Musings of The New Maia: Year Two

Random Ramblings Ahead:

Well, I survived Hurricane Irene!  At first I was one of the self absorbed New Yorkers who was disappointed and actually wanted the hurricane to bring with it more "oomph" I suppose, but then I saw the havoc it wreaked on the folks on Long Island, New Jersey and Vermont and I changed my attitude.  I was glad that we were so well prepared.  You know us New Yorkers, we gotta complain about something!  If the city had prepared less, people would have complained.  As it is, people complained about the amount of preparation the city took saying that it was overzealous and I have to say I'm okay with it.  The motto of this hurricane was "better safe than sorry."  And I'm safe, so I'm definitely not sorry.

My one year Fativersary has come and gone and brought with it a renewed sense of determination.  I realized that I have a little over a month before I leave New York for the road (with Million Dollar Quartet, in case you missed the memo...:) and since I didn't hit my one year goal of weighing 235, I would like to make it my goal before I leave the city.  I'm going to have to work extraordinarily hard to do it, but I just need to push myself.  Get myself out of the comfort zone! 

Demon spawn that wants to tempt me

Tonight at the gym I was approached by a trainer as I checked in.  He asked me if I had had a fitness test yet.  I know that he was just looking to hopefully score some new clients, but he happened to hit me at the perfect time.  As I walked to the gym tonight I was lamenting the state of my stomach.  I had looked in the mirror before I left and while I admire the shape that my legs have achieved, I really have a lot of work to do on my hips/butt/stomach area.  I was debating whether or not to take some personal training sessions before I left on the road so that I knew what to do when I was left to my own devices.  So, I signed up for my fitness test and I'm not going to lie, I'm a little nervous!  I mean, yes...  I know that I have come leaps and bounds from where I was a year ago but aside from my weight I haven't really officially measured where I am at physically.  Yes, I can run now and I know that my stamina is sky high compared to a year ago, but what "official" fitness type things is he going to measure?  Guess I'll just have to find out!  Maybe I should get a full medical work up before I go...  Might be a good idea for me to have a clear picture of my health before I start to battle the temptations that life on the road will surely bring.  That's right, I'm looking at you Chik-Fil-A!  Damn you and your waffle fries...  But seriously, all of these things are definitely things I should know and honestly should have found out before now.  Ugh, just another thing to add to my To-Do List!

Say "Hi" to your adoring fans Wembley!

So, speaking of my life on the road, I have decided that in addition to making this blog fitness related I'm also going to be sharing my adventures from the various cities I'm visiting.  I'm going to call it "Where in the World is Wembley?"  Random name, you might be thinking...  However, I have a plan!  I have a stuffed animal from Fraggle Rock named Wembley.  I'm going to be taking him out on tour with me and taking pictures of him (and possibly myself) in various places in each city I visit.  So keep on the lookout for Wembley anywhere from  the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, to the Space Needle in Seattle!  He's coming soon to a city near you!

Alright, I really should head to bed.  My current show closing on Broadway this week and I've already started working on my tour gig, which leaves me a busy, busy bee!  Add in working out and occasionally working on my graduate thesis and I'm exhausted!  I'm going to have to type up my full To-Do list for you in an upcoming post.  It's quite daunting!  Yikes...

Anyway, say "Goodnight!" Wembley!

Goodnight!

My Fativersary: My Life a Year Later

Weight on August 27, 2010:        310.0 pounds
Weight on August 27, 2011:        242.8 pounds

Weight Lost in One Year:               67.2 pounds

Yes, I am up from my last weigh-in, but I'm not going to dwell on that, because I know what factors contributed to it.  I also know that it is just a temporary glitch and I will be back in the 230s again soon.

I'm here to focus on my journey over the course of the past year.  Where my life was, and what I am now.

Then?  I was lost.  Now?  I am found.  (Lame, but true.)

Then?  I was sad.  Now?  I am happy!

Then?  I was unemployed.  Now?  I'm getting ready to start a new adventure with a job and boss that I adore!

Then?  I had no hope.  Now?  I see and feel hope everyday.  Because as the quote from one of my favorite movies says:

"Hope is a good thing.  Maybe the best of things, and no good things ever die."

Find your hope.

No Weigh In Today

After my crappy weekend, and other factors going into today I decided that I don't really want to see the number on that scale today.  But, I'm going to hit the "restart" button and hopefully next week will see a decent number again.

I just feel "blah" today and I don't need the number on the scale to make me feel any worse.

Until then my friends...

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Okay, so I just have to talk about my last couple of days...

These past few days have been some of the most stressful in my entire life.

First of all, this week and next week my boss is on vacation.  This hasn't been all that stressful but more along the lines of time consuming.  I'm covering the majority of shows at night, so I'm getting home later than usual, which in turn is affecting my gym time.  I made the decision that in order for me to have my evenings to work on my thesis that I was going to need to become a morning work out person, but unfortunately this has not proven to be the case thus far.  I set my alarm early and I just hit the snooze button until its the normal time that I get up.  FAIL.

Here's the most stressful part...  My roommate and I currently live in a three bedroom apartment and had found someone to sublet our third bedroom starting September 1st, only this past Friday (the day before she was scheduled to give us her deposit and sign the agreement, mind you!) she backed out, leaving us a mere two and a half weeks to find someone for September.  This immediately scared the bejeezus out of me because I can't afford to pay half the rent should we not find someone!  Well, so I posted our apartment on Craigslist and the flood of responses came in.  I felt better because it said to me that we wouldn't have a problem finding someone, however it meant that it was going to take a massive amount of time to respond to the viable choices and arrange a meeting time, and then meet with them all.  This was time that I had planned to work on my thesis (we'll get to that in a second...), grocery shop (Because I was down to eating the emergency food, aka the cans of soup you have around in case you get sick...) and doing laundry (because I was left with either my scuzzy "only while doing laundry" t-shirts, or dressing up). 

I had to go to the theater yesterday for my matinee, stop by the office for a bit and then I headed home so that I could run my laundry down the street to the laundromat before they closed (because our laundromat doesn't stay open past 7PM.  It SUCKS!).  In the meantime, I had to reschedule a phone call for my thesis with a friend of mine because I didn't want to discuss this sensitive material in the midst of the shouting match between the two Chinese women who own/run the laundromat.  I figured I needed to give the conversation a bit more respect than that...  Luckily my friend Michael (THANK YOU AGAIN MICHAEL!!) was very understanding and I just got off the phone with him. 

In the meantime, I was still stressing about the apartment situation because now I'm basically having to look for two different people for the apartment.  One for September and then one to take over my room starting in October.  I was stressing out about it so much that I gave myself a killer migraine.  So, what did I do last night to make myself feel better about the whole situation and try and make my migraine seem less painful?  I ate.  I ate crap.  And the result?  As of today I'm 5 pounds heavier than I was on Wednesday.  I know, I shouldn't have weighed myself, but I really wanted to get an idea of what damage I had done.  Hopefully some of it is water weight from the copious amounts of sodium I inhaled, and some of it might be water weight because it's time for my monthly visitor...  But mostly its the result of my bad decisions.  Did that food taste good?  Yes.  Did it solve my problems?  No.  Do I feel better about my problems because of the food?  No.

I also haven't been to the gym in the past four days because of my insane schedule, but that will stop today.  Today I actually have the day off, and even though I have four appointments to show the apartment tonight and I have to work on my thesis, I am demanding that I go to the gym for an hour and work off the nastiness of yesterday.  My head is no longer throbbing (it was so bad it made me nauseous which has NEVER happened before) and I want to get my sweat on.  An hour of cardio sounds like heaven to me right now.  Honestly, what I really want to do is go for a swim but that will have to wait until later in the week unfortunately.  I haven't been in a while and I have been having a craving.  That's actually something I'm really looking forward to on the road.  Most of my hotels (I'm assuming) are going to have a pool that I can swim in easily.

I'm making the vow to you and myself now: this week will be better.  I went grocery shopping (in VERY sucky weather I might add) so I have no excuses to not eat properly.  I will have shown the apartment to probably 10-15 people by the end of tomorrow and we've already offered it to someone.  Hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow, this will be resolved as well.  That just takes me back to where I was before Friday in trying to balance work, exercise and my thesis.  But, balance is key for me.  I can do all three, I just need to make time for them all. 

I can do it. 

I can do it.

I can do it.

Weigh-In Wednesday: 8/10/11

Highest Weight:          310.0
Last Week Weight:      242.0
Current Weight:          239.8

This Week's Loss:          2.2

Total Weight Lost:       70.2

Words cannot describe my excitement about finally seeing the 230s!  I can't believe that I have lost 70 pounds in almost a year!  That's ridiculous!  This from a girl who never lost anything more than 15 pounds in her life prior to this!  I thought I was doomed to stay big for the rest of my life, and then I realized that I was in control of my own destiny and got my fat ass off the couch and went for a walk! (okay, that was a lot of exclamation points, but I don't care.  I'm excited, can't you tell???)

This week was a decent one.  I stayed pretty much on point with my eating (I had a treat, here or there) and even if I didn't get as much formal exercise that I wanted (I think I went to the gym or for a run a total of 4 times) I did at least get my butt moving everyday.

I just need to make sure and keep my head focused.  I have two weeks until my Fativersary and I really want to hit my 75 pounds lost goal.  That right there might make my head explode from excitement!  After that I have a secret goal in mind that I will share with everyone once I hit it.  It won't be too long after my 75 pound goal, but I don't want to share it until I hit it.  It would be a MAJOR achievement for me so I am keeping it to myself until then.

I want to thank everyone for their kind words over my new job by the way, and the encouragement that everyone has for me.  I have a feeling this blog will change drastically while I am out on the road and I hope that you all will enjoy it.  You'll be touring the country with me!  Get to see what I see in all of the exciting (and not so exciting) cities that I will visit.  I might actually start to talk more about what I'm specifically eating, since I have a feeling I'm going to have to get creative while out on the road.

We shall see!

So long NYC! Hello good ol' USA! (and Asia too!)

Well, I can finally tell my faithful few who read this blog on a regular basis about my exciting (and slightly nerve wracking) news!

Unfortunately my current Broadway show will be playing its last performance on Sunday, September 4th.  It's always sad when a show closes.  You have to say goodbye to so many people that have been a part of your everyday life.  Because you are hired for that specific show, you also have to look for another job.  That's the thing about theater...  it's a fickle, fickle beast.  It comes and goes in a blink of an eye.  Some people may get lucky and get to work on a show like Phantom of the Opera, Wicked or the newest huge hit Book of Mormon, but these shows are few and far between.  Only 20% of Broadway shows return their investments.  Mine was, once again, in that other 80%.

However, unlike last time my show closed, I already have a new job!  I will be touring the country (and Tokyo too!) with the national tour of Million Dollar Quartet!

I am incredibly fortunate that I will have a seamless transition without a break in between.  Granted I would have liked a week or two off so that I could pound out my thesis for my MFA, however considering I am blessed with work, I won't complain...

I'm really excited because working on a national tour has ALWAYS been a goal of mine.  It was how I was introduced to and fell in love with theater.  I felt like I owed it to the touring industry to repay the favor.  Not to mention, I get to see this beautiful country of ours (and Canada and Japan) on someone else's dime.  Yes, please.

I must admit though that I am having some mixed emotions about leaving.  There are so many emotions swirling inside of me that I don't really know which one will be the most prevalent at any given time. 

So, what are the things that are clouding my brain and putting a damper on my excitement?  Well the first is the aforementioned graduate thesis.  I have procrastinated as long as possible on this and I am now on my final year of eligibility to write it.  If I want that (very expensive) piece of paper this coming May, the time has come for me to stop with the procrastination and put words on 50 pages of paper.  I have told my advisor that I will have a first draft to him by October 1st (around the time we depart for our first tour destination: Cleveland).  So, the wheels are in motion for me to make this nuisance a thing of the past.  But, that still doesn't mean it doesn't make me incredibly nervous and anxious about the whole process...

The other major thing that is worrying me?  Keeping up with my current healthy lifestyle.  I know what my habits have been on trips before and I always saw it as an excuse to not exercise (I never exercised while NOT on a trip either though...) and to eat incredibly poorly (again, not that different from the ordinary.)  However,  those were always vacations.  This is not a vacation.  Not by any means.  Yes I will get the opportunity to visit some GREAT locations, but it's not all fun and games...work has to be involved too!  So, I need to think of it more as my regular life, just in different locations.  Granted, my diet is what is going to be challenged the most.  Exercise I won't have a problem getting at all with the fact that every hotel has a gym.  But I won't have a kitchen...  I've been cooking most of my meals every day for the last year.  With that taken away from my and the many, many, many temptations of fast food that will be in its place, will I be able to continue to shed the necessary weight for me to hit my goal?  I certainly hope so!  I guess time will tell.

I have given myself a time frame for when I would like to hit my goal weight.  I previously have said that I just want to hit it.  Period.  Now, I have a specific date by which I would like to see the number 200 staring back at me on the scale.  That is my graduation from Columbia University next May. 2012.  I want the pictures of me in my sky blue cap and gown to be of me at my goal weight.  I think its achievable.  That's about 40 more pounds in ten months.  I can do it.  I know I can.

But first?  I need to get out of these dreaded 240s.  I'm tired of seeing them!  Tomorrow, I run.

For those of you who read this blog from afar, please look and see if the MDQ tour will be stopping nearby your town.  I would love to meet bloggers in real life! 

Until then, keep fighting the good fight!

Weigh-In Wednesday: 8/3/11

Highest Weight:      310.0
Last Weight:           245.4
Today's Weight:      242.0

This Week's Loss:       3.4

Total Weight Lost:    68.0

I'm very happy with this, of course!  I think there are two reasons for it.  One, I think the previous week's weight gain was a lot of water weight from the salty goodness I had indulged in the prior weekend.  I also did really well this week in terms of both diet and exercise.  I still could have done better, but I did manage to get my butt moving the majority of days (even if it wasn't an official run or a trip to the gym) and I only had one day where I really ate "horribly" and that was two slices of cheese pizza.  Not really that horrible in the grand scheme of things.

I have 25 days until my Fativersary.  I have decided that I would love to be 235 by that day, for an even 75 pounds lost.  It's totally doable.  It's a little over three weeks to lose 7 pounds.  I just need to keep my mind on the goal and it will absolutely happen for me.  Even if I don't officially hit it, I will at least know that I worked hard.