cindy's world

I noticed when I was driving the other day that my headlight settings seem to be different. I’d always thought it was on “auto,” meaning it turns on and off in response to an external light sensor. But now it was on this dot thing, I have no idea what the dot means, and the second half of the lever was turned on some strange picture. (Did the dealership change it last weekend?) After I got to the gym at lunch yesterday, I sat in the parking lot and looked through my car manual, then turned the dial back to “auto” for headlights, and turned off my foglamps. This made me 20 minutes late for the gym so my trainee and I only managed to get 4 different exercises in (3 sets of 15 each), plus 15 minutes of cardio.

Luckily, Vanessa emailed me in the afternoon inviting me to go to the gym with her in the evening after her acupuncture (*shudder*) appointment is over at 7p. She told me to pick a gym, and I picked Brea. I met her there, James also was there altho he worked out separately, and I’d called Vicky to go, too, but she didn’t show and didn’t call to let us know. *kick* It’s okay, we didn’t really expect to see her anyhow. We hit the weight floor probably about 8p and it wasn’t nearly as crowded as the other gyms we’ve been to! I guess New Year’s resolutions don’t hold as strongly in that area of Orange County. Aside from some chicks who have their hair done and are wearing full faces of makeup (why do they do that, btw? do they not plan on sweating, ever?), almost everyone there appeared to be gym regulars, going methodically machine to machine pumping iron to increase their already over-exercised proportions. The three of us stood around talking about what we’re going to do next; James hadn’t eaten dinner, Vanessa had a bowl of oatmeal before her acupuncture (*shudder*), and I had a couple bowls of soup. Vanessa opted to hit the cardio machine again, so James and I went to pick up some Lee’s Sandwiches, which we consumed in front of his giant TV while watching TiVo’ed episodes of South Park, grimacing as the hard-toasted bread cut into our gums and mouth-roofs upon every bite and the jalapenos seared every new injury.

Mr. W, from what I learned driving home from work yesterday, had planned to game the entire night with his brother and eat fast food. Basically, a bachelor’s evening. My bachelorette evening was hanging out with friends and working out, and eating relatively healthy. I’m pretty happy about that.

This evening: belly dancing with my coworker under her instructor for the first time. I’m kinda excited. She says her instructor gives a good workout and that I’m guaranteed to sweat, and that she’s always tired and sweaty after these sessions. My belly dancing instructor, I felt, was kind of tame in the exercise department. Now I get to see whether it’s just the instructor, or whether belly dancing just doesn’t do it as cardio for me.

I heard on a local radio show on Friday that a private survey shows that more American men would rather have sex with a post-operative transvestite than with an obese woman. Then male callers called in and it was pretty well split down the middle on where they stand. The ones who say they’d rather have a one-night stand with a transgender says at least the transgenders are totally hot and they now have female parts (altho artificially created), but that obese women just visually turns them off. The ones who’d take the obese woman said that they’d be confused sexual-orientation-wise if they slept with someone born biologically male, and even tho the obese female is not as aesthetically pleasing as a hot “transie,” at least she’s a woman. And then there are the callers who say they had sexual experiences with these transies and they are hotter than most normal women, and until told, they really couldn’t tell that these women were once men. I will admit that there are transsexual women out there who are able to make themselves up to be way hotter than I can ever hope to look, even with professional makeup. Plus they have that great male metabolism. Another factor both sides of the men mentioned is how much crap their buddies would give them for having sex with one or the other. One caller said if you put an incredibly hot transie next to a fat Rosie O’Donnell and tell a man he has to pick one for a one-nighter, his pals will understand that he picks the transie once they see the two options. The radio personalities then said, “There are overweight women listening to this right now who want to kill themselves knowing that men would rather have sex with a biological male than have sex with them, cuz they’re fat.” Ick.

I have male readers, don’t I? Where do you guys stand on this? Girls? How do you feel about the survey that concludes more men would take a pretty ex-boy over an overweight you? (Mr. W feels that society today is more forgiving if he has sex with a fat girl than with a transgender.)

Mr. W and I went on a photographic outing today to Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure. It’s mostly so I can try out my new camera that he got me for Christmas. I’ll post some of the pictures later, but I found this to be funny…
There’s a building called “Innovations” where it’s all advanced science stuff, virtual reality, futuristic…stuff. So anyway, when we were in there we saw a section of computers that take your facial photo and ages it based on some questions you’d answer first, i.e. your gender, whether you’re over 10 years old, your race, and whether you’re a smoker. Mr. W’s aging showed his eyebrows gradually sinking and getting whiter, his face got wrinklier, his eyelids drooped a little bit, his lips got thinner, and he got a double chin. When it was my turn, my photo came up and we kept hitting the part of the screen that says “older” and it didn’t seem to be doing anything. And then Mr. W hit the button that said “younger” and it gradually restored me to my original photo. Oops, I guess it WAS displaying the “aged” version of me. Here’s the “younger” and then the “older” photos:

If you didn’t see much of a difference either, then you know why we laughed. “Can you handle that?” I asked him, implying he’d have to deal with me looking like that when I’m old. He laughed and said, “Yes, I think I can handle that.” By the way, I am a non-smoker. If I smoked my face would be more aged because of the toxins from sucking in smoke and chemicals. Aside from having slightly drooper cheeks and a double chin, I don’t look that different. “It’s cuz I’m Asian, and Asians don’t really age,” I joked.

What did I do on the 3rd day of my week off? I got another person to join my gym today. It’s Mr. W’s neighbor, the guy he went to Alaska with. He’d mentioned over the weekend that Mr. W has noticeably lost weight and that he wants to do the same for himself, so I told him about my gym’s current promo and went with him to join today. Now he’s all excited and motivated to work out with us. It seems like everyone’s motivated but me. I dunno, maybe I think that if I could get a bunch of people to join with promises to work out with them once they do, that’d get me into the gym more, out of a sense of obligation to them. Most days, if it weren’t for Mr. W or my trainee dragging me to the gym at their own momentum, I wouldn’t go at all. I’m always glad I went, but man it’s hard to get up and go.

Mr. W, by the way, is getting a lot of attention lately. Apparently some female coworker’s been making flirtatious remarks about how he’s gonna get back into his original hot shape, and how she remembers when he first transferred to his current work location and he was one of 3 (in her opinion) best looking, most eligible bachelors, and she said something about how women would make excuses to be in his area so they could go check him out. *shrug*

I got super-annoyed with Mr. W yesterday when he mindlessly told me, in not so many words, that he used to screw some chick(s?) with a specific Enigma song playing, which song happened to be playing right then on the radio. Mr. W got super-annoyed with me today when he learned that instead of going to the doctor in the morning, I came to work and didn’t even leave early at lunch to see the doctor.

But then, if these are the worst of our problems after 1+ year together — too much information about his past for my taste and his worrying about my health so much as to be angry that I’m not being taken care of — I consider myself severely lucky, indeed.

By the way, I skipped the gym at lunchtime today and did go see the specialist, so it’s all good.

*** Addendum 12-28-06 ***
Mr. W feels he was misrepresented in this post, and I can see how it looks a certain way because I told it “in a nutshell” as opposed to telling exactly how the conversation happened, so here’s how it actually came about (but still nut-shell-ized):
*song plays*
Mr. W: I like this song. I have the CD. It has a good rhythm to have sex to.
Me: Ew! Why would you tell me something like that?
Mr. W: Why?
Me: Because the fact that you HAVE the CD and you said it’s a good rhythm to have sex to means that you’re speaking from personal experience!
Mr. W: *not denying it; it comes out later that his ex girlfriend said it’s a good song to have sex to, then bought him the CD, and then they had sex to it.*

So… my gym trainee has broken the ultra-difficult plateau and gotten below the weight line that she could not get under for the longest time…she’s now under 160 lbs. Yay! She’s at 159.2, and hopefully that’ll keep dropping. Not bad for the holidays. Mr. W has broken past the 200 lb barrier and is in the 190s. Before you go thinking that he’s fat, lemme say that he’s over 6′ tall. And me…well, I’m okay with where I’m at, altho ideally I can drop another 10. I did break my 10s platform and now I’m under 130. Not by much, but it’s better than the alternative.

May you have an unexpected head start in reaching your New Year’s Resolutions this year. 🙂

Please note the time. I’ve just gotten back from the gym! And it wasn’t because I went to the gym at 11p. Oh no, Mr. W and I set foot on the weight floor a little before 9p.

I used to be pretty hardcore about working out. In my heyday, I’d hit weights during lunchtime for 45 minutes to an hour, supersetting everything and getting 8-9 exercises in, 3 sets of 15 reps each. And then I’d go back after work for at least 45 minutes of cardio. And then every other day, I’d run outdoors (4-6 miles on weekdays, 10-12 miles on weekends). Now, I hit the gym at lunch for 35 minutes of weights, working in with my gym trainee so I don’t always get to superset, so we get about 4-5 exercises in on average, and maybe but rarely I’d go to jujitsu for a few hours after work. I’ve been ditching jujitsu and even bellydancing, and both are now on hiatus until next year. I’m not running much unless it’s on the treadmill for 3o mins or so.

Now that I’ve got Mr. W a membership, he’s always suggesting going to the gym. And by always, I don’t mean daily. I mean he’s there every lunch that work doesn’t oblige him to do something else, whether or not I go to the gym, and he wants to go again after work. On weekends he tries to make plans with me all day to go. But I’m in a workout slump. Today, I let him drag me through the motions of what I used to do. With my new Apple iPod Shuffle loaded with music, we hit a new gym. (He’s also into trying all the ones within a half hour’s drive from his house, and when we go some place on vacation, he wants to try the affiliated gyms there.) We both really liked the Orange 24 Hour Fitness; it’s clean, spacious, has new updated equipment, and uncrowded. I think we’ve found our home gym. After 10 minutes of stairclimber (because he wants to try a new cardio equipment), we went upstairs to the weight floor. I did 7 exercises at 3 sets of 15 reps each and was ready to call it a day, feeling pretty proud of myself for doing more than I have been doing on my own. But Mr. W wanted to work his minor muscle groups now t hat he’s worked his major muscles. I figure it’s good for me, so I did some triceps with him. And then I went to him, ready to go, relieved it’s over and more proud of myself for hanging in there. He wants to do abs. I’ve been slacking on my ab work, too, so I drag myself down there to do it with him. It’s nice to end a workout with some abs, anyway. I did 2 types of advanced ab stuff as he did his. After we were done, I prepared to walk to the locker room. He leaned his body toward the cardio equipment. “You want to do cardio?” I said somewhat incredulously. I guess a 10-minute cooldown wouldn’t kill me. He looked hesitant. “What, you wanna do MORE?” I asked. He wanted to do 40 minutes. It was now 10:30p and an hour and a half past his normal bedtime. He’s usually very cranky if he can’t be in bed by 9p. We compromised and did 25 minutes of elliptical trainer with a 5-minute cooldown. I was SO ready to go home. He announced he’s going to the steam room. Good Lord, where is this energy coming from?! I was too exhausted to sit in heat, and I’d run out of water, so I told him I’d meet him outside. I took my time in the locker room showering and getting changed, listening to some naked old Asian lady hock up noogies in the shower and in the mirrored vanity area as she dried her hair, standing there clothe-less and dripping, with the hand-dryer. And then I waited for him in the lounge area by the front desk.

I called college roommie Diana from there. Diana is a well-known gym rat. I told her, “I’m at the gym.” She said, “Okay, that’s good,” noting that it’s late. “I’ve been here since before 9,” I wailed. She started laughing, because I’d previously told her how I couldn’t get Mr. W to buy gym membership, how he always said he hated gyms, the way they’re crowded and smelly and anyone is stupid to pay for a gym when they can just buy some dumbbells for home use and go run for free outside. I told Diana how I got worked at the gym by the boyfriend tonight. “Good!” she said.

Maybe Mr. W’s new enthusiasm for gymming will get me back on track. He got me to the gym early for lunch yesterday, too, and I’m totally sore from that workout. Maybe this gym membership I bought for him is not just giving him the gift of health, it’s giving me the gift as well, as a sort of 2-for-1 thing. “What I like about going to the gym is that it’s something we can do together,” he said earlier in the car. So maybe it’s a 3-for-1 thing. I hope he doesn’t let me slack, cuz I know this is good for me and if I can’t motivate myself, he can either motivate me or club me over the head and let me regain consciousness on a hip adductor machine.

P.S. The time now is 12:39, 30 minutes after I started writing this post. Music from “Guitar Hero 2” is wafting in from the living room. Mr. W’s playing. WHERE is all this new energy coming from?!

The house is vibrating with Mr. W’s operation of a red plastic guitar as he strums to Playstation 2’s “Guitar Hero 2.” Yes, he bought the game. Why am I not playing? Because I have gone blind from passing the game on Medium level. Yes! I passed the game. The secret super duper bonus when you get to the end is an encore with the classic Lynard Skynard hit, “Freebird.” Cool! That’s, like, the only song I know in the whole game since I don’t listen to punk or hard core rock.

My head and fingertips hurt.

*listening to Mr. W play a slowed-down practice session on Easy Mode*

Baileys! I need Baileys!

I am so unmotivated to work out. I didn’t eat breakfast and only had lunch less than half the time in the past 2 weeks, so my anorexia kicked in and I gained 3 pounds, despite all the gymming and cardio I’d been doing. So now I’m discouraged. I actually stayed in and worked through lunch today rather than go to the gym. And even tho Mr. W was kindly offering gymming to me this evening, I couldn’t lift my fat ass off the couch, or my eyes from the scrolling TV screen, since my fingers had cellularly bonded to the Guitar Hero guitar buttons. When I finally looked up again the TV and its surroundings were wavy, which I knew to be an optical illusion because of the constant staring at the dropping notes playing the game. It’s the same effect after running on the treadmill, when things seem to fly by you faster after you stop. And since the effect of this game was so similar to the treadmill, I consider myself to have worked out and am going to bed.

Baileys! Hello!! Or maybe a Frangelico. I’m not picky!

An attorney who called me the other day (for something totally work-related) told me about a new weight-loss program she’s on. It’s a totally customized program designed and monitored by a doctor who used to be a ob/gyn and therefore is very knowledgeable about hormone levels and how it affects the human body.

The doctor takes a blood test and examines all the markers for metabolism and the individual body’s response to various hormones and food enzymes. That way he knows how each person’s body would respond to carbs, proteins, specific foods, etc. He then designs a special diet for what the patient is to eat all day. The attorney said the food is good, natural stuff, but that she was surprised at the things her body would react poorly to, for example, she can only eat 1/2 a tomato a day and no broccoli because there’s some enzyme or protein in those veggies that her body reacts to by slowing metabolism or insulin production down. Because she was bulimic in the past, this new diet will retrain her body to react heathily and normally to foods, and by correcting her metabolism, she should be on the fat-loss track as normal people are. Just like me, she used to work out 2 hours in the gym daily, do all sorts of cardio, and have zero results.

Although she said this diet is a bit expensive, if it works for her I totally want to try it. All the diet programs out there don’t work for me, either, because my body doesn’t respond to anything due to what I’ve screwed up being anorexic in the past.

This would’ve been the day to call in sick. There’s a throbbing pain behind my left eyeball in my head, and I’m pissed as hell from being unable to reach Mr. W since 5:30p yesterday despite calling his cell, house, and leaving messages. I also didn’t sleep well last nite because I still had my summer sateen sheets on the bed and was freezing to death. I really need to change to one of my flannel sheets. I actually had to duck my face inside the covers so my nose and face could thaw out, and then I was scared of falling asleep and suffocating. Even now my fingers are frozen, stiff and painful. I suppose I can skip a workout today at lunch, since I got to go to jujitsu yesterday evening. It was just a 45 minute workout then a potluck/movie (we saw Kung Fu Hustle, which I did not know was entirely a Mandarin-speaking movie), but we ate healthy and I managed to sweat during the workout despite its minute duration and the freezing temperatures. Besides, I did run yesterday at lunch, a little over 3 miles.

Or maybe I just want to go shop or something, I dunno. I hate crowds, tho.

Where’s a pissy, cold antisocial girl to go?

** Addendum: We’re on a break right now and I just went to get some coffee and brought it back to my desk. It’s so cold that I gave a big shudder and almost spilt the half-full cup on myself. Good lord.