Diet Update: 150s!

It’s been 2 years since I’ve seen a one five on the scale. I hit 159 for the first time since the beginning of 2015 and I look completely different. The effect of the whole calories in/calories out starvation diet are really apparently when I look at pictures of myself two years ago and now. I look about 20 lbs fatter two years ago despite having the same scale weight – and I might have been. I’ve been able to retain an insane amount of muscle while getting rid of my fat this year and two years ago it was the opposite. Like my diets before it was clear I was getting skinny fat and my body was eating at my muscle to survive: my weight would decrease, but I’d look even squishier.

But that’s all changed. I’m so excited to reach this milestone and have officially lost almost 20 lbs without hunger and while drinking and living my life normally. It’s insanity. Only 5 lbs to go until I’m finally a normal BMI again. I’m so pumped. Let’s do this!

On Workplace Motivation

Will it though???

I’ve been struggling to understand something for a while: motivation. Specifically the origin of other people’s motivation at the workplace – not just to do a great job (which I also feel), but motivation to work themselves to the bone at the detriment of their health and family for their job without prompting. This isn’t a requirement for them, but they do it anyway. I seriously don’t understand it. Continue reading “On Workplace Motivation”

Tossing Early Retirement and Trading Money for Time

I received a bit of a shock last week. My Mom is applying to jobs. She’s been retired for 2 years and left corporate America at 55 after working 30 years in jobs she hated. I was more shocked to discover she’d been keeping this from me for a while. That was the saddest part. She thought I would yell at her. I didn’t. Continue reading “Tossing Early Retirement and Trading Money for Time”

Sleep

I’ve always been bad at sleeping. For some reason I think of it as a waste of time. Yes, I know my body needs it to survive and have experienced what I feel like sleep deprived: Horrible :). But my brain still thinks of the (hopefully) eight hours I lay in bed as a waste. Despite most likely running on solar power I almost prefer the night. It’s so still and empty of people :). Finally quiet enough to think and reflect. It’s when I’m most inspired and alert. Going to sleep right when I start feeling that at night seems like a waste of time and by extension my life. Sadly there’s no way around it. Continue reading “Sleep”

How I Learned About the Used Economy

I’m going to tell you a story that my Mom doesn’t remember and denies it to this day. I remember vividly and wrote it down because it’s so ridiculous. This is how I learned about the used economy. I love reading. I’ve mentioned that before. Before the age of easily accessible internet the other outlet I had for this was books – from bookstores (because my mom and grama think library books are “dirty”, but we’ll talk about that and my love of libraries as an adult at another time). Continue reading “How I Learned About the Used Economy”

More Reasons I Want To Retire

One of my favorite bloggers at ThinkSaveRetire.com retired in December. His wife just retired and they’re setting ‘sail’ in their Airstream to tour the country full time. He tweeted that he’s already starting to hate weekends because there are all these people at their campground when it was lovely and empty throughout the week. That got me thinking: that’s a whole other reason to retire. I’ve only ever gone places when everyone else is there. Spring break, Christmas break, Weekends. What would it be like to be able to live my entire life off-peak? To hike famous mountains with no one around on a Monday morning? That sounds absolutely amazing to me. Continue reading “More Reasons I Want To Retire”

Jury Duty and Simple Pleasures

In December I received a little postcard in the mail. Most of what we get in the mail is junk that I immediately throw in the recycle bag, but I’m glad I hesitated this time. The postcard was so small I almost missed it. I had been called for jury duty. In Seattle. How did they find me?! They wanted me to come in over the Christmas holidays while I was in Atlanta so I went to their website and postponed…as long as I could. April – that seems far away! Well as you know it’s April. That was fast. The day before I had to go I checked out their website because I had lost that tiny postcard (Paper! Am I right??) and didn’t know where to go. It told me to go to a high rise downtown and actually had pictures of the jury room (a first!) and shockingly it looked WONDERFUL! It was on the 12th floor overlooking the sound and mountains with floor to ceiling windows – a far cry from the windowless room I was confined to in Massachusetts the one other time I was asked to perform jury duty while I was in college.

Continue reading “Jury Duty and Simple Pleasures”