Back on my weight lost grind

I've been here before but I think this time will be different, maybe this time I'm different and I realize I need to get my shit together sooner rather than later. Almost a year and a half ago i was -20, I was on the right track losing weight at a decent pace and becoming more healthy. I can't even pinpoint what happened but instead of going to the gym 3x a week it slowly went down to 2x then 1x. Or going to the gym then right after going out to eat and drink, so the workout was a waste. I decided I needed to make an overall change, and a part of that was trying to incorporate more walking into my life. For the last month, I've been trying to wake up earlier on my workdays and taking Demo on a 15-30 minute walk. I've also have been trying to get off the train 2 stops earlier and walking home.  And on the working out front, On a whim I decided to buy Insanity DVD. My thinking was that it should be easier because I don't have to leave my house and since I spent all this money on the DVD's I'll actually use them.

So onto the DVD's themselves MAN I didn't think I was that out of shape considering I take spin classes very often but boy these Insanity DVD's are no joke. The workout plan calls for 6 workouts a week, and I set out for 6 days but right now I'm up to 3 days of working out. After today I will be up to 4 days. Next week I am aiming for 6 days. I'm hoping once my body becomes stronger that I don't need a day in between for my body to rest. The first day after doing the Fit Test, my body was in so much pain that on Wednesday there was no way I was going to work out. Another thing I am going to try is not drinking for this 60 day challenge (besides beer fest), I don't want to waste the calories. A friend suggested a app that tracks calories and it has been a good app for me, it helps me make decisions on certain foods based on the calories I have left. I decided to write this blog so I can track how well I am doing with these Insanity DVD's so I am going to try to update on a weekly basis to hold myself accountable.

Let the workouts begin!

I'll admit it, I'm lazy.

I can describe apartment hunting in 3 words: I hate it! no seriously I really do. Maybe its because I am lazy and really don't want to put the effort of going to numerous places and having to pack and unpack. Went to see a place today that I hated but my bf liked, well he liked the area not so much the apartment. The apartment just wasn't for me, an apartment is suppose to sell u on immediate impact. My first impressions was HELL NO! so the apartment hunting continues. As the move out date gets closer, I'm starting to realize I am going to miss over here. I've lived in this apartment for 30 months and I've gotten use to certain things and places. Brandon can't wait to move and he is all excited, wish that was my mindset but its not so what can you do.

Even though we're in the early stages of planning I can't wait to go to Istanbul in a couple of months. Which brings me to my new dilemma. I need to stop wasting money on unnecessary things. I follow a set budget when it comes to my bills its the other stuff that's my problem. Two weeks ago I tried to only spend $125 for 2 weeks (already went food shopping), after one day I was down to about $60. But the Indian dinner I went to with a friend was slamming lol. I really need to get it together, for this upcoming trip I've set a stricter budget that I need to start following and hopefully I will be able to do such. Its hard to not spend money in a city where everything fun cost money. I need to either cut back on spending or get a job that pays more, since finding a job these days is hard I will be cutting back on spending. I already know one thing that will have to go: Fresh Direct :-(. I love that place because I'm lazy (see paragraph above) and that place is a lazy person's dream. Doing your food shopping online and having it delivered is so simple and easy but of course things are a bit more expensive than they would be if I went to the supermarket. I placed my last order today and then me and fresh direct will end our beautiful relationship. I'm going to have to find other things to cut, which wont be fun but will pay off in the end.

Murder, cops and lawyers. My book review

I'll start it off by saying I LOVE the Kindle app on my tablet. I am so happy a friend of mine gave me a website and it's really helped me save money since I love to read. Now since I am not paying for the books I can take a chance on certain books. I'm also reading way more than before. Since last week I have read 2 books and I just started another yesterday. I decided since I am reading like crazy I should write a review of what I thought of each so here it goes:

"Kill Alex Cross" by James Patterson - As soon as this book came out I was on Amazon to purchase it. In my opinion Patterson's Alex Cross series is his best series. Anyway let's get to the book, I felt that the title was a bit misleading, scratch that I thought the book should have been named something else entirely. The title suggests that someone would be out to kill Alex and that is barely the case. The section where someone is trying to kill Alex is less than 4 pages (maybe more or less but you get the idea). I read the book in two days but I didn't think this book kept me intrigued and on the edge of my seat like some of his other Alex Cross books have done in the past. The plot was interesting, the President's two kids are kidnapped and Alex is on the case to find out who took them. I also like that while this kidnapping is going on terrorist are plotting and killing political figures. I hope Patterson's next Alex Cross book is a lot better. On a scale from 1-10, I give this book a 7.

"Split Second" by Catherine Coulter - Thanks to my friend I was able to start this book right after finishing James Patterson's book. I don't go in with high hopes for her book because they pretty much following the same format. Guy meets girl and somehow they fall in love at the end of the book which is nice but um how many people can fall in love in less than 2 weeks, ALL THE TIME. I think I read her books because i love series books because I can get to know the characters and I like Sherlock and Savich (the main characters) but i hate the predictability of all the stories. I should also say that I have read every single book in this FBI series so maybe I like it more than I care to admit, who knows. I did like the manhunt for the serial killer and how the serial killer is connected to another infamous serial killer. The other story going on in the book is about Lucy Carlye and her family mess. This was a part of the book that I found boring and just not that interesting. I find that the author sometimes mixes in paranormal element that feels out of place with the rest of the story and just doesn't seem that thought out and takes the book away from being a suspense/mystery book. I didn't love the book but I also didnt hate it, so on a scale from 1-10, I give this a 5.

"The Litigators" by John Grisham - This is a book I would not normally read, and I only say that because I prefer to stick to series and this is a legal thriller so its not really in my genre. I went on Amazon.com to try to find more books for me to read and stumbled upon this. My tablet tells me I'm 13% done with the book and so far its been really slow. I tend to like books that get into the drama fairly quick, so far nothing. I've heard Grisham books are really good but I've already told myself if I get to 20% and still nothing I'm going to stop reading it and come back to it later. Since I am still reading it my score is pending.

That's it for now, I have about 13 more books in my kindle that I haven't read yet so I'll maybe make this my thing now to write my opinions on the books I am reading. I am really looking forward to Vince Flynn new book, Love the Mitch Rapp series. Until next time...

Is life all about the money grab...

Someone once told me " money isn't everything". For some that statement is true but when it comes to me that is far from the truth. At the end of the day, money drives me. I just got promoted a couple of months ago and although the raise was a nice increase, the joy of that has faded and I'm already on to saying you know what I need to make more money. Maybe I'm crazy or just not grateful, all those things I can admit but at the end of the day money drives me career wise. At the same time I wanted to find a job i enjoy but one that pays well, instead of just a job I loved. I know there are people that have jobs that its not about the money. For instance, the other day I saw someone I use to work with at a non-for-profit, she was just as happy as can be at 8 a clock in the morning. Which made me remember a lot of them were so happy coming into work and I always thought that the majority of them were on drugs because I didnt understand how anyone could be that happy coming to work for the shitty wages they paid. But maybe money isnt everything for them and helping out the community held more value. A part of me wishes I was one of those people but sadly I am not. My bf always tells me I am one of those people that no matter how much money I make I will always want more. It's a double edge sword because I am never satisfied but I am always motivated to better myself.

When I was growing up I always told myself that I didn't want to be my mother. She busted her ass working jobs that she didn't like or enjoy to make sure me and my sister had what we needed. I watched her struggle and told myself that will never be me. I know I am not struggling but I'm not where I think I need to be and that is why I always strive for more. I hope sometime in the future I will be content, but until then its all about striving to do better.

2011...a new year

Another year in the bank now time to see what 2011 has in store for me.

Starting next Sunday I will be training with a personal trainer once a week. Last year I said I was going to be focused on my weight lost and I was for 8 months and I fell off. At my lowest I lost 20 lbs but after falling off the wagon the end total for the year was 10 lbs. I could be down on myself for not losing more but I think it was still an accomplishment for me to lose anything. I feel that I have made diet decisions that I was able to keep the whole year, one being no soda and no fast food (unless you consider Chinese fast food lol). I think by having a personal trainer on my ass I will be able to really reach my goals of being more healthy and more fit. I need to get back into my habit of going to the gym 3x a week like I was doing before. Hopefully this can keep me truly focused and by next year I can lose more than 10 lbs when its all said and done.

My 3 year anniversary is coming up this month and it's truly crazy how time flies. We have our days when we really can't stand each other but we work. I never been one of those people that romanticize my relationship. We are far from perfect and we go through the normal ups and downs as every relationship. I really couldn't think of my life without him in it, I'm use to waking up in the morning and seeing him and I'm even use to arguing with him. I love that man to death. Cheesy sappy moment is over lol.

Now that I got this job with the city I've been thinking about where I want my life to be in the next 5 years career wise. I think I need to keep striving to achieve and do better. I have my career goals all sorted out now it's a matter of actually achieving those goals. I think I can do it but its going to take hard work and dedication.

Well, that's all I have for the moment. Hope 2011 is a great year for you and yours :-)

Roosevelt Ave Food Crawl

We went to the Roosevelt Ave food Crawl today, it started in Jackson Heights and ended in Corona Queens. Great food and a very fun day, we walked 30 blocks we didn't make it till the end but we made it 90% of the way. We had 10 more blocks to go but we were dead tired. Pictures sum up the day better so here you go:

Looking back at my past

I've been thinking about relationships more nowadays and thinking about what I've dealt with in relationships to get to the point I'm at right now. I feel like up until I was about 19/20 I never took any guy serious and why would I, I used them for what I wanted and moved on. It may sound heartless but that was the mind set at the time. It was simple and quite easy for me because I was never attached and it was only what I wanted and on my terms so I felt in total control of the situation. Back in high school while everyone was running around claiming they wanted a boyfriend, I wasn't even thinking about that shit. I viewed relationships as a major headache and quite frankly a big ass waste of time.
 

And then things changed. 19/20 that's when things really began to change for me, I met Mr. L.I. and he was my first ever crush. There was something about him and he sang me a song and I was head over heels...oh to be young a dumb. Things began between us on the low and it the beginning that was the exciting part of the whole thing. Even the beginning should have been a red flag to me. He didn’t even tell me he had a girlfriend, when he did I backed up but once he didn’t have a girlfriend anymore I let the other stuff go. My other mistake was not backing away from the situation once I started to catch feelings. But he didn’t help matters either by throwing around the L word and reeling me in, I would have respected him more if he just said looking I don’t want to be in a relationship and im out doing me. But most men are never that honest, why would they be he was getting what he wanted from me and then out doing whatever. When I look back I always ask myself why in the hell did I even put up with a man who had a million reasons why he couldn’t be in a relationship and the truth is I was clouded by my extreme like for this man. The person who wanted to always be in control couldn't even control herself or her feelings. The moment I realized I was one of many, is the moment my heart shattered. Somewhere along the way I lost that control and that my friend is when the real feelings came into play and I got my little heart broken, was I mad at him? hell yeah but I realize now he only did what I allowed him to do. When they say losing your first love is hard, man tell me about it that shit was like hell. And to me I think I took it extra hard because I had absolutely no control over anything not even my tears. That first week I was crushed, I always had a wall up when it came to dudes and he was the first person to bring that wall down and he fucked me over. Things didn’t get better but a funny thing happened no more than a week later he was claiming he was ready to be in a relationship with someone else. Trust me that was another blow but it really opened my eyes to some things that he couldn’t possibly be “in love” he was just going through the motions and I needed to back up entirely. Even after and all the crap he was pushing for the next 3 months I never looked back and allowed myself to get sucked back into that vortex where I was good enough to mess with but not good enough to date. If I could go back and talk to my former self in the beginning of this "relationship" i would tell myself to never settle for less than what you deserve. Also if a man wants to be with you he will, he won't need to give you a million reasons as to why he isnt ready at the moment. I explain that whole relationship because it had A LOT to do with the next relationship…

The “relationship” if you will even call it that started out weird. When I first met him I thought he was kinda weird because he came on the date wearing gloves...my friends re-named him "the glove", and I did what most men hate I went on dates with him even though I really wasn't interested in the beginning, not because he was a bad guy but because I still wasn't over my previous situation. That Janet Jackson song "thinkin' about my ex" summed up the beginning of that relationship...I mean looking back I made some really poor choices, like pushing the issue for us to become a couple in the beginning only because Mr. L.I. informed me he now had a girlfriend, and as I type this I'm like damn that's pathetic ciara, but hey it's real. And because of that, I feel I got what I deserved out of that relationship in a sense. He was just getting out of a relationship and me out of the above chaos, I think we were both in a bad place. When we first started out he wanted to be in a relationship and I kind of blew him off, so then we become friends and somehow then i wanted to be with him and that's how the cycle of our "relationship" went. Our relationship went like this we dated he asked me to make it official I said no, so we became friends. That lasted for two months then we were in a relationship. That relationship lasted 2 months then we broke up and then we became friends again for 3 months…then we got back together AGAIN!. Then we really become the living version of that oldie song “Make up to break up”, trust that was ALL we did. After the second time of getting back together didn’t work we were in rare form with the breaking up and getting it back on… we were back in a relationship then 3 weeks later what do you know we’re not. Then we wouldn’t take for a month then we would try to see how things may go, this went on for way to damn long. I was stuck in this stupid cycle of confusion and the best thing that could have happened to me was him leaving NY for a couple of months because although I knew I was done it was great not talking to him or dealing with him even if only as friends. When he came back he actually tried to claim he was in love with me and blah blah blah but the end of the day i wouldn't say we were in love. I would say we were two people that were in a bad place at the time who found each other and only made things worse. I also think we got back together to fuck the other person over, this is the vindictive and destructive cycle we created. And to this day I don’t fully understand what the hell I was thinking. It was a year and a half of just craziness but maybe at the time craziness helped me move on from Mr. LI, because I was so engulfed in the madness it was Mr. Li who?? So Mr. Rebound served his purpose, I just wish it would have been a better rebound situation.

I don’t regret either situation, do I wish things happened differently of course I do. I think both situations helped me grow up and firmly made me realize what I wanted out of a relationship. Before Mr. L.I. I wouldn't even hug a dude in public and I had this huge wall up and I didn't let anyone in, because of that he was always hold a special place in my heart. They say you’ll always remember your first love but they need to also add you will always remember your first crazy destructive is this love or are we just crazy also lol. From "Mr. Rebound" I learned to never bring your past baggage into your new relationship. You shouldn’t use someone as a rebound because the rebound can be worse than the situation you’re trying to get over. Would I want to do it over? Hell No! once is quite enough. From going through both situations As bad as I had it in my past situations I know people who have had it a hell of a lot harder and are still going through the shit. Complicated relationships are just not for me, I don't have the patience....I'm just happy that I can look back on those relationships and say thank god I'm not even dealing with that anymore. Life is all about moving forward...so I just took a moment to reflect on my past.