What My Pandora Stations Say About Me!

August 17, 2011 / foodsweatandbeers / 4 Comments

Hey there, all, and Happy No Pants Wednesday!! Hope you’re celebrating in style.

I'm sort of cheating with a dress and leggings. So sue me.

Today’s lunch was…. identical to yesterday’s.

Surprise, Surprise

I’ll be frank: repetitive lunches are sometimes necessary when you’re trying to clear out a fridge full of produce and eggs. I wanna leave the beau with the bare minimum for his weekend of manliness (you know…. beer, meat, and cheese.) All his favorites.

Last night, on #fitblog, the questions were all about music. The music you work out to, the music you’re embarrassed about, and all that jazz. And it got me thinking about my (many) Pandora stations that I’ve made over the years. For a little glimpse into my inner workings, I present:

What (Most of) My Pandora Stations Say About Me!

Britney Spears Station
Rah Rah, ooh lala !

Deep down inside, I’ll ALWAYS love whatever the Pop Princess du Jour is. It was all the finest ladies in the past: the Spice Girls, Britney, Xtina, Beyonce, ~~Cher~~ (never), Mandy, and (most recently) the Mother Monster herself. Something about powerful rockstar ladies always gets me hype.
Wicked (original Broadway cast)
Belting out the National Anthem with the besty

When I was younger, I’d sing at any chance I had. Choir, showers, volleyball tournaments. Once, I sang the National Anthem at the Baltimore Convention Center. It was the most exhiliarating experience I had in my days of yore. To this day, I still sing, though I tend to keep it in the shower. But this station is full of Disney songs, Wicked songs, other Broadway musical songs. I’ll catch myself listening in the grocery store and accidentally bursting into song. Or, you know, not so accidentally. Everyone deserves a little show now and then.
Today’s Hip Hop and Rap
I'm a little bit gangster, myself.

I’ll admit, I was the proud owner of my share of Eminem CDs. And sometimes I garble together words really fast to pretend like I rap. But truly, this station is SUCH a great one to power through strength training, or a particularly tough elliptical run. It’s like Dr. Dre is right there with me, pushing me further and faster. That’d just be…. the coolest.
Party in the USA
Back it Up!

I’ll admit, nothing makes me wanna dance more than my pop music. And, for any of you that are going to the Healthy Living Summit this weekend, if you’re lucky, I’ll break out some sweet dance moves. And by “sweet dance moves”, I mostly mean “watch out for the flailing giantess…. she’s trying to Dougie.”

You’ve been warned.
Sigur Ros
Good night, Jojo

Looking for sleepytime music? Look no further. Sigur Ros is my relaxation station. Explosions in the Sky, instrumental jams, words that I don’t understand. I use it to relax, and once in college, I ended up falling asleep my teacher’s office waiting for her. Thanks a lot, Sigur.
I Told You So – Keith Urban
The Dirty South

When you date a boy who attends college in Mississippi, and you drive there several times…. You either learn to love country music, or you stop listening to the radio on the 12 hour drive down.

Just call me a country girl.

What are your favorite Pandora stations?

What do they say about you?

Learn Something New Every Day

July 20, 2011 / foodsweatandbeers / 8 Comments

Good evening friends!

I loved reading about your opinions regarding the Bridal Party BYOB decision, I think that the final decision will be a fun six pack of beers, with a cheapy bottle of champagne for the fun of the trolley ride. It’ll be good for pacing myself and even better for deliciousness and options. I also plan on bringing some water bottles and a tasty snack or two.

So the day went swimmingly well, though not exactly as planned. Sometimes that’s how the best days work, right?

Around 3pm, I had my work buddy drop me back off at Jiffy Lube. I know it’s less than a quarter of a mile from my office but honestly, in this nasty heat, even that would’ve left my outfit so drenched in sweat it would not have been work appropriate. They changed my oil, rotated my tires, and I had a coupon for $10 off. I got back into the ol’ cav and it drives like a dream!!

Maybe not as good as it drove in 2006...But I definitely don't have many pictures of my car.

I have had my Chevrolet Cavalier for a while now (pushing on 9 years), and it’s gotten me everywhere I’ve needed to go, and back again. However, it’s also dealt with its fair share of nicks and bumps and rear ends in the time, so it’s always nice when I can give it a little TLC. I think it’s a girl car, so it wears one of my tiaras on the back. And this princess is ready for her long journey to Pittsburgh and back. 960 miles on the agenda. Luckily, though, that’s round trip. And honestly, having done the 700+ mile trip to Ole Miss and back, I’m not too worried (except for the part where I have to wake the beau up before 6am… that won’t be pretty.) Oh well, I started packing tonight and hopefully we’ll have everything ready by tomorrow so we can just wake up and go. That’s the plan.

The plan for working out was AbSculpt followed by BodyPump. Alas, AbSculpt turned out to be a totally different experience, as the substitute instructor was (GASP) a pilates princess. Real talk, this woman was flipping her legs around and doing core workouts that my puny ab/back muscles struggled to handle.

Really, what person thought "Hey, this probably works out some muscles." then just did it? (Source)

The craziest part? The woman instructing the class was just casually chatting the entire time, like she wasn’t even doing more than standing in line at a coffee shop. Meanwhile, I was gasping for breath as I tried to “inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth.” Read: choke an occasional exhale out and sound like a pregnant woman in Lamaze class as you inhale… Cute, right?

What did I learn from the class? I learned that Pilates is HARDCORE. Much more than I ever thought. I definitely gained a new respect for Pilates…. as well as the desire to take BodyFlow, because I sense a challenge to my muscles (and my drive to have a stronger core… something I could really use.) I learned that my abs…. they need a lotta work.

Since I got more of a muscle/core workout and less of a cardio blast in, I skipped Pump and hit the elliptical instead. A hard fought 33 minutes later, and I was drenched and exhausted enough to head home.

610 calories, and I forgot to turn my HRM on until halfway through ab-class

I thought I would have some sort of protein shake or something like that when I got home, but all my Almond Milk was at the office… Next option?

Kiki the Kiwi. Wait, you don't name your food before you eat it?

Here’s another thing I learned. I don’t really like kiwi. I don’t mind it as a topping in my FroYo, or in a giant fruit salad…. but alone, it just doesn’t do it for me. Oh well, so glad I only bought one. Save those tasty oranges for the long trip to Pittsburgh.

Now I’m off to watch The A-Team… maybe I’ll learn what boys see in this kind of flick? Luckily, I don’t need to learn what I see in it… I’ll give you a hint.

Ok, it was a big hint.

Hee hee hee….

Did you learn anything today?

Have you ever done pilates? TELL ME YOUR WAYS!!!

Wake-Up Call

June 30, 2011June 9, 2016 / foodsweatandbeers / 24 Comments

Wow. So once, going through pictures and trying to find the one of me doing yoga at all, I found this one. Taken in Las Vegas, right as I was coming off of a summer of sloth following a wicked lame pre-summer foot break that incapacitated me, right outta college graduation, the caption on facebook of this was “My dream wedding.”

I think, in my mind, the joke was not only “wow, she just got married in the middle of the day, in vegas, in a full wedding gown, and is playing penny slots” but “and also, she is fat.”

However, reflecting on this picture (this was probably the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life) I am blown away by my own appearance. Because, after losing almost 50 lbs, I look at this and think “there are two people in this picture that are overweight, not just one.”

Talk about your belated wake up call…

I have to say, this isn’t a post to call anyone fat (even though I did just say that I considered both people in this image overweight), more to evaluate the change in my thought process. Because honestly, while I was happy as a clam that weekend, I can’t help but think I’d have had such a better time if I were my current weight. And while I didn’t THINK I was overweight at all at this time in my life, it’s like…. wow. Now that I see it having lost the weight, I can’t believe I just allowed myself to have all those extra pounds on my body. I remember once, at a UNC football game, I was loudly cheering for my team, waving my pom poms around like a locopop (GO HEELS!!! TAR HEEL BORN AND TAR HEEL BRED!!) when a random viewer at the game mentioned, off hand to her friend, that I should “calm my fat ass down because it was jiggling in [her] face”. That hurt. That hurt, so friggin’ much (I’d say another f word, but I’m unsure if wordpress monitors these supah hard.) I think that was the first time I thought to myself, “Wow. This whole ‘being overweight’ thing is miserable, horrible, and people mock you for it.” At the time, I was a happy, fun-loving UNC student, who got hit on a lot (just saying, for a while, that’s how I measured my self-worth) and looked sexy in clothes (in my opinion at the time.) How the HELL could some girl call me a fat ass? Well, now, looking back, I see it, and I believe I might think the same thing about old me now a-days. That’s harsh, right? Jeez. But I’m… just being honest. (Andre 3000, 2003).

The change is monumental. And my life has just changed so much.

I think about my health, my weight, my diet, my fitness…. so much. Like, constantly. Everything I put in my mouth, everything that comes out of me (TMI? whatevz), everything I do with my body, every activity I plan…

I was talking with my beau about how, despite the fact that we’ve both lost over 25 lbs since we initially decided to get healthified, we think about our weight/fitness more than we ever did when we had those extra lbs on our body. I guess it’s just part of adapting your awareness regarding your body.

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Ocean City, New Jersey. It’s my home away from home, and my favorite place on the face of this planet. And once, 2 years ago, my grandma mentioned to my mother how terrible I looked on the beach. It’s stuff like that which make me so so happy to have decided to make the change, not because of her, not because of what anyone has ever said, but because I knew that if I wanted to live a long/healthy life, I couldn’t continue living the way that I was. And because of the changes I’ve made, I’ll be able to spend time indulging in my favorite treats, while enjoying my mornings being more active than I used to be. It’s all about balance and, as evident by that earlier picture, I’m all about balance (except for the fact that my balance is HORRIBLE due to breaking both my feet at different points in my life. I’m basically on a constant teeter totter.)

To sum it up: I’m so excited for this weekend. And I won’t feel guilty about anything I do. I will go to the gym tomorrow, I will enjoy strolling/powerwalking on the boards the rest of the days, and I know that I won’t look back on pictures from this weekend and think negative thoughts about myself.

It’s all because of a little wake-up call.