Day 3 - Feeling Better and Getting It

When I came home from work, I took a shower and then sat in the bath and meditated. I feel like it really helped to calm my mind. I am going to try to do that more often. Also, slept last night with no sleeping pills. I was feeling a bit anxious when I got home, but after I meditated I felt it go away. I listened to some audios yesterday with Natalia Rose and Macha, those really helped me to remember what it was I was  trying to do before, which is be healthy in body and mind. I think I have always been trying to be healthy in body, but never really practicing the mind part. I think taking some time out to mediate really does help, it took me a while to get all the thoughts running out of my head. As I am a bit OCD, I kept thinking I had to repeat certain mantras or wishes in my head over and over again and trying to make it perfect, but then I realized that wait meditating is about not thinking. I then tried to calm my mind and be still, finally after some time I heard nothing. Instead I heard myself saying let it go.. strange right. By the time I was done with my shower and dressed, I felt much more relaxed then I normally do when I’m at home. I think I’m like a lot of women, when I get home I unload all my stress and anxiety and then use food to help me relax. This is going to be a long process but it’s a start.

Macha and Natalia's Audios I like...

Emotional Eating:

http://www.byoaudio.com/play/WqRrqjGs

http://www.herfuture.com/profiles/blogs/talking-with-natalia-rose-1?xg_source=activity

Starting Fresh: Day 1

I am starting clean today. I had a rough weekend with drinking. I feel like I drank and ate too much. But really I feel like this every Monday and I want to stop feeling like this. I was just reading Montel Williams’ book “Living Well” and I like how he asked himself at one point, what if I took this healthy living to another level? What would the possibilities be and bring? I feel like I have a lot of the healthy living aspects in my life, but they are constantly deterred by my way of thinking. I want to lose weight, so I try not to eat, which ends up back firing on me and I end up eating too much. I exercise 4-5 times a week and then I unravel my hard work with binges and drinking too much on the weekends. My goal right now is to just do better in all those areas of my life. I want to try to do this for 30 days and see what happens.




My plan:

1. Drink one green juice a day

2. No alcohol

3. Cut out processed foods completely

4. Portion control and no overeating

I feel inspired, I feel like I have my mojo back. I just wrote a post recently where I said I felt like I had lost all feeling and motivation for work, but I have to do work that I am passionate about. I just went to meet with the PhD program coordinator at ucsd and she gave me a lot of good tips on getting started and hopefully getting into the program. Only 6 people were accepted last year, so it may be grim, but I have to at least try. I am going to try my best and make this happen. I want this more than anything else right now! I know I can do this. When I was on the campus I felt like I was home, that is where I belong. I love school, I love being immersed in that world. Being able to do what I love, wow that gives me chills. Now I just have to get started! First step, write some emails to professors and tell them about my plans for research. Second, dig up old papers and start expanding on them. Woo hoo I can do this.


Pictures to inspire… Diego Rivera working on a mural and Frida Kahlo in front of her infamous painting. Love IT!

Portion Control - Totally Need it

I was thinking of writing a post on what I normally eat and my issues I have had with food in general. I got turned onto eating raw last year and I was doing good with that for a while, but the past couple months I have diverged from this a bit. I do eat cooked food, as in steamed vegetables, tofu, usually for dinner. I try to follow the tenets from Natalia Rose’s book “The Raw Food Detox Diet,” and drink juice in the morning, fruit as a snack, salad for lunch, and some combination of salad, vegs, sweet potatoes for dinner. Where I have been verging off lately is drinking way too little juice, having too many coffee days in the morning, adding feta to my salads, eating cottage cheese (which I can’t believe I have reverted back to), eating out too much, drinking and indulging on the weekends (so hard in the summer!), all of which have led to a 5 or so pound weight gain. I think I have also been eating foods with lots of salt, like the fat free feta, too much hummus, egg white salads from trader joes (each one has 600mg of sodium), kettle corn popcorn. As of this week I have started limiting the feta and cutting back on snacking on popcorn at night, so far I think it is working.


My other issue even with eating raw and cooked, is that I tend to over eat and my portion sizes are huge. I am really trying to work on this starting this week. I am going to be more aware of the sizes of what I eat and if I am really truly hungry. I just found this on the site www.greenlemonade.com. I just love this site! She talks about eating the amount of your two hands cupped together. Geez I normally eat so much more than that. I am going to really give this a shot!

Introduce the concept of the “Buddha Bowl” into your life.

Serving size is the secret to not packing on the pounds, and allowing more of your body’s energy to be spent on healing and repair work (vs digestion all the time). A Buddha bowl is roughly the size of your cupped hands. While it may seem small at first, give your body and mind time to adjust. Practice eating mindfully and then go for a short walk after you finish eating to set the end of the meal in your mind. If in the beginning after eating this portion of food you find that you are still hungry, add another half of a Buddha bowl portion. Some of you might appreciate a little more direction here – so consider this buddha bowl in your daily routine.

I just googled buddha bowl and apparently they sell them, check it out.

I feel like I am losing my mojo, my confidence. I don’t know if it’s just because I am tired today and woke up late and it’s making me feel just overall very unmotivated. I feel like I don’t do anything of importance at work and no one really cares what it is I do. Therefore, if this job was obliterated no one would give a damn. That actually kind of made me laugh, haha. I have no voice at my job, no thoughts, nothing to call my own, this leaves me wafting through the day with nothing to really hold onto. My cousin just got awarded unemployment after quitting his job, how fair is that? The days and months are flying by lately and I need to something significant in this world, now what it is I don’t know??

 I guess I just need to start doing things that make me happy and give me satisfaction and maybe everything will come together. Art inspires me, beautiful photography inspires me, writing, thinking, that inspires me. This photo of Salvador Dali inspires me because I feel like it represents the true nature of a lot of artists. They are free thinkers, people who think about the world and see the world in a different light. They convey what so much of us cannot. Passion, tumultuousness, love, fear … You can see here that he had so much on his mind, I think he was one of those people who had a constant stream of thoughts and ideas. Ferociously painting, trying to put together the pieces and thoughts flying through his mind. Here he shows his jewelry pieces, his lover, himself, all with a beautiful subtleness that is created by the lines of her body and the contours of his face. Truly beautiful!

Philly Game and iPhone 4 - should i get it??

I am going to a baseball game with my husband tonight, that should be interesting. I have to say it’s not the most exciting thing in the world for me as I am not really into sports, but it should be fun. My usual yearly quota for baseball games is one per year and I went to a Yankee game in NY a few months ago, so this is me going way over my quota. I am looking forward to it though, ever since we’ve been dating we’ve gone to a Phillies/Padres game together. Anyways, I couldn’t sleep this morning so I got up and went to the gym. It felt like torture being on the elliptical at 6am!! But at least I got my workout of the way and I don’t feel guilty for indulging a little bit today. Although tomorrow I’m planning a happy hour date with my cousin. We never do anything with just each other, so we’re excited to do something together and catch up.


I am still debating the iPHONE4!! I think I’m going to take the leap and get one this weekend. If I post new pictures up here it’s because I got one. I really want to get one because I like the camera on it for both photos and videos. I’ve been wanting to get a Flip cam, so this may knock out any need to get that. I really love taking photos in the moment and I don’t always carry my camera with me or remember to take it, so I like the idea of being able to take a photo that doesn’t look like a grainy obvious phone photo. The only thing scaring me is the keyboard, I am so used to the one on the blackberry. I also do NOT want to part with BBM, I just love the messaging ability with that and it’s going to be hard to do without it, but I figure I’ll get used to. Oh well.. plus I can try it out for 30 days and if I don’t like it, I can get the Torch, so we will see.

Night Eating

I’ve been sitting here thinking about why I cannot lose weight. I definitely think I eat too big of portions at night. Given I’m not eating anything very unhealthy, I guess I am still taking too much in. I started recording everything I eat on Livestrong lately, being totally consistent and honest, and I realize I’ve been having a lot of sodium. Primarily from hummus, fat free feta, and salad dressings, so the past two days I cut down and I did drop some water weight. Still my issue is in the evening, I get home from work and the gym, and usually eat dinner around 830-9pm. I am sure that is way too late, but I don’t go to bed till almost midnight usually. My dinners usually consist of the same variation, a bag of lettuce, a tomato, bean sprouts, about ½ piece of tofu cooked with onions and tossed in, depending on what else I have on hand usually beets, avocado, or feta, or all of the above, with about 4-6 tablespoons of dressing. I either use a whole foods fat free balsamic or a vons brand of honey mustard dressing. The whole foods has 25 cals for 2 tbsp and the vons kind has 40 cals for 2tbsp. After I eat dinner and I’m sitting around watching TV with my husband, I end up 9 times out of 10 snacking on something else, either a glass of wine, popcorn, an apple, a banana, whatever is around. At that point I am not even hungry but I eat anyways.


I really want to get myself back on track and not eat so heavily at night. That is probably why I have a hard time going to bed earlier because I am so full. Another thing that bugs me is that I am not living up to the advice of the vegan/raw/any community that eats healthy ideals. I always end up thinking “I shouldn’t have had that or this or cooked that.” Tomorrow will be a better day and I end up doing the cycle all over again. I guess I need some advice, so I started googling this and I got some tips. I need to try to incorporate at least one of these. I think I am just bored at night and eat as a habit. Ugh this is so frustrating….

Tips to Not Eat at Night

-The other option is not to eat anything. Give this a try: After dinner do not eat anything. You will get hungry and you will feel the urge to go into the refrigerator. Please resist the urge. Go to bed hungry. When you wake up in the morning you will notice two things. You will be hungry (time to "break" the "fast") and your stomach (guess what?) will be flatter

-Ban nighttime boredom. Late-night eating often is a result of having nothing else to do. Pick up a new hobby, connect with your spouse, take a walk.

-Form new habits. Stop eating after a specific time — say, 7 or 8 p.m. — for a week. Then aim for a month. By that time, your new pattern should be set.

-Go to bed. An earlier bedtime will keep you from eating and control production of hunger-triggering hormones.

Today I felt like I was walking through fog. My head was in the clouds and my mind was racing all over the place. I kept thinking about everything my art teacher said, but I didn't have time to research, so I just started looking when I got home. So frustrating I forgot my workout clothes and by the time I got home, I was not in the mood to drive to the gym and deal with that. So I started researching, my first task for tomorrow is call the phd dept at ucsd and set up an appointment to come in and talk to someone. Now Im watching a documentary on art history called the "Mona Lisa Curse," very interesting and I find it odd that random art history shows pop up when I am thinking about them.

I read some more raw blogs today and I am thinking I should really give it another try. I mean I only eat feta cheese every so often and my snacks that I eat that are not good for you are generally microwave fat free kettle corn and wine. I'll snack on bad things here and there, but really I eat pretty good everyday. I have not been able to lose a pound and I feel really bloated. I think its from all the hummus I've been snacking on lately. I'm going to start being more concious of that and I only have one bag of popcorn left, so after that its over. Yup im putting it out there, I'm ending my love affair with popcorn. haha. :)

Sunday.. Where is it going?

Ahh I woke up today feeling so tired. I guess I am just feeling tired and overwhelmed from this week in general. I had no intentions of having eggs for breakfast, I havent had eggs in so long, but my husband and I went to this little cafe and I ordered 2 eggs w/spinach, mushrooms, and onions. If I ever even eat eggs, its only egg whites and this time around I forgot to order egg whites. I was so disappointed. My husband knew I was not happy and he had also been given the task to clean our house (as he never does it!), so he stalled it by asking if I wanted to have a mimosa at this really cute, lil wine place by our house. We ended up having bottomless mimosas, I had 4, and came home. I was of course starving and ate junk, a bag of 94% fat free kettle corn popcorn and a handlful of cool ranch Doritos from my husband's stash. UGH I am sitting here right now feeling SUPER GUILTY for having that popcorn and chips. I try to eat really healthy mostly, but I cannot lose a single pound and I think it is due to my weekend drinking of either wine, mimosas, whatever, anything to feel some relief from the week and everything going on in my head. Most of the times it is not even my doing, but once I am out drinking a drink having fun, the times don't stop. Very depressing, honestly I dont know why this makes me feel so f***ing guilty. I used to have an eating disorder, back in the day, I've been anorexic, bulimic, I met my husband when I was 20 lbs lighter, so everytime I look at myself, weigh myself, I feel like a complete failure. How did I let myself get to this point?

I would say last year, being seperated from my husband took a toll on me, I would eat raw all day and have late night binges on whatever junk food was in my parent's house. How emberassing is that? I feel like an idiot, why am I even writing this? I guess I am just typing out my feelings. I am so frustrated with feeling guilty.....

I just wish I had a hairless cat....

Wow I just got caught up reading blogs, it's crazy how much time that can eat up. Being nosy and looking into other people's lives. Its interesting that our society is so interested in one another. So I thought I should write down my goals, next steps to achieve what I want to do...
- Start volunteering at a museuem, be agressive and get myself out there
-Get in touch with the curators that teacher recommended
-Look into grad schools for art history .. ucsd, usd, ucsb?
Sweet thats a good start..!

I have been writing in these Jordi Labanda journals for a while now I am so obsessed with them....I write everything I eat in them and have about 5 or 6 already filled. I wish I knew why I have this obsession, I wonder why I feel like I need to document everything i eat? Here are a few images of his that I love...

Relaxing Saturday

Today was a good day I reconnected with my a professor in college. He gave me some really good advice on following my vision and what I want to do with my life. He understands where I am coming from and what I am hoping to do, so that was a really good conversation overall. I really enjoyed it! Now I just have to get started.

Other than that, went to go look at the new Blackberry Torch and the iphone 4, but I still cant make a decision as to what I want?? Now I am finally relaxing and watching my beloved TCM, watching an old Paul Newman movie called Harper. Interesting... I love watching the wardrobe and hairstyles of different eras. Overall I am seriously hot in this house and tired! Well at least I worked out this morning and paid penance for all the wine and junk food I ate last night. :(

Reconnecting and Happy Bday Mom

Today is my mom’s birthday what a cool day I have to say. To be able to celebrate this year with her, that is cool, I wish I could do more, take her to dinner, but at least I got her a gift and a card. Plus I got her the perfume she wanted, so I think she will be happy. I am very proud of myself, I connected with a teacher I used to have that I have been wanting to connect with but haven’t been able to. Normally I am just too shy and reserved to do anything, fearing that the person will not remember me and I feel in a sense kinda dumb for not taking his advice the first time when he encouraged me to pursue an art career. Anyways, I have reconnected and that is great. After reading the Last Lecture book it really made me think about realizing what and who is important in life. The relationships and connections in life are in the end what is important.

This has been a big issue for me, I have a hard time taking the time out to call and reconnect with friends. I get so involved in my daily routine, spending time with just my husband, family, and a few friends, that I feel like now I have closed out everyone else. Not on purpose, but I just sometimes feel so overwhelmed with work and life that I don’t even want to think about it. I get home from work, usually tired because I have just gone to the gym, shower, eat dinner, and wake up and do it all over again. By the end of the week I feel so burnt out, I just want to sit on the couch and do nothing. But where is this getting me in terms of life happiness, nowhere really. I am always so preoccupied with having to go to the gym after work that I don’t want to use that I don’t want to use that free time for anything else and if I do I always end up feeling really guilty. My goal as of today is to make an effort to start connecting with people I have lost touched with. I get nervous to talk to old friends and people I haven’t talked to in a long time, but really I should have nothing to be nervous about and it’s just plain silly to feel that way. I decided I’m done feeling like that!

Life Hmmmm

Where do I begin today, I have so many things floating around in my head. I just finished reading the book the “Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch and I was in tears by the end of the book. I really enjoyed everything he had to say about his life and all the simple life lessons he has learned. What stood out to me the most in the book, was when he talked about how his wife was coping with the diagnosis. She stopped nagging over the stupid things like cleaning his plate after dinner because in the grand scheme of things, they don’t really matter at all. It made me think a lot about how people ironically start deciding what’s important in life, when they are given a life sentence. It made me think we should be doing those things now, creating those lasting memories now with our family and friends, instead of waiting until we have a few months to live. One of the biggest points he makes is to follow your childhood dreams. It made me ask myself what were my childhood dreams? They haven’t changed much in actuality, when I was a kid I wanted to be everything, but mainly my answer to my grandma was always a veterinarian. I considered so much about what I wanted to be as an adult and now that I am one, I have no clue what to do because I am still wanting to be everything. My main numero uno dream is to work with art, explain art, teach art, talk to people about art, help people understand it, discover new talent. If I could wake up every day and be an art professor that would be ideal. Now how the hell do I do this?


I feel so stifled with this dream. For one I tried finding museum jobs when I first graduated from college. Nothing I could not get anything, I could barely find a volunteer position. I volunteered at a museum of mod art downtown and that was it, I really needed to find a job where I could make money. So I did, I worked boring jobs, sat in a cube, then decided I had to grow up and get a career, so I landed a position to get my teacher’s credentials for ESL. They would pay for my schooling, give me hands-on experience to become a teacher, and eventually give me my own classroom. I got through most of it, did all the necessary damn tests, did the training, learned how to become a teacher, was about to sign the contract and didn’t get it. I wasn’t allowed to move forward because I didn’t complete one single portion of this stupid 3 part test. I was told by the director I could finish it when school was in session, perfect I thought that gives me more time to study. Then he QUIT and everything he had told us didn’t matter, it was not true, the portion had to be finished before school started. So there I was that day, told I could do it next year, I was in tears, a wreck, no job, nothing. I had quit my previous job for this crap. I was at a crossroads and I decided not go back. I subbed for a year and that was the end of that teaching career. All along, I knew it wasn’t for me though, I had these unsettling feelings that this just wasn’t for me. The whole time I was there it felt like a sham, this wasn’t my passion, in fact it was boring. The students and teaching aspect were VERY VERY rewarding, some of the most memorable moments of my life came from that, but in reality teaching at an elementary school was not my dream or passion.

I decided to go back to school, get my master’s in rhetoric and writing, specialize in technical writing and wah-lah I figured I’d get a job as a technical writer and life would be okay. Again, not a passion, but I felt like I had to be something. What I originally had signed up for was a master’s in English to eventually become a professor. Now that would’ve been nice, but still I felt like I was just going along and that becoming a professor would just mean more years of being a broke college student. I really at this point was tired of making no money. Now here I am I got my degree, got an internship at a great computer company, and am doing absolutely nothing with my degree. What gives and here I am still trying to decide what to do with my life. I just can’t seem to figure it out.

Funny thing is I dreamt I was stuck at a train station last night and this what it supposedly means. Funny isn’t it.

Train Station


To dream that you at a train station, represents a transitional period in your life. You need to take a short break to reassess your situation and determine your path and goals.

First Entry

I have wanted to start a blog for so long. I actually have about five or six blogs lurking around the net. All with about 4 to 5 entries tops. I just cant seem to stay true to them or to really give them any time. I kept feeling like I needed to have an agenda, a certain type of audience for it. Whether it be vegetarians, foodies, losing weight, nutrition, being a girl, whatever I just haven’t been able to feel true to it, so I decided I am just going to write about whatever I feel like writing about and whatever I am thinking. I think this will help me get all my thoughts and help me figure things out for myself. So here it goes….


Gosh I have so many thoughts ruminating in my head sometimes it feels like its impossible to think. I just saw that movie eat pray love and I think it definitely strikes a nerve with most women because we all want to be able to go away for a year and figure ourselves out. We want to know what makes us happy and what excites us deep down inside. We want to be comfortable with ourselves and our bodies and we want to ultimately be satisfied with whatever life choices we make. Whether it is to have four babies, stay at home, become CEO, stay single, whatever the choice we want to know it was completely our own doing. I feel like I am having that same struggle right now and have been for a while. What really makes me happy and what do I want out of life? Liz’s box was filled with her dreams of traveling around the world, her boss’ box was filled with stuff for a baby. So what does my box have? I have an area at home filled with clippings from magazines, I tear out pages where I like the images or articles that I find useful. So what does that say about me? I have no idea, that I like to keep things organized and I like to reference things I like to look at, that’s about it. I still haven’t figured that one out.