Daily Wahnsinn

I’ve had a really busy weekend as I celebrated birthdays, walked bridges, prepared for visits, got my ass kicked at Kamp. Here’s a quick update in le forme du bullets:

• nothing beats daytime drinking, cheap wine & great company
• the Manhattan Bridge in itself is rather unexciting, it’s the views of the Brooklyn Bridge, FiDi and Dumbo that make up for it when walking it
• got my hair done and realized how much I missed being a blonde. yay summer!
• had such an amazing workout on Sunday. It was only myself and three other people and without Sherry and Chris there, I actually finished (almost?) all exercises first. I was a machine on Sunday. Bishop doesn’t usually praise people (fair enough, I’m paying him to train me and make me stronger, not to stroke my ego). But on Sunday he made a comment how some of us are getting really strong. WIN!!
• surprise birthday parties are the best and so are my friends
• I’m a terrible flirt and will be forever alone. Insert gif here.
• learned at yoga last night that I hyperextend a lot more than I had previously thought. I shrug my shoulders a lot, especially when I do chaturanga. I can go down all the way to the floor and hover, but my shoulders go up. I do the same thing in side plank. And handstand. And my shrugged shoulders are the reason why I cannot do handstand. Which is frustrating because my legs are so strong. The advice the yoga teacher gave me last night was to fix my chaturanga and then try handstand again. On the plus side, my wheel was strong and my crow was a lot better too

I’ve done very little running lately and even slept through my the 6 miler I wanted to do this morning. Brooklyn is this weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so unprepared for a race.

How’s everybody else doing?

Seriously jealous of all the people who post about their awesome runs along the water and through parks, while I’m stuck in the office, operating on way too little sleep and way too much junk food.

I’m really busy this week. We’re talking staying at the office until/past midnight and being back by 7:30 AM the next morning. It means very little sleep and while I generally don’t sleep enough, even for me 4 hours is tough. Unsurprisingly, my eating has gone down the drain. Seriously down the drain. I’ve fallen back into my stress-eating habit and obviously not binging on healthy foods when overeating. Ugh. I feel really fat and sluggish right now.

I’m also supposed to start my period this weekend and it’s contributed to my cravings for sugar and chocolate and sweets and all the stuff I should not eat in the gigantic quantities I’ve been eating.

It has also not helped that the store was not yet open when I left for work and already closed by the time I got home.Yesterday, I literally had nothing in the fridge to make a breakfast and take to work. (There goes my May goal to cut back on spending money.)

Overall, I’ve not set up myself for success this week and I’m sure I’ll be paying the price for it soon. However, I am proud that I said no yesterday, something I don’t do often enough when it comes to my job and prioritized my personal life over my job. I actually left the office at 7 and headed to the gym for Drop Zone. Given, my workout was sluggish and I felt week (thanks too little sleep and junk food), but I went and that’s all I wanted last night. We did a lot of stair work and strength training and I was so low on energy that I couldn’t even throw back a snarky remark when Bishop teased me. That’s sad.

Anyway, the last few days have put everything back into perspective. As much as I hate my job sometimes and office politics, I am fortunate that I only have to work one job to pay for my living. I cannot even begin to imagine how it must feel to work two, work 80 hours on a regular basis, maybe work and go to school AND try to train for something like a marathon. You guys are rockstars.

Things continue moving along. The long weekend was very much needed and I got some quality time with friends and also time to run errands and do a bit of cleaning.

I hadn’t talked to mom and dad in a while, so I also caught up with them. I have a great relationship with mom, unfortunately, not so much with dad, but it still meant I told her everything that’s going on right now. I felt raw and vulnerable again afterwards. I know she loves me a lot and she cares a lot. I know she suffers when I do and unloading my emotional baggage onto her made me feel awful, quite frankly. I know she wouldn’t want me to hide something as important and fundamental as being on the verge of an ED from her, but I also know she suffers and worries. And the fact that we’re so far away from one another isn’t making things easier. I felt selfish for dumping all my crap onto her, even though I know she’d be upset if I didn’t tell her. But the fact that she’s thousands of miles away and hurting just as much as I am right now isn’t very easy. Mom desperately wants me to come home and I can’t say that I’m not engaging in the thought occasionally. I love Germany. I miss Germany. I miss watching German TV shows I loved. I miss speaking German. I miss German food. I miss German supermarkets. I miss the luxury of walking down the block and being able to buy a delicious pretzel as opposed to having to travel 5 subway stops. I miss having my own place. My own kitchen. Not cleaning up after somebody else. But I also really, really love New York. I love my friends here. I love the gym I go to. I love my job despite all the recent struggles and I love that budgets are so much larger and advertising programs are often a lot more innovative than at home. And I know that moving back home won’t magically fix whatever underlying issues I have. I’ll probably become better at ignoring them again and that’s not healthy behavior either.

I’ve continued feeling some anxiety over the weekend, to the point where I almost skipped a birthday party on Saturday (glad I went!) and my workout with Sherry and Meagan on Monday (glad I went!) Yesterday, I was finally back to therapy and I felt relieved to talk about my binging and purging to my psychologist. My binging keeps annoying me and I’m at total loss what else to try. My only hope is that once my job stress decreases and my anxiety settles, the Trazadone will actually help and make me sleep through the night again.

Today they finally moved my desk and the fact that I actually have a few moments to waste on Tumblr is hopefully a good indicator that things are improving here. I already feel great relieve for no longer having to sit close to my hair-twirling, staring-off-into-space assistant or the bitchy account manager queen, who thinks things need to be done her way. I am so relieved I no longer have to work with these people. I’m also relieved that my old boss is finally gone and took his say-nothing-at-all-while-chewing-your-ear-off ways. And I’m relieved that it’s finally been cleared who’ll conduct my performance review with me. Now that my old boss is gone and my new boss doesn’t really know me at all, I had no idea who was going to do it. It’ll be one of the guys from the very first account I worked on and I think we have a great relationship. I was concerned it was going to be that one supervisor from the first account who actually dislikes me and never cared about my career and goals. I know that my rating and performance review was written by the boss who just left (and who thought very, very highly of me), but still it would have made for an awkward conversation.

I’m still going from feeling extremely enthusiastic to being terrified about next week’s ToughMudder. But Sherry, Meagan and I made a pact that no matter what, we’ll stick together, we’ll give our best and we’ll help each other out. I’m sure the guys on our team won’t just run ahead (they’re faster and stronger than us), but I think we’re all a little concerned about holding them back. I know that if I have to walk around an obstacle, Sherry and Meagan won’t judge me and it feels good. I’m going in there and I’ll give me best. That’s really all I can do.

Generally, I feel like a lot of things that are currently worrying me are being lifted off my shoulders. I’m also actually looking forward to having my tattoo sessions in March after the Mudder because it’ll force me to take some time off training. I haven’t taken any time off in a really, really long time and while I’m currently not injured, I have a few issues that keep coming up whenever I do a few hard sessions in a row. My shins. My back. My rip. It’ll be good to not being allowed to work out for a while and giving my body time to rest, heal and fully recover.

That’s it for me. What’s new with you kids?

The last two weeks have been so crazy and I’m extremely grateful that it’s Friday and that Friday is also almost over. We found out last week that unfortunately there had to be layoffs at work – my boss being one of them. As you can imagine, the team spirit was really awesome afterwards. Also unfortunately, his work ethics took a dip pretty much immediately. He’s never been very accountable for his tasks and kept missing deadlines, but since he found out that he’ll be leaving, it’s become worse. Since my work ethics are very different from his, I’ve spent the last 1.5 weeks picking up his slacking, finishing decks he was supposed to finish. Deprioritizing my own tasks, so that I could take care of his stuff. It’s been a few very unhealthy days in terms of workload and in terms of sleep.

On top of everything, I also found out that I’m being moved to another account. This move is non-negotiable. I felt extremely awful at first. I had just moved onto my current account about 6 months ago. It’s really inefficient, a lot of processes are in place that waste time (especially, the time of people who have not implemented those processes), the client product is difficult to understand, but after 6 months I’d started implementing some changes and I felt we were finally getting there. I felt like we were improving. I also felt like I was showing my value to my peers. And quite honestly, I was frustrated by the fact that I’d have to start all over. Again. And I was concerned that I’ll have the 4^th manager in 2 years. The first one didn’t stick around long enough to see me develop. The second made it very obvious that she liked everybody else on the team better than me (i. e. getting me promoted was not on her list, not even at the very bottom). The third thinks highly of me, but is now leaving. I just wanted some consistency and get that fucking promotion. There are so many peers and partners that tell me they’re surprised I’m still at my level and that they thought I’d have a more senior position. It’s been incredibly frustrating. While I do appreciate that I still have a job, especially after last week, I also know that I’m underpaid for the work I do. And finally I felt incredibly awful because they’re firing someone on the account I’ll be working on and I’ll be replacing her. I’m taking somebody’s job. Somebody who just moved from Philly to NY a month ago for this job. (When I told my therapist about me feeling so awful about it, she made a comment about how nice/good a person I am. But quite honestly, I just think I have empathy. I can relate to this girl. I imagine what she is currently going through and I think it just takes being a human being to not feel happy about taking somebody else’s job.)

I’ve had a little over a week to digest everything that’s going on and I’ve started becoming really excited about my new team. I met with the new team I’ll be working with and everybody seems so nice. They actually do team stuff together. It’s finally a different, new industry. And it’ll be good. I’m just hoping they’ll start figuring out a transition plan soon and that it won’t be another case of work 100% on two accounts for a couple of weeks – like last time.

On the bright side, my eating has been ok during the last two weeks, given the stress I’ve been under. I set myself a goal of 1,200 net calories in a day (which puts me at a deficit of ca. 500 calories), but I’m also allowing myself to go over a little bit if needed. I had to go over a little the last couple of days, but I still managed to be in a deficit. So even if I’d eaten at a maintenance level, that still would have been better what I usually do whenever I go through crazy stress. I. e. putting on additional weight. So go me. I actually went from 155.5 lbs to 149 lbs in January and I’m looking and feeling better again. So much better.

I saw a psychiatrist to prescribe me a mild anti-depressant & sleeping aid to hopefully help me with my nightly waking up. I definitely have some form of insomnia because I should not be waking up every night. That’s probably not very normal. I’m still testing the dose a little bit. The lowest dose doesn’t keep me under. If I take too much, I get headaches and a bit of drowsiness. (I took two pills last night for the first time ever and it knocked me out so much – but strangely still didn’t make me sleep through the night – that I missed my run this morning because getting up was too much of an effort. I’ll have to try less again tonight.)

My workouts have been consistent and surprisingly strong, given the lack of sleep and the level of stress. During last week’s bootcamp at the gym, Bishop made us work extra hard because he was going to go away this weekend and would miss a couple of sessions with us. He wanted to make sure we’d get a good workout in. (It had been a while that I had to just sit there for a while after a workout before I could get up again. It was a challenge, definitely.) My yoga practice has also been really strong. My chaturangas are getting better. My binds are getting better. My lizard is actually looking somewhat like lizard pose now.

That said, I have about one more month until the ToughMudder in Miami and I’m extremely terrified. My fitness took a dip in November and it’s not been the same ever since. I’ll do the ToughMudder with a bunch of people who are all fitter and stronger and faster than me. I know we’re a team and I know we have a great team mentality. They’re not going to leave me behind. But maybe this is what I’m scared of? I know they could finish a lot stronger without me. What if I’m holding them back and they resent me for it?

On the brighter side, I have a few fun things coming up: Lululemon warehouse sale tomorrow & a race on Sunday. I haven’t raced since October, I think and I’m looking forward to get into the spirit of that. I’ve also decided to finally get serious about getting the new tattoo I’ve wanted for so long. I’m seeing a tattoo artist in February to discuss my ideas with him, whether he’ll be a good fit, how much it’ll be, etc. Excited!

I’m pretty sure there are a bunch of things I’m forgetting! I hope you’ve all been doing great.

A lot going on right now! Ever since I returned from Germany, I have:

• Bought a dSRL camera. After some research, asking around, visiting the B&H megastore in NY, I have settled with the Canon EOS 60D. I had also contemplated the Rebel 3Ti and the 7D, but ultimately went with the 60D because it’ll allow me to grow and progress with the camera (maybe more than the 3Ti), it doesn’t seem too overwhelming (like the 7D does). While I’ll try to learn how to manually set the camera, the options to have some preset modes will be nice. Plus it should be sufficient for what I’m looking to shoot (landscape, food, some people but not portrait) – the 7D seems more suitable for sports and wildlife. So, I think the 60D will be a great first camera to use and learn with. (I also bought a book that’ll go a bit deeper on the camera than the manual and I’ll be looking at accessories this weekend.)
• Told my Discipline Lead at the office that I’ll take the new position they have offered me. My boss-boss who oversees the entire team (my supervisors included) is currently out on vacation so we’ll talk about a transition plan once she’s back in the office next week. But since the person I’ll replace has left already, they’re looking to move me quickly.
• Have gone back onto Weight Watchers and found new commitment. I am determined to tackle the last 15 lbs I want to lose and I’m confident that I can do it. The break did me well, I think, to take my mind off, to stop obsessing for a while and to help me find my focus again. I know I can do this. I’ve lost more than 50 lbs. I can lose the last few. I got this. (I started last night – not by tracking, but by cooking something nice for dinner and bringing leftovers for lunch. I think one of my main issues lately has been that I’ve eaten the same things over and over again. I’m trying to switch things up again a little more and to add some more variety back into what I eat.)
• Have also gone back into an exercise habit. I took a couple of days off during my vacation because I was lazy, because I was putting crap food in my body and had less energy as a result and because I thought, maybe, it’s a good idea to not only take a mental break, but also a physical break. So today, I recommitted by starting off with some yoga before going to my weekly Weight Watchers meeting. I’m returning to my Street Kamp class tomorrow night and I’ll probably do some yoga in the morning.

Hey guys! I made it safely to Germany, where I’m visiting my family and spending some time with them for my birthday. While I’ll be mostly out and around to meeting friends and spend time with my folks, I still didn’t want to miss saying a big, big heartfelt thank you to everybody who responded to my post about my recent binge, either here on Tumblr or through other channels like Twitter. It means the world to me to know that no matter how deep a rock bottom I hit, there will always be people who care for me, who support me and who are ready to pick me up. So THANK YOU!

I still feel weird about the thing, but I’ve moved on I think. I’m also officially off Weight Watchers while I’m in Germany to give both my body and mind a rest. I fully expect to come back with a couple of extra pounds, but maybe that’s what I need to become fully committed again and finally be able to reach goal. I’ve been eating a lot of carbs (yum, German bread) and full fat cheese, so yes, couple of pounds will be inevitable. I’m trying to stay active and will go running a few times while I’m here, but yes, I’m taking a break. It’ll do me good.

On Friday, just couple of hours before I left, my boss dropped a pretty big bomb on me. Basically, they’re offering me a new position within the company where I’d still be doing what I do now, but on a different account. There are some implications to a potential switch and I’ve emailed her a list of questions that I’d like to see answered before I make my decision. There are pros and cons to taking the opportunity and I’d like to make a decision that’s as informed as possibly can be. More about this eventually.

I can’t believe it’s March already. Where’s the year going?

My week was awful and the only good thing I have to say is that I’m glad it’s over. And that despite all the challenges I faced, I did manage to meet my deadline (somewhat) and that I still managed to be social.

I’m presenting two big campaigns to the client on Monday and I was struggling all week to finalize said plans and put together a recommendation deck. Going into this week, I knew it was going to be busy, I nearly had a heart attack when I realized on Tuesday that my Assistant Planner hadn’t completed all the work I had asked her to do - basically leaving me with having to finish her stuff on top of mine. I’ve been doing my job for almost five years and I’m confident in my skills. Managing somebody else is something I haven’t done a whole lot before, so obviously I’ve been asking myself why she didn’t complete all of her tasks despite saying she did. Was it because I’m not good at communicating to her? Am I not clear in my instructions?

She was on vacation this past week and I know she was struggling very hard the week before to finish the tasks I had given her as well as the tasks that her other manager had given her. She was constantly complaining about how much work she has to do. We’ve had issues with her in the past and her not being thorough in her work, not being proactive and quite frankly, causing more work for the team as she doesn’t double check her own work and others then have to fix her mistakes in retrospect. I’ve been assured that her not completing her tasks before she left on vacation has nothing to do with my communication skills but more so with her listening skills since others have had the same issue with her.

It wasn’t a very comforting thought though when I realized on Tuesday. On top of being stressed at having this extra work in addition to everything that’s already going on, I was upset because I want her to do well. I want to be a great manager to her and I want her to be recognized by the more senior people on our team. I want her to stand out and be noticed and I want her to strive and be considered for promotion. I want her to have a career because I know she wants (and probably expects) to be promoted this spring. We’re going through our annual performance review cycle and I know she’s not going to be offered a more senior role. It upsets me that I’m trying everything I can and yet she’s self-sabotaging by not listening to instructions, not following through and basically having a poor attitude. This whole thing is so frustrating to me.

My frustration showed on Tuesday. We had a team outing and went to this country club in Union Square to play mini golf, pool and a bunch of other board games. And drink. Lots to drink. I kept myself in check with the food by bypassing the pizza and dessert, instead sticking to raw veggies with hummus. But not the booze. By the time we got there, I was so stressed and upset that I drank my feelings. I had 2 glasses of wine and 4 shots of tequila. I haven’t been that drunk in a really long time and I’m not proud of losing control like this. But it happened.

I’m happy to say though that I’ve been struggling less with thoughts of disordered eating lately. While I wasn’t proud of myself the next morning, I also didn’t beat myself up over it. I did get up at crack o’ dawn to run the next day (and I was possibly still drunk as I did!), but it wasn’t a punishment run for losing control the night before. It was a run that is part of my regular routine and that’s making me feel good, just because running tends to do that.

Other than that, my exercise patterns have been awful this week. I took my regular rest day on Tuesday and yesterday, I sort of did an active rest day. Whatever that means. I was supposed to run yesterday, but I couldn’t get up in the morning. The week was taking its toll on me. Of course I worked late yesterday, so by the time I finally got home, I was so exhausted. I did 30 minutes of very, very gentle yoga that was more of a stretch than a workout. I think I burned less than 30 calories, so I’m not counting it as a workout per se, but I still did something.

I’ve got lots of plans for the day. They include a run, picking up my race bib for tomorrow’s 5k race, baking bread, doing my laundry, catching up with TV shows, reviewing my February goals/posting March goals and responding to a couple of emails. It’s gonna be a busy day. But it’s a Me day.

I have my flaws. Everybody has them. It’s not that big of a deal, right?

I’ve been thinking a lot about my flaws for the last few days. I’m not talking about my thighs being too big or my hair too thin or my shoulders too broad. I’m talking about my character, the essence of me as a human being.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that I recently moved from Frankfurt, Germany to New York City and that I’m now sharing an apartment with another girl. I’ve been on my weight loss journey since January and at first it’s been going really well. I feel like ever since I’ve come here, it’s been going a lot slower, even though I’ve increased the amount of exercise I’m doing. Now, I know how’s to blame for that: myself. I eat worse, I drink more alcohol, but honestly, I also enjoy myself more. In the end, I should be satisfied with how all evens out.

I wasn’t. With transferring to the US, I had to give up a lot of things. Space and the luxury of being able to live in a nice, big apartment by myself being the one that probably hit me the hardest. Over the last few days, I’ve realized that I’ve been doing something that I never thought I’d do and that I’m shocked I’m even capable of.

Let me explain:

I live with this girl, Kim. Kim and I didn’t necessarily hit it off the best possible way, but when I addressed my issues with her, she listened and changed. She’s actually a very sweet girl and I like her a lot. Kim also spends lots of money on a personal trainer and Kim eats a lot of crappy food. She’s been with the PT for about two months and considering she works out three times a week, I don’t notice any changes in her. She’s overweight and I believe the reason why she didn’t lose any weight is because she eats a lot of take-out, huge portions, popcorn for dinner, a cupcake a day. I hardly ever see vegetables in her section of the fridge, most of her food is processed, coming either out of the freezer or a can. She eats a lot of pasta and she eats mindlessly.

I’d say that apart from the occasional treat, 95% of the food I buy for myself is healthy. I try to buy fresh produce, organic and what’s in season. I choose whole grain over white grains/flour. I consider myself mostly vegetarian. I can’t remember when I actually last bought meat for myself to prepare. Sounds like I’ve got it, right? What my roommate eats shouldn’t be my concern, right?

However, all of a sudden, being confronted with a lot of foods I used to enjoy and used to eat was hard for me. Living by myself, it was easier because it was out of sight – and oftentimes, what you don’t see, you don’t crave! I found myself shocked when I noticed that I’d started resenting her for the way she ate. Judging her and making her responsible for the fact that I wasn’t losing weight as quickly as I wanted to lose it and also for the fact that she got to enjoy the foods I wouldn’t allow myself to have. If I could, I’d eat a cupcake every day! I found myself truly shocked when I admitted to myself how unfair I was being to her. I never said it to her out loud and I wouldn’t give her uninvited advice, but in my mind, I was judging her. And I was judging her hard.

So I thought about it. I thought about it and I realized that it’s not her fault when I’m unhappy with the speed of how quickly I lose weight. That’s all me. I also realized that it’s her issue if she wants to eat unhealthy and remain unfit. That’s all her. Judging her is not fair and quite honestly, it’s a dickish move on my end.

I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to blame others for what I consider a lack of success. I don’t want to be unfair and judgmental and resentful. I want to concentrate on myself and my situation. Identify where my issues are and working on myself to achieve greater happiness. No one is responsible for my happiness but myself. It’s about time I acknowledge that and deal with it.