Living United at Siips

A few weeks ago I was writing an article about these cool "Celebrity Bartender" nights that Siips Wine Bar in downtown Charlottesville has been holding for the past few months.  They bring in a local "celebrity" like to serve up their delicious wine and champagne  and Siips donates 10% of the proceeds, as well as the tips given to the bartender, to a local charity.  Past bartenders have included Congressman Tom Perriello, Mayor Dave Norris and Miss Piedmont Region Erika Uhlig. I jokingly said to the Spicy Chicken "I'll know I've made it when the ask me to be a Bartender at Siips."  

Well guess what folks?  I've made it!  I am honored to have been asked to participate as a Celebrity Bartender on Thursday, August 19 at Siips to raise money for an amazing local non-profit - The United Way - Thomas Jefferson Area for "Meet the Media" night!  Come out to enjoy a great glass of wine and meet up with some fun local media celebrities like Jay James, Sports Director at New Radio WINA;  Steve Walker, morning DJ on Generations 102.3, Henry Graf of NBC29, Travis Koshko, Chief Meterologist at the Charlottesville Newsplex, Jay Jenkins, sports writer for The Daily Progress and Hawkes Spencer, Editor of The Hook!  Oh yeah, Suzy and I will be there too!

The United Way Thomas Jefferson Area is an integral part of our community - supporting programs that range from rural health outreach and and prescription assistance to after school tutoring programs and child abuse prevention to job skills training and a multitude of others.  Their upcoming United Way Laurence E. Richardson Day of Caring (Day of Caring for short) draws thousands of volunteers to help at hundreds of projects thrroughout our community.  It's an amazing event to be a part of, and is just the tip of the iceberg of what the United Way TJA can do with our help!

For more information about the United Way TJA check out their website (click on the link) and check out their Living United Blog for up-to-date info on what these amazing people are up to.

See you Thursday!  

Calories

I have a weigh-in coming up this week and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't fearful that it might not go down.  While we ate pretty well on vacation in the OBX - lots of seafood and local produce - and I actually managed to work out 5 of the days we were there - I also drank - a lot.  

Alcohol is still one of my weight loss demons.  No, I'm not an alcoholic.  My drinking problem comes from the calories.  The math is quite simple.  The average light beer has about 100 calories in it.  Drink four of those in an evening - which is easy to do on vacation - and you've ingested 400 calories.  Considering I'm trying to keep my caloric intake between 1200 and 1400 calories a day - that's almost an entire meal's worth of calories!  It's nearly impossible to keep my calorie consumption where it should be when I drink unless, of course, I don't eat.  This is how I stayed thin in college.  My rule was that if I was going to drink I couldn't eat and if I ate I couldn't drink.  Healthy, huh?  This rule, of course, was often broken around 1AM when we ordered the "DU Special" from Black Jack Pizza ($5 for a large one-topping) but I was 18 - I had the metabolism of a hummingbird back then!

P.S.

I forgot to mention that everything worked out in the end with the Spicy Chicken and I.  We got married 18 months later and will celebrate our 12th anniversary next week!  

Yes, that's him with all that hair.  

He claims it didn't start falling out until he met me!

Hmmmm.....

Learning to Love

About 6 months after the Spicy Chicken and I got engaged I called off the wedding.  We were living together at the time so he went to stay with his parents for a few days to sort through his own feelings.  When he got back he told me he loved me but he couldn't love me enough for both of us - I needed to learn to love myself.

Sounds like a line out of a movie, but it's a true story. It forced me to do some major soul searching.  Did I really not love myself?  Turns out I didn't even like myself all that much, but I  did love him, so I took steps to get there.  Hard to imagine that with all that therapy I'm right back where I started.

I love a lot of people.  And I actually love a lot of things (like really great shoes, a fabulous glass of wine, the sound of the ocean, etc).  Ironic then, isn't it, that I'm finding it so difficult to love myself?

This isn't a new revelation.  I've struggled with it my whole life - which is again ironic, considering that I was raised in a house with a lot of love.  My parents, who were high school sweethearts, just celebrated their 45th Anniversary. They came to my games - celebrated my successes - and stuck by me when I made mistakes.  I'm sure I hated them when I was a teenager, but they were terrific parents and I knew that even then.  My sister and I did the normal sibling thing - arguing over clothes, fighting over the bathroom, throwing forks at one another (or maybe that was just me) - but I was always pretty sure she loved me (would she have told me about the dead bodies and flamingoes if she didn't?).  She's my best friend.

Looking back I realize I had what others probably thought was an enviable life (it was).  Yet no matter what I did I was never satisfied with what I achieved.  I've often thought that this insatiability helped push me harder and thus achieve more, but I've found that it can also work in the opposite direction.  I see that now quite clearly.  

Despite all the love that people are showing me and the progress that I've made (inside and out) I still find it hard to feel good about it.  So I've lost 12 pounds - why haven't I lost 15?  My face looks thinner - why is my stomach still so fat? I'm working my ass off in class - why aren't I working harder?  Negative self talk.  I remember it well.  

So, add this to the list of things I need to work on.  Gosh, it's getting long....

      

Inspiration

I ramble a lot about Hyam and my entire experience at Clay Fitness + Nutrition (btw, that's the studio above in another fabulous photo by Jamie Reincke) but I haven't given you a lot of information about what it is that we do. I've omitted this information partially because I'm not even sure where to begin and partially because I doubt my words could accurately describe it all well enough.  To say "we do jacks on the Bosu" doesn't sound like much, but when you see us doing it - along with the other 100 other things we do in that hour - well, that's much different.

So when Hyam included this YouTube clip of her demonstrating the ropes in her latest newsletter I knew I had to post it here, too.  I think you will see several things in this video: 1) just one example of the varied things we do in class, which is one of the things that I love about it so much - it's always changing, 2) how these crazy ropes are used for exercise (they are heavier than they look and are torturous but I love them and, 3) why I'm so inspired by Hyam from the outside (which is, believe it or not, nothing compared to what she has on the inside!).


Also check out this video from a few months back when CBS19 evening anchor Dan Schutte, worked out with Hyam for his Make Dan Sweat segment. Dan is an avid exercise enthusiast (biking, running, skiing, ballroom dancing...) and he's in great shape, so Hyam gave him a real Clay Fitness workout just like we do in class. You can tell, and I think Dan would attest to, that it's not your average gym class! (Even Dan claimed to be sore for several days after!).