envie

I was close to not working out tonight. I had a pretty lazy day, took the bike into the city where my boyfriend got his hair cut, bought a shirt I can't afford (but am smitten with), and did laundry. I intended to work out not long after getting home. I wanted to down some water first beause I had a mocha in the city and coffee always leaves me dehyrated. So I drank some water, played a little Xbox 360 UNO with my australian girlfriend (smooches, cheeses!), and decided it was time to get off my ass. Fast forward another 45 minutes after I learned I'd accidentally washed my exercise clothes and had to send them through the dryer.


^ my new shirt! that photo doesn't do it justice. It's actually much coolert. ^

I'm still pissed this gym's steam room is out of commission, by the way.

• 25 minutes running. I bumped the speed to 5.2 miles per hour. I think it's reasonable to raise about .1 each time. I'm both surprised and happy to be able to count improvement already. Somehow I thought it would take longer to feel any difference.


• 30 back lifts with the 5lb weight


• 30 lifts to each side, nice and slow so it hurt more


• 50 normal crunches, 50 balancing my legs out (OWWWWW), and 50 targeting each side


• 4 minutes on the rower, which I think I'm getting the hang of. I raised the resistance from 7 to 8 and sped up from 25spm to 30+spm... it hurt like a bitch and i couldn't handle more than 4 minutes, but i did feel it in my back this time. I think the trick might have been to focus on snapping the elbows back at the end and keeping the pull low over the legs. Or I could be wrong. But if I get results I don't care.


• 40 reps on... I don't know what to call the machine. Sitting down/pushing out. It focuses on the boobie muscles. I had the weight at 40. Like the rowing machine at the beginning, it was my arms that got tired. My chest didn't feel it much at all.

I made the mistake of weighing myself the first day I went back to the gym. I came in at 113. I know that's not a lot, so please no bitching. It is more than I've ever weighed, and it was surprising. I'm used to about 105. I've been almost 110 before, when I was doing a lot more lifting and was in kickass shape. When you're my size, an extra 3 pounds you've never had before is kind of a shocker.

I braced myself and weighed in again after exercising tonight. 111lbs. Woo! There is a visible difference too. My muffin tops are almost history. It's just those little pockets on the back/side that keep my 3/4 rear profile from being a smooh curve. I'm no sure exactly what that spot is called. My fingers are rambling.

I'm currently having salad for dinner and I'm not going to be able to go to bed until about 1AM. I'll be tired tomorrow. it just takes a while to come back down from the exercise, even though I'm exhausted. My muscles are so tired I barely managed to force myself into the shower afterwards. I'm glad I did now, but I'm also sitting on my ass again so it's easy to say that.

Skin Report!
My skin is not clear. It never has been. I have a few friends who are naturally blessed with good skin and I just want to scratch their faces off. However, I'm doing what I can to clear my face up. For the last two months I've been using Dr. Hauschka cleansing stuff. It's wicked expensive (about $100 for a cleanser/toner/day oil), but it's holistic and seems to have worked well enough. I used differin for a year before trying this new stuff... I stopped because the holistic philosophy doesn't exactly mesh with the prescription philosophy. So far the results from the natural stuff are just as good with less doctors involved.

Yesterday I picked up the L'oreal glycolic peel kit. I'm ordinarily skeptical of anything I can get in a normal drugstore because I've run to snobbery in facial care, but I hear a lot of good stuff about this from the Makeup & Beauty group. One application doesn't seem to have done a whole lot, but results are supposed to happen over a series of 8 applications. I wonder what I'd look like with no acne scars or freckles or blemishes.

Still with me? I'm sorry. This is kind of a shit blog. No focus whatsoever. Here's the payoff scene!


^ Me messing around with the Sam Fisher/Splinter Cell goggles in the PR room at the Ubisoft offices.^