It's been a while since I've written and that's because everything was going terribly. But it's ok, things have turned around now.

My school recently decided to cancel their corporate gym membership, which meant that I was out of a place to work out. It's not that big of a deal because I've been doing so much yoga, but I've really been thinking about the fact that I've got to supplement yoga with something else. So I got a new gym membership today! It's a club that's only a 7-minute walk away from my house, which is infinitely more convenient than the gym I used to go to (10 minutes walking and 15 on public transportation). And it's a nice gym for not all that much money. I get one personal training session, which I'm going to use for learning how to work on the weight machines and hopefully talk about ways to lose some more weight.

Anyways, I'm just super-duper excited about the entire thing. I think it's going to be good to be able to go so close to home and work on new things. I've sort of reached a plateau here and my body doesn't seem to want to lose anymore weight or get anymore toned, so this'll be excellent. And besides, it's supposed to be very good for you to mix up the exercise every couple of months.

Now, don't get me wrong...I am not going to stop going to yoga. At this point the addiction is strong enough that I couldn't even begin to think about not going, but I am going to cut back. Going to yoga once or twice a week instead of 4 or 5 times is not that big a deal.

Yay! I feel like everything is good right now!

130.5 this morning. Seems awfully fast. But honestly, I'm eating! In fact, I'm eating really well...getting home from yoga each night and eating a GIANT bowl of salad with yummy and delicious salad dressing on top. Although I do think I need to up my protein intake because there really isn't much of it. Time to bake the tofu in my fridge and start putting that on my salads.

It's weird. Since J wanted to share my salad last night and I knew he'd be bored with just what I was eating, I went and got some scallops to put on top of it. I thought that scallops would be acceptable for me and my increasingly finicky-towards-meat body. Nope. I ate one scallop, had a nearly impossible time swallowing the second half, and had to give up. Gave the rest of my scallops to J and he happily ate them all.

See, it's not that I want to become a vegetarian. It's that my body is giving me the message that I have to. My brain thinks it wants meat but my body sure as hell disagrees. I think I just need to do some experimenting, find out if this is true of all kinds of meat.

And don't worry, Mom. I will never give up meat completely, if only because your turkey gravy is probably my all-time favorite food. I may not eat meat again, but I will always eat meat sauces.

Shit. I'm feeling so good about myself and then I go to buy a new pair of yoga shorts. Let me first preface this by saying that the old yoga pants I've got are a size large and they're now falling off of me. And the reason why I was going to buy shorts instead of pants is because I'm now feeling a lot more comfortable with my legs than I have in a very long time...probably something to do with Hawaii and an entire week in a mini-skirt.

So I go to the store, right? And I get every single pair of shorts that looks good in two sizes: medium and large. Of course, I'm figuring that the large is really just in case. But no. The only pairs that fit me were the larges. And not only that but the truth is that my legs don't look at good as I thought they did. So I got a pair of shorts that goes down to my knees. They aren't even particularly great, I just got them so I could get out of the damn dressing room.

And now I feel like crap about myself. Great.

But here's my idea. I was thinking that if I returned these shorts and got myself a pair that didn't fit quite as well, that made me feel a little bit uncomfortable wearing them, that maybe that would help. Doesn't that seem like it would be good inspiration to get in shape? You know...LOSE WEIGHT! FIT INTO YOUR CLOTHES! STOP BEING EMBARASSED BECAUSE YOUR LUMPY THIGHS ARE HANGING OUT OF YOUR BRAND-NEW SHORTS! I don't know, seems like it might be good inspiration.

Hell, that's what started it all, right? Best friend was getting married, I no longer fit into the bridesmaid's dress, so I started to lose weight. Got to the point where the dress fit and never looked back again. You know, I tried the dress on again the other day and it didn't fit even vaguely. WAY too big. Pretty good feeling knowing that a year ago that was my inspiration point. A year. Long time. I don't feel so bad though...25 pounds in a year is pretty good. Not spectacular, but hey...I didn't really start working my ass off for it until September. All in all I think I'm doing pretty well.

And see, now I feel great about myself again. Screw the shorts...I rock!

Huh. 131.5 this morning. Maybe it's because I hadn't eaten anything yet and I'm still dehydrated from 2 nights of yoga in a row, but still. 131.5...haven't seen that small a number in a very long time. So I guess that puts me at 11.5 pounds to goal weight. Not freakin' bad.

I had an amazing yoga practice tonight! Judging by Gregor's classes from last night and tonight, someone must have told him that the routine was getting boring and that he should spice it up a little. And spice it up he did. Tonight's class was HARD. I tend to find that I like the harder classes a lot better though. In order to actually make it through one you have to really want it and in order to want it that much you have to really be into it. All in all the practice ends up being infinitely better for me when it's harder. And tonight was fantastic.

Been feeling great about myself for the last couple of days. I just all of a sudden have total faith in myself to do anything I want to do. What a great feeling.

Hmmm...but can I really give up sushi? Maybe I can give up all meat except for raw fish? Does that sound reasonable?

Tee hee hee... I'm so ridiculous. :)

So today I'm starting in on my new dietary plan. My new goal is to not eat anything unless I'm REALLY enthusiastic about it. I feel like I often end up eating things just because they're food, not because I actually want them. And these days the things that I most want are raw fruits and vegetables, so I think that's going to work out really well.

I just went to Whole Paycheck and bought myself a metric assload of fruits and veggies. I've got this salad dressing that A gave me the recipe for and I can't wait to make it. Honestly, trying that salad dressing on New Year's Eve is what has made me think I can actually eat salads every day. It's just so freakin' delicious, and exactly the kind of taste that I want on top of my salads.

And I got a whole bunch of fruits for snacks: tangelos, kiwis, raspberries (my absolute favorite food), etc. This is going to be good.

Also, I've been thinking really seriously about giving up meat completely. Yes, fish too. See, my body craves meat all the time. Generally I satisfy those cravings with fish. But the truth is that eating meat/fish NEVER makes me feel good. I generally get about halfway through whatever portion I've got and start feeling sick. My body thinks it wants meat but when it's presented with it just turns against it completely. So I got some tofu today as well that I'm going to bake to make it extra firm and then fry it up a little with some black bean sauce. I think it'll be a good addition to my salads.

I guess that's about it. I feel like I'm at a turning point here, a place where I can really make a difference with my own body, so now I just have to make myself do it. :)

Back from sunny and beautiful Hawaii! And what a time I had. The weather there was perfect...about 75 degrees every day, so it made it easy to get out and do fun stuff. I only went swimming three times though, because the hotel we were staying in wasn't on a swimming beach (it was too shallow and REALLY muddy). Major disappointment there, but that's ok.

The first really cool thing that we did was we hiked the Kalaupapa trail. Molokai has the highest sea cliffs in the world and there's a trail that you can hike down them (look here http://climberchick.com/pictures/Travel_Albums/molokai01/image_7.html for a good picture of the trail). With 26 switchbacks it was pretty amazing and unbelievably exhausting. The way down J and I just motored, only stopping occasionally to let my parents catch up and then off we went again. Then on the way back up we stuck with my mom and ended up taking the trail really slowly. Pretty cool actually, because I think we both would have been hurting really badly had we tried to do it any faster. It was steep and long. My mom's step counter said that at the end of it we had done 15,000 steps, which my dad said we should double because of all the up and down involved. It was unbelievably good exercise.

Then the next day, in order to even out the workout, we went sea-kayaking! Total freakin' blast. I think all in all we ended up doing between 4-6 miles on the kayaks, the last 3 of which were directly into the wind and sooooooo tiring. We saw whales and sea turtles and did a little bit of snorkeling (poor visibility so we didn't do too much) and paddled around like maniacs. It was so much fun I just can't believe it. And the perfect upper body workout to the lower body the day before.

And we did the hour and a half walk into town twice while we were there. Did some minor swimming. Did pretty good. Of course, I overate the entire time we were there, but what else is vacation for, right? Now I just have to get back into good mode.

Anyways. All in all it was a fantastic vacation. I had tons of fun and did a bunch of cool stuff. Now it's back to the real world and real issues. I spent a ton of time while we were there thinking about who and what I want to be. Hopefully I'll be able to enforce some of that. Hugs to all.

I've been having a hell of a time of it all recently. I had this amazing day on New Year's Eve... went to yoga at noon and then spent the rest of the day helping A cook and prepare for the party. I swear, all I ate all day long was fresh fruits/veggies and some soy crisps. It was fantastic. It helped me to remember just exactly how much I love eating fresh fruits/veggies. They're the best thing ever!

But ever since then it's been really tough. We're going through a tough spot financially right now and I can't afford to go out and get myself the foods that I would want to be eating. So instead I've only been eating the foods that we have at home...pasta, cheese, tortillas, etc. Suckage. And I've been STARVING so I've been eating a whole ton of these bad foods. Aargh. Why does it always happen this way...just when I get inspired something goes wrong.

So basically I'm feeling generally down about eating well and all that stuff.

On an up note though, I'm leaving for Hawaii on Thursday, so that's pretty exciting. Supposedly the hotel that we're staying in is off in the middle of freakin' nowhere. It's a 45 minute walk to town, which means that there's no way to avoid getting exercise. And there's a pool, so I'm getting up every morning and going for a swim. I guess it's on a beach that's not really a swimming beach, but there are swimming beaches nearby too. So basically, this is going to be an entire week-long vacation of really nice light exercise. I can't wait. And all the fresh fruit and fish I can eat! Yay!

And then when I get back I'm enforcing my new dietary plan. Salad for one meal per day, only fruit for snacks, and the likes. It'll be good. I'll write more about it when I've started.