Women Drinking Scotch

I tell you what, I love a good drink. I'm not one to drink to excess, rarely even to a point of tipsiness. Rather, I drink for flavor. Call me a snob, but that's why I love craft beer. And living in Oregon, it's damn hard to avoid. The fact remains, however, that a few beers throughout the week begins to take a toll on your waste line. Especially if you aren't working out.

We went out for a drink and some shuffleboard tonight at one of my favorite Hawthorne places. The Bagdad Theater's Back Stage Bar. And rather than go for a cold brew, like I wanted, I opted for a scotch neat. Macallan 12 year. Scotch is my kind of drink, for all its earthy, smoky, chest-warming flavors. A 1.5oz drink (sip and savor) also has over 100 fewer calories than a Ninkasi IPA.

Earlier in the day, I did a couple workouts, so sipping that drink didn't phase me as much. Moderation. Below is the video I followed on YouTube this morning and after doing two of her other workouts yesterday, I'm hooked. You look at them and think, "simple enough!" But no....these make you work, they make you sweat. I yelled profanities. BUT, they're also totally doable. I needed zero weights, and none of these exercises required acrobatic coordination or contortionist moves.

Aside from this 27-minute workout, I ran a mile and jammed to the awesome Caravan Palace Pandora station. I seriously need to go grocery shopping, so my food intake has consisted of 5 whole wheat crackers with a dab of peanut butter. Water. And coffee. And finally, for lunch, a simple black bean soft taco. 

1/2 can of black beans: 210 calories  (seasoned with cumin, oregano, basil and pepper)

1 whole wheat tortilla: 130 calories

1 TBS salsa: 5 calories 

1 small handful mixed greens: 4 calories 

TOTAL Calories: 349 

I promise, as this blog progresses and as I get a grasp on what I'm doing, I'll have more interesting photos and stories for you guys. But for now, I would LOVE your comments and advice for the first few weeks of starting a fitness journey. What do you do to stay motivated? What foods do you eat? How do you avoid delicious adult beverages? 

A Battle: Enjoyment vs. Overindulging

Let's start with the facts. I'm pretty damn average as far as the body goes. 30 years old, 5'4 and most of my jeans these days are a size 12. I live in Portland, Oregon, the mecca of food trucks and all things deliciously "local." When I entered college and learned to cook for myself, I fell in love with the experience of eating. In my mid-twenties, I spent two years as a from-scratch baker in the beautiful wine-flowing Willamette Valley. The aromas, the simmering, the sharing of stories over the table with friends ... food is so much more than eating. It's culture. It's kinship. It always will be for me. But as they say, everything in moderation, right? Here we are, and my combined love of food and lack of routine exercise has made my butt, my bod, my confidence ... well .... yeah. 

Every photo in this post is from 2016, except the race photo. Hair has changed obviously. And what these photos show is that: with the right choice of clothes, you can hide your eyes from most every reality. But the truth is, when those clothes come off, I'm not fooling anyone, especially myself. Now my guy, he's incredibly sweet. He says he loves my body. Anytime I'm without clothes, I hear those words. Does he know I'm sucking it in? Does he see my not-so-firm-anymore booty? While I appreciate his words, I'm convinced he's either crazy or a liar. 😕 But I keep my mouth shut. 

For the past 10 years, I've thought over and over that if I had only stuck with my workouts just a little bit longer, if I had given it a real chance, I would have gotten what I wanted. I would have achieved that next-level body. How many times I've started diets and exercise regiments, with the intent to really reach my max potential, only to backslide and eventually give up because the damn pizza and beer looked too damn tasty. 

How many times I've started to see results, but then let my guard down because I thought I was at a point where I deserved to indulge just for one night. And how many of those one-night indulgence sessions turned into weeks of indulging ... and turned into me completely slipping and losing all the results I had worked hard for. 

And then there's the tiny little detail of me smoking for the past eight years :) 

Talk about a palm to the face. You don't want to know how many races I signed up for and completed while actively sucking in the black death of cigarettes. It was a complete nonsensical situation. I told myself the races would help me quit. What really happened though was me "training" and landing back on my doorstep after five miles only to light up. I did quit smoking. A few months back, actually, without even trying. I think I just finally got bored with it. It no longer gave me pleasure. I thought about death every time I lit one up. That was fives times a day I was thinking about dying. Sounds happy, eh? 

Anyway, I'm a pretty active person and always have been. I was a tomboy growing up and still am, played sports all throughout high school. Today, I bike, hike and climb shit for fun. But it's not enough anymore. I'm 30. It's a beautiful age for me mentally. I feel more alive and more accomplished and more "figured out" than I ever did in my 20s. But body wise—oy. Oy oy oy. It ain't what it used to be. My metabolism is a joke and my job requires me to sit for eight hours a day. Add to this the ungodly confusion I've put my body through for the last decade, and well ... here I am, average as could be and pretty dissatisfied about it. 

So. This space that I'm creating here—it's about breaking away from average. It's about saying Hey Heather, you finally have a life you're proud of. You made it out of the chaos of your 20s alive. Now why not get your ass in shape?

You know how I said at the beginning, "Let's start with the truth" ? The actual truth is that I wrote everything above this line before I took the pictures below. After typing, I snapped these photos and realized just how far I've let myself slip. Now, I've always walked through life with a sucked-in stomach. Even when I was at my thinnest and 125 pounds, I sucked in. But with these photos, I let it all out, because, what's the point of this blog if I'm going to hide what's really there? And yes, I smiled in the front-facing photo because I can't stand the before/after pics you see out there that make it seem like anyone who has a few extra pounds is miserable, and then, miraculously, they're incredibly happy once they've lost the weight. That's not how life actually works. You can be fat and happy and skinny and miserable. 

Me? I'm pretty happy with my life, but I know I have some work to do physically. Scratch that. Not just some work to do—my goal here is to finally discipline my eating habits, my workouts, and to go the extra mile in order to achieve the results I want. 

What do I want? Well, I want the confidence that comes with being healthy. I want to believe my guy when he says he loves my body. I want to look in the mirror and not shake my head. I want to see just how far I can go with my body, my strength. So, here we go.