New York Entry #1

It's 5:00 am in New York and I should be asleep.  However, I have been awake since 3 am.  Annoying.  However, I have my 50 Shades of Grey trilogy to keep me company.  I am currently sitting in the small kitchen in my new dorm room/living quarters for the next 8 weeks.  I am trying to be really quiet as to not wake my roommates and I am hoping I am succeeding.  Although I did go to sleep around 10, so that's almost 5 hours, which is my norm.

For those of who don't talk to me on a regular basis, you may be thinking to yourself, "New York?  Our Minnesota theatre geek has headed to New York?"  Yes my friends.   8 weeks, the big apple and me!  I was accepted into graduate school at NYU and for the next 3 summers I will spend my summer in New York learning how to become a theater educator.  Very exciting stuff.

The rest of you might also be wondering, "What's all this have to do with your weight loss journey?"  In a nutshell, everything.

For weeks I have been stressing about eating and working out in New York.  As you can imagine, my students loans and lofty MN teaching salary will only go so far, so I need to be very conscience of what I am buying and a whole kitchen cooking set is not in the budget.  So, I what to eat and how to stay on plan has really be on my mind a great deal.  Therefore, the rest of this entry will talk about three things:

1. My Summer Plan, devised by my FABULOUS personal trainer 
2. My Feelings on the Summer 
3. The Blog during the Summer 

MY SUMMER PLAN 

This past week I sat down with Courtney, personal trainer and comedian extraordinaire.  She is probably one the funniest and most wonderful people I have ever met.  She has this way of making you feel like you could do anything and not judging if something goes wrong.  She has been one of the best additions into my life in the last couple months and I feel lucky that we could sit and formulate a plan, as well as joke about liking your own Facebook picture and renaming all the different workouts we do.  But I digress, back to the summer plan.  :-)  Last week we sat down and really thought through some feasible goals for the summer.  Since I have been training with her for 2 hours a week, I seriously don't want to lose the momentum that I have built.  Or eat whatever I want for 2 months.  That could have some serious results for my weigh-in in August.  I am sure some of you are thinking, "August! Where's the accountability?"  I know that may make you a bit nervous, but it's all part of my plan.  I am taking from now until September to NOT focus just on the scale and focus on what I am eating (paying attention to it) and the amount of physical activity that I am doing.  And so that you don't feel that I am just throwing away all my hard work, below are the goals that Courtney and I came up with (and the accountability measures  that will help keep me on): 

1. 30 minutes of walking a day (easy to do since yesterday I walked like 4 hours) 
2. 3- 30 minutes strength training a week
3. Tracking everything I eat (not with points, but what I am eating) 
4. Emailing Courtney 3 times a week and sending her pics of my food tracker and letting her know what I have been doing (whether I have done what I am "supposed to" or not)
5. Trying to lessen my carb intake somewhat 
6. Emailing/texting Shelby everyday (I added this one!) 
7. In August, I will do a food cleanse

I am excited about these goals because I can for sure do them and not feel obsessive about weighing in or what I am eating.  Besides, I have been working hard with Courtney and I don't want to lose what we have worked so hard for!  There are really muscles that are starting to look AWESOME.  Don't believe me, look below at our SWEET workout pics: 

MY FEELINGS ON SUMMER 

I wrote a post on my Facebook yesterday about this, but I am really happy.  I mean, truly happy with my life and the amazing people in it.  It was hard to leave to come to New York.  And while I am more than THRILLED and PUMPED to be on this adventure, there was some hesitation to leave behind my support system and my comfort zone (even knowing full well everything will be there when I get back).  My go-to hobby when I feel this way is to watch TV.  For the past 2 summers, I lived in Chicago working with some of my fave peeps ever.  However, I never really got out and explored what Chicago had to offer.  Even though I had lived there, I was living in totally different area and missed going to visit the amazing things that Chicago had to offer.  The point of this sob story is that I don't want to do that this summer in New York.  I want to experience everything that I can and take advantage of being in this city, which is truly alive 24 hours a day.  Yesterday after I arrived in my very small dorm room (more on that in a minute), I just sat on top of my dresser and stared out the window.  People, all kinds of people, walking fervently here or there.  And a giant sign saying, "It's Never To Late To Get Where You Are Going."  Now, even though I can be a habitually late person, I couldn't help but feel like this summer is going to be amazing and that I am going to go out of my comfort zone and explore what this city has to for me, EVEN when I am feeling nervous or lonely.  Or perhaps especially then.  I am not really one who likes to explore or be by themselves, and yet I somehow feel that part of what this summer is, is doing just that.  Being alone and exploring.  And being thankful that I have this experience.  :-)  Ok, so thank you for reading through that Lifetime movie that are my thoughts... However, I wanted to be honest with all of you about where I am mentally at the moment because I am realizing that it has SO much to do with how I am physically as well. 

THE BLOG THIS SUMMER 

So, onto the final piece of this blog post.  My blog this summer is going to take a small turn of content.  While it will also include thoughts about my weight loss and my exercise, I would also like to include my summer adventures and the things I do and an encounter in NY. :-)  And while I would LOVE to post about the exciting things that happened yesterday, I am going to try and go back to sleep, just for a bit, so that I can start my day with a bit more sleep. :-)

Happy Monday everyone!