Welcome! Have a look around. I blog about my life, personal development, losing weight, and anything else I find interesting. Comment or send me an email at tazmaniantigress at gmail dot com.
Yes, despite non posting for a while, I have not given up blogging. Bear with me, I hope to be back with regular stuff starting Saturday. Indeed, I just paid for another year of hosting, so I’ll be here for at least that much longer!
And I’ve narrowed down my vacation prospects to either a road trip to the Grand Canyon, a trip to the Caribbean or a trip to Greece. Something for any price point I feel comfortable with when the time comes. 
Is to plan a vacation. A real get away from it all vacation! I’m going to be working my bum off every day for at least a year and a half, plus going to school starting this summer. I need something to look forward to after that.
Somewhere tropical. Yes, that’s the ticket!
So life has been hectic-crazy for yet another week. I’m slowly coming to an equilibrium with my new schedule.
I’ve finally made some decisions about what direction I’m going to take my life. Instead of taking on a Master’s level or Post-bac program, I’m going to start taking classes one and two at a time to fulfill my prerequisites before moving on to graduate school. This is definitely the best thing for me since I do technically have two full time jobs at the moment. I shall be ready to apply in the fall of 2012, but I may want to wait until 2013 to apply because I am learning so much from the lab I’m in now. To be honest, this has been the plan all along, I don’t really know why I let myself get into some identity-life crisis.
In other news, check this out:
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!!!!!
Ignoring the dust on the scale, notice it says 193.0! Woooot. I’ve definitely been making progress. Much of this is from just being up and around in my new job. It’s definitely not a sit down at a computer or lab bench type of job. Even though I’ve had some slipups with the eating, I’ve been more or less on track with that.
When I saw that number on the scale, I had an interesting thought. It was: “I am just 3 pounds away from being in the 180s, and when I reach low 180s and 170s, I’ll feel attractive again.”
I had to think about that for some time, but it makes so much sense. I haven’t felt pretty, or attractive, or anything of the sort since July 2008 when my scale read 200 pounds for the first time. Many things I did and did not do senior year are so clear to me now. I took extra hours at work, did homework, threw myself into my projects because I didn’t want to be ‘out’ where people could see me. Granted, I did have a couple other problems, but this was a huge part of my disappearing act.
The thing is, this isn’t something I thought I believed. I know that beautiful women come in every size. Some of the most radiant, stunning people I’ve seen have been larger than I was. Also, I’m pretty sure objectively, I was quite lovely as well. Or at least, I could have been. Instead I went back to baggy clothes and non contact.
There is so much to grapple with here, I’m still wrestling with some of this. However, I’ve decided to stop waiting. I can be and feel attractive and self confident NOW. I make an effort. I wear makeup more often (than never ) I’m trying to do cool things with my hair, but that’s kind of limited right now because of the length. Baggy sweatshirts are only for when I’m cold.
Life is good and getting better.
Last week can be summed up thusly: Oh My!
I made quite a few changes last week. First, I started going in to work at a different time. It’s important to follow your own natural rhythms, so now I go to work early and leave early.
Also, I took a second job. I did that for two reasons: One, I wanted the extra money to pay off my car early. I really hate debt, and being locked into a car note for 5 years was making me anxious. Two, the second job is directly related to my future career. I’m doing things I was likely going to volunteer to do anyway. Now I can get paid and get the hours I need to apply to school.
So with all that happening, there were times I forgot to eat. Not eating enough is as bad for weight loss as eating too much, in the long run, so with my packed schedule, I have to be more proactive and diligent with my meals. I need to take some time and research good, healthy, meals on the go.
Finally, yesterday I bought some pants and today I put on some other pants that were hanging in my closet. They fit! Yes, I am now in the size 14s. Woohooo!
I am not ever going back.
Tags:
circadian rhythm, job, NSV, second job, sleep, work
Nobody’s Perfect.
No One Is Perfect.
This is something we’ve all heard our entire lives, yet for many people, it doesn’t stop them from striving to attain perfection, then becoming sorely disappointed when it doesn’t happen. I’m certainly guilty of this. I want so much to do things the right way, the first time. If I get something wrong in school, or a work task, I beat myself up inside because of the mistake. This is ultimately self-destructive. Because if nobody is perfect, then you’ll always be chasing something impossible. It’s exhausting. Not only are you striving for something that will never be, but you have to be on the alert to make sure that nothing you do can be criticized. By anyone. This is absurd, because there’s always going to be someone that doesn’t like you or something you do. Wanting to be perfect is in essence giving validation power away to some external entity.
Being perfect is, to me, being one dimensional. If you do everything right and make no mistakes, you can’t grow as a person. You’ll do the same things the same way all the time because that’s the Right Way to Do Things.
Now, I do not advocate settling or for mediocrity. I’ve had to find a way to merge this philosophy and my perfectionist tendencies and this is what I’ve come up with: Instead of striving to be perfect, I now strive to be the best version of me that I can attain. In doing so, I take back those validation powers. Now my self worth comes from within. Being my best self means that not everyone is going to like me or be my friend, but that doesn’t matter.
It’s important to actually think about what being your best self actually looks like. For me, a HUGE part of who I am and how I value myself is setting goals and accomplishing them. When I do that, I feel good; I feel like I’m sprinting toward my optimum self. Finally, it’s equally as important to realize that you may never reach the BEST EVER POSSIBLE VERSION of yourself. This is okay. It’s the journey that is important.
Tags:
best self, perfect, perfection, validation
Me. Freshman year.
Here I am near my lowest weight. No higher than 165. I truly believed I was significantly overweight.
If I could go back and smack myself, I would.
On second thought, I’d leave myself a anonymous note saying just how beautiful I really was, and to not let anything or anyone ever make me question it.
Is there anything you’d like to go back to tell your younger self?
Tags:
dysmorphia, freshman year, time travel
I’ve been so off track this week. I’ve already had fast food TWICE. Last week I ate mac and cheese and felt squicky. Every time I feel like some parts of my life are a little out of control, my eating tends to be the first thing I cease paying attention to. I really have to work on that.
It’s not all bad, though. I’ve been drinking mainly water for nearly the past week. Seriously, jugs and jugs of it. Also, I went running twice in the past week. It felt awesome, though I’ve been in pain since. I was going to go tomorrow morning, but probably won’t since it’s going to snow.
~
. . . because you should try to learn something new every day.
Tags:
conclusions, cravings, education, happy, moving, school, stickers