Who Knew??

Sorry for not posting in a while but my life is currently absolute chaos!!! Between school, work, my volunteer job, my life, my BF's life and a few other fiascos it is all I can do to make it through the week. The crazy part is that although this is by far the busiest I've ever been and I actually kind of enjoy parts of it. SShhh...Don't tell anyone...lol. I'm actually thinking I may enjoy this law thing. Also, I've also realized that although I tend to avoid conflict, I love to argue. Of course, I've also realized that my love of argument comes as no surprise to anyone other than me! Yes self awareness doesn't tend to be one of my strong suits.

I'm down to 2 weeks of law school (and my thirties) left. I can't believe it. In some ways time has flown by in other ways it seems like I've been doing this forever. Once classes are over, I have about a month before graduation. I don't know what I will do with all the free time! But I do know that I will enjoy myself!! After graduation, the real fun will start...BAR/BRI. For those of you not familiar with Bar/Bri, it's a bar preparation course that you pay to teach you how to pass the bar. Now mind you, you pay for this class after having paid a ridiculous amount of money to go to law school, which apparently doesn't teach you how to pass the test you must pass to become a lawyer. It's ridiculous and it's going to be he$%. Since I can't take 2 months off of work, I will work all day and then go to class from 6-10 every night. Bar/bri's advice is that for every hour you spend in their classes, you are supposed to study twice that on your own. The recommend about 10 hours a day of study...WTF!!!! I've never studied anywhere in the same universe as 10 hours a day.

All I can say is that this will be very, very interesting. Assuming I don't jump off a cliff in the meantime, I will be taking the NY and NJ bars the last week of July. After that who knows?? Anyone looking to hire an attorney?? :D

Joining the Game

Well, I have officially chosen to accept the mission of killing Fluffy. People have always told me that it gets much harder to lose weight after forty. Apparently my body has been listening! Since I will turn forty in a couple of weeks and I haven't done anything about Fluffy , my body decided to stage an all out revolt to get my attention: chest pains, hiatal hernia, knee pain, etc. (absolute craziness!! but it is working out ok). Well you don't have to beat me over the head (well at least not more than 40 or 50 times...lol) to get my attention.

It's been 2 full days since I've started. I've actually managed to eat some fruits and/or vegetables each day without having my body go into shock. Also, I've dramatically cut back my eating to a much more reasonable level! Since I'm under a major time crunch right now, I'm starting with tiny baby steps in regards to exercise. My plan is to do some sort of physical activity (even if it's just 5 minutes on the elliptical) at least twice each weekend. Once I'm done with school in mid April, I will pick up the exercise. After graduation (yes it's almost here), the exercise will likely drop back down due to my bar prep classes. Then after the bar (end of July) I will get back in the exercise groove.

I put together a rough outline of my goal weights along the path: 3/31 - 280, 5/31 - 250, 8/31 - 235, 11/30 - 205 and 2/28 - 175. This is a little aggressive, especially at first. However, since I'm only 5' 5" and about 290, the first 20-50 lbs should go fairly easily. I cut myself some slack during bar review. I don't really know what my final goal weight is. I should be somewhere in the 140-150 range for my height. But right now I just want to get under 200 and able to shop in places besides Big Girlz R Us. Hopefully by this time next year, Fluffy will be dead!!!

Sorry to throw all this at you, but I'm hoping by writing this and putting it out into the universe I will feel more accountable and dedicated. Thanks for your support!!

Vindication!!

At school I'm notorious for my ability to play games on my laptop or doodle during lectures and yet still be able to participate in the class. My friends are always commenting on how one minute I'm playing solitare seemingly not paying attention and then suddenly I raise my hand and ask an on point question or respond to something the prof just said. I try to explain that it's like there are two parts of my brain. I must keep the one section distracted by games or doodling and then the other part can pay attention to the lecture. They just shake their heads at me when I say this, but it turns out there might be something to it. Time magazine recently ran an article about how doodlers seem to retain more information than non-doodlers.

"Why does doodling aid memory? Andrade offers several theories, but the most persuasive is that when you doodle, you don't daydream. Daydreaming may seem absentminded and pointless, but it actually demands a lot of the brain's processing power. You start daydreaming about a vacation, which leads you to think about potential destinations, how you would pay for the trip, whether you could get the flight upgraded, how you might score a bigger hotel room. These cognitions require what psychologists call "executive functioning" — for example, planning for the future and comparing costs and benefits.

Doodling, in contrast, requires very few executive resources but just enough cognitive effort to keep you from daydreaming, which — if unchecked — will jump-start activity in cortical networks that will keep you from remembering what's going on. Doodling forces your brain to expend just enough energy to stop it from daydreaming but not so much that you don't pay attention." (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1882127,00.html?iref=werecommend)

So, there is a method to my madness after all...lol
Doodlers of the world unite!!

Why not.

Over the past few years, I have been trying to learn more about myself and why I live my life the way I do. In particular, why do I seem to need to keep carry this extra and ever increasing amount of weight around with me. It seems to my therapist and me that I must be getting some sort of pay-off by keeping on the weight. Listed below are a few of the many possible reasons why I might be doing this. Please note that I am still actively working on all the items below, this post is just to help me explore these issues in a new way. Plus it provides another glimpse into how my mind works or doesn't work...lol

1) A big part of my personality is my desire to be a "bad ass" (to quote my therapist). I really don't want to be like everyone else. While my name is rather unique and I have a few unique traits, I'm not nearly as different as I like to think I am. However, my weight is an obvious sign to the world that I am not just one of the masses. While rationally this doesn't really make any sense, some deep down part of me seems to believe that if I'm not quite brave enough to rebel in more constructive ways at least I can rebel by being extremely overweight.

2) In the same vein as the "bad ass" desire, I also really, really don't like to be told what to do, especially if the reason is because I'm a female, young, or other such nonsense. The more that people tell me to do something, the less likely I am to do it, even if I rationally know it is in my best interest. I refer to this as my 3 year old streak. Out of this misguided sense of spite, I do alot of things that I know I shouldn't do. I also realize that I would probably be happier if I didn't do them, yet I continue doing them. All of my family and friends and even my boyfriend, have expressed their concerns about my weight. Knowing how I am, they are careful to try to express their concerns without coming across as telling me what to do. Yet my inner 3 year old rises up and sticks out her tongue at them saying "You can't make me do that...I'll show you. You think I'm fat now, I'll show you what fat really is!". I've learned to talk my 3 year old down, but she has very quick reflexes and that spiteful reaction is unfortunately still my default reaction.

3) It might also be that the fear of change has not yet exceeded the pain of being this way. My problem with this theory is that I am good with change in alot of ways. I joined the Peace Corps and moved to Nepal, I'm going to law school to change my career, and I moved to TX and NJ by myself to name a few. However, I am not quite as good with changing me.

4) Saying that I am not good at dealing with my emotions is a major understatement. My therapist noticed that no matter what type of emotional situation I am describing I tend to laugh while I'm doing it. It's like I feel safe talking about emotional stuff only as long as I "cut the tension" with some sort of laugh. Mind you, it's not a deep down belly laugh but more of a nervous giggle. My weight essentially acts as my own personal shield to protect me from emotions. It keeps my feelings in and the "bad stuff" out. To finally lose this weight and keep it off, I'm going to have to come up with more effective ways of dealing with my emotions. Because no matter how much I might want to be Vulcan and not have emotions, I'm not and as a result, I have to deal with those d#mn things.

Well that's enough exploring of the deep dark bowels of my brain. I promise I won't be this serious in all my posts. Thanks for listening/reading. Peace