have to get in the dumpster and dig around but it’s not that dirty because everything’s still usually in packaging.

I think they convinced me to try it.  I know many people will probably be grossed out to hear me say that, but I think what’s gross is that we live in a country where SO MUCH EDIBLE FOOD is thrown out to rot every single day.  There are starving Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, people!!!! (Hahaha, we PCVs always said this in Tanzania, but I hope you know I’m just being clever and not making light of world hunger.)

I’ll let you know how it goes.  Would you ever try dumpster diving?  And here’s the kicker:  Considering both health and ethics, which is better: buying organic or dumpster diving for not-necessarily-organic food?