Author Archives: April

Hidden athleticism.

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I have never been athletic.  While many of America’s youth spend their time in matching uniforms proudly running around with numbers on their back, I was never one of those children.  Well, I was once.  I think I managed a few months of soccer in kindergarten but the only thing I remember is the day I forgot to wear a different shirt for playing goalie.

I never entered onto sporting grounds again unless forced by P.E. (physical education) teacher in school.  I didn’t turn into a chunky monkey until puberty so it’s not like I could even blame my weight on why I avoided sports so much.  It just wasn’t my thing.  I was way more focused on doing extraordinary activities like choreographing dances to Jimmy Buffet’s song “Fins”. I could dance my fins to the left and to the right all night long but if I was told to run a mile in class, I could barely get around the track without wanting to drop to the ground and gasp for air like a beached sand shark.   As much as I despised any sort of sport-related physical activity, I did manage to build a firm appreciation of roller-blading.  Skating the streets of my towns helped build the awesomely firm leg muscles that I still have today.

Once I discovered my love of fitness when I lost fifty pounds and was working at a gym, I decided I should give sports another chance.  I’ve always had fast reflexes and have been pretty good at catching random objects that have been thrown at me so the logical choice was to try playing softball.  With help from one of the most influential guys in my life, my friend Aaron and I began meeting up to practice my throwing and catching.   I wasn’t great but I was determined and tried to gather a bunch of friends together to start a team.  That goal died quicker than Disney’s plan to makeover Merida from the Pixar movie, Brave.

With extra motivation from writing on this blog, I decided to enlist myself in P.E. classes at my college.   As many of our faithful readers know,  I enrolled in yoga, Pilates, and a half-semester tennis course.  I was excited to see how easily my body made progress in it’s strength and flexibility and knowing that my body can indeed be trained into athleticism has given me faith that I can do even better.

tennis

I’ve fallen in love with tennis and I’m even contemplating taking my racket with me across the Atlantic when I leave for Europe in a month.  How will I survive without the tight grip that my hands hold around the handle and the strings that bounce my affections in the form of a neon yellow ball?

I willingly played tennis four times last week and was eager to practice more in between days.  I even gathered phone numbers of my classmates to play with before I leave!  I plan on taking tennis again next semester but hopefully I’ll continue to improve over the summer.  Plus, I just love the cute skirts!

Do any of you play any sports?  If not, have you ever wanted to but found excuses of why you shouldn’t like I so often would do?

Alyssa is back from her glorious trip and will return with a blog to come!

 

 

Happy wishes for the rest of the week for you all!

 

AprilSignatur

Meditation for your Monday.

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Welcome to the beginning of the week!  I suppose here in the United States we technically start our weeks on Sundays but we all know that the REAL week begins once we get back into that work/school mode.  This week Alyssa graduates from Cal State Northridge, WOOOOO!!!  I also am finally in my school finals mode and am taking a break from my four-page research paper on Irish-Americans to write this blog.

During busy weeks, it can be easy for our minds to quickly become overwhelmed with all our responsibilities we need to accomplish.  Many of us already suffer from having anxious minds so when life’s pace picks up, it can be hard for our thoughts to slow down.

One of the most valuable tools I have learned over the past few months in practicing yoga is the art of meditation.   It’s hard for me to sit for even three minutes without fidgeting and fighting the desire to get up and DO something, but in yoga I was forced to relax each class for ten minutes during our “Savasana” (sah-VAH-sah-nah) or “cool-down meditation”.

tropical island-7

On our last day of class, I told my teacher that those two ten-minute meditations are the best twenty minutes I do for my health every week.  It takes me about five minutes to finally be able to relax my crazy thoughts but once I get there, my mind is able to escape into a blissful world that normally takes place on some tropical beach with the waves gently brushing up on the shore like the wind brushing through my hair.

There are a few different types of meditations you can do.  Here is a list I am sharing from my yoga class:

  • Concentration – Mentally (eyes closed) focusing on the breath, counting the breaths,or a specific chakra. Visually (eyes open) focusing on lighted candle or other peaceful object while clearing away all thoughts except those related to the intended focus.
  • Visualization (Guided Meditation) – A teacher or a recorded script guides students through a relaxing, focused visual journey or mental vacation, in which students are encouraged to push aside all thoughts and participate mentally in the visualization.
  • Mantra – A sound,word or phrase is spoken aloud or silently (mentally).
  • Stream of Consciousness – Observe ones own thoughts stream past in our minds as if on a movie screen. Acknowledging each thought without mental reaction, judgment or comment, then releases it with gentleness and waits for the next thought.

If you’ve never given meditation a shot, I highly recommend it.  I’ve never been able to successfully meditate for more than twenty minutes but I’m hoping with practice, I’ll  be able to master this relaxation technique because I know I certainly feel better afterwards.

One of the better guided meditations I have found are by a wonderful man named Deepak Chopra.  Deepak Chopra is a new-age guru who was born in India and immigrated to the United States to become board-certified in internal medicine and endocrinology. He also has written over seventy books and has become world-known in the Ayurveda world.  We did some wonderful chakra meditations in our yoga class so if you like the idea of exploring meditation further, I recommend hunting them down on Youtube.

Here is a short example of a guided meditation that I hope a few of you will take the five minutes to relax their minds with.

Do any of you meditate on a regular basis already?  If not, what challenges do you find when it comes to being able to meditate?

I hope you all have a wonderful week!  I’ll be back on tomorrow with another blog!

Lots of love,

AprilSignatur

Finding the support you need

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This week has been crazy as it’s our last crunch time before finals at my college.  I was set to do my Richard Simmon’s style workout in front of my Pilate’s class on Wednesday and planned on spending the night before writing out my workout routine and sticking some jewels to my work-out pants.

During class on Monday as our last group of the day lead us through their workout, I noticed that we still had quite a bit of time before class was actually set to end.  The thought entered into my mind that maybe I should just try to wing-it instead of spending the next two nights freaking out and over-analyzing my routine.

I had been practicing in my car of what I would say along with my music choices, surely I would be able to instruct a group of 25 people on a whim!

As my teacher went over how Wednesday would be a full day, I blurted out loudly, “I think I might be able to do mine today.  I’m not prepared but I have the CD in my car if you guys would bare with me!”

My teacher lit up at the opportunity to balance time better for the last people to present and I took a dash out to my car for my C2C CD.

I wasn’t in a jeweled outfit and I couldn’t get that awesome headset microphone to work, but I still feel like I rocked the room the best I could!

I had my class utilizing  their exercise balls as I had them doing wall-sits, arm lifts, and doing jumping jacks on the ball to this song:

It was incredible to look around the room as I was bouncing around on my ball, counting out our reps, to see everyone smiling hugely back at me.  I felt so proud of myself that I was getting through my routine while people were actually enjoying my workout!  After the routine was over and it came time for feedback, there were so many people talking all at once that I could barely make out a single word!   I did hear: “You looked so cute!”, “That was so much fun!”, and “You did so awesome!” or something along those lines.

The class came to an end and I spent the next ten minutes glowing as I chatted with my classmates before yoga began.  I was so happy with the support that I got from all the people in my Pilates class that I spent the rest of the week feeling very proud of my body.  Instead of thinking to myself, “I’ve only lost sixteen pounds”, I have been dropping the word “only” and praising myself for the success I *have* had.

With my replenishment of faith, Wednesday morning when it came time for tennis and the heat increased, I finally, for my first time, dropped my protective morning-fog pants layer to reveal my short and cute fuchsia pink tennis skirt I bought MONTHS ago.

…And not even twenty seconds later I hear called out from the other tennis court, “April took off her pants!”, all excitedly from this 19-year-old tender morsel of a youthful college guy.  It cracked me up and the two women I was playing with gave the dude some smart replies as I mumbled something about how I may end up being shy.  But inside, I was glowing.  Haha!  This kid knows I’m ten years older than him too since we had previously been talking about him being born in 1993, yes, NINETY THREE.   Anyway, his attention to my legs definitely boosted my self-esteem and when it came time for our class to meet in a group, I got complimented by nearly every woman in my class on how cute my skirt was.

I’ve been feeling down on myself lately because of all the drugs I’ve been having to take for my endless ear infection (3 1/2 weeks now) and have been told how prednisone can make it difficult to drop the pounds.  A week like this was exactly what I needed to keep the confidence going in myself.

I feel the support system I have is amazing and a great deal of why I keep working diligently towards my goals.  It is very often that I have full intention of driving to 7-11 for a Coke slurpee but I stop myself because I know I want to make  positive progress.   I am so grateful for everyone I have in my life that helps support me on this adventure to better health.

Thank you to all our blog fans, my classmates, my friends, my family, my wonderful sister Alyssa, and that hottie 19-year-old in my tennis class for making me feel proud of myself!  You all make it easy to keep going!  :)

I know the blog community is a great source of support for so many people on this adventure with me!  What other kind of support do you get in your life for health? Do you have a favorite person out there that you can look to for extra encouragement?

I’ll be back on Monday while Alyssa gets some solar support in Cabo San Lucas with another blog!

 

I hope you all have a glorious weekend!

AprilSignatur

 

 

 

A bedazzled work-out opportunity!

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Happy Wednesday, faithful readers!

It’s been an exciting past few weeks as Alyssa has been accomplishing her goals of receiving her Masters degree in Communications and I’ve been making the moves to pursue my own higher education as well. It’s getting to the point where many students will be closing their text books and shoving their school supplies into their closet to remain untouched until August.  I’ve been dealt the typical college story where all the teachers of my school have all met up and conspired together  to decide what day would be best for EVERYONE to have a major assignment due.  I’ve got a yoga practice to write along with two essays and four tests to accomplish in the next two weeks and am trying my best to get as much writing done as I can now.   One of the more exciting assignments I have to do as my Pilates final is to arrange a ten-minute work out that I’ll teach to the class on May 15th.

We’re allowed to have music…

We’re allowed to wear the cool exercise microphone head set…

Plus we’re allowed to dress up in our spiffiest work-out outfit and we’re encouraged  to bring as much energy as we can to our giant classroom.

I took this as an opportunity to teach my class like one of my work-out heroes, the one and only Richard Simmons.

April's hand full of Richard Simmon's derriere

April’s hand full of Richard Simmon’s derriere

Alyssa introduced me to the wonder of his exercise class at his Slimmon’s Studio in Beverly Hills about two years ago and I had a BLAST sweating my ass off with her and another blogging friend named Alexa to a musical journey through Motown.  That man has got the energy of a child who stole his Mom’s Redbull!  He was bouncing all around his studio screaming motivational yet raunchy lines about how we should be used to our thighs being sore from lifting our legs!  He was hilarious and made working out so much fun!

I’d love to capture that essence of Richard for my work-out to my Pilates class!

So far I’m plotting a 10 minute series of music from that French turntablist group C2C I mentioned a few weeks ago.  They’ve got this awesome high-energy song called “Happy”  that I have a vision of getting my classmates to “dance” along to while doing jumping jacks and bouncing upon our work-out balls. C2C also has songs that have slower parts that increase into a faster pace that I think could be perfect for when I make the class do wall-sits using one leg.

One legged wall sit

Alyssa is getting some DOUBLE CHIN DIARY t-shirts made up for us so I’ll definitely rock that but will have to jazz up my outfit with some glitter.  Maybe I should invest in a bedazzler and make myself some crazy leggings complete with sparkles all over them!

We’re encouraged to use as many Pilates exercises as we can but in my five months, it seems nearly every exercise can be included in a Pilates work-out.

In other news, I successfully made it back down to my “pre-birthday bloating” weight and am a mere pound away from reaching down into my next chunk of ten pounds.  I’ve got less than five weeks until I leave for my Europe vacation and am hoping to get rid of the tiny bit of back fat that remains stuck to my sides.  As much as I want some hot European man to handle my body with loving desire while I’m there, I have to make sure he’s not actually grabbing at my “love handles” in the process.  I’m trying to stay dedicated to my hula hoop because I know that’s one of the best tools I’ve got in whittling the fat that hovers around my waist away.  I might even post a picture to show you guys the before and after of my progress, we’ll see if I’m brave enough.

Do you have any awesome moves that you think I should include in my work-out instruction?

What are your favorite songs to work-out to?

And finally, what do you guys think of us making some work-out videos?   I am going to try to record my routine as a practice for the class but also because I think it could be cool if the Double Chin Diary started a collection of Youtube work-out videos!  Would any of you give our work-outs a try?

Lots of love,

AprilSignatur

The Double Chin Sisters working out with Richard!

The Double Chin Sisters working out with Richard!

 

 

 

I’ve been dropping my birthday pounds!

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I’m happy to report that I have managed to lose four pounds since I began creating my meal plans last week!   My ear infection has not eased up, apparently it was caused by a virus so my amoxicillin has done nothing.  If anything, I would say it has gotten worse!

But unfortunately the days when I could stay in bed with the three C’s  (coloring books, crayons, and cartoons) are over and I still need to attend to my responsibilities of school and work.

I have taken a break from my usual tennis, Pilates, and yoga although I gave tennis a shot on Wednesday and ended up totally overexerting myself, causing me to come home and skip the next three classes and leave work early.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to do so well when it came to the exercise so I’ve been making up for it by really trying to stick with a routine.   I’ve been consistently eating my servings of beans with a big salad at lunch along with my light breakfasts and dinners.  I have also been rocking my water intake but I also think that’s because all my medicine is making me super thirsty.

I got to spend the weekend away with my best girl friends for a Monterey Bay weekend.  We stayed in the exciting town of Salinas where people with pink hair must be pretty rare as I got quite a few stares.  I indulged myself after doing a ton of walking for dinner at my seventh brewery of the month,  Monterey Coast Brewing.  That night my friends and I stayed in our hotel room doing our nails and making a big batch of “hotel guacamole”.  I love the life of a 30 year old, haha!  Who needs clubs and overpriced drinks when you can have your best friends in a hotel room with a plate of guacamole!??!

In my element making guacamole!

In my element making a simple guacamole of avocados, garlic powder, salt, and lime!

This week has been way better than last week as I’ve been finding out more in regards to my Math situation and college.  It turns out that the two years of algebra I took in high school totally have counted this whole time as prerequisites!  I’ve already gotten  that transferred over  and I’m all set to give a try at statistics, a class everyone assures me I’ll be better at since it’s “real life math”.  I feel confident because I’ve been informed on all the best teachers in my area who do open-book tests and no homework! Haha!  I may not be smart at math but I sure am crafty at working the system… but not crafty enough to figure this out before I took  the class I’m in now!   ;) Thank you all for your support about that, it was awesome to see that some of you have had issues like myself as well!

 

In spirit of avocados which are so nice and cheap right now in California – how do YOU make your guacamole?!

 

Avocados for all,

AprilSignatur

Making the most of what you’ve got

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I had been planning on writing a nice blog about how to stay fit while on vacation.  My weekend was to be filled in the beautiful Lake Tahoe with my two best girl friends, Kristin and Aya.  Kristin is next up in line to celebrate her birthday (which is today, the 26th!  Happy birthday, Kiki!) and the three of us were looking forward to making our first trip up there in ten years.  I imagined us drinking mimosas down in the hot tub, surrounded by a light coating of snow as we sat beneath the towering pine trees with waves of crisp mountain air filling our bodies.  I have been pining for those pine trees all week knowing that as soon as I got up there, my brain would be able to calm down from all  the stress of the school semester coming to an end.  Maybe then, I would have been able to forget about all my choices I need to make regarding my future… but no…

Today life decided to throw me a curve ball and unfortunately, my typically swift catching abilities failed and caused me to get hit in the face HARD by this particular throw.

It started out early this afternoon when I went to the doctor on campus about my ears hurting, suspecting either hardcore allergies or the potential of a rare adult ear infection.  Turns out it was the ear infection and I have not just a single ear infection, but a double.  That’s right, one in each ear.  YEAH!  I was grateful that it wasn’t just allergies because this would have sucked to live out the next few months in the kind of pain I am in.  My college is incredibly awesome and gave me the amoxicillin I needed to get better for free and sent me on my way to my math class.

Unfortunately math didn’t bring me any better news as I found out the test I studied hours for still resulted in me failing.  Lame.

I spent the drive home crying about the failure because I have somehow bombed all three of the tests I’ve been given in that class.   I’m not even in calculus or something hard like that either.  I’m in basic algebra and often when I look up math problems on Youtube, it’s junior high level math.  I can write a four page essay in an hour and get an A.  I can walk into my science classes without even knowing I had a test and get an A.  But for some reason when I see numbers with tinier numbers above them and a line separating them from MORE numbers combined with letters that are asking them where to find their friend “X”, my brain and heart start a mosh pit in my body that results in total shut down.  Uck.  Even just writing that horrible sentence gave me anxiety and I bet those of you who share my fear of math will understand.

I’m just bad at math.

I go to ecology and get home, prepping out something I wanted to do for Kristin’s birthday.  The time comes for me to continue my mission and I go to start my always reliable Toyota Matrix.  I turn the key, nothing.    I take a deep breath, try again.  Still nothing.  Radio is working.  Lights are working.  It’s not my battery.  It’s my starter.  Awesome.  How am I supposed to drive to Lake Tahoe now?

After spending a giant chunk of time on the phone with Aya about my situation, we decide that is probably best that I avoid the mountains with my ear infection and hope that Kristin would understand having to change up our Lake Tahoe plans.  I was so worried about letting Kristin down on her birthday that I would’ve tried to go anyway but life just had a different idea.  After talking to Kristin and immediately seeing right away that she understood, I felt much better.

I started to do a reflection on my day and although I had a lot of crappy things happen, I’m still grateful for many things.   I am fortunate that I am able to go to such a great college, receive financial aide,  plus that awesome bonus of having that my current medical needs covered. I’m grateful that I have a car, even if it doesn’t currently work.  I’m grateful that it’s gone 230,000 miles almost without giving me any issues but needing a new clutch.   I’m upset at myself for doing poorly in math but I am proud of myself for still being brave enough to try.  I’ve avoided math since high school and it’s been the one big thing holding me back from a degree.  I may not be performing at a passing level, but at least I’m still up there on that academic stage giving it my all.

The love and support that I have gotten from my friends and family as I have complained to them about my circumstances have truly helped me know and accept that “this too shall pass.”  My new and wonderful friend Silviu was so sweet and even though I was being so negative to every single encouraging  text he would send, he wouldn’t accept my pessimism and continued to boost up my confidence about math throughout the day.  After talking with Aya and Kristin about us not being able to do our trip, I was so touched because they didn’t care that we wouldn’t be able to have our mimosa’s under pine trees, their main concern was my health and biggest wish was for us just to be together, even if it was just under an oak tree in a park.

Through all of this I have been reminded that the bad grade you get on a test, the amount of revisions you must do on a paper, and the number that boldly stares at you on a scale do not determine the amount of happiness we can hold for ourselves.  I spent my Thursday depressed and throwing a personal pity party but by talking with my friends and through writing out this blog, I realize that even these “bad things” are still reasons to be grateful because they are all just opportunities for positive change.

grateful

 

To help boost happiness levels for both myself and my sister, who has been having a hard week as well, I ask of you:

What are you grateful for and in your times of stress, are you able to keep your gratitude?

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and please, try to remember to appreciate what you in life because surely it is more than someone else out there.

Lots of love,

AprilSignatur