Grad School Fitness

After falling off the wagon that was my exercise habit halfway through last quarter, I made a huge effort this week to get back to the gym. I’ve done three workout classes this week…I’d say that’s a pretty good start!

Something motivated me to hop on the scale before my cycling class today. I haven’t done this in months. I work out and eat decently to feel better, and I really haven’t been tracking my weight loss at all. So imagine my surprise when the numbers on the scale informed me that I’d lost another ten pounds in the last few months. What?! 

Since I never noted my weight when I got to Portland, I can’t be exactly sure of how much weight I’ve lost since school started, but I believe this puts my total somewhere around twenty pounds. Holy hell. I literally haven’t been this little since grade school.

My friends and I have jokingly dubbed this the “anxiety diet.” Grad school does crazy things to you. 

/end gushing.

New Haircut!

To reward myself for an incredibly stressful week (which you’ll hear about later), I went and got my hair cut today! I went in with a vague idea of what I wanted…and my hairstylist was awesome at working with me and figuring out what would work best. 

So…here’s what I looked like before: 

I knew I needed a hair cut when I was home for winter break and a friend said to me, “Are you growing your hair out again?” and I honestly didn’t have an answer. I hadn’t even thought about getting my hair done during my first quarter. Oh dear!

And this is what I looked like afterwards!

I love it! (So if there are any haters out there…I don’t want to hear it!) It’s a bit shorter than I usually wear my hair, but I feel great about it, and I honestly think it even makes my face look a little smaller. (Not that that was something I was actually worried about…but still!)

Nothing like a little day of self-care! 

My Long Weekend

Ah, I thought four day weekends were a thing of the past. Sadly, mine’s being consumed with reading and studying, but still. Not having to go to class is quite nice. (I’m looking on the bright side here!)

Though I knew I was in for a long weekend, I still headed out to happy hour on Friday evening, mainly because we were celebrating a birthday in the program. What ensued was an incredibly strange/awkward/entertaining evening. We ended up at at incredibly odd club that was trying way too hard—complete with smoke machines, lasers, “house” music, and dancing girls (as in, girls employed by the club to dance on stages). Strange. And not my cup of tea. But entertaining nonetheless.

Another event worth mentioning…a friend of mine from the program asked me to train for a half marathon with her. I laughed at first, mainly because I wasn’t expecting the question at all, but after thinking about it for a good 24 hours afterward, I told her I’d definitely be interested. I’ve actually thought about doing this before, but never found the motivation/time/energy to actually do it. We might do a 5k first and train over the summer…but either way, I’m starting to get really excited thinking about this! 

Now that I’ve given you all a random update of my life, I think I’ll get some shut eye. 🙂 

Smiles.

You know what’s awesome?

Being told by two different individuals, at the same party, but completely independent of one another, that they’ve noticed how much weight you’ve lost since August. 

The main reason this makes me feel so good is that I was a complete glutton while home for the holidays (who wasn’t, though, honestly?) and thought I’d completely fallen off the wagon. Apparently not! 

Edit: Since I’m such a skeptic, I actually took 30 seconds to hop on a scale at the gym yesterday and realized that I’m back down to my “high school, running cross-country/track weight.” Hells yes.

No School Tomorrow!

Brought to you by Veteran’s Day. Thank you!

I should be catching up on the schoolwork I’ve neglected in the past week.

But what I’ll really be catching up on tomorrow is running, shopping, and blogging. (And then I’ll get to homework.)