257.2
This counts as my official weekly side of the blog weigh in. From now on, I weigh on Tuesdays. (Of course, me being me, I'll still start each post with my weight.)
I'm not faring too poorly in my wedding/weekend home recovery. This is .1 pounds lower than Friday, and 1.6 pounds lower than yesterday, when I shot up to 258.8. What's important is that I'm back into progress, and that my goals didn't get too horribly thrown off by the wedding.
Still, right now, I'm mostly feeling pretty blah. I'm squeaking along, but I'm just not accomplishing anything.
Let's be honest: the number one thing I need to do right now is apply to jobs. It's not that I don't like my job (I do!) but I've been here almost two years and it's time to move on. I need to get something that pays more and where I'll have more challenges and more opportunity for advancement. My current job is stale, and it's time for me to move on.
So, I've settled that. And I've actually found two jobs I would love to have and think I have a decent shot at. (Well, one I would love love love love to have, and one that would be a solid choice and improvement over my current position.) I've worked a lot on my resume and think it's currently at a place I like. But I just can't write the damn cover letters and get my applications out the door. I don't know what's wrong with me.
One of the jobs (the one I'd love love love) is in Denver. I have spent literally hours online looking at apartments I could get if I moved to Denver. I could get a place as nice, if not nicer, for about half of what I'm paying to live in DC. I've also spent hours looking at cars, dreaming about what my priorities would be if I were to get a car, debating if I'd buy purely from my savings or if I'd go wild and finance a nicer one than savings could buy. (Spoiler alert: I'm pretty cautious with money and there's approximately a zero chance I'd take out a loan to buy a nicer car.) Basically, I've just been daydreaming. Sure, I suppose it's better than, you know, eating, but it's really just not productive.
What I need to do is focus. Apply to jobs. Work out. Kick ass at my current job. Heck, even blog. I just need to not spend forever thinking about what I'd do if I got a new job without, you know, actually doing anything about it.
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Ten Things
Per the Honest Scrap award, ten things:
1. I am absolutely petrified of the dentist, and have an appointment today. This is the first time I've ever gone to the dentist on my own volition: every previous time I'd just been forced by my mother. I'm petrified that he's going to give me horrible news, and have been brushing and flossing like a mad woman since I made the appointment a few weeks ago. I'm pretty sure something's wrong with at least one of my teeth.
2. I am 99.99% certain I have PCOS. When I was a junior in college, my mom sent me an email saying "now that your 21 I think you should know you might have this because I had this." I have a lot of the symptoms (stray hairs I need to pluck, wildly irregular cycle, obesity, occasional acne, and the fact that whenever I google weird things about my body to figure out if it's normal a PCOS forum always shows up). The most common ways to treat PCOS are diet and exercise and the pill. An enormous part of this whole weight loss thing is to get rid of my PCOS symptoms. I'd like to get on the pill, too, but for that I'd need to see a doctor, and well . . .
3. My deepest fear is that I'll get diagnosed with diabetes before I'm able to join the Foreign Service. Once I have it, that's it, there's no way I'd be let in because they need to clear you for worldwide availability. If I got diabetes my life's ambition would be dead in the water, and I wouldn't have the slightest idea what I wanted to do with my life. One of the craziest things about diabetes is that just through diet and exercise, people can improve their health enough that they don't need any medications and can get results in the normal range on the "do you have diabetes" tests. But even though they test as normal and really no longer have diabetes, they count as having diabetes. Which, to me, says "do everything you can to avoid being diagnosed." Right now, if I had diabetes, and I keep losing weight and self cure, as far as the world is concerned, I'm not a diabetic. If I go in and see a doctor, get diagnosed, and then cure myself through diet and exercise, I'll still be a diabetic and can't join the Foreign Service.
4. I don't really think I have diabetes just yet, though. I'm still quite young, and my father didn't get it until his 50s. When I take online tests they say it's possible I have prediabetes and that I'm at risk and should get tested. Still, getting the pill to help with PCOS is not worth the risk of ruining my dream.
5. The only places I've ever lived for any length of time are New York City, Chicago, DC and Paris. I hate crowds, and part of me hates cities. Sometimes I think I should pick up and move out to Montana.
6. I grew up in Manhattan and went to one of the top private schools in the country. Yes, sort of like Gossip Girl, only less salacious. No, not really like NYC Prep, those kids all went to crap schools like Birch Wathen Lolnex. Whenever I meet people from NYC who grew up in the private school circuit, my first impulse is still to judge them on where they went to school. I try not to, though.
7. I once earnestly tried to explain to my college friends that I wasn't rich by using the argument that my parents had sold our second country house to help pay college tuition for my brother and I. As someone who's now seen a bit more of the real world, I now at least partially recognize how ridiculously sheltered I was.
8. I'm still ridiculously sheltered, though. I have an entry level DC salary (read: low) and live in a one bedroom apartment in the heart of downtown DC in a nice doorman building. My parents pay the vast majority of my rent and for all of my clothes and shoes, as well as a few other expenses. If it were up to me I'd live some place cheaper since I don't think the place is worth the rent, but my mom's a bit psychotic about safety, and since my parents were the ones picking up most of the bills I couldn't really argue too hard against it. In spite of that, I'm pretty frugal about most things and place a high value on saving money.
9. My friends from New York are all brats like me. My friends from college are mostly upper middle class kids, many of them the children of professors. I only have one friend who's from a wildly different background and who didn't grow up with the expectation that "of course everyone goes to college." I somehow met him through a friend of a friend of a friend at some event in college, and we ended up somehow hitting it off. He told me he went to UIC, but it turns out he'd dropped out about six months before I met him. When he told me the truth a few months later, I didn't blame him for lying to me.
10. The best $900 I've ever spent was to pay his community college tuition. I finally convinced him to go back to school this semester, but then a series of events (some partially his fault, some not at all) depleted his savings. Convincing him to accept the money was among the hardest things I've ever done, but also the best. I still worry, sometimes, that the money will somehow end up coloring our friendship, but thus far that hasn't been the case. I teared up the first time he emailed me from his new college email address. I am so, so, incredibly proud of him for going back.
1. I am absolutely petrified of the dentist, and have an appointment today. This is the first time I've ever gone to the dentist on my own volition: every previous time I'd just been forced by my mother. I'm petrified that he's going to give me horrible news, and have been brushing and flossing like a mad woman since I made the appointment a few weeks ago. I'm pretty sure something's wrong with at least one of my teeth.
2. I am 99.99% certain I have PCOS. When I was a junior in college, my mom sent me an email saying "now that your 21 I think you should know you might have this because I had this." I have a lot of the symptoms (stray hairs I need to pluck, wildly irregular cycle, obesity, occasional acne, and the fact that whenever I google weird things about my body to figure out if it's normal a PCOS forum always shows up). The most common ways to treat PCOS are diet and exercise and the pill. An enormous part of this whole weight loss thing is to get rid of my PCOS symptoms. I'd like to get on the pill, too, but for that I'd need to see a doctor, and well . . .
3. My deepest fear is that I'll get diagnosed with diabetes before I'm able to join the Foreign Service. Once I have it, that's it, there's no way I'd be let in because they need to clear you for worldwide availability. If I got diabetes my life's ambition would be dead in the water, and I wouldn't have the slightest idea what I wanted to do with my life. One of the craziest things about diabetes is that just through diet and exercise, people can improve their health enough that they don't need any medications and can get results in the normal range on the "do you have diabetes" tests. But even though they test as normal and really no longer have diabetes, they count as having diabetes. Which, to me, says "do everything you can to avoid being diagnosed." Right now, if I had diabetes, and I keep losing weight and self cure, as far as the world is concerned, I'm not a diabetic. If I go in and see a doctor, get diagnosed, and then cure myself through diet and exercise, I'll still be a diabetic and can't join the Foreign Service.
4. I don't really think I have diabetes just yet, though. I'm still quite young, and my father didn't get it until his 50s. When I take online tests they say it's possible I have prediabetes and that I'm at risk and should get tested. Still, getting the pill to help with PCOS is not worth the risk of ruining my dream.
5. The only places I've ever lived for any length of time are New York City, Chicago, DC and Paris. I hate crowds, and part of me hates cities. Sometimes I think I should pick up and move out to Montana.
6. I grew up in Manhattan and went to one of the top private schools in the country. Yes, sort of like Gossip Girl, only less salacious. No, not really like NYC Prep, those kids all went to crap schools like Birch Wathen Lolnex. Whenever I meet people from NYC who grew up in the private school circuit, my first impulse is still to judge them on where they went to school. I try not to, though.
7. I once earnestly tried to explain to my college friends that I wasn't rich by using the argument that my parents had sold our second country house to help pay college tuition for my brother and I. As someone who's now seen a bit more of the real world, I now at least partially recognize how ridiculously sheltered I was.
8. I'm still ridiculously sheltered, though. I have an entry level DC salary (read: low) and live in a one bedroom apartment in the heart of downtown DC in a nice doorman building. My parents pay the vast majority of my rent and for all of my clothes and shoes, as well as a few other expenses. If it were up to me I'd live some place cheaper since I don't think the place is worth the rent, but my mom's a bit psychotic about safety, and since my parents were the ones picking up most of the bills I couldn't really argue too hard against it. In spite of that, I'm pretty frugal about most things and place a high value on saving money.
9. My friends from New York are all brats like me. My friends from college are mostly upper middle class kids, many of them the children of professors. I only have one friend who's from a wildly different background and who didn't grow up with the expectation that "of course everyone goes to college." I somehow met him through a friend of a friend of a friend at some event in college, and we ended up somehow hitting it off. He told me he went to UIC, but it turns out he'd dropped out about six months before I met him. When he told me the truth a few months later, I didn't blame him for lying to me.
10. The best $900 I've ever spent was to pay his community college tuition. I finally convinced him to go back to school this semester, but then a series of events (some partially his fault, some not at all) depleted his savings. Convincing him to accept the money was among the hardest things I've ever done, but also the best. I still worry, sometimes, that the money will somehow end up coloring our friendship, but thus far that hasn't been the case. I teared up the first time he emailed me from his new college email address. I am so, so, incredibly proud of him for going back.
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Credit scores, reports, and the things we get from our parents
Weight: 248.7
So, I have a kindle. I love it. One of the things I love most about it is that you can download the first chapter for free of any book you're interested in. So, if I'm say, looking for a humor book, I can download a few chapters until I run into one that really cracks me up. Recently, I was looking for a personal finance book. I'm not in debt, but many personal finance begin with the importance of getting out of debt. One of the things that came up in several of the books was "Getting out of debt is a lot like losing weight."
Today's post is going to be a lot more about money than it will be about weight loss, but there's a lot of overlap between the two. As we travel this journey of self betterment, building healthy bodies, I think it's worth spending a bit of time to get our financial houses in order as well.
I've always been interested in finance. Through most of college I thought I would go into investment banking. Since before I can remember, I had a "junior" bank account and my parents encouraged me to save some of my allowance and birthday money, and later baby sitting earnings and writing prize winnings. (I'm not much of a writer these days, but in High School I won some substantive prize money through Scholastic writing competitions, including one for the best nonfiction portfolio in New York City.) In my senior year of high school, my father went with me to Citibank to help me open real, regular savings and checking accounts complete with a debit card. Growing up, I was instilled with things that I didn't recognize as good habits, but just accepted as truth: you don't spend more than you have, you pay your bills off in full each month, and you always pay on time.
(This is where one could note that there are all sorts of food lessons I didn't learn from my parents, like don't eat when you're not hungry, get in fruits and vegetables, avoid processed junk, etc, but let's not be negative.)
As someone with that interest in personal finance, I sort of knew that I was mostly on the right track. I'd been paying bills on time and in full, I've started saving for retirement through a Roth IRA, and I make sure to spend less than I earn. But for a good long while, I've known that there was something else I should have done that I just hadn't yet.
For a really long time, I was scared of finding out my credit report and score. In college, I had a small medical bill that my parents insurance was supposed to pay. I sent it to my mom, who swore she sent it to her insurance, and then no one ever followed up on it. This was in maybe February or March. Spring passed and I went home for the summer. That fall, I came back to find a whole host of letters about the apparently unpaid medical bill. I was furious at my mother (she said she'd taken care of it, although in hindsight, at 19 years old I should have been responsible enough to follow up on it myself) . I paid the bill immediately, and called my mother and cried and screamed and told her she'd ruined my credit and that I'd never be able to get a mortgage or a car loan and that potential employers would see it and that it would be her fault if I didn't get a job and just all these horribly nasty things. My mother and I don't fight often, and I wasn't the type of melodramatic kid who said stuff like that on a regular basis. I was, honestly, furious, and petrified that I'd have this black mark hanging over me for 10 years all because my stupid mother hadn't made sure the insurance paid a stupid bill. I literally wouldn't return her calls for weeks. It's among the most self indulgent outbursts I've ever had (really, a 19 year old can look into these things for herself) , but it also still ranks up there as among my most terrifying experiences to this day.
So, since that happened, 4ish years ago, I'd been afraid to check my credit report.
Well guess what I just did? I checked my credit report. Each year, you're entitled by federal law to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three reporting bureaus. The only place you should go to get this score is the official government site: https://www.annualcreditreport.com. Do not go anywhere else: freecreditreport.com, freetriplescore.com, all the other ones you see advertising on TV are all scams. Don't go to them, they're not free, and they're not legit, in spite of their catchy jingles.
The missed medical bill wasn't on there. But what was, was fabulous. In about 6th grade, my parents gave me a credit card to use when I went shopping with my friends. In the spring of 9th grade, my dad decided to have me use a different one that would give him rewards, but at the time I thought nothing of it. But there both cards were: each with a decade of beautiful on time payments. My own credit cards (I have two, one I got in college and a more recent one that gives rewards) were there too, each with their on time payments. The $1000 credit line attached to my checking account (which I've never actually used) was there too, with on time payments dating back to when I was a senior in high school. It was beautiful. There was an error that I'm going to mail them about to get corrected (the birthdate's off by a few decades) but other than that everything was all correct and filled with green boxes for years of accounts in good standing.
Then I went to check my actual credit score. This is the number between 300 and 850 that most people think about when they think about credit scores. Until recently, it was impossible to get your credit score for free. However, an ad-supported site called Credit Karma (sort of like mint.com) now lets you see your TransUnion credit score. I'm pretty cautious about providing personal information on the web, and will research sites a bunch before I'll input information. I've got enough sources to consider it safe.
And I did check it. The result: 766. High enough that I could actually qualify for the best mortgage rates at 23.
So right now, I'm just feeling thankful to my parents. For all the good habits they taught me growing up, and for the decade long record of on-time bill payments they gave me. I called them to thank them, and though I didn't apologize to my Mom (I possibly should have) , I did tell her that the medical bill did not show up.
Today, my financial house is much cleaner than it used to be. I'm glad I faced my fears and looked at the report. Knowing that I do have my finances under control makes me feel a lot closer to having my waist under control. Mostly, I feel like I'm getting closer each day to being the person I really want to be.
How closely do you think money and weight loss are related? Do you feel better than one than at the other? And the question I'm most curious about: do you check in on your credit report and/or score, and why or why not?
I also just want to quickly reiterate: please don't don't don't use a scam site. The only place to get the three annual reports you're entitled to by the government is https://www.annualcreditreport.com. The only reputable site for getting your credit score for free that I know of is https://www.creditkarma.com. Be extremely careful anywhere else, and avoid the credit sites that advertise on TV like the devil.
So, I have a kindle. I love it. One of the things I love most about it is that you can download the first chapter for free of any book you're interested in. So, if I'm say, looking for a humor book, I can download a few chapters until I run into one that really cracks me up. Recently, I was looking for a personal finance book. I'm not in debt, but many personal finance begin with the importance of getting out of debt. One of the things that came up in several of the books was "Getting out of debt is a lot like losing weight."
Today's post is going to be a lot more about money than it will be about weight loss, but there's a lot of overlap between the two. As we travel this journey of self betterment, building healthy bodies, I think it's worth spending a bit of time to get our financial houses in order as well.
I've always been interested in finance. Through most of college I thought I would go into investment banking. Since before I can remember, I had a "junior" bank account and my parents encouraged me to save some of my allowance and birthday money, and later baby sitting earnings and writing prize winnings. (I'm not much of a writer these days, but in High School I won some substantive prize money through Scholastic writing competitions, including one for the best nonfiction portfolio in New York City.) In my senior year of high school, my father went with me to Citibank to help me open real, regular savings and checking accounts complete with a debit card. Growing up, I was instilled with things that I didn't recognize as good habits, but just accepted as truth: you don't spend more than you have, you pay your bills off in full each month, and you always pay on time.
(This is where one could note that there are all sorts of food lessons I didn't learn from my parents, like don't eat when you're not hungry, get in fruits and vegetables, avoid processed junk, etc, but let's not be negative.)
As someone with that interest in personal finance, I sort of knew that I was mostly on the right track. I'd been paying bills on time and in full, I've started saving for retirement through a Roth IRA, and I make sure to spend less than I earn. But for a good long while, I've known that there was something else I should have done that I just hadn't yet.
For a really long time, I was scared of finding out my credit report and score. In college, I had a small medical bill that my parents insurance was supposed to pay. I sent it to my mom, who swore she sent it to her insurance, and then no one ever followed up on it. This was in maybe February or March. Spring passed and I went home for the summer. That fall, I came back to find a whole host of letters about the apparently unpaid medical bill. I was furious at my mother (she said she'd taken care of it, although in hindsight, at 19 years old I should have been responsible enough to follow up on it myself) . I paid the bill immediately, and called my mother and cried and screamed and told her she'd ruined my credit and that I'd never be able to get a mortgage or a car loan and that potential employers would see it and that it would be her fault if I didn't get a job and just all these horribly nasty things. My mother and I don't fight often, and I wasn't the type of melodramatic kid who said stuff like that on a regular basis. I was, honestly, furious, and petrified that I'd have this black mark hanging over me for 10 years all because my stupid mother hadn't made sure the insurance paid a stupid bill. I literally wouldn't return her calls for weeks. It's among the most self indulgent outbursts I've ever had (really, a 19 year old can look into these things for herself) , but it also still ranks up there as among my most terrifying experiences to this day.
So, since that happened, 4ish years ago, I'd been afraid to check my credit report.
Well guess what I just did? I checked my credit report. Each year, you're entitled by federal law to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three reporting bureaus. The only place you should go to get this score is the official government site: https://www.annualcreditreport.com. Do not go anywhere else: freecreditreport.com, freetriplescore.com, all the other ones you see advertising on TV are all scams. Don't go to them, they're not free, and they're not legit, in spite of their catchy jingles.
The missed medical bill wasn't on there. But what was, was fabulous. In about 6th grade, my parents gave me a credit card to use when I went shopping with my friends. In the spring of 9th grade, my dad decided to have me use a different one that would give him rewards, but at the time I thought nothing of it. But there both cards were: each with a decade of beautiful on time payments. My own credit cards (I have two, one I got in college and a more recent one that gives rewards) were there too, each with their on time payments. The $1000 credit line attached to my checking account (which I've never actually used) was there too, with on time payments dating back to when I was a senior in high school. It was beautiful. There was an error that I'm going to mail them about to get corrected (the birthdate's off by a few decades) but other than that everything was all correct and filled with green boxes for years of accounts in good standing.
Then I went to check my actual credit score. This is the number between 300 and 850 that most people think about when they think about credit scores. Until recently, it was impossible to get your credit score for free. However, an ad-supported site called Credit Karma (sort of like mint.com) now lets you see your TransUnion credit score. I'm pretty cautious about providing personal information on the web, and will research sites a bunch before I'll input information. I've got enough sources to consider it safe.
And I did check it. The result: 766. High enough that I could actually qualify for the best mortgage rates at 23.
So right now, I'm just feeling thankful to my parents. For all the good habits they taught me growing up, and for the decade long record of on-time bill payments they gave me. I called them to thank them, and though I didn't apologize to my Mom (I possibly should have) , I did tell her that the medical bill did not show up.
Today, my financial house is much cleaner than it used to be. I'm glad I faced my fears and looked at the report. Knowing that I do have my finances under control makes me feel a lot closer to having my waist under control. Mostly, I feel like I'm getting closer each day to being the person I really want to be.
How closely do you think money and weight loss are related? Do you feel better than one than at the other? And the question I'm most curious about: do you check in on your credit report and/or score, and why or why not?
I also just want to quickly reiterate: please don't don't don't use a scam site. The only place to get the three annual reports you're entitled to by the government is https://www.annualcreditreport.com. The only reputable site for getting your credit score for free that I know of is https://www.creditkarma.com. Be extremely careful anywhere else, and avoid the credit sites that advertise on TV like the devil.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
A Grocery Store Disaster
To everyone who said I'd hit that 20 pound mark in no time: you were right.
Weight: 257.7
BMI: 44.23
That means I've lost over 20 pounds! YAY! I'm very very happy about it. It also means I've now lost over 7% of my starting body weight (7.30% if you're counting) and 3.48 points of BMI. In order to hit my first mini goal of 250 by 9/15, I now need to lose only 1.63 pounds/week. If things keep going as they have, I should not only meet my goal date, but beat it by a week or two.
Anyway, yesterday at work was a busy day. I left around 7pm, changed quickly, and headed to the gym. I did 50 minutes on the elliptical (550 calories) and even enjoyed some of it! Needless to say, I'm glad that the badness and misery of my Saturday/Sunday workouts wasn't repeated.
There was a dire need to replenish my healthy food supplies, so I hit up the grocery store post gym. I do this relatively often, just grabbing produce (which is right by the door) and going straight to the checkout before I head home. Today, though, I needed to buy lunch meat for work sandwiches, which brought me in to the belly of the beast.
It started with a 100 calorie hostess cupcake display. I'd had the last of my 60 calorie sugar free Jell-o pudding snacks two nights ago, so I needed to get some small new desert, right? Cupcakes it was. Oh, but if I have these you know I'm going to need a glass of milk to go with them. I should go grab that. The milk was in sight of the eggs. I'd been meaning to try the egg substitutes one of these days to see how they tasted, so shouldn't I get a package of those too? Added to the cart. I walked down the aisle . . . Cottage cheese! I used to love cottage cheese. Shouldn't I get one of those 4 packs of cottage cheese to see if I love it as much as I used to? And then Oh, yogurts, I'm running out of those. I might as well grab a few more. Then I hate hate hate that low fat cheddar I've got at home, oooh and this mozzarella has just the same number of calories. I couldn't NOT. And on and on it went.
The damage? $50 of groceries. Looking through the receipt, precisely $11.50 of that is stuff I'd been intending to pick up. Yeesh. While everything I bought still qualifies under the vague banner of healthy, it's much, much, much more than I needed.
While I do feel pretty guilty about my unplanned purchases, it's tricky because I also am really excited about them. I'm sad, but I'm also happy to get to try all this new stuff I bought. I don't generally rock frozen food, but I ended up on some blog (sorry I don't remember who you are! otherwise the link love would be yours) recently where they were raving about a few Smart Ones dishes, so I ended up buying four of those. I had their macaroni and cheese for dinner last night and it was oh so good. (I also had a salad with lettuce, tomato, apple, one cut up wedge of light laughing cow cheese and Italian dressing, which is a standard dinner salad of mine and is amazingly good too.) I'm excited to try the egg substitutes and see if I like them. I'm looking forward to the rest of the frozen dinners. I can't wait to see if cottage cheese is as good as I remember. And really, the anticipation for those hostess 100-calorie cupcakes is killing me.
I love food. It's bad. I'm making healthy choices right now because I'm dedicated to losing weight and it's something I really want to do, but good lord, in so many ways I'm still absolutely in love with food. I love buying it, I love trying it, I love making it, it's terrible. It's probably 60% of what got me into this situation in the first place.
This is no good.
I don't know. I think I'm always going to love food. I don't really think I'd want to not love food, which is probably just as well because I don't think I could stop even if I wanted to. And I think (or maybe I just hope) that it's okay to love food. I can love trying new foods and making new things, I just have to do it in moderation. I can love food, I just can't love it more than I love my life, my health, and my future.
I can love food, I just can't let my love of it negatively impact everything else.
That could work, right?
Weight: 257.7
BMI: 44.23
That means I've lost over 20 pounds! YAY! I'm very very happy about it. It also means I've now lost over 7% of my starting body weight (7.30% if you're counting) and 3.48 points of BMI. In order to hit my first mini goal of 250 by 9/15, I now need to lose only 1.63 pounds/week. If things keep going as they have, I should not only meet my goal date, but beat it by a week or two.
Anyway, yesterday at work was a busy day. I left around 7pm, changed quickly, and headed to the gym. I did 50 minutes on the elliptical (550 calories) and even enjoyed some of it! Needless to say, I'm glad that the badness and misery of my Saturday/Sunday workouts wasn't repeated.
There was a dire need to replenish my healthy food supplies, so I hit up the grocery store post gym. I do this relatively often, just grabbing produce (which is right by the door) and going straight to the checkout before I head home. Today, though, I needed to buy lunch meat for work sandwiches, which brought me in to the belly of the beast.
It started with a 100 calorie hostess cupcake display. I'd had the last of my 60 calorie sugar free Jell-o pudding snacks two nights ago, so I needed to get some small new desert, right? Cupcakes it was. Oh, but if I have these you know I'm going to need a glass of milk to go with them. I should go grab that. The milk was in sight of the eggs. I'd been meaning to try the egg substitutes one of these days to see how they tasted, so shouldn't I get a package of those too? Added to the cart. I walked down the aisle . . . Cottage cheese! I used to love cottage cheese. Shouldn't I get one of those 4 packs of cottage cheese to see if I love it as much as I used to? And then Oh, yogurts, I'm running out of those. I might as well grab a few more. Then I hate hate hate that low fat cheddar I've got at home, oooh and this mozzarella has just the same number of calories. I couldn't NOT. And on and on it went.
The damage? $50 of groceries. Looking through the receipt, precisely $11.50 of that is stuff I'd been intending to pick up. Yeesh. While everything I bought still qualifies under the vague banner of healthy, it's much, much, much more than I needed.
While I do feel pretty guilty about my unplanned purchases, it's tricky because I also am really excited about them. I'm sad, but I'm also happy to get to try all this new stuff I bought. I don't generally rock frozen food, but I ended up on some blog (sorry I don't remember who you are! otherwise the link love would be yours) recently where they were raving about a few Smart Ones dishes, so I ended up buying four of those. I had their macaroni and cheese for dinner last night and it was oh so good. (I also had a salad with lettuce, tomato, apple, one cut up wedge of light laughing cow cheese and Italian dressing, which is a standard dinner salad of mine and is amazingly good too.) I'm excited to try the egg substitutes and see if I like them. I'm looking forward to the rest of the frozen dinners. I can't wait to see if cottage cheese is as good as I remember. And really, the anticipation for those hostess 100-calorie cupcakes is killing me.
I love food. It's bad. I'm making healthy choices right now because I'm dedicated to losing weight and it's something I really want to do, but good lord, in so many ways I'm still absolutely in love with food. I love buying it, I love trying it, I love making it, it's terrible. It's probably 60% of what got me into this situation in the first place.
This is no good.
I don't know. I think I'm always going to love food. I don't really think I'd want to not love food, which is probably just as well because I don't think I could stop even if I wanted to. And I think (or maybe I just hope) that it's okay to love food. I can love trying new foods and making new things, I just have to do it in moderation. I can love food, I just can't love it more than I love my life, my health, and my future.
I can love food, I just can't let my love of it negatively impact everything else.
That could work, right?
Thursday, 6 August 2009
To train or not to train
Weight: 260.8
BMI: 44.76
The weigh in is happy (17.2 lbs lost! 6.19% of starting bodyweight and 2.95 points of BMI gone!) but not what I want to talk about today.
So, when I started losing weight, I started comparing gyms to figure out which would be a good fit for me. I sort of centered on Results because it was close and came up pretty often when I googled "Best Gym in DC." Still, at over $100 a month plus a $100 joining fee, I wasn't really certain if I was willing to spend that much.
Then, essentially the day after I'd settled on trying to go to Results for a one day free pass, I got a company wide email that we were considering a corporate membership there and that anyone who was interested should write back. I did, and I got 4 free passes to check it out.
I used them before San Diego. While I was there, the corporate membership deal got finalized. The Saturday after I got back, I went in and signed up for my reduced corporate $65 a month (and no joining fee!) membership. Since then I've used the gym every day but Monday, putting in a solid 40-60 minutes on the elliptical machine. I've been too scared to do any of the classes yet, but I'm on the edge of trying the spinning class or yoga fundamentals. They've got a Zumba class, too, which I kind of want to try solely on the basis of the praise I've read over at Learning to Be Less.
The point I'm trying to get to is that, as a new member, I'm entitled to a free personal training session. I've got mine scheduled for next Saturday (the 15th). I want to sort of dedicate the session to figuring out what I should be doing in terms of weight lifting, since I know it's important and I should be doing it, I just don't really know how. (There are also "floor trainers" whom I'm told I can ask how any of the machines work, but I'd rather just wait till the training session.)
The question is, should I invest in a personal trainer beyond the free session?
As of this point, I'm rather torn on if it's worth the money. (It would be $625 for 10 sessions, $1200 for 20. If I did get a trainer I think I'd set it up so I only met with him once a week, maybe twice.)
I recently opened up a Roth IRA for the first time. I put $3000 in, the minimum over at Vanguard where I opened my account. (Side note: if you're not saving for retirement, you should be! The younger you are the easier it is. I particularly like Roth IRA's because you can always withdraw your contributions at any time, no penalty, and can withdraw up to $10,000 in earnings for a first house or in case of hardship. You use after tax money to open the account, and then it grows tax free and you pay no taxes when you use it down the road. For more on why Roth IRAs are the awesomest awesome that ever was awesome, check out this blog post.) I'd saved up a bit particularly for this, but I did dip a bit into my general savings/emergency fund. There's a maximum contribution of $5000/year for people below the age of 50, and I'd like to put that much in before the end of the year. I think the market is cheaper than it will be for a long time, plus compounding generally favors investing as soon as you can. So, one thing I'd like to do this year is max out my retirement account.
Since the end of high school, I've always had this wild dream of becoming a Foreign Service Officer. The spring of my sophomore year in college, I took the written exam while I was studying abroad in Paris. (It's offered in tons of places in the US, too, but because I was out of the country I got to take it at the US Embassy there, which was gorgeous.) I passed it and got invited to the Oral Assessment, which I failed. And we're not talking a close failure either: I bombed. It was a mess. I hadn't been able to sleep the night before, and I just stumbled over everything and it was all kinds of terrible. I've been thinking of trying again. As part of that, I've been thinking of learning Arabic. While you don't need to know a foreign language to join, knowing a "super critical needs language" (their words, not mine) like Arabic helps a lot. So I've been thinking of taking Arabic classes. They'd be about $800 for the fall semester.
I also want to replenish my emergency fund. While I'm probably pretty secure at my job, and if anything did happen my parents would take care of me (in some future post I'll go into my parents and finances), I like having a bit of savings. I think it's important to save. And I want to get those numbers back up.
So, if I want to add personal training, it means cutting either Arabic, retirement savings, or replenishing my emergency fund. If personal training seems like it's worth it, adding to my emergency fund will probably be the thing to go: it's still got a few thousand dollars in it now, and I can build it up to a level I'm more comfortable with eventually. I'm still not 100% certain though.
So, question for anyone who's ever had a personal trainer: do you think it's worth it? What do you get from your trainer that you couldn't get on your own? How do you think s/he helps you?
And, for everyone, trainer or no, base instinct, what would you do? Pick three: trainer, Arabic, retirement, emergency fund.
BMI: 44.76
The weigh in is happy (17.2 lbs lost! 6.19% of starting bodyweight and 2.95 points of BMI gone!) but not what I want to talk about today.
So, when I started losing weight, I started comparing gyms to figure out which would be a good fit for me. I sort of centered on Results because it was close and came up pretty often when I googled "Best Gym in DC." Still, at over $100 a month plus a $100 joining fee, I wasn't really certain if I was willing to spend that much.
Then, essentially the day after I'd settled on trying to go to Results for a one day free pass, I got a company wide email that we were considering a corporate membership there and that anyone who was interested should write back. I did, and I got 4 free passes to check it out.
I used them before San Diego. While I was there, the corporate membership deal got finalized. The Saturday after I got back, I went in and signed up for my reduced corporate $65 a month (and no joining fee!) membership. Since then I've used the gym every day but Monday, putting in a solid 40-60 minutes on the elliptical machine. I've been too scared to do any of the classes yet, but I'm on the edge of trying the spinning class or yoga fundamentals. They've got a Zumba class, too, which I kind of want to try solely on the basis of the praise I've read over at Learning to Be Less.
The point I'm trying to get to is that, as a new member, I'm entitled to a free personal training session. I've got mine scheduled for next Saturday (the 15th). I want to sort of dedicate the session to figuring out what I should be doing in terms of weight lifting, since I know it's important and I should be doing it, I just don't really know how. (There are also "floor trainers" whom I'm told I can ask how any of the machines work, but I'd rather just wait till the training session.)
The question is, should I invest in a personal trainer beyond the free session?
As of this point, I'm rather torn on if it's worth the money. (It would be $625 for 10 sessions, $1200 for 20. If I did get a trainer I think I'd set it up so I only met with him once a week, maybe twice.)
I recently opened up a Roth IRA for the first time. I put $3000 in, the minimum over at Vanguard where I opened my account. (Side note: if you're not saving for retirement, you should be! The younger you are the easier it is. I particularly like Roth IRA's because you can always withdraw your contributions at any time, no penalty, and can withdraw up to $10,000 in earnings for a first house or in case of hardship. You use after tax money to open the account, and then it grows tax free and you pay no taxes when you use it down the road. For more on why Roth IRAs are the awesomest awesome that ever was awesome, check out this blog post.) I'd saved up a bit particularly for this, but I did dip a bit into my general savings/emergency fund. There's a maximum contribution of $5000/year for people below the age of 50, and I'd like to put that much in before the end of the year. I think the market is cheaper than it will be for a long time, plus compounding generally favors investing as soon as you can. So, one thing I'd like to do this year is max out my retirement account.
Since the end of high school, I've always had this wild dream of becoming a Foreign Service Officer. The spring of my sophomore year in college, I took the written exam while I was studying abroad in Paris. (It's offered in tons of places in the US, too, but because I was out of the country I got to take it at the US Embassy there, which was gorgeous.) I passed it and got invited to the Oral Assessment, which I failed. And we're not talking a close failure either: I bombed. It was a mess. I hadn't been able to sleep the night before, and I just stumbled over everything and it was all kinds of terrible. I've been thinking of trying again. As part of that, I've been thinking of learning Arabic. While you don't need to know a foreign language to join, knowing a "super critical needs language" (their words, not mine) like Arabic helps a lot. So I've been thinking of taking Arabic classes. They'd be about $800 for the fall semester.
I also want to replenish my emergency fund. While I'm probably pretty secure at my job, and if anything did happen my parents would take care of me (in some future post I'll go into my parents and finances), I like having a bit of savings. I think it's important to save. And I want to get those numbers back up.
So, if I want to add personal training, it means cutting either Arabic, retirement savings, or replenishing my emergency fund. If personal training seems like it's worth it, adding to my emergency fund will probably be the thing to go: it's still got a few thousand dollars in it now, and I can build it up to a level I'm more comfortable with eventually. I'm still not 100% certain though.
So, question for anyone who's ever had a personal trainer: do you think it's worth it? What do you get from your trainer that you couldn't get on your own? How do you think s/he helps you?
And, for everyone, trainer or no, base instinct, what would you do? Pick three: trainer, Arabic, retirement, emergency fund.
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