Today I ran to the store.

This may seem pretty insignificant to you, but to me this was like a breakthrough of sorts. Before today, I would run to lose weight, to train for my half marathon...basically because I had to. But today, I ran simply because I needed to return a dvd to redbox and pick up my lady pills for the month.

It was about 2.5 miles there and 2.5 miles back, so I got a nice 5 mile run in, but the real goodness came in the fact that I really just thought to myself, "Ugh, I don't wanna go the gym..it's so nice out..maybe I'll go for a run...shit I still need to return that redbox...and I need my lady pills...wait I've ran past CVS (drugstore/convenience store) before...and they have a redbox...I CAN RUN THERE." Yea, seriously that was my train of thought. And yes, I most definitely did run with that sucker in my hand the whole way. I'm sure I got some weird looks, so you better believe my head was down. Once I got there the stares continued because Lord knows it's not normal for people to go running places, but whatever, I'll bring my sweaty self in and stand next to folks with no problem. You don't like my sweat in odd places, (ladies you know what I'm sayin)? Sorry bout it friends. Then to top it off I have a sweet runner belt that I got off groupon for 7 dollhairs:

Only downside to this contraption for me is that it sits pretty flat against you, so I had to lift my shirt a smidge to see over my giant boobs, and of course all of this happens as an old man is just hangin out behind me in line. Pretty sure I scarred him for life. Or made his day. Whichever. Anywho, made my way back home, feelin pretty proud of myself. Instead of making myself run, I did it for convenience. I feel like I just gained membership to a runners club or something. It's kind of like the first time a passing runner going at the speed of lightning gives you the "runners nod". Don't act like you don't know what I'm talkin about. Shit is real. Or I'm imagining all of this and whoever is reading this, is judging me. 

Anywho, after that joyous run that pretty much solidified this whole running thang as a lifestyle change, I decided to do this: 

Why yes, that is my bikini hanging on my wall. I'm the kind of person that needs constant reminders or I'll procrastinate and start using the "one more bite won't hurt" excuses. So I see this lovely thing every single day before I leave my room. It's my reminder to keep my shit together and steer clear of the candy bowl at work. Mind you, the candy bowl is full of the good shit, not that generic crap that has no name. But I digress, I didn't eat any or drink any soda today, so maybe this will work!

Any tricks you guys have to stay focused on your goals?

-Crystal

I miss working part time all the time

Let me just start with this. I am forever and ever grateful that my temp job is about to turn into a full time job. But I can't help but be a little sad as well. Working part time for a little over a year gave me the chance to get my life on track, and I loved it. I either worked mornings 6:30am-2pm or 2pm-7pm. That's it. So either way, I had basically a whole day to myself. 

Working part time allowed me to lose weight without stressing about making time and keeping the snacking under control, because let me tell you, working at a dog daycare keeps you MOVIN all day long. It allowed me to have time to get a dog of my own, whom I adore. It allowed me to freakin sleep. It allowed me to actually watch tv and read and relax.

I do close to none of these things anymore. I've picked 3 shows that I watch religiously now, and besides that it's just mindless watching till I fall asleep. I've transitioned into losing weight with a full time job, but I'm literally depressed about missing my Tuesday 10 am kickboxing class at the gym. I loved my instructor and I miss it terribly. I bought her and the body pump instructors presents and wrote them cards to thank them for helping me lose weight, even though they had no idea how much of an impact they had on me. This is how much I love my gym. I can still go to my body pump classes on Sunday mornings, but you better believe I've been stalking the other Golds Gyms in the area to see if my kickboxing instructor teaches evening classes. But I digress. I don't really relax anymore, I've noticed. I come straight home after picking up my dog from daycare (don't judge, she loves that shit and sleeps all night), change for the gym and stay there for a good hour and a half, come home and eat dinner, shower, get ready for sleep while debating if I should blog or not. I try to relax on weekends, but even then I get restless and end up hanging out with friends. That is, if I'm not working at the dog daycare. 

But ya know what? You make time for what's important to you. I make time for things that some would find ridiculous. Some don't understand, hell, sometimes I don't understand either, but I'm happy with my life and the people that really care are happy for me, so that's all that matters. Yes, it's stressful and sometimes I question why I make myself go to the gym everyday and why I eat boring ass foods while my brother and mom eat delicious chinese or pizza, but I know I'd miss this crazy healthy-ish life, because I've seen the results I can get when I give it my all. And I love that more than I love pizza...I think. Ha, I kid, I kid.

Ok yea this was kind of a rant. If you read it all, you're a saint. If you didn't, the gist of it is that I miss part time life, but I'm grateful for my full time job and I'm learning to live with the changes. Done and done. 

Night night, friends.

Also I just finished watching Scandal and it was INSANE.

-Crystal

90 Day Challenge and Current Workout

Hey friends.

Yea so I have one whole follower and I'm pretty excited about it. Don't judge, mmkay? We all start somewhere. I guess people actually came to see my lil ole blog after I was on the Runs for Cookies "Motivation Monday" - so thanks for that. If you haven't checked out Runs for Cookies, well, you should. Obviously. She blogs about running and weight loss, and she also is an avid weight watchers ..person? I don't know how to word that. She does weight watchers. That's what I mean.

So my weight loss, or lack thereof lately, has been pretty annoying. I've hit a plateau at 175, and I've just been kinda hangin out here for a while. Some people say my body doesn't want to lose anymore. Those people get dirty looks from me. For my height and for my sanity, I still have weight to lose. So I switched up my calorie intake and I've recently switched up my workouts. If you haven't heard of Krissy Mae Cagney, you need to go to her website right now. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. She has ebooks about nutrition, training programs, ebooks on macronutrients, how to calculate your macronutrients, and she's an all around badass. I've been doing her Sexy Sculpt program for 2 weeks now, and I'm pulling all kinds of personal records in weight. I'm impressed with myself to say the least. No worries though friends, there's HIIT cardio added in at the end of her fat loss programs so I'm not over here gaining muscle and not losing weight. Ya girl is still trying to get smaller over here!

While I'm bummed that I'm not losing weight on the scale, I know I'm progressing. A month ago I leg pressed 200 pounds. Yesterday, I leg pressed 260. That happened. I can now barbell shoulder press 70 pounds for 5 reps. I used to do 40. I can now squat 100 pounds. I used to squat 50. I say all of this to say, that even if the scale isn't moving, look at other aspects of your life to see what else is goin on. Take your measurements! It's all about how you feel and how you look. Hell yes, I like to see the scale moving down, but if it's not, I refuse to get down about it. Eventually when I'm down to the size I'd like to be, I hope to get rid of the scale and go by my clothes and how I feel, but for now I have a healthy relationship with the scale, so we're gonna stay friends.

Which leads me toooooooo.... FabChickGetsFit's 90 Day Challenge! I started today because my Victoria's Secret bikinis finally came in today. Basically it's 90 days of no cheating, workouts on point - basically keepin your shit together and in check. So I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and post my day 1 photos. So no judgement folks.

I'm actually loving how the top looks. This is the first time I've ever worn a bandeau top and I'm freakin pumped about it. Just need to get the tummy and bottom half lookin right. I also discovered that my traps are pretty pronounced? A man at the gym complimented them and I kind of mumbled and looked around the gym, because I'm an awkward person. (FYI: traps are the muscles above your shoulders. I wish I could point..) Moving on, I hope I stick with this 90 day challenge thing, because I realllllly wanna rock this sucker at the pool/beach/any body of water this summer, dammit. We shall see.

Anyone else thinking of doing the 90 day challenge for summer?!

-Crystal

Finding balance..

Let's have a chit chat, shall we? I'm feelin bogged down by life. Not in a bad way, just...a way. Maybe because not even 3 months ago I slept in, went to the gym as I pleased, hung out with my dog, and had plenty of time for life. Now I don't even have time to read - and I LOVE to read. It's frustrating and annoying, ya know? I annoy myself because I don't even have kids or my own house to keep up with, yet I'm just like DAMN I NEED A BREAK.

 I usually work 6-7 days a week - 5 days full time and 1 or 2 days part time at the dog daycare, go to the gym at least 5 days a week after work, find time for the boyfriend, meal prep food for the week because Lord knows I don't have time to cook, spend time with my dog, whose name is Tiger, (she is not an actual Tiger. Just wanna clarify that little nugget of info), and at some point, write my ramblings down in this little blog.

work selfie. because casual friday is the shit.

Some days I try to go to the gym in the morning before work, aka 5:30 am, so I can have my whole evening to myself but I just hate it. My energy just isn't there and I don't burn as many calories as I do in the evening. So uhh yea, not wasting my time waking up early as hell to not even break a good sweat. NOPE. 

So as you can see, I try to post at night time or evening, if I have some time/don't mind losing some sleep. Most nights I climb in bed with my laptop with really good intentions, and then my pillow smacks that shit out of my hand and onto the floor. So ya know, I just go to sleep and tell myself that tomorrow will be better. 

If anyone out in the world has some suggestions on how I can get myself some time, that'd be super stellar. I'm sure some of it is just poor planning on my part, but hey, I'm tryin folks. 

In other news, I have a 10 mile race in approximately 2-3 weeks or somethin like that. Have I run since the half marathon? uhh I'll take hell no for 200. Honestly I've missed running, but that half just put a hurtin on my joints. My knees make noise now, and my right hip most definitely hates me. I'm thinkin I'll do a 5 or 6 mile run this weekend though, so we shall see. 

yea, that.

-Crystal

Half Marathon Recap: BOOM. DID IT.

Let's just discuss the fact that on Saturday, March 16, ya girl ran a whole 13.1 miles. I DID IT. And let me tell ya, that ish was HARD. The farthest I'd ever run before then was 10 miles, the weekend before. According to my training plan, "you'll get through the last 3.1 with your heart, even though  you've only ever run 10." UHH NO THAT'S NOT TRUE. My heart was forreal like, "can we stop now?". So yea, next time definitely doing a practice 13 so my body won't freak out so hard. This is a super long post, FYI.

I ran it with my friend Becca. We've been friends since 8th grade! We've never been super close, but in the same group of friends, so training for this half made us a lot closer! Our other friend Gabrielle was supposed to run it as well, but an injury took her out of it. So we get to the start line at 7:20 and the race starts at 7:30, but we forgot the whole thing about corrals going 1 by 1, so we didn't actually cross the starting line till around 8 am. We started out strong and feelin good, doing lots of dancing and selfie taking right before we started.

I wore my "13 Point Freaking 1" tank top from Ruffles with Love!

We finished the first 3.1 miles in 33 minutes, about a minute or so slower than my usual 5k time, but I chalked it up to nerves. There was a water station soon after, and my dummy self drank some because everyone else did. I knew I shouldn't have, because I never need to drink on my runs really, but I did. Cue stomach cramps. Ugh, so annoying. So the cramps slowed me down. I felt bad because Becca slowed to run with me, and I knew she could go faster if I wasn't dying lagging behind with my cramps. Mile 3-5 were pretty uninteresting. And then mile 6 came along. Good Lord I've never seen a hill so steep in my life. Definitely didn't train for that kind of monster. Becca took it like a champ, passing everyone and jogging straight up. Meanwhile, I'm fat girl bouncing up the hill. I most likely could've walked faster than I was "running". Not gonna lie, I walked for 5 seconds while Becca wasn't looking. And then she saw me, so I had to run most of the hill. The only thing that made it bearable was the hilarious spectators. After the hill we ran through a lot of neighborhoods where people were playing music, tailgating, and passing out beers to runners! It made running a lot more fun to see complete strangers being so awesome and cheering us on. We even passed by a "margarita and cherry bombs" station! The inner college girl in me was very interested, but I turned it down for fear of tummy troubles that could lead to a porta potty...if you know what I mean. Just sayin.

We hit mile 10 and I felt a little better, and then a gatorade/GU gel station came up. I was all over that. Love me some lemon lime gatorade. I drank way too much, obviously I didn't learn my lesson, and the stomach cramps came back. I was thirsty! Tummy would have to deal with it, dammit. I also took a GU gel, let's just say that was disgusting. Gooey orange flavored thick gel. This girl was not a fan. Around Mile 11 I started to hit a wall. Probably because my body was pissed that we were still running, 2 hours later. I started to get choked up because I felt like cardiovascular-wise, I was fine, but my hips and flat feet were not. I tried to calm down, because my throat was starting to close up from the onset of the alligator tears, and that wouldn't have been lovely. A lady came up beside me as I was walking and said to me, "Don't give up, you've come this far. Walk a little, run a little, but do not give up." Girlfriend didn't know how badly I needed to hear that. I've come so far from the girl who struggled to run a mile, and there I was at mile 11! I let go of my time goal of 2:30 and just ran. Eventually I looked up and saw the finish line around the corner. I sprinted my little heart out, which wasn't very fast, and threw my little arms in the air as I crossed that finish line. I grabbed my medal, which was surprisingly heavy, and loaded up on all the snackies afterwards.  

I found my boyfriend, who is so incredibly supportive of everything I do, and gave him a nice sweaty hug. We didn't get any pictures together, probably because of my soon to come drama..

The boyfriend and I started walking towards Metro to head home and my shin started to feel weird. It made me limp a little bit, and were near the medical tent so we headed over just to get my leg stretched out a bit. So I sat down and she started to stretch my calf and then the pain came. All of a sudden I felt the most intense cramp of my life, right below my calf muscle. My foot was basically stuck in a pointed position and tears started to roll down my face. After 15 minutes of stretching my leg, bawling like a small child, and drinking gatorade, my leg was wrapped up and I was on my way. Lesson learned: need more electrolytes.

Overall I had fun, and I'd definitely do it again...in like 6 months.

A Look Back at Running..

Bad blogger award goes tooooooo..Yea yea I know, I haven't written here in over a week. So sue me. I really do mean to do better, but ya know, life gets in the way an shit. Sorry, I'll do better..hopefully.

Back to the title of this post: "Taking a look back". I can't remember if I've talked about the whole running thing on here. I touched on it during my weight loss story, which you can read HERE, HERE, aaaand HERE. So basically, I started running to lose weight, because I figured it was a faster way to do so. And it worked! I lost 30 pounds in the first 3 months, strictly from running. From there I figured I should sign up for a race so I could keep up the motivation, so I signed up for the Color Me Rad 5k (3.1 miles) with some of my sorority sisters. It wasn't timed, but I figure I ran it in about 40-45 minutes. Slow. I didn't care though, because I had a craaazy fun time. I would definitely encourage new runners to do a "fun run" first to get the feel of a race without all the anxiety and nerves that can come with it.

So from there I just kept up my running, but I didn't sign up for any races because duh, after a 5k comes actual long distances that are hard. Uhh, no thank you very much. I'll stick to running around my neighborhood real slow. And theeeen I saw on instagram that my friend Gabrielle signed up for a half marathon. I have no idea, what in the hell made me think that's what I should do, but my heart skipped a beat and then started beating really fast - I always know that's when my mind has been made up on something crazy. SO in October I signed up for the Rock n Roll USA Half Marathon. Mind you I had never run more than 4 miles. I'm a freakin lunatic. I know. I read all of the rules and conditions and one was that there are no refunds, unless you basically chop off your foot on accident. So naturally I did what anyone would do in a panic, I went for a 5 mile run that very same day and almost died because my lungs were freakin out. Good news, I lived.

So I trained throughout the winter months (yea, bad idea), invested in some Under Armour ColdGear (best invention ever) and some new running shoes and survived. And then I lost my mind again and signed up for 2 more races in February - a 10k and a 10 miler. Yep, clearly haven't learned my lesson. I did the 10k already, which I wrote a little about HERE and it was so much fun. It was my first timed race and I was only about 5 minutes slower than my previous 10k times. I fully blame this on the weather, it was freakin 23 degrees out that day! 

Fast forward a couple weeks to today. My half marathon is in a couple DAYS! I'm a little nervous, but I honestly know I'll do ok. And it's my first half marathon so there's no pressure really. I mean yea, I definitely have a goal time in mind, but I'm trying not to concentrate too hard on that... we'll see. Next week I'll post some half marathon pictures hopefully...if I survive it.

So I got a tattoo.

This past weekend, the boyfriend and I went down to Va Beach for his birthday and too see some friends. We went to college down there, so perfect time for me to see my sorority sisters place to celebrate his birthday!

So on Saturday the boyfriend and I had lunch with one of my sorority sisters, Kyle. We went to Plaza Azteca, a staple for our little college town (its not even really a college town, but whatever). I got a margarita and I swear to God they put so much tequila in it...I was pretty drunk. It was also 3:00 in the afternoon. It's fine. Anywho, so we were discussing tattoos, and drunk Crystal thought it was a faaantastic idea. So we left and went to the tattoo shop nearby. Leon's friend had gotten hers done there, so it wasn't like I picked a random one. No worries, folks. Also I had begun to sober up by then, just to be clear. Long story short, there were a million people there so I had to wait till the next day to get it done. Also, no one told me beforehand that your back is one of the most painful places to get a tattoo. So yea, thanks friends. By the end my shoulder was twitching, legs were shaking, and I was sweating profusely. Super cute, I know.

It says, "Let life overwhelm you"

I found a variation of this quote on a blog, shocker, I know. It was originally about a woman getting ready to run a marathon and she felt like she just wasn't mentally ready. She talked to a spin instructor at her gym about it, and the instructor said to just let them moment overwhelm her. Essentially, to live in the moment. I read it and my heart skipped a beat. I knew I needed it that shit on my body. It is my constant reminder that life should always be brilliant, exciting, unexpected, and overwhelming with energy. I'm already thinking that I want to add to it to make it more feminine lookin. 

Welp, today is a snow day from work for me, so I'll be watching Extreme Cheapskates and trying to steer clear of the junk food that's chillin in my kitchen. This whole healthy eating thing has not been goin so swell lately...more on that another day.

-Crystal