GETTING OFF MY LAZY ASS, WEEK 1

During my recent bout with the black plague, I finally decided I needed to go to a doctor when I got winded and lightheaded walking back to my car from work and had a full-on coughing fit.  Before he forced me to take electronic bong hits of Albuterol and some steroid to fix my ailing lungs, he did what all doctors do - he weighed me.  For the last, oh, year, I've been avoiding weighing myself or seeing my weight at the doctor, and doing a pretty damn good job of it.  I figure if my clothes still fit and I'm happy with how I look, I don't need a number on a scale to make me feel bad.

Well, my clothes are fitting too tightly and I don't like how I look right now, so I suppose it was time for me to actually (accidentally) look at the scale.  And boy, was I large and in charge.  I was 10lbs heavier than normal and had reached a number I swore I never would, and at that moment I decided I needed some serious motivation to actually eat better and work out.  Such motivation for me comes in the form of either a) lost income or b) shame.  I chose both.

My lovely friend Manda (who has a blog, This Fit Blonde) moved to Singapore like a jerkface, but luckily she's still accessible via FitOrbit, an online training and diet site.  When it comes to accountability, I'm vaguely scared of her, EVEN FROM 20 HOURS AWAY, so this was perfect.  I plunked down $60 for a month of her telling me exactly what to eat and how to work out, and creepily monitoring me from another continent in the process.

I started on July 1, nice and easy to remember.  It's been almost a full week.  Here's my current outlook:

Day 1 - I get a grocery list emailed to me so I can get the foods I'm supposed to be eating in the next week.  I spent like 20 minutes in the produce department.  Seriously.  I started to worry that the employees thought I was stealing things, because I just kept picking up more and more produce like some sort of zookeeper.  Some of the things were normal, like strawberries and cucumbers and broccoli, and then there were the not-so-normal.  Ginger root? No thanks, I've got powdered ginger in my spice rack at home.  That's going to do whether you like it or not.

When I get home I realize that I have to take this food to work, since Starbucks and the fast food Indian place aren't on my meal plan.  So I have to start cooking.

If you know me at all, you know I hate cooking.  I'm not bad at it; in fact, I'm pretty good at it, but I despise taking the time to do all the little nuances of making a meal.  To me, "cooking" is putting things in the crock pot and turning it on.  Having to make different things in different pots is just more than I can fucking handle.

At one point I had a rice cooker, a sautee pan and something else all going at the same time.  I kept telling myself "you're cooking for 3 days, you get to heat and microwave this for the rest of the week!" but it wasn't necessarily making it better.  You know what's the easiest thing to make?  FRUIT SALAD.  You know what's the most annoying thing to do?  CHOPPING A FUCKTON OF FRUIT.  Ugh.

The meal plan even tried to make me cook every day.  Oh hell no, meal plan, I'm eating the same thing for 3 days and then I'll make the new thing, like hell I'm cooking every night.  And my laziness got the better of me a few times - steamed broccoli? That takes too long.  I'm just eating it raw.

Exercise - I may have mentioned I just recovered from the black plague, which took quite a toll on my already weak-ass lungs.  I have an inhaler now, which would normally be for exercise but instead is for any slight exertion that causes me to cough uncontrollably.  Not great for someone who is looking to get in shape.

The first workout was spin class, which I thought was a little heavy for someone who had just nearly died and also hadn't worked out in a hot second, but I went for it.  I made it through 30 minutes before my coughing began to cause people to look concerned, so I left in shame and hit the inhaler.

I'm still (5 days later) coughing when I walk up too many stairs or walk too quickly, so I'm not sure how the cardio portion of this is going to go - but I can do weights just fine.  Hope that works.

THE COOKIE - Despite being very good and sticking to the diet nearly verbatim (with exceptions for the 4th of July), I have been hit with an unshakeable craving for a chocolate chip cookie.  At all times.  I would shank a man to get a cookie.  I think about them in my sleep.  I think about them at work.  I think about them when I eat my fruit - my deliciously inadequate fruit that no matter how hard it tries, cannot become chocolate.

The food they have me slaving over is actually quite good, and after the first day of nearly dying of hunger I do now feel satisfied after most meals, so I can't complain that I'm eating only raw oats and a single stalk of celery, but DEAR GOD, THE COOKIE.  It's like heroin.  It follows me wherever I go.  Pictures of cupcakes are becoming like pornography, and Pinterest is nearly out of the question right now.  Before the diet I would crave an Indian buffet or pad thai, but never desserts.  But sweet merciful mother of god, cookies are all I can think of.

Thankfully, no cookies have been in my grab area (criminal law joke) since I started, but all it takes is me asking a Starbucks employee very nicely to remove one from behind the protective glass from whence it sits.

Do I have the willpower??