Bridges Through Life

The Number Doesn’t Define You

September 17, 2018 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Recently I have been browsing stores a lot for pants. Pants that can fit my changing body. My body is changing in a good way though. More heavy weightlifting and I can feel my strength in my thighs just building. The problem? Thighs are getting bigger with the muscle building and certain pants just don’t stretch in that area.

Growing up I can’t recall thinking about my sizing too much or worrying about it. I mean I think I was fairly average. I also was very into baggy clothes. Giant t-shirts and jeans that were definitely a size too big. Then I would lose weight (without trying back then) and my jeans would grow. Maybe they would stretch from being washed. I am not really sure, but they were always baggy and I’d wear my one favorite belt pulling the pants together so they wouldn’t fall down. Semi funny story, one time I was in an airport and my belt had enough metal on it to set off the metal detector. I nearly lost my pants when I took off my belt…wouldn’t that have been a sight? I then learned to preferably wear pants that didn’t require a belt when traveling through the airport or hold onto my pants so they wouldn’t fall down. Someone could definitely have pantsed me without a belt on in those days.

I think when I got to college I slowly eased out of the baggy clothes and into more fitted clothes. Then when I started to weight lift and actually take notice of my body and the positive changes I saw, I wore even more fitted clothing. Weightlifting definitely helped me to gain confidence I didn’t know I was needing.

So here I am, currently lifting the most consistently I probably have in my life and slowly and steadily increasing the weights. I am about at my PR weights from my meet in May and just signed up for another meet next April where I plan to totally crush those PRs since I expect to be breaking my current PRs soon.

So I went to the mall over Labor Day and decided to try on a size up from my current pants. You know what? They felt amazingly better!! I still have a bit of an issue with the waist being a little big, but my thighs are snug just right in the pants and it doesn’t feel like the pants will split when I sit down. With the style these days of skinny pants (which I dislike for myself) and low waist, I find it so difficult to find proper fitting pants. I like bootcut style and low waist is OK sometimes as it depends on the fit. To be honest I am not a fan of whatever sizing system the US uses, because I can range from a size 2-6 now. It depends on the store, style and fit.

Oh and shirts, I would recently find myself saying “when in doubt size small”, but now I find sometimes I need an XS or sometimes a medium. Again it depends on the style and fit and store. Recently I went shopping at Kohls and I walked out with 3 shirts ranging from XS-M. The medium was a juniors, I’ll admit. Actually I really liked the fit of a medium juniors top vs an adult small/x-small. This is why I fail at shopping online. In addition to my thighs growing, so are my shoulders, as I tried on some blouses and realized there was no stretch in them and it barely got over my shoulders. But I LOVE my new shoulders. They are getting so strong and allow me to practice chin ups and pull ups!! I love this muscular body I am working so hard on, but clothes shopping can hurt your self esteem for sure.

Instead I remember the size doesn’t define me. Hey I can’t even fit myself to one size, I have a range. I am healthy and feeling strong and good. Of course I just wish I could wear yoga leggings all the time, but that’s not the case. For jeans, I have been loving Lucky Brand jeans bootcut style. They still fit my muscles and stretch and make my butt look good. Work pants, sizing up for now and it’s working. Now that I have pants that fit, I feel sooo much better honestly. Again that number doesn’t matter so much, it’s how I feel when I wear the pants. I am comfortable.

pants 3 — of course it’s even better when they pass the squat test

Now the real shopping to come…wedding dress. Hoping I can find something flowy and comfy, especially since I will be working hard to prepare for my meet the month before my wedding. I am hoping to stick to tank top/haulter or strapless so at least I wouldn’t have to worry about my growing shoulders and since it’s a dress, my thighs shouldn’t be too much of an issue either. Maybe I should reconsider dress wearing for the office? LOL. I just like pants.

Find a size that makes you feel comfortable in the outfit, not a size that you just like to see on the hanger.

Shopping, Painting and Cooking

September 3, 2018 by Alicia 1 Comment

Happy Labor day to everyone!!

Popping in quickly today to share the start of my weekend. I am happy to have today off to relax and also work on some homework.

Saturday I headed to the Syracuse mall early, arriving around 10am right when most of the stores open. It wasn’t too crowded and I was on a mission to find some pants and new work clothes if possible. Though it seems that usually when I am on a mission I come out with nothing, but I did end up finding 1 pair of pants. Apparently I need to size up in pants now with my growing thighs from weightlifting. It’s so hard to find work pants. If only I could live in my workout clothes, because I love those way more.

I also got a top on sale at Ann Taylor and found a casual top at H&M. I don’t really have a style and I thought this top was cute for the price. Honestly I was a bit disappointed with the store selections. I guess so much is online, but I really need to try things on and feel the fabric. My growing broad shoulders are also not fitting tops unless there is some stretch in the shoulders. I don’t find myself wearing jeans and t-shirts too often except for the weekend, but most of the time outside of work, you will find me in workout clothes even when I am not going to the gym, because they are just comfy to me (and fit my growing muscles). #weightlifterproblems

Since it was noon when I was ready to leave the mall, I stopped at Panera for some food so I wouldn’t starve on the drive home (it’s an hour drive to the mall).

Oh and I sadly discovered that Mrs. Field’s cookies in the Syracuse mall is gone forever!! I am so sad because I was last there in July and they were still open, but nope they are now gone. I decided to get some ice cream on my way home, almond milk chocolate from the local ice cream place to replace my missing a cookie.

While I should have done homework upon getting back, I decided to paint bedroom closet #2. Just one more to go now, but we might need more paint as this little closet took about half a gallon. Pretty sure this closet hasn’t been painted since the house was built in the 1950s/60s because the original owners (whom it turns out we actually know) kept their kids growth chart in the closet. Oh and I also discovered that pencil or maybe graphite seemed to react with the paint and bleed through blue or red lines. I did a few coats of paint on that side, but there are still faint marks. I am not concerned though since the closet it MUCH brighter white now.

After that little project, it was time to cook up some dinner that I managed to scavenge from the freezer since I didn’t make it to the grocery store. I cooked up some turkey burgers and had some leftover veggies in the fridge, which was perfect. After dinner I finally did a bit of homework which passed the night quickly.

Sunday morning I was up around 7 and made some protein pancakes before heading out to the gym. After my leg workout, I tried some pull ups and was surprised when I was able to get 3 in a row. I am now setting a goal for 10!! We will see how long before I get there. I want to “play around” on the bars before or after my workouts so that I am consistent. I find that helps the most.

After the gym I finally went to Wegmans and stocked up on everything. I also found two new recipes I wanted to try so I made sure to get ingredients for those.

Once I dropped the groceries off at home and ate a quick snack, I drove to the state park and rented a paddleboard. It took a little while to wait as a huge group got there before me, but I was glad they didn’t take the paddleboards. I definitely think next summer I may look into buying an inflatable paddleboard for myself. I hear they are pretty sturdy and I just love having an hour out on the water. I miss being near a lake (growing up 3 miles from Lake Michigan) or body of water (my last apartment had the river front and it was gorgeous). I also want to get a Go Pro so I can actually take pictures out on the lake, but for today, no photos. I really felt I needed that time with nature and the sun even came out a bit while I was floating. There was also a perfect breeze just carrying me and I took some moments to meditate a bit while floating and it was wonderful. All the rain this summer has made everything so green and I am soaking it up.

The rest of the afternoon I finally got down and did some reading and homework. Trying to stay ahead as much as possible and write papers while things are fresh in my head. Spoiler, I am already re reading the material from 3 weeks ago as we have to reference it in future papers. At least I am finding all the team info interesting so I actually don’t mind sitting down to read it again. Oh and I should note I was laying on the floor. Since Saturday my right hip started to act up (I need a chiro visit) and laying on the floor was most comfortable. Also I recently realized I don’t have any chairs in my house because I sit on an exercise ball at my desk and we have the couch. We just got a patio set so we have outdoor chairs, but the bugs like me too much so it’s safer for me inside. One day when the bedrooms are done and we can move things around we will work on getting some sort of dining table as I would love to have friends visit. For now there are 3 sizes of exercise balls to sit on 😉

For dinner, I cooked up a new recipe from Skinny Fitalicious. It came out really good. Only change I would make if I made it again was to cook the zucchini noodles before adding the sauce to the pan. I know she has them basically raw, but I like them a bit softer and partially cooked.

I can’t wait to cook and bake more tomorrow for the remainder of the week. I find it fun to spend time in the kitchen with some music on and cooking during the weekend. Also means less work to do during the week because I want food in a minute after getting home from work (thank you microwave and leftovers).

Do you like to cook on the weekend or do meal prep of any sort?

State Fair Adventures and Vegetarian Dinner

August 29, 2018 by Alicia 1 Comment

Since Brian was home for the weekend, we decided to head to the state fair on Sunday morning. I wasn’t sure how I would be after my race on Saturday and while I was sore, I always feel better when I get in some walking and movement.

We left around 8am from the house and got to the state fair shortly before 10am. Oh man, this year was a breeze compared to last year when we arrived around noon/1ish. I highly recommend a Sunday morning for the New York State Fair. We didn’t even have to wait to park for very long and we got a parking spot right by the bridge to walk across and over to the fair. Easy peasy. Also it was a nice surprise to find the whole parking area paved as last year it was grass and gravel.

We also could not have asked for better weather. It was in the 60s and a bit chilly as we drove North, but then it was 70 degrees and getting sunny as we were walking around. By the time we left the fair around 1:30, it was 80 degrees out, so it was just getting hot. There was a nice breeze too.

We began with the Dairy building to check out the butter sculpture. I get so excited over the butter sculpture. It’s just soooo amazing!! We had our mid morning snack of a cupcake (for me) and a cream puff for Brian.

NY State Fair butter sculpture 2018 — NYS Fair butter sculpture 2018

We checked out the goats, sheep, and piglets.

Then we found a newly built building with the giant sand sculpture. There was so much detail in this years. Last year’s was women’s rights theme and this year was just NY State theme. I even found WhiteFace mountain that Brian and I have gone to the top twice.

I also didn’t realize Lucille Ball was from New York State until I looked her up later. I love the “I Love Lucy” show.

On our way to find some food, we found some alpacas and giraffes. This one alpaca didn’t seem to mind the loving and selfies.

I grabbed a large lemonade as I was mostly thirsty and I drank most of that before deciding on a steak pita wrap to eat. I even gave part of my wrap to Brian to finish because I was so full of lemonade lol.

Brian had a sausage on a stick and then decided to get a mini ice cream cone. I am talking MINI (cutest ice cream cone I have ever seen).

We then checked out chickens, ducks, bunnies and guinea pigs. There were even some guinea pigs being judged. I also saw a lot of bunnies were for sale. We saw one marked for $100 so we had to see him.

The bunnies were so cute, but I don’t want a pet bunny because they really need space I feel like to hop around. Also, how is this comfy?

We walked and walked and walked. I found my favorite soap that I purchased last year and so this year I bought 4 bars.

We ended with a building that had little miniature circus set ups and trains.

I thought about getting a funnel cake but after 1.5 lemonades, I opted to get a cookie and Brian got a cannoli at the same bakery we stopped at in the morning.

Then it was back to the car. It was so nice outside that Brian and I both decided to wash our cars when we got home. Then Brian had to pack and I took him to the airport.

When I got home, I cooked up some tofu following the recipe from The Domestic Geek’s recent Week 5 meal prep ideas. I had the tofu along with my bean salad, an unplanned vegetarian dinner.

I then spent the rest of the night doing some writing and homework before the weekend was over. I am thinking of challenging myself to no TV this week and focus on my school work and writing when I am home.

What’s your favorite part of a State Fair? I love the fresh squeezed lemonade and the butter and sand sculptures.

My First Warrior Dash

August 27, 2018 by Alicia Leave a Comment

This weekend was a jammed packed one, beginning with my first Warrior Dash on Saturday morning. I was super excited that Brian was able to come down with me to watch and support me. It means a lot since he is usually out of town when I do events. The Warrior Dash was held at the Poconos Raceway, about an hour and a half drive from where we live. I am not much of a runner, so about 5 weeks before the race I started doing a few runs around my neighborhood with the Couch to 5k app. Now that app you usually need 9 weeks to train and also I will say I didn’t run for 2 weeks before the race…oops. I was away at school for a week and also I had noticed my knees and ankles getting more and more sore, so I just opted not to run much as I didn’t want to be sore on race day. Obviously I wouldn’t recommend my lack of training, but I am happy to say race day went well and yes I walked a lot of the 5k.

I already have so much respect for runners. I mean, how do you run for 20 minutes or an hour or even more for races?! Now I have even greater respect for trail runners. Regardless of my running ability, I think I would have walked a good portion of this race anyway due to the rocky patches where walking felt way safer than running and risking a twisted ankle. So hats off to those awesome trail runners out there.

Leading up to the Warrior Dash I have never done an obstacle course race. I have never trained for any of the obstacles either. I just looked them up online a bit and winged it. However, overall, I would say the obstacles were the easiest part of the race for me, because running is harder LOL. I was also in this alone. It was motivating to watch families with their older children join in the fun and that pushed me to keep going. I saw plenty of people walking. I never looked behind me. I just kept moving forward and watched the person ahead of me do the obstacle so I would know how to approach it. Overall, I would say the most challenging obstacle was the No Man’s Land because you did have to get a bit of a running start and leap to get footing and them climb over the wall. This was the second obstacle in the race just after the 1 mile mark so I was getting a bit nervous on how the others would be. When I got up on my second try, I heard a woman yell “great job” to me and that encouraged me to keep going.

I lost count on the number of obstacles I had done after about the 4^th one. I had crawled through a tunnel of mud at that point and for the people who duck and don’t get their hands covered in mud, I’m not sure how they do that. I just went all in and my knees got a bit beat up crawling on all fours through the mud. I was happy when around the corner was the super soaker, which was a short balance beam with jets spraying water (great for rinsing my muddy hands at least) and then a wall to climb over.

Then we hit the mud mounds to climb over and then ran for a while. We had passed the halfway and the mile two and I looked at my watch to see I was making great time. I risked breaking my $30 sports watch for this race. I knew it was water resistant, but not sure how the mud would do with it. Thankfully it still worked in the end and it helped me push forward knowing how much time had passed. I don’t know my mile split times, but I would say I was in the 12-15min per mile range.

After passing mile 2 and a water station, I knew I just had another mile to push through. This one had the most obstacles in it. We had the warrior summit followed quickly by the rock slide. I got off easy on the rock slide, because no one was on the other side of me rocking me back and forth. Then we had probably the toughest of the obstacles, pallet jacked, where you had to move from swinging pallets while getting sprayed with water. This one had a line to wait in because you had to wait for the person to get to the third pallet to start. I honestly didn’t have a rough time at all with it. It was definitely challenging for balance and you could see the finish line by this point. I mostly got slowed down by the person ahead of me.

Finally that jumping fire, warrior roast, came up. I was worried about how large the fire would be, but it felt like a little campfire jumping over. I can’t wait to see the pictures though as they started to take them on the course at this point. Then we ended with The Filth Element where I definitely misjudged the depth of water before the rope climb on the back, but oh well, I was soaked and muddy already. Then we slide down and had the muddiest, Muddy Mayhem obstacle. The easiest way to get through was swimming honestly. I got through and saw Brian at the end and he snapped some photos as I crossed the finish line. I started my watch a little late but I think I finished in just under 50 minutes which honestly isn’t bad considering it takes me about 40 minutes to run/walk a 5k.

muddy meyham — you can see me in the back with the sunglasses

Then it was time to take some mud shots and do a bridge.

Then I got hosed off by the fire hose and rinsed off some more with the other hoses they had laying around. It helped to have Brian hose me off. Also apparently my boobs were retaining mud…so that was fun haha.

warrior dash rinse — fire hose spray down

We had arrived early to the race, about 2 hours before my 11:15am running time so we got a close spot in the parking area and we walked back to the car and I changed and then we walked back to get my free shirt. I was definitely super hot and needed water and food, but the only food that sounded good to me was a bagel. They had BBQ there, but I was tired hungry.

We found a Dunkin Donuts and I got an iced tea and bagel toasted with butter. You guys, this was the BEST BAGEL EVER. You know when you are craving something and you get it and it’s the most satisfying thing? Yep that’s what this bagel was. Now Brian needed food and I was feeling a bit better. We found a brewery down the road from Dunkin and got wings and white basil pizza. I had a couple wings and some pizza to continue refueling.

Since we were down in the Poconos area and there was an outlet mall nearby, we decided to stop. OMG that area was a madhouse, but I did find some new work pants and sweaters and it was nice to walk and stretch my legs. On the way home we stopped at a farmers market that was luckily still open. I got some donut peaches and fresh green beans. I slept for about half the way home. It felt nice to sit and relax. The drive was only a little over an hour so not bad.

When we got home it was time for dinner. We had leftover steak from Friday night and I cooked up the green beans and put together bean salad quickly.

We ate while watching the first half of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Ummm how is this movie 4 hours?!? I got my muddy clothes washed after two cycles in the washer and took a bath before heading to bed and crashing hard.

Overall the race went well. It was fun and I finished with just a few scratches. Brian is thinking about doing it together next year which would be tons of fun.

Have you ever done a Warrior Dash or an obstacle race?

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