CoRUNavirus (R.E.D.I.A.)

We are in the middle of a global pandemic, everything is shut down, and I’m out here making terrible puns to discuss my next fitness goal. Life is great.

Before we jump into my April shenanigans let’s debrief on how miserable March was. The Arms Race was more challenging than I expected.  Not physically challenging (though it was that too, I had almost no upper body strength), but mentally challenging. My first two challenges were all bodyweight so there was no equipment requirement, March obviously required some free weights, and while I had those weights make sure they were with me when I was away from home for a few days was a real B****.  Needless today say I ended up doing a lot of burpees.

The good news? I do feel stronger than before and I still worked on my planking. Bad News? I still loathe burpee, probably more so.

This month my challenge is R.E.D.I.A or Run Every Day In April.  I will be running a bare minimum of a 1 mi every single day.  Now before you get all “Stay inside, its COVID 19”, please note I live in a very small community and I am following all social distancing procedures recommended by the CDC.  I’m staying at least 6 ft away from anyone I encounter on my runs, I wash my hands immediately after my run and all my running clothes go immediately to the wash, and I’m only running solo or doing virtual group runs (more on this later). I’m currently in Iowa, a state which has yet to issue a Shelter in Place order and should that change I will follow all procedures in order to keep myself and others safe. If it gets to the point where I cannot leave the house my “run” will be changed to a 30 cardio workout indoors with 15 minutes of flexibility or yoga after.

Now that we’ve covered safety, let’s talk about the actual challenge. Like I said it a minimum of 1 mile, but since I have yet to master weather control (and this is the midwest so we could still get some snow), adverse weather means that I may have to miss a day or two. I’ll be checking the weather every day and if the next day looks like I may not be able to get out I will run 3 miles minimum to make up for the potential missed day. If, out of laziness or lack of motivation, I miss a day I will have to run a minimum of 3 miles the next day and do 20 BURPEES.  I’m not fooling around this month.

In addition to my REDIA challenge, a few of my friends are doing a challenge on the app Strava called SOLOdarity Basically we’re all doing at least 20 minutes of physical activity for the next 30 days.  For me, that is obviously running, but for others it could be walking, biking, yoga, anything as long as it’s active and following the quarantine guidelines for your area. So while my running group can’t meet up we can all run together through this challenge.

Stay safe out there, and wash your damn hands.

Goal 3: Staying Humble

Its been 3 months and I bet you’re wondering when I’m gonna talk about goal #3. I’ve been struggling with how to address this goal because being more humble is not something I can progressively build on like self-control and being active. Its also not something that you can really measure. And whenever someone talks about being humble, they are in fact doing the opposite.  But I’m gonna talk about it today

First of all, I realize trying to be humble while also running a public blog about yourself is not really compatible at first glance.  For me its about the motivation behind it. I run this blog as a method of accountability for myself and my goals, though that wasn’t always the case. This blog is not about me getting approval from strangers on the internet, nor is it about me bragging about my achievements. You may have noticed there is a fair bit of self-deprecating humor throughout my posts and a heavy dose of realizing I’m not a superhuman and I will struggle and fail occasionally as I work towards my goals.

Second, this will probably be my last post on this goal until the end of the year wrap up.  The true measure of this goal will be determined by my reflection and if I perceived myself as being more humble towards others. Did I actively listen to the people talking to me more than the previous year? Did I do less “one-upping” than last year? Was I as boastful as I had been in the past?  These are just some of the questions I’m trying to answer.  So while I keep this goal in the back of my head always, it’s not one that I will be sharing until it is over.

Stay Humble Folks.

Arms Race

Last week I posted on my Self Control Challenge.  Today is all about my Stay Active Challenge.  What I am focusing on this month?

ARMS!

Of course, you probably guessed that from the title, you little smartie.

I have always been a little week in the arms area.  I’m not helpless, but I also could use a lot of improvement.  They’ve also been an area of my body I’ve never really been happy with.  So I’m gonna address them this month.

The Challenge:  Bicep and Tricep Curls

How its gonna work: Starting with 30 reps each with 5 lb weights and increasing by weight every week and by reps every 4 days after the weight increase.  Weight increases up to one set (5-8-10-15). Rep Increases by 15 reps.

Example:  Day 5 do 45 reps with 5 lb weight.  Day 8 do 45 reps with 8 lb weight. Day 12 do 60 reps with 8 lb weight. etc.

The Punishment for Skipping: 10 Burpees (God I hate burpees)

I am allowing myself to modify the plan if needed because I don’t want to injury myself by pushing it far.  Also, I smashed my finger in a garage door on March 1 and wasn’t able to do my reps, but because I was physically unable to do it no Punishment was required.  However, falling asleep on the 4th before doing my reps that gets punished.

Now, what about February’s Plank challenge?  I got up to a 2-minute hold!  which isn’t where I wanted to be but its also a huge improvement from barely being able to hold 30 seconds.  So while I’m not going to be doing planks every day, I will continue to do planks at least twice a week for a minute or longer to help maintain that hold.  And who knows, maybe I’ll repeat the challenge in a few months to try and get to 4 minutes or even 5.

Stay tuned to see what challenged the April Showers bring.

 

 

 

Sweet Madness

I’ve beaten the odds and kept a New Years Resolution going until March! But this is no time to celebrate.  I’ve decided my self-control monthly goal needed to be stepped up.  So for the rest of the year, I will not be eating anything with added sugars.

Why will this be a harder challenge? For starters, I love chocolate and more specifically the Cadbury eggs that are out this month for easter (and Reese’s eggs too).  Just talking about them is making me want to go out and buy some. YUM!  March is also the only time of year I willing to go to McDonald, gotta get me a shamrock shake. Plus its also my birthday this month and it’s a big one, so I will also have to fight the temptation to eat delicious and sweet cake. (If I can make it to my birthday party without having any added sugar I will allow myself a treat of 1 macaron, but only 1.) So there will be a ton of temptation this first month to make me wanna quit.

By this time you may have noticed I haven’t included naturally occurring sugars.  Don’t worry we will talk about that right now.

Because I know how hard this challenge is for me and because of certain dietary restrictions I already have thanks to my body being weird (I’m lactose intolerant and I cannot eat meat without getting vomiting most days), I am not cutting out fruits at first. And it is not just fruits.  Any food that contains natural sugars will still be on my approved list for the first week.  After the first week, I will also be cutting out food with a high amount of natural sugars.   Eventually, the food with natural sugars and honey will be added back into my diet (I can’t wait for April), but first I need to kick this nasty sugar craving, and to do that I’ll need to go cold turkey.

Or at least as cold turkey as I can possibly be.  As you may remember I’ve been on a no more than 2 alcoholic drinks per day regime since January. Its been going extremely well and the only time I’ve surpassed it was on the Bourbon Trail because when you’re on a dream trip you stop to sip all the bourbon! Since booze and cocktails often have sugars, but I also often have to sample these things because I work in the Industry they will also be an exception. BUT ONLY BECAUSE I’M ALREADY LIMITING THE AMOUNT I DRINK. I will be avoiding anything super sweet (looking at you Moscato)  or cocktails made with simples, sodas or other added sugar.

So that’s it for my self-control challenge.  Goodbye sugar!

Be more active!

My second goal for this year is to be more active. Yes that means physical active, but also more socially and politically active as well. To kick off this goal I did a 20/20 an challenge in January. If I missed a day there were no consequences as the first step was to do more activity and any activity is more than zero. February we get serious.

This month (February) I am doing a daily plank challenge, which is also part of my self control. I started on the first with a 30 second elbow plank and have added 5 seconds each day, no exceptions. If I skip a day I have to do two planks the next day and 5 burpees as punishment. (Key thing to note the only thing I hate more than plank holds is burpees. Satan doesn’t even do burpees because they are worse than hell.) If I skip 2 says I have to do 15 burpees. Basically I should just do my planks and not bitch.

After this month I will continue to do a physically active challenge (crunches, squats, the dreaded burpees, ect) as part of both this goal and my goal of self control.

As for my self control goals, last month was all about restricting myself. I’ve done pretty well with not having more than two drinks. My first real test is happening as I type this since I’m on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. As such, only while I’m on vacation, samples are not counting towards my drink total.

This month instead of restricting myself I and make myself do something extra. We are 6 days in and Ive already had to do 5 burpees, which I’m hoping are my last. (Good god do I hate them). Next month I will try to give something up cold turkey. I’m thinking about my snooze button, any thoughts?

New Decade, New Me, New Millennial

So it is officially a new decade!  And I’m sure everyone is sick and tired of people talking about New Year’s resolutions and how its a New Year, New Me!. Let’s be honest most of them will have forgotten about their resolutions by the time I hit publish on this blog post.  But I turn 30 this year and looking back at the past few years (ugh) and the last 3 decades (yikes) there is quite a bit I’d like to change going forward. So you’re going to just have to suffer through one more.

Now my changes are going to be threefold, and over the next couple of weeks, I’ll take a deep dive into each of them. I’m going to work on 1) self-control, 2) getting active, 3) staying humble.   So let’s start with how I’m going to be working my self-control.

To say I have no self-control would be a lie. I can control certain impulses, but not all.  I might not grab that delicious piece of chocolate cake at the office birthday party, but I’ll probably eat three candy bars later. Or I’ll go out for the weekend and have a drink then head home for an early night only to get completely fucked up the following weekend. My self-control is….unpredictable.

How am I going to make it more predictable?  With progressive goal building. Each month I will add on 1 new self-control goal while maintaining the other. Sometimes these goals will tie in with my other two areas of improvement, sometimes they won’t. And they won’t all be about restricting or limiting myself, they will also be about doing good habits more often and improving on existing talents and activities.

January’s goal is appropriately about alcohol.  Many people participate in dry January after the holiday season and I have been known to swear off the booze my self for months at a time.  Not drinking is not a problem.  But I don’t always know when to stop, when it has become one two many, when my dreaded drunken alter ego Bridget might appear, when a fun night is likely to be ruined by a harsh morning.

So my goal starting in January and going until the end of the year (God I hate myself already) is to have no more than two drinks in a night. From now on I am a TwoCan Sam.

Neighbourly Acts

This winter I got to fly back from Kansas City to Baltimore during the big blizzard that hit the eastern seaboard.  The shore shut down for quite a while and even several days after the snow stopped there were still roads left uncleared.  It was obvious that I was no longer in the Midwest as a similar storm there would have maybe stalled us but never stopped us.  It was during this time period that I met my neighbor for the first time.

He was quite an attractive boy, he was some kind of swim coach at the local college, he was a Maryland transplant, and he was stuck with a dead car battery.  He helped dig me out and then we drove to get jumper cables and get his car back up and running.  Then he invited me to join him and some friends in blizzard day drinking.  Of course I was in!

Now some of you may not realize it but a blizzard is a very good excuse to do something you wouldn’t normally do.  Especially if that something involves alcohol. My something was my neighbor.  Or at least it should have been my neighbor.  When thing eventually progressed to that level (after lots of booze) but I was still smart enough to let him know things were not happening without a condom.  Instead of crazy blizzard sex we went to bed, both a little disappointed.

And then I woke up in the morning.  I immediately noticed something was up.  Why was it so wet? I got out of bed and realized my neighbor had not only peed in the bed, but he had soaked everything!  The entire queen mattress was pretty much soaked in his pee! EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!  Now almost everybody will lose control once while very drunk, but it was my neighbor’s actions afterward that have forever earned him the nickname “bed wetter” amongst my friends.  When he finally got up he was unfazed by what happened and made it seem like it was a fairly regular occurrence for him.

I have not seen him since, which is probably good.  But he still lives next door so there is always that chance for an awkward encounter next time I take the dog for a walk or go and grab some coffee.

Fooling Around with Bagels

I mentioned earlier that I had cut back to only one online dating profile.  I’ve stopped checking my OKCupid, Tinder, and POF because the pool of men was either far too wrong for me or far too far. Now I only check Coffee Meets Bagel (full discloser: I haven’t been check that one very regularly lately).

The concept, if you are not aware, is very similar to Tinder where you swipe right or left but instead of getting a whole bunch at once you get one a day. Logically this would mean you may want to put some thought into your swipe choice, practically though I’m afraid that it is simply not true. I thought it would be better, but so far it’s been a bigger let down than Oklahoma’s Final Four appearance.  I mean seriously OU, 95-51…REALLY? But basketball aside, I have had at least a couple of interesting interactions with Coffee Meets Bagel.

Today I bring you the story of a fool. A fool who did not understand the concept of “fooling around.”

Now when I say fooling around I’m sure you all got a pretty clear picture of what is meant.  Generally the act of fooling around involves sex or sexual acts. This bagel and I had been chatting via text at this point and he happened to be close by where I live so we agreed to meet up.  I offered to meet him for drinks but Mr. Bagel had other ideas.  He wanted to meet up and fool around.

I very quickly told him there was no way in hell I was going to drive to meet some stranger and fuck in his car. I may not always be the classiest of ladies, but Jesus Christ! That is a line I will not cross.  He then tried to make me believe that fooling around did not imply sex. HA! It was at this point that my sassy button was activated.  I told him that I may be from the Midwest and therefore unfamiliar with the language of “civilized” company but where I come from fooling around tends to get one in trouble or worse pregnant.

Needless to say I blocked his number and coffee never did meet bagel.

Advice from the Newlyweds: Tinder

Not long ago my friend Donna (Advice From The “Newly Engaged”) and I were discussing the merits and pitfalls of dating in our 20’s.  We have both had some pretty varied experiences, but our conversation kept coming back to Tinder.  So, as a recently married woman who has had plenty of relationships with zero attempts at online dating, I asked her to weigh in and she had this to say.

Tinder, I’m Falling In Love
At the age of 24, I feel I am an anomaly by being married already. I love my husband, and would change nothing. I spent most of my college career single, chasing boys and shots. I met my husband my freshman year, but did not start dating him until my senior year, so I understand that it can take time for a relationship to click! However, there is one thing my generation seems to love that I cannot wrap my mind around: Tinder.

Tinder became poplar right as I left the dating scene, so my personal experience with the technology is limited. I understand how it works and its convenience. I moved to a new place and had a hard time making friends, so I can appreciate how the app helps connect you to people. I just have one question: does it take away the mystery of the experience?

If you are looking for a quick hookup, then I completely understand. I judge no one who uses Tinder. My husband and I ended up together through a series of convoluted events brought to us by the roller coaster of life – 3 years after we met drunk at a party. It was a long, hard road to get there. The night my husband and I discussed the possibility of taking our friendship to the next level, I was actually stood up by another guy. That was the best thing that ever happened to me.

After 3 years of wondering if we would ever connect, it happened. As I reflect on that evening, the entire experience seems surreal or other worldly that the stars all lined up so we could be together; it’s mystical. Do people have that when they date someone on Tinder?

So there you have it. Personally, I think that apps like Tinder, that are more hook up apps than dating apps, take away all mystery and excitement of meeting someone in real life.

 

Nameless

Do you ever run into someone you know but cannot for the life of you remember their name and you are too embarrassed to ask? Ever gone on a date with them? Well I did.  And true to my dating form it was awkward and weird as hell.

I’d been living in Maryland for a few months now and I’d talked to several people on multiple dating websites and apps (I’ve since cut back to 1 for now).  Of course with so many dogs in the fight I was bound to win a couple.  And by win I mean get a few numbers.  I talked to several but most petered out.  One of these failed conversations text me TWO months later asking if I wanted to go out to dinner. completely out of the blue.  It had been so long I’d removed him from my contacts list (if I ever had him in there in the first place).

From our last conversations (conveniently still in my phone) I realized this was the guy who was just looking for something casual and had previously only wanted to Netflix and “Chill”.  At the time I was still beating myself up heavily over my mistakes with “A” (The Almost Relationship) including my failed attempt at being okay with being one of many, so I turned him down on all fronts.  But this second time I was more open to the idea of something casual, and he clearly had changed tactics and may have even changed his mine on the idea of dating. So I agreed, after all it was just dinner and I had nothing to lose.

He told me we were going to go to this great new steak place a few towns over.  Another sign that he may have changed his mind.  When he picks me up I realized that I still don’t know his name, but now I don’t feel like I can ask. I just roll with it, and let this nameless stranger take me to dinner at this new steakhouse.  Well if not knowing his name was a bad thing, then the steakhouse choice was even worse.  He took me to Texas Roadhouse!  Now I know some of you, maybe even most of you, will tell me that it is a good restaurant and there was a time with you that I would have agreed. However, the last time I ate there I found, not 1, but THREE long dark hairs in my food.  THREE! Needless to say I was completely disgusted and never ate there again until my date with nameless.

Well the date progressed and it wasn’t to bad, except for the fact that he did not really know how to hold down a conversation and asked me the same questions over and over again.  Then it was time for the bill.  I had my card out to split the bill (because I am a modern female, I wasn’t going to pay for it because he asked me out but I’d definitely cover my share) and he insisted. We get home and he practically invites himself in, I turn him down and then never hear from him again.

That’s not exactly true.  He messaged me about 5 months later!  I did not respond. 

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