Alyssa, the Un-Athlete

It’s finals week. Fuck my life. I actually have a pretty chill exam schedule, all things considered, so I can’t even complain too much. But I will anyways. IT’S MY BLOG I CAN DO WHAT I WANT. I have an online essay test due Wednesday that I’ve been slowly plugging away at, and then a final for my goddamn History of Ohio class on Thursday. Since I’ve been neglecting that class all quarter, I expect it to be the paper and pencil version of ripping each eyelash out individually. Ouch. 

Anyways, between all of the barely sleeping and junk food shoveling into my mouth that I’ve been doing, I haven’t been to the gym in a while. I did, however, run outside yesterday morning! It was sooo nice here in Columbus! It actually got pretty hot later in the day, but at 10:30 when I went, it was sunny with a lovely cool breeze! I ran/walked for 45 minutes and it felt great. Sadly, today I’ve been hella sore. It makes me realize what a difference there is between running on a treadmill and running outside. It must work completelyyyy different muscle sets or something, because I’ve been jogging on the treadmill for a few weeks without ever feeling sore. Will have to look into that. It rained all day here today, but hopefully I can get out again tomorrow. It’s an incredible stress reliever! 

This post was basically just another form of procrastination if I’m being completely honestly with you guys, but IDGAF. Back to work!!

I feel like I’ve already plateaued. Except not really because I don’t even think I’ve lost weight. It’s weird. Like I’ve been working out (on and off obvi) for nearly 2 months now and I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything. I’M NOT A MORON. I’m not expecting to already be down a pant size or anything, but I feel like I should at least notice a difference in my… face or SOMETHING jesus. It’s frustrating.  I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not doing enough. I really have been trying to eat healthier in addition to hitting the gym, but it’s so hard. Especially on a college campus. Literally to walk from work to my apartment at 5 I have to pass 4 pizza places. FOUR. In a 10 minute walk. I certainly don’t give into temptation every night, but with a roommate who eats whatever she wants without gaining weight and can easily convince me to order Insomnia Cookies (the name says it all) on a regular basis, I’m starting to think losing weight might be easier said than done. Whoa long sentence there. And that doesn’t even take into consideration calories from alcohol. Damn. It’s like sometimes I wonder if I should give in to my inner fat person. But then I remember how much I hate looking in the mirror and I know I can’t give up just yet.

All that being said, I had a good workout today. I decided I need to stop cutting corners by going for 45 minutes and just do the whole fucking hour. So today I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and then another 30 minutes of run (jog) 5 minutes, walk 5 minutes on a treadmill. Honestly, it felt pretty damn good! It’s just that my confidence is so easily shaken when I see the girls next to me easily running for a half hour at level 7.5 on the treadmill or whatever and I’m barely able to hold it together for 5 minutes at 4.3. Yes 4.3 is what I did today. AND I KNOW I CAN’T COMPARE MYSELF TO THEM. I KNOW. but damn I wish I could just fast forward to when I could.

But enough about that bullshit. My first and primary love in the world is pop culture so I would like to take this paragraph and discuss how I started watching Breaking Bad on Netflix and I can’t handle how much I love it. It’s insane. Pure insanity. I’m only on like episode 5 of Season 1 but I expect to finish it all by the end of the weekend. Well, hopefully not because I have a paper due. But damn. It’s moments like this that make me wish I had an iPad. Only so I could take it to the gym and just watch Breaking Bad for hours and hours and hours while walking on the treadmill.

In other pop culture news, which I’m sure you’ve heard about unless you’re living under a rock, Rihanna and Chris Brown just released TWO songs that they did together today. TWO. I could give two shits about the Turn Up The Music one, primarily because I don’t like to support women beaters in any way, shape, or form, but Birthday Cake is something very near and dear to my heart. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Birthday Cake was a 1:18 minute song on Rihanna’s most recent album Talk That Talk. It literally just fades out in the middle and that’s that. It’s tragic because it is SO. FLY. Well she just released the full version today, featuring none other than the fuckface who beat the shit out of her 3 years ago and doesn’t seem to show any remorse. Now here’s the thing. A certain part of me believes that people do deserve second chances and “If Rihanna can get over it why can we blah blah” but Birthday Cake was so straight flawless as it was and I just can’t fathom why it needed ANY guest artist. I wish I could say I am boycotting the song because I am a woman and have morals, but it was available for free and I thought it would be AMAZING to run to. So yes, I downloaded it. But I’m taking comfort in how I named it on iTunes:

SO TAKE THAT CHRIS BROWN YOU EPIC DOUCHE. 

Was this long and rambly enough for you? Hope so. Good night! 

And by y’all I mean me. Since no one follows me, this is the virtual equivalent of talking to myself. Oh. Anywayssss…

It’s been sort of a lackluster week for working out. I didn’t go at all over the weekend, mainly because I’m a lazy bitch. I had every intention of going Monday after my biochem midterm but since I pulled an all-nighter for it, I felt more compelled to go home and pass the fuck out. 

So that was 3 days in a row that I skipped out on the gym. Here’s the thing: I feel so great about myself when I go, but I have yet to feel guilty when I don’t go. I mean, sure, I feel a little bad, but the feeling passes and 30 seconds later I’m eating ice cream (only sometimes don’t look at me like that). So that’s something I definitely need to work on. I’m hoping it will just develop over time. I’m still a newbie at this, guyz. 

But I did go Tuesday and yesterday! Yesterday I did a really intense workout on the elliptical because I knew I was going out for margaritas later that night. See how smart I am? 

Then this morning I woke up hungover and with a sharp pain in my right thigh. I can’t figure it out! I know I didn’t wipe out while drunk so I’m fairly certain it stemmed from the gym. Pulling a muscle perhaps? That’s never happened to me (since I never used to work out). I’m pretty sure it’s not just ‘being sore from a good workout’ since it’s severe pain and only in one leg… I’m hoping it will feel better by tomorrow, but since I’ve practically been limping, I skipped the gym AGAIN today. Not good. I’ve been trying to only skip once a week (let’s just call those ‘recovery days’ shall we?)

I promise, besides the boatload of delicious fried tortilla chips and a 36-ounce margarita last night, I’ve been eating really healthy this week. I know it’s all about trade-offs, so at least I’m getting the hang of that. Oh no. I just remembered my friend and I also ordered queso last night. Shit.

So new goals: get rid of this damn thigh pain, stop skipping the gym, eat better, stop buying half-priced Valentine’s candy at CVS. SORRY.

Today, I cooked quinoa for the first time. I was a little intimidated at first, but it wasn’t hard at all! I burnt the stuff at the bottom of the pan a little bit, but I do that with rice too so nbd. I specifically made this recipe, because ever since I started working at Honeybaked Ham 5 years ago, Broccoli Rice Casserole has been one of my favorite things EVER. I sort of forgot to buy the reduced-fat cheese that the recipe calls for so my version is a little higher in calories and fat than what it was supposed to be but that’s alright. I also had a hell of a time trying to steam the broccoli. I don’t have a steamer pan because I’m in college duh, and I didn’t want to use the microwave because I’ve heard that broccoli loses a tooon of its nutritional content that way. But I ended up using the microwave because I had no other options. I thought about just drinking the green juice at the bottom of the bowl, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. Oh well. 

Also, full disclosure: I didn’t make it to the gym today. I know. Don’t look at me like that. Columbus is super icy right now and I have a midterm on Monday that I needed to study for instead… but I did try to eat relatively healthy to make up for it. I had a turkey wrap with an entire half of an avocado (and bacon JEEZ IM SORRY STOP JUDGING ME) and some fresh strawberries for lunch and a small serving of this quinoa stuff for dinner. 

Anyways, I’ll try to go tomorrow and work out for double the amount of time. But yeah, that’s all for now. I was just really excited about the quinoa thing and had to share!

I have a new inspiration. And her name rhymes with Shady Haha. 

I’ll give you a minute to stew that over.

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Ok minute’s up! It’s Lady Gaga!!!!!! Did you guess correctly? You may not know this about me but I’m possibly Lady Gaga’s biggest fan. I love everything she does and everything she’ll ever do. If you follow her on twitter, you know that yesterday she announced what the stage of her new tour will look like. It’s awesome. 

See that enclosed space in the center? It’s called the Monster Pit and the best dressed/most dedicated/psychotic fans get to stand in there and some of them will be picked to get to meet Mother Monster herself! Obviously this is a dream come true, and I need to start planning my outfit like…. NOW. 

But here’s the thing. Gaga is like a size 0 and I’m a size eighdkjfas… oh what’s that? I was mumbling a little bit there? My bad. Anyways, I want to be able to rock a leotard and fishnets and crosses on my boobs with confidence. So I will be working extra hard to try to get my shit together for what will hopefully be a Columbus or Cleveland tour date in the summer! 

Hey, whatever works right? I had a really excellent workout today with that in mind, but I sort of blew it tonight by ordering pizza with my roommate. I had a terrible day and ripped off one of my fingernails while doing laundry (it’s not supposed to make sense, just go with it) so I think I deserved it. I had a really healthy lunch and it’s all about moderation :) 

That’s all for now y’all. Time to go bust out this paper on the cognitive development theory that’s due tomorrow at midnight. Ugh.

I went out Thursday and got ~*pretty*~ drunk so Friday was really rough for me. Just a mess of pounding headaches and constant thirst. BUT after my biochem lecture ended at 3:48 I sucked it all up and went to the gym, and after I was on the elliptical for 45 minutes, my headache was gone. G O N E. I was stupefied. Now, I’m going to have to do some further research (aka drinking more… like that will be hard) to see if there truly is a common link between working out and reducing hangover symptoms, but I was so excited nonetheless! 

Will keep you all posted on this astounding breakthrough.