My best Twilight interpretation

I grew up in a small Texas town, which means I can probably out-cuss, out-shoot and out-drink half of the female population. Whatever wild antics happened to most in college, I probably dabbled in by the time I was 17. We were raised to be unknowing tomboys, but dreamed of running away from our town to be true girlie girls. I'm just saying, I used to have to drive 20 miles to go to the nearest Target....which was the holy grail of girlie smelling products of my youth (Bath and Body Works was a pipe dream not showing up until I was 17 and college-bound). I still have clear memories of this citrus body spray from Target that I covetted and begged my mother to purchase - in my mother's world, dove soap and oil of olay facial lotion is enough of a scent, citrus body spray was too enticing for young hormonal boys for me to actually own.

So despite my current smart-ass, urban, young professional lifestyle - I have a disturbing soft spot for any type of overly sweet bath/shower product. I have a collection of items ranging from Target to L'Occitane, ranging from borderline sickening cotton candy smells to elegant locally made lavenders. So one day, as I was doing a quick shopping trip at Macy's, I noticed the Lush cosmetics area was having a sale.

For those not in the know, Lush Cosmetics is all naturally hand made products that focus on how environmentally friendly and non-animal testing they are. I started perusing some items and finally settled on their 'Porridge" and "Honey I Washed the Kids" soap and a bath bomb. Now, the bath bomb reminded me of the bath fizzies I used to get for Christmas back in the 90's, so clearly I had to purchase. Now, I love the soaps, they are gentle and leave a nice refreshing smell...are they worth $35/lb...no, but my pieces were both about $7 a piece and I was willing to test them out for effectiveness. But our true focus should be this bath bomb.

I won't lie. It smelled like heaven. Deliciously soft, slightly sweat pea-ish. So, last night being a Wednesday, seemed like a good enough of a reason to use it. I fill my tub and throw the bomb in...I did like the fizzing of the bomb (I had flashbacks of my grandparents drinking Alka-Seltzer)and the pink and blue colors of the bomb developed an interesting shade of grape kool-aid colored water. So in I hop and enjoy a nice scented bath of happiness while reading a new book (Kay Hooper's Blood Ties). All in all, not a bad hump day ending.

Then, as I'm drying off, I see myself glistening like Edward Cullen...wait...what?! I do a double take and start scrubbing a little harder with my towel. Um...apparently in the center of my lovely girlie smelling gift from the heavens was some irridescent glitter. I glance into my bathtub and notice it too is shimmering as if Lisa Frank designed it. Mind you, this was around 7pm last night (yes, early, I know, but I was anticipating a great Criminal Minds season premiere so I had to indulge early). In my brain , I assumed it would all flake off in the night between my pj's and all the manic tossing and turning I do at night.

This is my collar bone at 10am....at work...trying to be all professional and chatting with Gods people about their websites.... Awesome :-/

Growing Up and Out

**Not weight loss related at all**

So...I sort of had a 'come to Jesus' moment a few weeks back, and starting exploring the quality of the people in my life. It's basically a slap into reality when you have several life-long friends, stop, look at you and go "Hey, you know I really don't get your friend X, all they do is puts you down" or "Hey your friend Z is a big classless mental whore, what's that about?". Let's be clear about something. I'm one of the least judgemental people in the world. If someone I am friends with happens to be a big whore, I don't much care, cause I'm not about to be slutting it up with him/her (too much Catholic guilt). If I feel he/she is a good person at their core, then I'm all for being friends and tend to explain why I don't think giving a bj on every first date is a good idea (#truestory).

But here's the thing. I'm not really down for acting like a drunken college kid at this stage of my life. I'm not struggling with a minimum wage job while still trying to live like I'm Carrie Bradshaw. I'm working on my fitness, loving my well-paying young professional job and weighing my options for a real adult relationships. Yeah, I'm working on my fitness/eating habits, but for the most part I really do like myself as a person. I've worked hard to get where I wanted to get. And there are friends who don't seem to be growing at the same mental pace as I am. Part of me feels like I'm being a bitch for thinking like this.....

But then another part of me thinks, no, this is just my path now. I'm not abandoning every friend. Just 2. And it sucks, because at their core, they are great, kind people. But they have more growing to do...and I can't wait for them to grow...because I honestly don't know if they ever will. They are content to live their life as is.

Either way, it makes me sad, but I know it's what I'm needing to do at this stage of my life.

Down a pants size

I survived a 2-hour Zumba class on Saturday. Around the one hour mark, I switched to drinking water mixed with Gatorade and I think that helped. According to Jerry (instructor) the class would burn anywhere from 1000-1500 calories. INSANITY, but I did it...and had a great little nap later that day.

I am running into a problem with Zumba and Weight Watchers.... I'm usually not hungry after Zumba, but wake up the next morning absolutely ravenous! It's throwing off my points. Given my diagnosed OCD, I end up freaking out when I have only 4 points left by 3pm...thinking I might switch to classic calorie counting, but I'm not sure yet. With exercise, I know my body tones up and slims down, but I know the weight loss could go faster if I get the eating thing down, just not sure what the best option is for me.........

In other fun news, I needed new pants for work and ended up going down a size in pants. Yea me!!

Getting ready for an Indian Wedding

Some dear friends of mine will be getting married next month, so I had to go shopping for a dress. Since it will be a multi-cultural wedding, I wanted something that had some color because I know the Indian Sari's are just amazing!!

This is what I found:


I think I look freaking awesome in that dress. I don't know that I see 180 pounds there, so I'm totally geeked out over this dress.

I've been a terrible Zumba-er this week. I think I'm coming down with a cold or something, because my head has been killing me all week. It's hard to get excited and motivated to go bounce around to Zumba when you head is killing you. But I'm determined to go tonight. Then tomorrow Jerry (Zumba instructor) is doing a master class that's 2-hours long!!! Insane, but I want to try it...even if I crap out half way through, I might surprise myself. Gonna take lots of water and probably a protein bar to keep me going!!

So it begins

Hi, I'm Paige. I'm 29 years old, live in Houston, Texas and have a weight problem. Like many others, I've dealt with it all my life, though I don't think it really ever became an issue for me until after I finished college (in 2002).

In 2004, I had a lightbulb moment when I stepped on a scale and weighed 192 lbs (I'm only 5 ft tall). I jumped on the South Beach Diet bandwagon, got a personal trainer and whittled myself down to 148 lbs. So what happened? Apparently, if you lose weight quickly, it can throw your body into a tailspin and ta-dah!!! Gallstones. Had the surgery but it threw off my intense workout schedule and I never really could get back into the game of things.

So here we are, 2010, and I weigh 178 lbs. Whoa.

Why now? Well, here's my deep dark secret. I'm a groupie for a 1980's boy band...some may say THE definitive boy band, New Kids on the Block. (For the record, I give the definitive boy band status to New Edition...they did it right first, but I digress). Last Friday, I put my deposit down for the 2011 New Kids on the Block Cruise from Miami to the Bahamas departing May 12, 2011. My cabin mates are all awesome ladies I know from California...awesome and SKINNY ladies from California.

So about a month ago, I decided to start working on my health and fitness, deeming it "Operation: Cruise Control", am going to take it step by step with my first goal only being 5% of my weight. I've also joined a Zumba studio and am averaging 3 days a week...but would like to up that to 5 days.

Let's Get This!