Mindless Entertainment

A few days ago, I listed a new status for myself on Facebook. It read something like- "Yeah for a new season of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge." One of my college friends replied by saying- "Really- you still watch that?" Well, my response to that, is- Yes, I do. Here's the thing. I like watching mindless television. I like reality TV and sitcoms and those teeny-bopper shows on the CW. This also holds for the movies that I prefer to watch. I typically don't watch anything that requires a lot of thought. If it's subtitled, it's a no-go (I don't like reading my movies). Similarly, I don't like those artsy-independent movies where it takes forever for things to come together and finally in the last few minutes, you figure out what's going on. Ugh. Too much work. This stuff is supposed to be entertainment. 

I'm not completely sure why I like mindless entertainment. My best guess is that I spend all day at work thinking on a high-level. So, by the time I get home, I just want to sit and not think. I want to laugh at stupid people competing in ridiculous challenges to win a few bucks. I want to giggle at the bumbling guy who has had all the CIA's secrets downloaded into his brain. I want to fall off my couch laughing at the geeky physicists who live across the hall from the cute blonde. And I want to visit my favorite zip code- 90210. The thing is- other than my family, I haven't figured out if people who have less mentally challenging jobs appreciate more intense television. My dad likes that Fringe show and he appreciates the CSI shows much more than I do. But maybe it's just me- maybe I just like crap TV. And really - who cares. Now I have to go- The Hills is about to start.

Here we go again.

I'm changing the name of the blog. Mainly because I'm not just going to talk about the weight loss. I'd rather just get to share random stories, many of which will be weight-loss and exercise related, but some other things, too. Plus, just over a week ago, I turned one year older. I was shockingly unsuccessful at losing that freshman 15. Thankfully I did not gain too much weight- only a couple of pounds. Unfortunately, it was just enough that the pants that used to just fit, no longer do. My wardrobe has been cut in half. So, I'm back on the wagon. Granted, I had some really good excuses as to why all exercise and weight loss failed over the past several months. One being- I live in Wisconsin. Winter sucks. At least as far as working out goes. It's hard to get up early when it's still dark outside. By the time I'm done with work, I just want to curl up under a blanket on my couch. The other main reason was that I had a very busy winter. I was in a musical. My church put on a production of Godspell. What part did I have? Well, in short, I played the whore. I was the adultress that they wanted to stone, and the flirt who got reprimanded, and to top it all off, I had a whole song and dance number where I was flirting with Jesus. It was pretty fun- as in the past I have always played the good, wholesome characters. Then, once the show was over, I was involved in the MS fundraiser that my bike team throws every year. So, another couple of weeks was shot. Which brings us to Easter....

Since I sing in church, Holy Week is very busy for me. I always like to look nice and put-together when I sing for these big masses, so I had planned out the outfits that I planned on wearing ahead of time. Thursday, Friday and Saturday went off beautifully- both the singing and the clothes. Sunday morning was another matter. I had planned on wearing this cute white top with a pink skirt- but when I was ironing the shirt, I noticed a small spot. It looked like I had hit it with a pen or something the last time I wore it. After 20 minutes of trying to bleach the spot out, I gave up and found another top that I thought would do with the skirt. By this time I was running out of time before I had to be at church. I took a look in the mirror and was convinced that what was looking back at me bore a resemblance to a whale. Now, I'm sure it wasn't that bad, but I just felt fat. My fragile mental state was not helped by my mother- when I asked her if I looked fat- her response was that I didn't look fat, but I also didn't look as skinny as I did in my black dress the night before. Fabulous. I had a mini-breakdown. But I recovered before I had raccoon eyes from my mascara. 

So, this leads me into the fact that I have vowed to work out every single day from here on out. I don't think that I've been eating too bad, just lacking in burning calories, so I need to burn some more. Monday I was back at the Y. I did a 20 minute treadmill workout with intervals that's supposed to be good for fat-burning. Then I hopped on the upright bike and did 30 minutes on the random setting, so I got some good resistance in there. My legs felt it the next day. Tuesday I lifted weights- doing core and upper-body stuff. Now today, I had my final pilates session.  I bid on an introductory pilates at the MS fundraiser- it included an evaluation and 2 private pilates sessions. These have been killer. Very good workouts and I think that if I can keep up with some of that- I'll be in good shape. At least I'm three for three in the workouts. 

This year's goals. I will not be running any marathons or half-marathons. I might do a sprint length triathlon in September. I will be doing the MS 150 in August- no major bike rides prior to that. So, what - other than not wanting to look like a whale- is my motivation? I need to be in optimal health by May 28. At 7am that morning, I will be undergoing surgery to remove the right half of my thyroid. About 8 years ago my primary care doctor found a small nodule on my thyroid. Over the years, it has been tracked for the size and I have had 2 biopsies done. It is thankfully benign, but has now grown to about 3.5 centimeters. That's pretty big. At that size, it starts to pose a risk of pressing on other structures in my neck. The big thing, too, is that the larger it is, the more the chance for a false negative in future biopsies. I just think it's not worth the risk of cancer even though I am completely freaked out about this. The biggest worry that I have is that the laryngeal nerve- the one that goes to the voice box- runs directly behind the thyroid. The surgery carries a 1% risk of permanent damage to that nerve which could result in my never singing again. That scares me so much. The surgeon was trying to tell me all about how she can be really careful to not cause much of a scar and I pretty much told her that I didn't care if I looked like one of Sweeney Todd's victims, so long as I can sing when this is done, I'll be ok. So, I want to get myself in great health so that my body can completely focus on healing after surgery. So, keep your fingers crossed that my surgeon doesn't have too much caffeine that morning. I'm back and I promise to try and be more frequent.