Maiden Bikini Voyage

I have not bought a new swimsuit in about four years. Since I really only wear one a few times a year, (both because of lack of opportunity to swim and because I never really fancied prancing about half-naked in front of strangers) it didn't really seem necessary to upgrade. But I'm going home next week (yay!) and I fully intend on making use of my parents' current pool. Out of curiosity, I tried on my old suit last night. I was both overjoyed and dismayed that it hung limply on my new body like a tropical-print muumuu. So huzzah for me for losing weight, but boo for having to pay for a new suit when I'm super broke and probably won't use it very often. So this afternoon, I was off to Target, armed with my ill-advised credit card that still carries the balance from my last yoga-inspired shopping spree.

I wish Target carried this suit!

Clothes shopping has become pretty fun since I've lost weight. It's exciting to see the numbers go down and actually have to ask for a smaller size instead of the humiliation of a zipper not going up on a pair of jeans you thought were your size. But even 81 pounds later, bathing suit shopping still sucks ass. For one thing, I'm still sort of between regular and plus sizes when it comes to swimwear. Meaning I'm either drowning in frilly mini-skirt bottoms designed to cover middle-aged, cellulite-ridden thighs, or my muffin top is spilling out of a tankini meant for a sixteen year old girl who has never known the taste of Splenda. (Hope you enjoy that visual, that's my gift to you!) There are very few options for someone who doesn't have children in college and isn't about to send in their college applications.

What most plus-sized bathing suits look like.  Yeah. Not cute.
I feel bad for this model who had to pretend like she likes it.

I decided to go for basic black, simple and chic. The big, bold prints that the plus sized "fashion" industry seems to fixate on, are no one's friend. You'd think it would be an easy process to pick out a black swimsuit, but it literally took me an hour and a half just to decide on the very first one I tried on. I'm such a girl sometimes... I stuck with the old reliable tankini and regular bottoms, since one-pieces bum me out. They're also impractical when you have to pee. But in a moment of boldness (and by moment I mean 45 minutes of painful deliberating), I also bought a matching bikini top. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but you should know that I have never worn a bikini in my life. Even when I still could probably pull one off, my religion prevented me from baring my stomach. When I was finally free of those restrictions, my weight had already skyrocketed. As a favor to society, I abstained from that particular look.

What I wish I looked like in my new suit...

But now that I'm working out like a maniac (doing the Flashdance routine as I type), I actually don't look too shabby. While I still have a looooong way to go, I can almost pull this off. I seriously doubt that I'll ever have the guts to actually wear the bikini out in public (there's a major fading stretch mark issue to deal with still). But it was a huge step to even purchase it and believe that someday I actually might go out in a bikini and not become Captain Ahab's new object of obsession.

Namaste

I just had my first real experience with yoga this evening. I actually went to a class on Monday, but it had a meditative focus that meant a lot of lying down quietly in the dark. I can do that at home for free. Tonight was a lot more intense, but not as hard as I thought it would be. Mostly because it was a million degrees in the studio. I know they're trying to get you to sweat out your toxins, but if you're wearing gray yoga pants for the first time, you sweat so much it looks like you peed your pants. (You're welcome for that image by the way).

I still love this movie.

It was hard for me to relax, since I raced over to Burbank from Studio City after work, cursing traffic and lack of convenient parking spaces. I just barely made it in time, so I didn't get a chance to go to the bathroom beforehand. I try to drink a lot of water these days, so I spent the whole hour with an uncomfortably full bladder being twisted into new and unusual shapes. (Sidebar, I had a similar experience with my first pap smear. Talk about uncomfortable! ... Too much information?)

The last thing you want when your bladder is about to burst 

is someone literally poking it. Yowza!

As for the session itself, I liked that it was set to Bob Marley rather than far out New Age-y music. But like the first time, the instructor kept using words like 'chakra' and 'energy' and 'third eye' in a deliberately soothing voice. I sympathized with a lady in back who couldn't stop giggling at the absurdity of it all. I kept my s--- together, but there were times I just balked at some of the terms. I almost lost it when we literally started by chanting 'oooooooohm' and ended with our hands in front of our hearts and bidding a farewell 'namaste.' I guess it's just been so parodied in pop culture that it was bizarre to think that people are genuine in their yoga spirituality. As a skeptic, I find it hard to buy into all that.

 Sidebar, the word 'namaste' always makes me think of this toolbag from "Lost."

Since we've already wandered into and gotten lost in too much information territory, I will tell you my other problem with yoga: my ass. It is just too big to do many floor exercises comfortably. There's a major height difference between my ass and lower back when I'm lying down and it's down right painful to try and roll back and forth like a rocking horse. Forget about The Plow position, I didn't even attempt it. My only other complaint was that halfway through my "dead man's pose" (that name I actually dug), the instructor started giving everyone mini-massages. I don't like to be touched. Especially by complete strangers. I dare say the massage had the opposite effect.

Is there a yoga school of thought that isn't all trippy hippy-ish?

Or does it just come with the territory?

It was a great workout though and I do feel really nice and relaxed. I just can't decide if it's worth the extra $15 a month. There aren't that many classes that work with my schedule, and clearly this one is just too hard to change, drive, park, and check in with only a half hour window (and that's IF I get off work on time. Note the big IF.) I should probably just get over myself though and suck it up. I mean, I already bought the yoga mat and everything. (It turns out they provide yoga mats for you. There goes that $12. I'm glad I have my own though. I'd hate to think about rolling around on a communal mat soaked with other peoples' sweat. Blech. You're welcome for that one too!)

An Exercise in Sublimation

I went to Target just now to buy a yoga mat. It was on sale for $12. Somehow, I managed to spend over $200. I was feeling reckless and impulsive. When I get like this, it manifests in either of the following two ways: A) Eating too much of something that's bad for me; or B) Spending way too much on stuff I don't really need and can't really afford. Check and check. Not to generalize for over half the world's population, but I think these are pretty typical female coping mechanisms. These past few months at work have been inconceivably stressful (I know, what else is knew, but for reals, it was bad), and there's some stuff in my personal life that's just a tad effed up as well.

Strange, my yoga mat didn't come with a pretty flcwer...

FALSE ADVERTISING!!!

This was a recipe for disaster that almost cost me all the amazing progress I have been making with my healthy lifestyle changes. I gained back six of the seventy-six pounds I had lost, on top of reverting to some of my old compulsive over-eating habits. There's nothing worse than feeling out of control. Especially when you can undo six weeks of hard work and weight loss with three days of poor decisions. I let myself wallow in misery for a whole weekend. Sometimes you just have to. But then last Monday, I got over it. I did laundry, scrubbed my whole apartment (including the shower which I confess had not been cleaned in... let's just say a while), and paid bills. There's something to be said for a cathartic cleaning and organizing purge to reset yourself and gain new perspective.

I'm the life of the self-pity party!

Monday was also the first day I started going to the Burbank Athletic Center. They had a free three-day trial, so I figured I should check out the mythical place known as the "Gym." I'd never really gone to a regular gym before. I was always in sports as a kid, then I went to Curves a few years in high school (apparently they donate to some uber-conservative causes, so boycott them if you can). In college, there was a free state-of-the-art gym that supposedly Kobe Bryant used to work out at, but it was too far to walk to and I didn't have a car. After college, I was too poor to afford a real gym, so I would just go running around the 'hood. But you couldn't do that after dark at the risk of being murder-raped. Then I created this workout, but it wasn't terribly effective. I've been running here in NoHo since about September, but the repetitive motion and hard impact from the concrete really messed with my hip. It was terrifying to me to think that I might not be able to exercise for physical, not psychological reasons for the first time. But perhaps working out on commercial quality machines would fix my joint problems.

Fuck this dude. He makes me vomit.

I wouldn't want to work out at his gym anyway.

It turns out, I frickin' LOVE the gym!!! I can't believe I didn't discover this earlier! Think of how much weight and weight-related aggravation it would have saved if I'd have known that endorphins aren't just a conspiracy designed to get us off our sizable butts in pursuit of naturally occurring uppers. They really do rock, who knew? I always thought gyms were expensive, at least $40-50 bucks a month, but the BAC is actually super cheap at around $10. Even my broke-ass can afford that. I've gone every day for the past week and I look forward to it every time. If you know me at all, you know how crazy that is. They have pretty cheap yoga classes too, which I impulsively signed up for just now to try it. I'm going at 9am tomorrow, so we'll see if I'm just as jazzed on yoga as I am about cardio and strength-training. (I'm assuming Wii Yoga really isn't the same.)

Clearly I can't be trusted with a credit card when I'm emotional.

This initial impulse-buy led to the afore-mentioned yoga mat purchase. Which was accompanied by yoga pants, yoga capris, new sports bras, brightly-colored sweat towels, multi-vitamins, and a bunch of other stuff to get me excited about this new phase in my life. I think this is behavior I learned from my mother. If you're going to make a big change, it helps to buy new stuff to get you mentally prepared. Even though I probably could have made due with the million sports bras and workout clothes I already have, I needed to do this. I will probably regret it when I get my Target card bill, but for now, I'm just stoked to see what all the fuss is about. And it feels good to finally have some control again. Well, I'm still eating too many things I shouldn't, but at least I'm overcompensating for my short-comings with excessive exercising. And it's a lot healthier to take out all my rage and frustrations on the Stairmaster than getting drunk or high or eating a whole tub of cookie dough.

Crooked

I have discovered in the last few years that the entire right side of my body is smaller than my left. Seriously, my feet, my breasts, even my knees are lopsided. I always thought this was unfortunate but amusing. I'm a quirky soul, so naturally my outward appearance is just as twisted as I am. Ok, so it's not really noticeable to anyone but myself. Unless you spend an inordinate amount of time looking at my chest and/or feet, in which case, ew stop now.

Not really relevant, but TEE HEE HEE!

This slight deformity, perhaps caused by birth, or sleeping too much on one side, has never been an issue before. The only real side effect seemed to be that I can't walk in a straight line to save my life. Anyone who has ever walked next to me has to push me to the side so I don't run them over on accident. I used to joke that if I was ever pulled over for a DUI, I would probably fail just because I naturally veer to the right like a car out of alignment. "I swear, Officer, I'm not drunk! I'm just crooked!" Luckily, this theory has never been proven.

Hypothetical me, failing miserably.

But now that I'm finally getting healthy and working out on a regular basis, I'm discovering that my minor bodily quirk has a major consequence. I have been having random hip pain for the last few weeks, like I'm an eighty-four year old arthritic woman named Doris and not a twenty-four year old active fox named Hutch. I keep imagining myself in those commercials, limp on the floor at the foot of the stairs pleading pathetically, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!"

Also me.

After spending some time with Dr. Google, I have determined that this pain is caused by LLD, Leg Length Discrepancy (you all know my pet peeve of making acronyms and then saying what they are right afterwards, but 'LLD' sounds a lot more serious and dramatic than 'Leg Length Discrepency'). Because my legs are different sizes, this means that my longer left leg has to compensate for my lame shorter right leg. Basically, I've been running like a pirate on a peg leg this whole time, causing stress on my left hip.

I can't believe I actually found a picture of a running peg-legged pirate.

Score one for Google!

The ironic thing is that this pain only started surfacing after I bought good running shoes. Everyone (and by everyone I mean my friend, my mom, my Gentleman Caller, and my Gentleman Caller's Mom) kept scolding me for wearing my crappy Target-brand cross-trainers, saying that I was going to screw up my feet. I bit the bullet and forked over more money than I had to spend on some gel-filled Asics. And now I have a broken hip. Stupid Asics. I've been running since about September and never had any problems other than frequent, recurring blisters and the odd ankle spasm. That just goes to show you what a conspiracy good marketing can be.

Coincidence? I think not.

It sucks even more because I'm finally in a good rhythm with my exercise. I love that I can just throw on my over-priced shoes and walk out the door to my favorite paved pedestrian path through a charming Burbank residential area. No gym fees, no attractive but angry/disappointed personal trainer, no snotty girls who are in much better shape than me in scheduled classes that I have to plan my life around. I can go at my own pace and listen to my own music and it doesn't require hand/eye coordination. Running is great. Well, it actually still sucks, but it's a lot better than most other forms of exercise. My body just wasn't designed for running. It was meant for sturdily traversing the country all Manifest Destiny-like and popping out Mormon baby after Mormon baby.

Hopefully you all have seen this commercial. Because this woman is my soulmate.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this dreaded LLD. I took almost a week off from running (more out of laziness than purposefully resting my hip), but I ran again yesterday an I'm still in pain. I really don't want to go to the doctor, even though I finally have health insurance. That's a bigger pain than the one in my hip.

Penguins, Nuns, and The Nintendo Workout

I got a Wii Fit for Christmas, which is basically my mom's way of saying Merry Christmas, now get off yo' ass! (Just kidding, she would never talk like that in a million years). But who am I to turn down free exercise/gaming equipment? So here is how I started my new Nintendo-inspired workout:

This dude is just begging for a swift kick in the ass

with a frozen boot.

1. Turn on Wii.

2. Sit and wait for it to warm up.

3. Wince as the Wii Fit balance board goes "oooooh" at my heft.

4. Walk away as the annoying little cartoon guy blabs about posture and eat some See's candy.

5. Come back and hula hoop until I just can't hula hoop no mo'.

6. Run in place (Then reward myself with more See's candy)

7. Attempt to do yoga, but just get pissed off at the douchey male trainer and the bitchy female trainer. (In the argument over which is worse, douche vs. bitch, the jury is still out).

8. Eat some more See's candy.

9. Put in Just Dance 2.

10. Shake my blues away for an intense 35 minutes, whilst working up a surprisingly good sweat.

11. Congratulate myself with some more See's candy. Boo, all gone!

I don't know if I can keep up this rigorous schedule, but I do know that it's awesome! Gyms should start offering the See's Candy/Wii Fit/Just Dance diet and exercise plan. It will overtake Curves in popularity, if not effectiveness.

Other notable mentions in the Christmas gift category:

Well, they're not Nude, but they do have big guns.

1. Nun Shrinky Dink earrings and a Nuns with Guns cigarette case (which I will use as a wallet), thanks to my big brother who knows me better than I thought he did.

2. A homemade penguin apron courtesy of Mama Hutch (righteous.)

3. A penguin stuffed animal from Aunt Bonnie

4. A penguin mug (from cousin Brittaney via Yankee Trade)

5. A penguin spatula (also from Mama Hutch, I have a thing for spatulas. It's a long and amusing story which I might tell some other day. But it involves the day my first niece was born, a build-a-bear stuffed duck, and a purely ironic expedition to find porn in Ashland, Oregon.)

Pretty spiffy, eh? Check out the fine, hand-crafted Mormon stitching!

When did I become the penguin queen? Sure I like penguins. I have penguin speakers in fact. But I wouldn't say they're my favorite animal. I don't have a favorite animal. I'm not a big animal person at all actually. But I guess if I'd have to pick one, it would be penguins. I can hardly escape them now. Their beady little eyes follow me wherever I go, judging me for eating See's when I should be Wii Fitting. I wonder if it's because I like nuns that everyone assumes I like penguins. They bear some similar characteristics. Black, white and judgmental. Anyway, I'm completely satisfied with this year's haul. And if nothing else, seeing my brothers, mom, and sisters-in-law busting a move on Just Dance for the Wii, was enough to fuel ten Christmases. If we gave my dad enough boxed White Zin, he'd get his groove on too, and then I'd never need another present ever again.