About the Author

Honey's main interests are online dating, long distance dating, and long term relationships. She met her boyfriend on MySpace and they have been exclusive since their first date over three years ago. Currently they live in Tempe, Arizona. Honey graduated with her PhD in Composition and Rhetoric in May 2009. You can contact Honey via email here or online here.

Life. Just Life.

By on Oct 6, 2009 in Life

So, I haven’t posted much this week, but things are swimming along smoothly in Honey-land so there isn’t much to talk about.  Here’s a quick update, though:

Weight Watchers

After losing enough weight to not feel disgusting anymore, I have kind of been slacking and hovering in the very low 130s for awhile.  However, I’m trying to get to the gym more (I think I’ve passed the point where it’s going to drop off simply by eating less, since I can’t eat much less than I have been).  I’ve actually been jogging on the treadmill some in addition to going to yoga and pilates.

Jake also is going to join a sports league (they do lots of different sports – football, basketball, soccer, etc.) and says that I’m welcome to join him if I want.  I’ll have to think about it, as I paid some good money for the access to the gym that I have now and also have never really been much for team sports.  Right now I am leaning towards letting him do his own thing.

Money

I had some unexpected expenses this month and it totally screwed with my budget for a few weeks, but I get paid this Friday and plan on making only a minimum payment on my credit card to bring my checking and ordinary savings account back to equilibrium.  This is just fine because…

…my freelance gig is done and my payment ($2500) is being processed!  Hooray!  I’ve been debating quite a bit about what to do with the money, and given my current financial situation, here’s the plan:

  • $1000 credit card payment.  This will bring my total credit card debt under $4K, which is how much I have in my emergency savings and will bring me to a point where I can, literally, pay off my debt at any time.  I don’t plan on doing that right away for a variety of reasons, but it’s nice to be in that position.
  • Set aside $600 for Christmas.  I have to double-check, but I believe this is what I spent last year.
  • Any necessary money to put my checking/savings back into balance (I currently keep $500 in my ordinary savings account as overdraft linked to my checking)
  • Buy a bicycle.  I’m totally stoked about this.
  • Set aside ~$300 for our trip to Illinois to visit Jake’s grandparents for Thanksgiving.  This should cover my half of the rental car and maybe a nice meal in Chicago (there are no nice meals in Nowhere, Illinois, where we’re headed).
  • Sock the remainder away in my ordinary savings account until I’ve determined how much additional money there is and decided what to do with it.  Probably another credit card payment, if I’m being good.

Honey and Jake, Sitting in a Tree…

It’s all snuggles and schmoopy “I love you’s” in the Honey and Jake household these days.  Sadly, no sex at the moment – I had an ear infection and was on antibiotics, then forgot to ask for a prescription for Diflucan at the same time and ended up with a yeast infection, ick.  It’s a no-fly zone until Wednesday night :-)

We’re slowly letting people know about May 12, 2012 (I told my dad in an e-mail today, actually!).  After watching Zane get drunk on Three Sheets: Rio (available on Hulu, here) we also decided that the 2016 Olympics make Rio de Janeiro the perfect destination for a 10-year anniversary trip, so we’ve made a pact that we’re going to do it!  Other upcoming activities include:

  • My work’s Fall Welcome picnic this Friday, which we both go to because I am in charge of organizing the whole thing.  This year, though, because it is less than 3 miles from our house, we are bringing the dog.  Everyone’s excited to meet her!
  • Arizona State Fair – demolition derby, baby!!!  We’ve gone the past two years and this is one of my favorite things to do with him.
  • Fear Farm – corn maze and other assorted terror.
  • Las Noches de las Luminarias at the Desert Botanical Gardens.
  • His work’s horrible Christmas party and Thieving Santa Giveaway, which we only attend because we have to.

So that’s what’s going on here.  What’s up with you?

After you’ve left a comment below, check out these fine posts:

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  • http://hammer86blog.com Hammer

    Weight loss is almost purely a factor of diet. Muscle building is almost purely a factor of exercise.

    If you want to lose weight, all you have to do is eat less calories than you expend. Exercising will cause you to expend more calories, but it’s essentially a drop in the bucket because even an extremely intense workout is only going to burn a few hundred extra calories.

    The best way to eat less calories is to fast. I recommend the Eat Stop Eat diet, which basically involves fasting for 24 hours twice a week, i.e. eating dinner at 6 pm or so and then not eating again until 6 pm the next day. It’s hard to do at first, as your body gets over the glucose withdrawal, but after a couple of times you get used to it and actually come to enjoy the time you get back in your day.
    .-= Hammer´s last blog …NFL Betting – Week 4 =-.

  • http://honeyandlance.com Honey

    Thanks for the recommendation, Hammer. My yoga instructor when I lived in Florida was also a big proponent of fasts. They’re not for me (especially now that I have become something of an amateur chef, at least according to Jake). I think that a combination of exercise and going vegan is going to be the way to go, for me.

    Although the only other time I was trying to lose weight I dropped 17 pounds through exercise alone, I agree that it’s shocking how few calories exercise really consumes. Crazy! But I also think that if I can get motivated enough to get some strength training in, I’ll get toned enough to not care what my actual weight is. I bought Jillian’s 30 Day Shred and am excited to try it!
    .-= Honey´s last blog …Life. Just Life. =-.

  • Nicole

    Ummm, (Hammer) did you not read that she can’t eat much less than she’s been eating? (And I take this to mean an objective/reasonable person standard.) Was the fasting idea a joke?! Starving your body slows down your metabolism in the long run, not to mention it’s extremely uncomfortable (how is she supposed to function at work?!) and unnecessary (for an average person to lose a few lbs, stay healthy and toned). Starving yourself also just leads to binge eating after your fast. And you say an extremely intense workout will only burn “a few hundred extra calories??” Uh, yeah, that’s a lot of calories if you do this a few times per week! Not to mention that exercising relieves stress and tones your body (rather than starving yourself and ending up like a pile of flab, even if you lose weight). She’s eating healthy, cutting calories and exercising; the rest will just take some time and preserverence.

    Honey and Jake land sounds awesome, especially the part about the Olympics in Rio in 2016! Other activities sound super fun, too.

  • http://tsquest.blogspot.com T

    Sounds like all is good with you!

    Cycling helps me to burn calories like a mad-woman so I say definitely yes! on the bike purchase idea.

    I can feel your contentment from here. Enjoy it!
    .-= T´s last blog …Perfect imperfection =-.

  • http://dadshouseblog.com dadshouse

    Hooray for cash flow!
    .-= dadshouse´s last blog …Texting Goodbye to a Lover =-.

  • http://20-forty.com/ lisaq

    So glad to hear things are going so well for you. Wish I had about half of your motivation and determination! ;)
    .-= lisaq´s last blog …Wordless Wednesday Eye Candy-Brian Shimansky Edition =-.

  • http://honeyandlance.com Honey

    @ Nicole, yes, the Weight Watchers philosophy is that the slower you lose the weight (and the more you’re able to eat while losing) the more likely it is to stay off, and the more you are able to eat while maintaining. I care less about shedding pounds quickly at this point than I do about making sure whatever changes I am making are sustainable.

    @ T – Yes, I’m very content, and very excited to soon have a bicycle! I live near a big university so I can get a used one for under $200, easily. And there is a nice shopping/dining area three miles from my house, so I am imagining weekends where I bike down, walk around, have a drink someplace, and bike home. Lovely! For more serious calorie-burning, there are lots of nearby parks with trails.

    @ dadshouse – You’re telling me!

    @ Lisaq – The money thing, especially, is a priority right now – Jake wants to start looking for a new job in another state in January, and I’d like to be completely rid of my consumer debt before we move. I just took on another side project that will pay $100, but it has the scariest nondisclosure agreement I’ve ever seen so I’ll leave it at that :-)
    .-= Honey´s last blog …Life. Just Life. =-.

  • http://hammer86blog.com Hammer

    The three LAWS of dieting are as follows:
    1. The only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume.
    2. Your metabolic rate essentially remains unchanged under normal conditions
    3. Most diets fail because long term compliance is essentially impossible.

    Weight loss is about burning more calories than you take in. The difficult part about dieting is complying with the long term caloric deficit. By fasting 24 hours twice a week, you put your body into the optimal fat burning state from hours 18-24. But the pain of not eating, or dealing with a caloric deficit, is short term.

    Your metabolism slowing down is a myth. Your body burns calories at a slightly higher rate when you are digesting food because it’s digesting, but it’s a very modest amount and it’s essentially insignificant, yet it has been extrapolated to suggest that you need to be eating small meals all day (which is pretty much just a ploy to sell meal bars and protein shakes).

    The body also releases more testosterone and growth hormone during fast states to prevent muscle loss. The other great benefit of fasting is that it increases insulin sensitivity and thus makes your body better at processing carbs.

    It’s crazy that you think that the body goes into starvation mode after 24 hours considering that we can go for three weeks without food. Starvation doesn’t set in until at least 72 hours of fasting. As a species we were designed to eat once every couple of days, and hunt on empty stomachs. The way that we eat today, we’re always in what would be considered a “fed” state as compared with a “fast” state.

    Being vegan is really quite bad for your body and particularly for weight loss. Dream has a great post about this on his blog here: http://www.thedreamlounge.net/2009/09/29/flip-the-script-stay-healthy-seriously/. There are also some interesting things on Tim Ferriss’ blog here: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/06/06/saturated-fat/
    and here: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/10/05/gout/
    .-= Hammer´s last blog …NFL Betting – Week 4 =-.

  • http://honeyandlance.com Honey