It’s all Gruntstyle’s Fault.

So I had my first night of roller derby boot camp last night.

And I was FREAKING TERRIFIED.

I used to be a skater, for about 8 minutes, before I had Chuck. I wasn’t very good and I was totally out of shape, so I sat out a lot. And I was sore all the time. And I hurt myself a lot.

That being my last “real” skating experience (not counting the bout I skated in February), I expected to get out there and just try not to die.

But I did not die. And I actually did quite well (despite a broken piece on my skate, that I did not discover until late in the game….it’s a miracle I didn’t injure myself).

And I didn’t have to sit out.

And this morning, I didn’t have TOO much soreness. (My inner thighs and my butt are killing me though.)

I blame Daniel Alarik from Gruntstyle and his amazing workouts that I’ve been doing on and off. And I blame Mamavation for putting me on the road to being back in shape. And I blame myself for working my best and preparing myself for this, even through the rough personal stuff we’ve been going through.

Could I have done better? Absolutely. But that ship has sailed, and I’m (VERY BRIEFLY) resting on my laurels before I get right back to work.

This week I lost 0.2 pounds, but those were hard-earned. That was a lot of “there is soda in the house and I’m not going to drink it.” And “the kids want to eat out, but I know we have healthy stuff I can fix for dinner.” And “no, I don’t need to have a margarita with friends.” (Although I really wanted to do each of those things.)

Making good choices and strapping wheels on my feet to kick some tail. That’s my health mantra this week 🙂

So make this week count, and come next Sunday night, think good thoughts for me betwen 5pm and 7pm PST!

On Bout Day, Long Long Ago… (aka Saturday)…

I know a lot of you are not familiar with the concept of Bout Day.

But in roller derby, for most leagues (during the derby “season”), we have bouts (what we call our “games” in derby-speak) once a month.

Not unlike the craziness and the frenzy that surrounds any other sport on game day, we have Bout Day Crazy.

As a ref, this involves a lot of crawling on the dirty floor for hours taping off the track to official standards before the bout; making sure stopwatches are working; placing and re-placing the player benches, the penalty box chairs, the scorekeepers table, and the bumpers around the track to ensure player, ref and spectator safety as well as lines of sight; and then officiating matchups where someone will inevitably scream at you, call you stupid, ask if you’re blind and possibly treat you like you didn’t just spend all day making sure they could play.

It’s fun as hell, don’t get me wrong.

But sometimes it’s uber-stressful. And my habit (pre-Mamavation) has been to grab fast food between setup and arriving at the venue for bout time, have a cigarette, or down another soda to deal with the stress….or mostly postpone it until the afterparty, where I have a couple of cocktails and then Chef picks me up.

But I’m working towards a healthier me. And I am trying out to be a Mamavation Mom. (you can read more about what that entails here) So that means no sodas. No cigarettes. And no alcohol.

So I was a mess on Saturday. I had buckets of stress, and I was refusing my body my normal “coping mechanisms”. So I started to short circuit a bit.

So I had a cigarette. (I KNOW! Don’t yell at me.)

And it was horrible. I felt like garbage and wanted to lie down and die. I felt like I had disappointed my sistas, my kids and mostly myself.

It was already done. So I moved on and about an hour later, I took a swig of soda. And promptly panicked, BEFORE SWALLOWING.

So here I am, already a mess, now holding a soda I don’t want with more soda I don’t want in my mouth, running around in a panic trying to find a trash can to spit it out in. I looked like an idiot, but was determined not to let myself or anyone else down again.

So I ran outside and spit it out.

I also had decided earlier in the day, after stopping in the Jack in the Box parking lot and thinking HARD about it, to stop at Robek’s for a smoothie instead of french fries and garbage.

I also skipped the afterparty, because I just didn’t want to deal with the temptation of alcohol and cigarettes. It sucks to not be able to unwind with your friends after a bout, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

(ETA – I am a super responsible parent. I never drink around the kids and ONCE a month I get to go out with my friends. So I’m not clubbing every night. Relax.)

So small steps towards my big goal. I’m not perfect, but I’m trying HARD.

Goals for this week? (I’m buying a scale today. Then I can post scale pictures. I don’t know if I’ve lost any lbs this week, but we’ll see…)

1. Keep not smoking. I think that one cigarette in almost 2 weeks is pretty awesome. Especially since I haven’t been using Chantix or gum or the patch….just regular old chewing gum.
2. Water. I fell down on this one yesterday for some reason, and I REALLY felt it. I have water bottles all over the house normally, but The Overlord cleaned while I was gone on Bout Day….so they all were tossed 😦
3. Keep ignoring the junk food. I was pretty good on bout day. They normally have all sorts of garbage laid out for us to snack on…I had 6 bottles of water (the tiny ones) and a banana and a delicious roast beef sandwich with horseradish….yum. We won’t speak about the Domino’s pizza incident…wherein I ate pizza and was promptly ill for 2 days. UGH.
4. Keep moving. Hazings are getting increasingly harder. I’m pushing myself as much as I can without getting hurt, and I’m proud of myself. I’m also walking at LEAST every other day for 2 miles. I want to start the Couch to 5k this week because I finally got running shoes!!
5. Keep up the good work on night eating! This one I’m really proud of. I used to shove food in my face right up to the point where I fell asleep. I have been eating a banana before going to bed and I’m good. Drinking lots of water helps too 🙂
6. NEW – Boot Camp. – this one terrifies me. And 5am is super early. But as a part of our derby league, I have an incredible opportunity to attend a local US Martial Arts gym boot camp at 5am every weekday, and I promised my derby friends I would go twice a week (to start). So I have to do it……

This week’s Mamavation question: Are you a sweet or savory snacker?  What do you look for in a healthy snack?

I absolutely prefer savory. By far. I can eat just one or two M&Ms, but cannot put down potato chips.

For healthy snacks, I like something with a crunch. I like apples and blue corn chips…things like that. I’ve been wanting to try kale chips, but I’m not 100% sure on them yet.

And for making it this far, a video for you. This is my new favorite YouTube guy. Also

And if he can do this in the middle of a busy Apple store….you can do ANYTHING you want 🙂 (not your typical inspirational pep talk, but srsly. AWESOME.

This post is sponsored by Orville Redenbacher popcorn, and I wrote it to be entered in a giveaway hosted by Mamavation and sponsored by Orville. PS, I love popcorn. Did I say that already?

Nerds Untie!

I am humming along, editing my video for my Mamavation Moms application, and my video camera software asks me if I want to make a Magic Movie!

Why yes, video camera, I LOVE MAGIC! Please! Make a magic movie!

This is the ridiculousness that it came up with. Enjoy.

*editor’s note: turn your freaking speakers down because for some reason, the roller derby part is REALLY REALLY LOUD.

There’s Something about Derby…

This is how we do it. Also, not entirely sure my helmet fits.

Roller derby makes me feel like it’s ok to wear an outfit like that horrific ensemble to the left there….and that nobody will laugh at me or make me feel like a whale, or point out that my control top pantyhose is TOTALLY SHOWING or tell me that just because Derby Skinz come in a size XXXL doesn’t mean that I should ACTUALLY WEAR THEM.

It allows a girl like me, who is not model skinny and most of the time is hiding in yoga pants and big baggy sweatshirts and hoping to the good Lord that nobody is looking at my VPL or wondering why I don’t brush my hair more often, to feel like it’s ok to wear whatever the hell I want because everyone else is wearing what they want and I can be confident that despite the fact that those shorts are super tiny, they show that I have the balls to WEAR WHAT I WANT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I wish real life was like that. On our way home last night, I hadn’t bothered to change out of the outfit before we got in the car…and we stopped at a rest stop.

The girl who was standing at the sink while I was washing my hands looked at me like I had lost my damned mind, and said “Why on earth would you wear that?”

I wish my answer had been “Because I don’t care what anyone else thinks and I do what I like and what makes me feel awesomesauce”, but I just looked at her and walked out.

Why can’t I have derby pride in my regular life? I sound all big and bad sometimes, but honestly when confronted, I’d rather just walk away and crawl back into my hole and cry. I need to have balls more often. (hahaha)

ANYWAY! This weekend was totally awesome, and will merit its own post, because that ish was BANANAS.

But this past Thursday, I heard from the Scary Doctor and I AM ALL CLEAN OF CANCER. I won’t have to ever see her again (barring unforeseen circumstances) and I don’t have to have another person poke my girly parts with sharp things for another 6 months! I AM SO EXCITED.

And I lost 8 pounds (down to 246), but that’s not as exciting 🙂

Not changing the goals this week, going to try and work harder on making the first goals HABITS and then add more next week.

HAPPY MONDAY EVERYBODY!