Profiles changed me...body, mind and soul

BODY
Changed eating habits

They say that when people are paired together, they have a tendency to adopt the same lifestyle patterns. The first few months of working at Profiles, all the other girls had salad for lunch…I was bringing 3-4 cinnamon rolls leftover from breakfast. I was steadfast in my ghastly dieting ways – and stayed strong for a while. I’m not sure I can tell you when exactly I realized I needed to not eat eight chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk for dinner. I don’t think it was peer pressure. I never received looks of disgust from my coworkers about my food choices…just a small sense of jealousy. I may not have looked fat, but I probably could have been in a race with an 80-year old man, and finished last. Maybe it was from all the times I climbed up stairs and got winded out of breath – just from doing a mail run. Slowly, over the past six weeks, I put my yucky dieting behind me and have been looking forward to only a field of leafy greens, and lean meats.

Wii Fit Investment

I’m not sure I ever would have considered it, had my colleague Amy Burke not shown me the light. From the day she charaded the movements of the ski jump game in the middle of the office, I knew I had to try it. After finally getting the beautiful little white box of gaming goodness within my grasp, I discovered a world of fitness/balance/strength training possibilities and haven’t looked back since. It’s not just a game. It’s an investment…and it changed my life.

MIND

Improved relationship with Jay due to group female assessment

My communication with Jay has improved immensely since first starting at Profiles. Thankfully, our tiny open, no-walls office is compiled of at least four other women beside myself, at any given time. That’s four other women to analyze, assess and advise situations pertaining to my love life that I may not be the most eager to resolve (I’m one of those suffer-in-silence types that keeps everything “bottled up” inside). That’s four different perspectives and four different age ranges…two handy things to have when a woman needs to gather a female consensus concerning the opposite sex. Thanks, girls.

SOUL

A new world of entertainment: Netflix

Never again will I be behind in the gossip of daily television, nighttime soaps and newly released blockbusters. Another enlightenment received from colleagues, I now know a whole new world of television-watching possibilities. Who needs TIVO when you have DVD’s of all your favorite TV shows on-demand? Additionally, I’m now catching up on all those cool flicks that got rave reviews but that I had no time to stay up and watch. Case in point: True Blood, The Office, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nip/Tuck…need I go on?

Some days, it's hard to get up...

Alarm: MURM! MURM! MURM! MURM!
*I hit the snooze button.*
Jay: Babe, it’s 5:20 – you have boot camp… *lightly shoves me in the back toward the edge of the bed*

Me: *Mean moan* It’s fine – I have time. *Grumble, grumble*

Jay: *Emphatically* Well, I’m only telling you because I love you! *Grabs Merlot close to his chest to cuddle under the blanket*

Me: Ughhh. *gets up to leave*

Some days, it's just hard to get up,
Bridget Marie

P.s. Today's grueling workout was done entirely in a monsoon. The slant of the down-pour of rain provided an extra special supplement of resistance while running up and down 50 flights of stairs. Thank you, mother nature.

You know what they say...Another day...another evening of icing an isolated muscle group

I can tell you with confidence, that…drumroll please…I am no longer last! Not that there is anything wrong with being last. But I’m not. Far from it, actually. I am now second to last.

With three and a half weeks of boot camp down, and two and a half more to go – I can tell you, it is certainly not getting easier. This morning, I had to carry two 2.5lb dumbbells throughout the entire hour-long workout, during everything we did – running, stairs, etc. Have you ever carried five pounds over your head in a precise vertical position while concurrently running up and down 200 meters of stairs three times in a row? Of course NOT – why would you unless you were a patient at an insane asylum!?

On the last flight of stairs holding those dumbbells over my head, straight-armed, shoulders burning, I thought to myself, “the harder your legs work, the less time your arms will be up – the sooner you finish, the sooner you can put them down.” Sounded like a good idea to me, so I sprinted up the stairs and then dropped my tired noodle arms.

Well, after that - Reese gave the whole group a very detailed “motivational” speech about how you can’t teach people to go hard, you either have it or you don’t. And if you’re not going hard all the time, you’re not going to get the results you need as fast you should. He said that we should be going the same hard pace the whole time, not go slow in the beginning and then finish with a sprint (I guess we’re supposed to start with a sprint).

Sigh.

Anyway –Even though he said it to the group, I felt as though the entire speech was intended for me alone. He took my half-assed attempt to savor the muscles in my rotator cuff as “finishing hard.” Sadly, I by no means meant to finish hard. But now, I am determined to give it my all. Let me tell ya: When REESE gives a speech…the man GIVES a speech.

Whenever I’m getting tired out there, I just think of a big fat imaginary cookie waiting for me at the end. ‘Tis true. I’ve been off cookies for three and a half weeks now…sigh…yes, every day is a challenge. The only thing standing in the way of me and a handful of cookies is me. Talk about scary. Still, I’m determined not to relapse, even after boot camp is over. Getting in shape is hard work, but I hear that staying in shape is even harder work…

More to come later…

A two and a half pound dumbbell is heavier than you think,
Bridget Marie