It's Natural...Blah!!

Yesterday I was pumped, ready for anything, full of energy and on top of that, I felt like a rock star!! Yesterday was wonderful! 

Today…well, today is a different story. That natural thing that happens to all normal women happened and I feel like a busted can of biscuits (as a pin from Pinterest says). It literally feels like I have a gut that is falling out over my pants, I’ve been walking like an elephant (all slow and stuff) and my husband, Lord help him, has no idea how this feels and therefore, persisted to grab my stomach and try to scoot right up on me this morning when I so desperately wanted to go to sleep. Needless to say, he got the monster (that rarely comes out, even in this situation) and after repeated warnings, he just left the room before he got his head bitten off.

So, that’s been my day today. Well, other than the fact that I mustered up enough energy to run this afternoon. It made me forget about the blah-ness I was feeling and made me focus on how much I was sweating. I also became acutely aware of how my new running shoes hurt my left heel when I walk, but when I run, I can’t feel a thing. I suppose this all goes with wearing them in, so I’ll suck it up, even though it’s mildly uncomfortable.

Apart from running, the day has been much like the weather: very dreary and even kind of lame. I tried to make a banana cake today and because I had to put off the actual mixing process (while the eggs and buttermilk came to room temp and while I was trying to cover another cake in fondant), I ended up forgetting the baking soda and…you guessed it…came out with dense banana hockey pucks. (Not my finest moment [or day] people) That’s one way to get rid of bananas, right?

This fondant business is a lot harder than it looks. I had no problem covering the 4 inch tall, 4 diameter cake with fondant, but found it particularly challenging trying to cover a 5 inch tall, 8 inch diameter cake. I chalk it all up to trying to hurry and not using my fondant smoother when I should have. (Oh, yeah, and my own inexperience.) But, I’m not going to quit. All in all, the project that I was working on turned out pretty nice.

For those of you still following me, forgive me. My blog has kind of swayed in the interest of cakes and less in the interest of working out. But, I promise, it will eventually get back once I get this whole body shock deal figured. I actually miss working out to a schedule and am excited to get back to it. Hopefully, these 2 weeks will get my body on track again to lose the last 36 pounds so I can start toning up and becoming the beefcake (ha, cake!!) that I know I was meant to be.

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

[[Start saving for tickets to The Gun Show]]

Shut the Front Door!!

Last week was one of trial and error. I’d been getting so sick of seeing the same results for the last four months. So, I decided to mix it up a bit after I found out that I actually lost weight after the week of cake making. This past week, I didn’t count calories at all. I ate good portions but I didn’t eat the best foods. (For instance, I had pizza one night.) I also didn’t work out every day. Usually, I get about 6-7 hours of exercise each week. This time, I got less than 4 hours.

And, after all that was accounted for, it turns out that I lost weight!! Shut the Front Door!! I weighed myself this afternoon (once I woke up) and Simon said 166.8!! What the heck!! It doesn’t make sense…but…at the same time…it does.

I guess last week was such a shock to my body that I ended up losing weight. Hey, I’m not complaining, but why the heck are our bodies wired so weirdly? I’m going to behave a little better this week. And, then hopefully, I can resume with my regular schedule next week.

I plan to “restart” P90X where I left off and will only end up being 2 weeks behind. (Which isn’t all that bad considering that I’ve lost weight in those 2 weeks.)

I only have about 37 more pounds to go until I reach my goal weight!

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

Sometimes, our bodies are STUPID!!

I have not been a very faithful blogger the last week or so. I’ve had time, I just haven’t blogged. And, perhaps that reason stems from the fact that this is solely a “workout/exercise” blog and I do not lament telling you that I’ve not written because I haven’t been exercising. Well, at least not as hard as in past weeks.

This week is kind of a test week, I suppose. I’ve had it up to my neck in disappointment from working out and eating barely 1360 calories and still not losing weight. This week, I have been neglecting the eating and exercise patterns that I’ve become accustomed to (but haven’t lost, by any means) Like I said, people, this is just a test.

While I am currently failing the exercise and eating portion of this test, Simon keeps telling me that I am losing weight. (You can imagine my shock and amazement.) I’ve now seen “Sweet 16” several times in the last few days and hoping that this week will give me a number that is far enough away from the “Suck Fest 17” that I’ve been in for the past 4 months. I’m actually hoping that this week of toning down my exercise and eating a little more loosely will shock my system into losing weight again.

As an exercise review, and remember, I told you I’d been slacking on purpose, I walked/ran 2 miles on Tuesday, did the P90X workout on Wednesday, walked/ran 1 mile on Thursday (had to stop 10 minutes shy of the 30 because I felt like I was going to keel over) and tomorrow, I plan on running and doing Kenpo X.

Oh yeah, guess what! Today was a crazy day and I woke up from my nap at about 15 after 7pm. I stepped on Simon and guess what he told me: 167.2! What!? No Way! How can this be!! And, despite the fact that I am perplexed as to why, it kind of made me feel better about trying to shock my system.

Sometimes, our bodies are stupid!

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

Rebelling Against Tony

Guys, I’m going to be honest with you. I skipped Saturday, Monday and Tuesday’s workout. Yeah, I said it. I got a case of the “I’m not losing weight by working out so why am I working out” mental illness and truth be told, I just didn’t feel like working out.

I spent my entire Saturday in bed trying to recover from the past 36 hour of not having slept. It was wonderful! I slept for 12 hours and then got around to doing some light housework before going to work overnight again. But, I did vow to do the Yoga X meant for Saturday on Sunday.

And…as you know, that did not happen. I slept until about 2-ish, put on the Yoga X video and then 2 minutes into it, decided to turn it off. I really did not want to do Yoga X…so I didn’t. I did step on the scale and it said that I was still in the 170’s so that internally justified my decision and mindset at that time. Instead, I did housework all that day. Rearranged the living room, cleaned the kitchen, did 3 loads of laundry (I did have to walk to our apartment’s laundry facility…which is uphill…our washer is still under the weather.) I was moving around, jamming to my music and having an all around wonderful time. I didn’t even feel bad that I didn’t do Yoga. :D

Monday was kind of the same story. I woke up around 3:30pm this time and didn’t even turn on the video; just decided to straight skip it. I did, however, turn on a video of different sorts. I wanted to watch X-Men: First Class again and while the credits were rolling, I pretended to be Chris Beal from my band days and try to lead the band by waving my arms and “directing” an imaginary orchestra. (Chris Beal wasn’t the drum major when I was in band, but you understand what I mean.)

Once the movie was over, I listened to the DVD introduction screen play Magneto’s theme song for about 30 more minutes (dancing and carrying on) while cleaning the bathroom and folding towels, etc. Once the Xbox decided to turn of my precious music, I turned my computer on and was entertained by the various Glee songs on it as well as two Justin Bieber songs while switching over to vacuuming the carpet again, sweeping and mopping, and a few sewing projects that I needed and wanted to get finished. This all took me till about 8:15pm and by that time, I was ready to nap for my Audit shift that night.

And, here I am now, ready to tell you all about the events of the day. I came home and went to bed, woke up at 3pm and sat on my bed deciding what I wanted to do. I knew that I had set in my mind that I wanted to start running and that Tuesday would be my first day. But, being in the funk frame of mind that had taken oven me the past few days, I really had to start moving without any mind power behind it. Before I even knew it, I was wearing my tennis shoes and headed out the door toward the workout facility that our apartment provides.

Before leaving, I grabbed my liter water bottle and the Couch to 5k schedule off of the fridge. It was rather stifling outside and that alone made me not want to run. I proceeded and after a few minutes of tinkering with the treadmill (which I thought at first was broken), I finally got it to work. And, so it begain.

Holy Moly guys!! I was sweating buckets before I got to the halfway mark. Thankfully, over the past 8 months, I’ve gotten in such a shape as to actually run without almost dying for lack of air and was able to get through it without much difficulty. (Near the end, I was drenched [understatement] in nasty, salty sweat and felt like tossing my cookies. Thankfully, they all remained in my stomach.) It was exhilarating and I am excited for the next run!!

Oh yeah, my tennis shoes give me blisters. (Ouch) So, off to Kohl’s we go to try to find me another more comfortable pair. (Hopefully in black so my feet look smaller :D) Lol.

Just to do a little “housekeeping,” on Monday, I weighed in at 169.2! (What!? Lost weight after a week of poor eating choices and cake!?  I don’t get it either.)

Just to make you smile…

And, my aunt posted this on her Facebook post. I think it fits.

Signing Out,

It's Possible!!



Made It Through Today

I’m going to make this as short as possible. More detail will be shared at a later moment but I am just too tired to care about a long post right now.

Workout: Core Synergystics. Hot, sweaty. Good workout. What I did as soon as I got home from work this morning.

Cake: Made more roses for the side of the cake and on top of cupcakes. Also rolled about 300 fondant balls by hand and food color sprayed them gold. Finished the cake balls by rolling them in dark chocolate. I put some shortening in the chocolate to help it be more fluid and it didn’t set up like I wanted it to; but they were still pretty good.

Packed the car with cakes and set off on the 30-45 minute trip to the reception area. Happy to report that nothing moved!

Got to the area, set up for about 3 hours, took pictures, then waited for the event to start. Lots of people complemented the appearance and taste of the cake. I did have a small slice and it was pretty wonderful if I do say so myself.

Pictures some time later. But, before going to the area, I had to stop at Walmart for a black shirt. God Size M and it fits like a dream!! Love it!

Not sure how this week is going to turn out. I’ve eaten cake, and icing, and had to settle for fast food because I hadn’t eaten anything all day and it was just convenient. So, Monday will be the ultimate indicator about how this week went. Thankfully, I have been able to maintain my workout schedule even though life’s schedule has been crazy.

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

Someone’s Watchin’ Me

Attempt to wake up at 7:30AM was a fail. I had my alarm set and it did go off…but, I fell back asleep and before I knew it, it was already 10:30AM. I think next time I will put my phone half way across the room so that I actually get up. (Kind of wish I would’ve thought about that last night.)

Ok, so, once I did wake up, I started X Stretch for today’s workout; it is designed to make you more flexible and thus, stretch you out. It’s slower paced and the time seems to go by slowly as well. But, it’s only about an hour long, so it’s bearable. There are some moves seen in the Yoga X video plus some others that are only seen in this particular video. All in all, this was exactly what I needed to start the day because I knew that the rest of the day was going to be hectic, stressful and crazy.

…And so it was…

But, before I get to that, like I said yesterday, we had the AC turned off and the windows open. I open the curtains at night and then shut them when I’m in the living room doing my exercises. (There’s ALWAYS someone outside walking around when I do my workouts.) I was hoping that the curtains would deter people from seeing my in the living room but I’m afraid I was probably wrong. Today, there were about 4 men doing something with one of the apartments near us and they kept walking past our windows. Being only a few feet away from them, I’m sure they could hear me and TH because I could hear them. I was doing some of the poses and stuff and got really paranoid because we were literally only separated by a half-sheer brown set of curtains. (I don’t like when people watch me work out…plus, I was in my sports bra and shorts and they kind of don’t need to see that.) Anyway, before we went into shoulder stand and plough, I decided to pull down the shades and make sure that they couldn’t see me. It eased my mind and I was able to do shoulder stand with no problem.

About ten minutes to finishing the workout, TH told us to do “Frog,” which means that you get on your hands and knees and then spread your legs to make a 90 degree angle on the floor. I was calm, cool, and collected during this move until I realized that someone was standing behind me and laughing. Today has been a day of watchful eyes.

Today has also been a day of stress, craziness and casualties. My goal for today was to flat ice the cakes, decorate them, and get them ready for tomorrow’s transportation magic act. (It truly will be magic if I pull it off because I have to drive these puppies about an hour away in a car (not a van with a flat floor, but a car, that has seats angled for comfort and not cake transportation.)) I’m half freaking out just thinking about it because if this cake goes kaboom, it’s gonna be messy!

I was able to flat ice the cake and decorate it. (For the most part.) I made some fondant flowers to put on the sides and ended up not having enough so I have to make more. I also food color sprayed them gold and put what I did have on the tiers. It looks pretty but I’m concerned with the swags, which drape off the side as well. (As I was putting the flowers on, the swags had gotten cold from the fridge and they are starting to fall off.)

But, folks, that’s not all. I ran out of icing today. I had 26 pounds of icing to start with and with the exception of maybe half a pound, all of that is on the cake. I had to make more so I figured that my Kitchen-Aid could handle 2 more 3X recipes. Nope! It died after the first one and I still need more icing for the cupcakes. To say that I am frustrated with my Kitchen-Aid croaking is a severe understatement. I’d hate to have use what profit I do make to have to replenish the kitchen accessories that died throughout the process of making this cake. (Our $20 food scale died last night because it was resting on the only burner of 4 that emitted steam from the oven. <<it was on the burner because I was being a dummy and wasn’t thinking plus like I said yesterday, we don’t have much counter space so I had to use the oven as a resting place. Never going to happen again!) So, that’s about $220 worth of damages so far; unless we can somehow resurrect the Kitchen-Aid or get a new motor or something.

To add to the casualties, I had a really close encounter with a complete production stopper and possible cake ruiner! I almost cut off the tip of my right thumb (again…this happen back when I was in baking school, cutting apples too fast with a newly sharpened knife…and what do we get…the tip of your thumb goes missing.) Thankfully, I did break the skin. The only damage that happened was that I now have a little flap of skin that I’m too much of a chicken to peel or clip off. It hurts…but not as bad as it would be if I was missing the tip of my thumb. I was cutting the support sticks for the cakes when this happened. The serrated knife slipped and came for blood. (But, HAHAHA, it didn’t get any!)

To get off of the subjects that really burns my cookies ^^, tomorrow is the event and I will not be getting much sleep, if any at all. Fumes will be my energy source until I can get some quality sleep (which won’t be until Saturday around 1PM). I’m super stressed and I haven’t been getting the necessary amount of calories so those two factors are statistically horrible for weight loss. I’ll be excited when I can get back to my normal life and not have so much on my plate.

To sum this up, tomorrow is make it or break it day. This is always the worst of all cake decorating days for me because all the time and hard work can be lost in a single slip up. I’ll be transporting this myself (I’ve always had my husband to help me in previous cake adventures) and I’m still not even sure where the location is. (Yikes!) I can tell you one thing though, people on the highway are going to HATE me because I will probably be the slowest one out there. I’ll be praying the entire way there!!

To close, the bottom tier weighs 17 pounds (Oh, by the way, I weighed all four cakes…just the cake…no icing…the other day and four tiers with four layers each only weighed 19 pounds.) So, I’m going to guess that this cake is going to weigh close to 60 pounds. That’s a little less than what I’ve already lost. So, it really puts it into perspective for me. I sure as heck would not like to put that back on because just the bottom tier was heavy!! Until tomorrow…

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

Empowered!

I already knew that no matter what Simon says at the end of the year, I would keep going until I reach my ultimate goal, but something different happened today that is worth sharing.

Well, I was seriously planning to get out of a bed at 7:30am (seriously) and when that time came, I moved and it hurt!! These last few days of constantly standing on my feet baking and moving a tub with 26 pounds of icing must have caused some extra strain on my muscles because it feels like EVERY muscle in my back is sore! Regardless, that kept me in bed for an additional 3 hours and I really had thoughts about just working on the cake and doing my workout once I got home from work. But, when 10:30am rolled around, I made my stiff body get out of bed and headed toward the living room to press “play.”

Last night was a cool night so we turned off the AC and opened the only set of windows that our apartment has. (Even though we only have 2 windows that allow air into the house, I was still pretty cold upon waking up. My toesies were freezing!) Needless to say, the living room felt absolutely fantastic and it actually turned my exhaustion into excitement. I was ready to work out. :D

Three times during Kenpo X, there’s a “break” that doesn’t technically count as a break. It lasts about one and one-half minutes and it’s really used to increase your heart rate (at least, I think it is.) You start out running, then jumping an imaginary rope, then jumping jacks for 40 seconds (which used to KILL me) and then something that TH calls “X-time” <which I don’t really enjoy. Does that sound like a break? No! (I use the running portion to chug some water and then return when they start jumping rope.)

I might have mentioned this in an earlier post, but I’ll mention it again. I like to work out in front of a mirror. It helps me make sure my form is good, shows me how far I’ve come (like the fact that I can now see my muscles in my calves) and encourages me to jump higher (in specific moves). I’d recommend it even if you think you still need lots more work. The mirror is helpful!!

Ok, you now know about the mirror. Now, the empowering part. I was doing jumping jacks during one of the breaks (the 40 seconds plus however long it takes to do “x-time,” so, about 55 seconds straight!)  and I was watching myself. Wow! How far I’ve come! When I first started, I could even do 14 seconds of jumping jacks and now 55 seconds doesn’t even get me tired (after already having done about 20 minutes of the workout.) Today, it actually looked like my body was changing and even looked different from even a week ago. It motivated me even more to keep going and to keep fighting for the body that I want, not that I have to settle for because I’m lazy!

I was also empowered to run. I’ve been thinking about this for some time now and I actually did try running last winter-spring for a few weeks. I had to run in sweat pants with my water bottle in my pocket (because I was running around then eighborhood.) I was also gasping for air and finding it hard to catch my breath because the winter air was freezing my throat. Now, with the weather being fantastic, I’m thinking about doing the Couch to 5K using the workout facility our apartment provides and opening the door. I kind of wanted to start this week, but with all the cake stuff, it looks like next week will have to be it. I’m empowered and want to add running to my abilities too!! :D

About the cake. I already told you that I woke up later than I wanted to (because of the cake) and was only able to fit in the crumb coat for the smallest and 2^nd biggest layer. It only took one hour and nine minutes, which surprised me because I ran into SO many problems!! (I recently bought a HUGE piping tip because it’d be easier to get a level layer of frosting between the cake layers and it would save a TON of time. Well, the icing was a little too cold and it busted out of the bag as I was trying to crumb coat the bigger cake! (ARHG!!) Rather ticked off, I threw the tip on the counter and finished by putting some cold icing in my mixer and missing till it was easier to work with. (Stupid tip, stupid bag!) Anyway, that worked and it didn’t take as long as I thought. I put both cakes in the fridge and they now take up about 33% of our fridge space (I still have the largest and 2^nd smallest to do, so this will be interesting.)

The next problem that I ran into was that this red velvet cake is SO SUPER moist that some of the edges were committing suicide by jumping off the side of the cake and landing on the counter or on the floor, making a HUGE mess for me and a problem with the shape of the cake. Luckily, I was able to fill that little portion with icing so whoever gets that piece will love this cake EVEN more!

Another problem that I ran into was counter space. I am literally going to take a picture of our kitchen so you can see what I'm working with. PJ woke up and had to get his lunch ready for work but couldn't very efficiently because he had to keep moving things to get to other things. Likewise, I had to move just about everything to make enough counter space for everything that I was doing. It was a pain in the butt!! (We need a bigger kitchen!)

I left the big bucket of icing out so that I could work with it easier tonight. I still have to do the other two tiers without my cool HUGE tip though now. (It was my last bag so I have to go to Michaels in the morning.) I’m staying up late tonight and waking up early tomorrow (don’t count on it, but I am).

Below are pictures of what I did today. (forgive the fact that there is a HUGE jar of pickles and jalepenos behind it, they wouldn’t fit anywhere else.)

Alright, toodles for now.

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

<Smallest cake! This is the crummiest part of the entire process!!!

Both cakes crumb coated!! >>