Truth in Advertising

I am a bit of a fitness nerd.  I can talk the nutrition and programming talk pretty well, in fact many of my co-workers and friends come to me for advice and recommendations.  That being said, I'm horrible at holding myself accountable to my own standards, especially when I'm home in the states.  While in CONUS, I weigh no less than 15lbs more than I do on deployment.  This isn't because I don't eat on deployment, I do and quite a bit.  It's because 1) I'm lazy and the thought of sitting on my comfy couch often outweighs my desire to go to the gym or do some other form of physical training and 2) I think beer is the most delicious beverage ever created by man.  So, just about 5 months post deployment and I'm 13lbs heavier than I was on 4 July when I got home.  I'm not deploying for a couple of years to I have to stop relying on those to get me back in to shape.

If I'm going to be able to live with myself while providing diet and exercise advice to my friends, I have to get myself on track.  I don't live my life by a scale because I'm always heavier than I look and much heavier than typical females of my height, in fact my BMI is well into the obese range, but I do live my life by pictures.  The one on the left is from just before my return home and the one on the right is me 4 days ago.  I'm making a sort of an early New Year's resolution to get myself back on track.

The Plan:
M-W-F Heavy lifting and sprint/repeat work
T-R Crossfit metcons
Weekends - riding my mountain bike, distance running, hiking or whatever I feel like doing that involves getting off my butt

Meal Plan:
Focus on a Paleo/Zone type diet that is heavy in lean protein, vegetables and good (Omega-3) fats

I forsee this schedule lasting from now until the end of March.  At that point, I'll re-evaluate where I am and adjust my program accordingly.  I have a pretty fitness oriented next couple of months.  11 Dec I'm taking the Combat Fitness Test.  12-13 Dec I'm attending a level 1 Crossfit certification.  17 Jan I'm running a marathon in Phoenix.  A good gauge along the way will be my Physical Fitness Test in mid-March.  I'll be attending a conference in VA until Friday so I'll have to adjust my desired schedule a bit this week and then again from 24-27 Dec but for the most part, I should be able to follow my plan.

Expect frequent updates about my diet and exercise, as well as postings of pictures.  Unless I have someone to hold myself accountable to, other than me, I am not entirely sure that I an break my cycle of get fat at home - get in shape on deployment.  Wish me luck!

Thanksgiving

Despite not being able to go home for Thanksgiving, it was a great holiday.  Charlie came to Yuma, we packed a pumpkin pie (the other was held in reserve for us) and went to the Forsythe's for "a very Forsythe Thanksgiving."  There were lots of people from work in attendance and it was a really great time.  Charlie arrived at 11am, we came back to the house, changed and prepped the pies and arrived at the Forsythe's at 1pm.  Chris was busy preparing his fantastic turkey which was brined in apple and spices and hickory smoked.  He smoked it on his beast of a grill nicknamed "Oprah," I won't share why but it's a completely appropriate name.  All told, 4 families, 2 singles, Charlie and me and a host of kiddos were in attendance and the fair included 3 turkeys, a ham, a duck, green beans, dressing and stuffing, mashed potatoes and 4 pies.  All the food was delicious.  The whole day finished around 8pm, adults with full bellies and all the kiddos running around outside on a sugar high from the pie. 

I am very thankful for such wonderful friends who open their home to others so that we can enjoy a holiday together and build a larger sense of family.  It really was an honor to be in attendance but I'm looking forward to going home for Christmas.

Birthday Ball

This is about 10 days late but I just got the pics, which I stole from friends on Facebook.  The Marine Corps Ball was on 14 Nov.  I'll say that it wasn't the best ball I've been to because the food wasn't very good but the ceremony was one of the best I've seen and, at the end of the day, the ceremony is what celebrates the Marine Corps and is what really counts.

First, the food.  The entree itself wasn't horrible but everyone showed up expecting Chicken Marsala and Tri-Tip steak.  We were actually served sliced roast beef with gravy and chicken with something that might, at one time, been Marsala sauce.  I put some Ranch dressing on the roast beef and it tasted just fine.  The real confusion of the meal was the salad course.  It was a mixed green salad served on top of a big leaf of bib lettuce.  Why?  There were actually two salads combined to one in this dish, based on what they added to the lettuce.  Mandarin oranges, cranberries and walnuts go together nicely but when you put them on the same bit of lettuce as olives, cucumber, tomato and onion it just doesn't make sense.  The dressing selection (Italian and Ranch) only made sense with the later half of the salad components.  I guess I shouldn't complain - put enough Ranch on anything and it tastes fine, so that's what I did.  Needless to say, I got about a weeks worth of fat calories from dressing that night.

Part of the ceremony is the Adjutant reading the Birthday message from General Lejeune.  It's a pretty big deal because that message is one of the most time honored documents in the Marine Corps and the poor Adj has to stand in front of everyone, holding a scroll, and read the whole thing.  It's about 5min of reading.  One of the wives had the nerve to make fun of our Adj during the ceremony.  She wasn't making fun in her head or even in a quite manner to her husband.  She was full on laughing and making comments to the other people at her table.  I had more than half a mind to walk over to her, grab her by her scrawny neck and kick her disrespectful butt out of the ballroom.  Honestly, I was pissed.  If you don't care about the ceremony, then don't go the ceremony!  I should add that MOST Marine wives are awesome, just this one sucked.

Moving on...I didn't hang around too long after the ceremony and dinner, which turned out to be a good call because my pals who did were at it until 5am.  Before I left though, the DASC fire team got together for a picture.  Don't we look great!  I felt like a bit of a bag because I forgot to have my medals fixed, which means I was missing a couple of stars.  Of course no one knew that but I knew and it bothered me a bit all night.

So, that was my first Birthday Ball in a couple of years.  I've been deployed 2 of the last 3.  It was nice to see the whole she-bang again, not just have cake and go back to work.  Though, having cake and going back to work has its place too.  All in all, it was a great night with friends.  Happy belated birthday Marines.

Thanks Yuma Fire Department

Well, my Monday got off to a great start. About 4:30am I was thrown from my cozy bed, close to a fit of panic because all 6 fire alarms in my house were screeching loudly. I hurried all around the inside and outside of my house trying to find the fire but to no avail. Why then, were all of my fire alarms going off? Before I took further action against the noise pollution drowning my thoughts, I rushed to my bathroom and grabbed a set of ear plugs that were left over from WTI. Then went to the garage, brought my 8' ladder inside, pulled one of the smoke detectors down from its mount and attempted to check the battery. Apparently, I haven't seen a smoke detector made after 2000 because I could not, for the life of me, find the battery compartment. All of my devices are wired to house power so I was very close to assuming that there wasn't even a battery compartment to be found. I pushed all the buttons and rattled the thing around but it didn't even pause. Next, I tried to read the teeny-tiny print on the back but that was fairly futile since it's in 2.5pt font and my 8' ladder only got me about 2 feet away from my stupid high ceilings.

At this point I was stumped. I tried googling every possible variation of smoke detectors going off and couldn't turn up anything more than "check your batteries"...thanks google, I did think of that, how about some directions to find the effing battery compartment! It's now 5:20am and I was basically out of options. I decided to call one of the non-emergency lines to the local fire department because who would know more about fire alarms than they do? The nice lady on the other end was very patient with my lack of self-sufficiency. She offered to send some people out to look at my alarms.

5:35 the firemen arrive. Sadly, they weren't calendar worthy but they were super nice and braved the ear splitting noise going on in Casa del Donnelly. Eventually, we decided that one of my six alarms had a dead battery (no, it didn't chirp at me at all before hand) and that had set off all of the alarms. I still don't understand how that works. I only had 2 9-volt batteries so they replaced two batteries, showed me where the compartment was and they took down the remaining 4 wailing banshees and by 6:10 my morning was back to normal.

So I had my very first "someone help me" moment that actually required physical help from someone I didn't know. Usually I would call my parents; Mom or Dad would provide an insightful answer, direct me through execution and I would learn something AND not look like a total incompetent at the end of the day. Needless to say, I'm humbled by the whole experience and wish I had paid more attention in my 2nd grade fire safety class.

Great way to start a Monday.

Time for an update

WTI has been over for 2 weeks and I've been busy getting back to "normal life." First on my list of things to do was a trip to Hawaii to visit Charlie. Too bad I'm going to lose my excuse for random Hawaii trips in a few short months...not that I'm not super excited for Charlie to be in Arizona. Anyway, back to the latest Hawaii trip. It was short but we managed to squeeze in quite a bit.

We went to the beach and Charlie tried to get me to surf...I opted for a boogie board because they're more fun to lounge around on. I mean, the waves were like 2 miles off the beach and you have to paddle all the way out there! Ok, 2 miles is an exaggeration BUT Charlie paddled for at least 15min and didn't make it all the way out to the waves so I think my lazier decision was by far superior. I had a great time paddling, letting the already broken waves gently push me back toward the beach and then paddling some more. I also spent a decent amount of time just hanging out on top of my board. Sorry, no pics from the beach because 1) I was in the water and 2) I was afraid someone would steal my camera if I left it on the beach while I was relaxing in the water.

We also went on a short hike to a beautiful waterfall, mostly because Charlie neglected to take me on that hike the last time I visited. The trail was super muddy and I almost bit it hard several time. Thanks to my new Vibram Five Finger shoes (toe shoes in Amanda language) I did not fall though. I also experimented with a skort on this hike. I bought one from Title Nine, my favorite clothing store of all time, and had been looking for a "active" adventure to wear it on. Turns out the skort is a viable option for hiking and probably for several other activities. I don't think the one I have is suitable for running and the idea of running in a skort is still pretty odd to me but I'm starting to warm up to the idea.

Last noteworthy outing for this trip, supper at the Kona Brewing Co. YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST EAT THERE IF YOU VISIT HAWAII! The food was amazing. Seriously, every single thing we ordered was among the best food I've ever had. Even better, Kona makes a series of the best beers ever. Ever lager and ale we tried was fantastic. I wish I had a bigger vocabulary to describe the whole thing but I don't so trust me that it was unforgettable food and beer. Plus, you can sit on the water while you enjoy great food and drink. The pic is actually from pre-dinner at Fromagio, which was also very good but no where near Kona!

So the big takeaways are 1) toe shoes are the best things ever and 2) Kona Brewing Co. is basically perfect!