Random Ramblings Are Random

For the past couple of weeks I've only been going to the gym twice a week. Between fighting flu and cold symptoms and the aftereffects of what I can only assume was a spider bite I just have not been up to going to the gym three times a week. However, I have started adding exercises I can do at home with minimal equipment - thank you, darebee.com for all the handy workout and stretching diagrams! There are a couple of challenges on the darebee.com page that I plan on starting as of tomorrow - I just have to print them out. The  Squat Challenge  where I build up to 100 squats by Day 30, and the  Five Minute Plank Challenge  where I build up towards being able to hold an elbow plank for five minutes by Day 30. Oh, and I may also throw in the  Touch Your Toes Challenge  in because I wouldn't mind being able to touch my toes again for the first time in entirely too many years. I'm going to print out some other stretching and warm up routines and tuck them i...

Back to the gym today after almost a week of not going due to feeling quite under the weather. And the trainer I'd met with several weeks ago told me that it looks like I've lost some weight...so I step onto the body composition analyzer at his invitation. My overall weight has gone up a couple of pounds but my fat percentage has gone down and that's the most important thing. So, despite my back hating me right now (I somehow managed to get a bite of some sort along my spine that sits right under my bra clasp, and it's all irritated) I feel pretty good, all things concerned.

The ex no longer has a job - he was termed on Valentine's Day. I can only wonder exactly what goes through a person's head to continue to do the same stupid thing repeatedly. Clearly he's not all that bright if it means that he has yet to learn a lesson out of all of this. But I also think he tends to think he'll always get bailed out whenever he screws up like he apparently always does. When he told me that he always loses his jobs the same way, I thought maybe he felt guilty about it all and wanted to make a change. Obviously not. Whenever I eat in the food court at the mall I work in I keep expecting his mother to approach me to ask what happened. Or to give me shit for not making her son a priority. Frankly, I'd love her to try giving me shit because I'd tell her - mother to mother - that she raised a selfish idiot who refuses to learn from his mistakes or is just too stupid to figure out that how he chooses to go on is no way to live. What is he goi...

...is an idiot. And I dodged one hell of a bullet. So, we've got seven sick days we can take without penalty throughout the year. Yesterday he hit nine sick days. Those extra two sick days cost him two points. Today he simply did a no call, no show. We have twelve attendance points and they start kicking in once we hit our allowed sick days or if we leave during our shift. He had already hit at least eight points before the start of this year and had not managed to have any of them roll off. So, a NCNS is a four points all by itself. If you add the eight points from last year, the four points from the extra two sick days, and now the four points from today, and he's at sixteen points. Which means, unless he's got serious horseshoes stuffed up his ass, that he no longer has a job. If he had never told me that he's lost every single one of his jobs this same way I might be a bit worried about him. Instead I'm just disgusted at his behaviour. I halfway ...

So, I learned a weird thing about losing weight. Especially when going the gym and exercising. That weird thing? Feet shrinking. Yes, my feet have shrunk and I've had to buy new shoes for the gym so I don't risk hurting myself during a treadmill session or when doing squats, or pretty much anything that involves me being on my feet. I posted on my FB about needing new shoes and a friend of mine who started their own fitness journey over a year ago messaged me to say that losing a shoe size or two can be a side effect of weight loss. With that in mind, I did some Google-fu and discovered that this is something that does indeed happen! As a person grows older, shoe size CAN change, especially as one's weight increases. Edema in the feet is a common thing for larger folks, especially those who deal with diabetes and/or high blood pressure, but if you get more active you can alleviate the extra weight and fluid build-up which can result in losing a shoe size or two. I...

I really wish that hiring a personal trainer was not so damn expensive. I know I could definitely use someone kicking my ass at least twice a week to do those exercises I hate and to make me add more weight onto the machines when the current weight has become easy. But for now I will have to wait until I can afford to pay for a personal trainer and focus on what he has shown me to do. Starting on Monday I am going to do everything I can to not leave work early or call out sick (unless I am ordered to by a doctor, of course) so that I can at least earn my attendance bonuses to help cover the costs of a personal trainer. This means not taking voluntary time off when the bosses go around asking who wants to go home because we're over-staffed, and being more willing to put in over-time hours when the request goes out during the busy sales periods. Starting on Monday as well, I will be making a point of going to the gym four times a week for at least an hour each day. Now that I kno...