Specificity Matters (or Wanting an Emmy Not an Oscar)

Yesterday, the nominations for the Oscars were announced. I try to wake up and watch them live, but this year I set my DVR and watched them when I woke up. I got me thinking about how I used to want to win an Oscar more than anything in the world.

I first caught the acting bug in elementary school when I played Chair #3 in a version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. After my chair “broke” (I was the too small one), I stayed under a table and was able to watch the audience the rest of the play. From that moment on, I was hooked.

I always said that I wanted to win an Oscar. Even in my senior quote in high school I mentioned it.

But once I moved out to LA and started to seriously pursue acting, I realized that I had the wrong goal.

I wasn’t thinking exactly what an Oscar required growing up. I didn’t grow up around the entertainment industry so I didn’t always have all the information I needed to create the correct goal.

I’ve discovered that I love television more than movies. That’s not to say if I got offered a movie part that I’d turn it down, but if I had to create my dream job I’d want to be on a tv show. And more specifically, a sitcom style, or multi camera, show.

Once I had that specific goal in mind, I could create steps to help me reach that goal. I’m still at the early stages of those steps, but I know that I’m heading in the right direction.

I need to be more specific with other goals I have in my life. I want to lose 100 pounds. I know that. But I haven’t figured out exactly how I want to go about it. Do I want to train for some crazy event and use that as my method? Do I want to have a goal of attending workout classes or working out at home a certain amount of time a week? I’m honestly not sure yet.

I’m going to spend my weekend picking out my specific goal and then working backwards to figure out the steps I need to accomplish that goal. It’s what I am doing for my acting career. And just like in my acting career, I need to be accepting that it will not be a straight line to success. There will be ups and downs, but in the end, progress will be made.

Half Their Size (or Trying To Forget What Could Have Been)

On Wednesday when I got home from work, I checked my mail and saw this issue of People magazine waiting for me:

I love reading this issue. It makes me realize what is possible. That might be the same reason that I like watching “The Biggest Loser”.

But this particular issue of People also brings up some not so fun memories.

When I was doing the UCLA RFO diet, one of the therapists there had some sort of connection to a writer at People. I’m not exactly sure of the details, but that therapist told me that she recommended me for the half their size issue. This was either in 2006 or 2007 (I can’t quite remember if it was the first or second time I lost weight).

The writer from People contacted me and said that they were very interested in my story and asked me to send my before and after pictures.

I sent them these pictures:

And after that I had a quick phone interview with the writer. She mentioned that they were going to put out the issue in January (this was all taking place in October/November).

But sadly, before I could be part of the issue, I started to gain my weight back and was too embarrassed to tell the people at People. I don’t remember how I turned down the offer to continue to be considered for the magazine, but I made sure that the process never went further.

Not many people in my life know that this happened. It’s horribly embarrassing to admit that I couldn’t keep the weight off just a few months to possibly be on the cover of a magazine.

So whenever I see the half their size issue, I am reminded of my failure. But I’m trying to change that.

This year, I actually read the article and mentally acknowledged those who have been successful. They have all worked very hard and one day, I hope that I can be like them.

I don’t know if when I lose the weight again if I’d even attempt to be part of the magazine issue again. I think it would be too tough to have it if I ever gained any or all of the weight back again.

But it’s a nice goal to have to want to have the possibility to be considered again in the future.

My 2013 Goals (or I’m Not Calling Them Resolutions This Time)

Welcome 2013!

I’m excited to see what I can get done this year! In the past, I’ve always made resolutions, but for this year, I’ve decided to call them goals. Somehow they don’t seem as scary that way.

Here are my goals for 2013:

Continue on my weight loss journey. I didn’t lose as much in 2012 as I would have liked, but I did lose. And I’ve got my brother’s wedding in September and you know that those pictures are going to be around forever. I want to look back and not be embarrassed.

Continue paying down my credit card debt. Again, I didn’t do as much as I would have liked in 2012, but I’m working on it. I may not reach my goal of being debt free by my 30th birthday, but that’s ok.

Do at least 5 5Ks. I do enjoy walking various 5K events. In 2012, I did 3. This year, I’d like to see if I can do 5. I have my first one planned for February (unless I decide to do another one sooner).

Do my first 10K. There’s going to be one at Disneyland 6 days before I leave for my brother’s wedding. Unfortunately, due to that timing, my parents won’t be able to come and see me do that, so I’m looking at maybe finding one another time so they can come see me accomplish this.

Find alternative income. I love my day job, and I don’t plan on leaving it anytime soon. But I also need to find a way to make more money to help me work on my debt. And if I can find a way to support myself without having to go to a job 6 days a week, that would be great for my future.

Take an improv class that counts. I’ve taken improv classes in the past. I did a few years at LA Connection Comedy and also studied weekly with Kip King for almost 8 years. But in the commercial world, they want you to have classes from one of the main schools. So I’m looking at maybe taking classes at UCB this year so I’ll have that competitive edge on my acting resume.

Keep blogging. I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.

Any of you have some goals for this year that you are really excited about?

Where I Am (or Staying The Course)

I haven’t really updated recently about my weight loss.

That’s because there isn’t a lot to share. I’m maintaining the little loss I had earlier this year, but I haven’t lost any since. This is disappointing, but not unexpected.

I haven’t had a ton of time for exercising. On the mornings where I don’t leave for work until 11am, I’m normally trying to get other work things done before I go to work. And I don’t get up earlier because I get home late, and I know that I do not do well with a lack of sleep (I try to get at least 6 hours).

My food hasn’t been as good as it can be. It’s not horrible, but I know it could be better.

I keep saying that once I’m (f)unemployed I’ll be able to spend time on me. But now, my job might end up being year round. I’m now sure if I could do 6 days a week year round. That’s a lot. Only having 1 day off a week is tough, and normally that day is filled with laundry and cleaning since I don’t have other time to get it done.

I don’t want to leave my job. I’m making better money than at my old job and my boss is very cool with my acting stuff. But I’m thinking that I might start looking for something that I can do on the side and maybe eventually turn into my main job.

Yes, I need to make money to pay the bills and pay down my credit card. But I also need to take care of myself, and I don’t feel like I am doing that to the best of my ability right now.

And I want to be working on my career (acting) versus my job and right now I’m not able to focus on it as much as I’d like.

I don’t know what I’m really trying to say, I just needed to get it out there. Maybe after I have 2 days off at Christmas I’ll have a better attitude and feel better about where I am.

Holding On (or When Is It Time To Donate Old Clothes?)

When I lived at my old apartment, my closet was so big, you could fit a bed in there (seriously). I kept all my clothes in there, even those that didn’t fit because they were too big or too small. In my current house, my closet is tiny (people in the 1920’s didn’t have nearly as many clothes as we do now).

So under my bed, I’ve got these:

They are giant under the bed clothing storage bags (you can tell that they are almost as long as my queen bed is wide).

In those bags, I’ve kept a lot of my “skinny” clothes. There are some things in there that I never got to wear (the white top with a blue Hawaiian print was never worn). Some of these clothes probably won’t ever be worn again because they are a bit out of style or I feel are a little too young for me. I should probably drop them off at Goodwill to get a tax deduction.

But I can’t seem to get rid of them.

I’ve got this dress that I loved in the summertime. Here I am wearing it at Disneyland.

And this dress that I wore to my brother’s graduation from USC.

I wore this dress to my Grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary dinner.

And this dress was only worn once on the night after Thanksgiving one year for my Grandma’s birthday dinner.

I’ve got my high school prom dress (I liked when I was the same size I was in high school).

And I’ve got a bathing suit that I wore when I was very close to my goal weight in 2007 (I remember being so nervous to wear it because my scars from my hip surgery had not fully faded after a year).

Some of these things, I probably will want to keep forever for sentimental reasons. But when I was digging though the bags over the weekend, I realized that some of these items would be perfect for the week I’ll be in Hawaii for my brother’s wedding next year.

I don’t want to make it a goal to fit into them, because if I don’t I’ll be very upset and could be a bit depressed. But if I did manage to fit into them, it would be amazing.

I’m thinking about taking one dress out of the bag soon and keeping it in my closet as a test dress. Maybe as I keep losing weight (even though it’s still going slowly) I can see how much closer I am to fitting into it.

I know I need something other than the scale to test my progress and maybe this could be it.

Alternative Motivation (or Why Can’t I Transfer My Dedication From One Area to Another)

On Friday evening, I attended the Actors’ Network annual holiday party. I love this holiday party! It’s a great mix of industry types and I always run into people who I don’t see as often as I’d like.

I haven’t been able to go to many Actors’ Network events since starting my new day job in May. Most events are between 1 and 7:30pm and I pretty much always working then. I plan on attending more events when I’m (f)unemployed soon.

As I was chatting with a friend who I hadn’t seen in almost a year, we were discussing what had been keeping us busy. I mentioned this blog, and they asked me about it. I said how I just recently passed 100 blog posts and they commented on how motivated and dedicated I must be.

I always have thought of myself as someone who needs more motivation in life. If I was a motivated person, I shouldn’t have a weight issue. I would be motivated to eat better and exercise more.

But the more I thought about it, it’s true that I’m really motivated.

I’m motivated to write every day here, and I’m super happy about that. I love thinking of what to write about and what you will all think about it.

I’m also really motivated in my job, which is good.

I’m motivated to keep acting. I know that one day I’ll “make it” and it will all be worth it.

I’m motivated to watch my favorite tv shows even when I’m tired (this might not be the best one, but it’s true).

I just can’t find the motivation all the time for my health. I don’t know what the block is in my brain. I want to do it, but I can’t seem to do it. I don’t know if I’ve convinced myself that I don’t have enough time/energy/whatever to do it. But now that someone else has made me realize that I do have a motivated personality, I’m going to work on figuring it out.

New Photo (or It Reminds Me of The Old Me)

I had my photo shoot with Joanna Brooks on Friday. I haven’t gotten all of my photos in an online proof sheet yet, but I should have that by Wednesday.

We did a lot of the shoot in her studio that she created in her garage (she has a very understanding boyfriend who gave up parking his car in there so she could make a studio), but we did go out to a freeway underpass to shoot one of the looks.

While driving back from the location to her house, Joanna let me look at some of the photos in her camera so I could see how I looked. I was scrolling through the photos when one made me stop and gasp. There was one photo that looked so much like a photo that I look when I was 100 pounds lighter. I was so surprised to see it that it almost felt like I was kicked in the stomach.

I don’t know if anyone else will see the similarity (I think it has a lot to do with my chin and shoulder positioning), but here are the two photos side by side.

 

I think that the new photo (in the green) is way better than the old photo. I look younger and fresher, which is funny since the one in the blue was taken in 2007.

Even looking at them now, I can’t help see the similarities in the photos. It’s weird. It’s almost as if there is a sign that I’m not as far from the old me as I think that I am. Even though I have a lot of weight to lose, that’s all that keeping me from getting back to the old me (although I probably won’t go back to the shorter hair for a while).

This reminder is really helping to motivate me. I haven’t been doing so great with cutting out my favorite drink, Diet Coke. I know that when I’m not drinking soda I seem to eat a bit healthier. I’m making it my goal to seriously limit my soda drinking.

But I will allow my self to possibly have a rum and Diet Coke at the after party for the “#140Characters” screening tomorrow! Tickets are still available if you’d like to come!

Readjusting (or Leaving Vacation Mode)

Even though I was only in Texas for 2 half days and 1 full day, it felt like a vacation. I got away from any stress I have at home and could pretend that I didn’t have to worry about work.

I wasn’t thinking about what food I was eating. My dinner on Friday and Saturday were part of the wedding festivities. I had brunch at my hotel on Saturday, and on  Sunday I had breakfast at the airport. I wanted to enjoy the wedding meals, so I wasn’t thinking calories.

I also got kind of jet-lagged. Even though it’s only a 2 hour time difference, I got affected.

But now I’m back to real life. I had an early day at work yesterday, and I’ve got 3 more 8 hour days in a row ahead (I’m taking Friday off to take new headshots). I live-tweeted the debates again. And I need to go back to monitoring my food.

I gained 3 pounds on my trip. Yes, some of that is due to the food I ate, but I think at least part of it is from the stress of travel. When I weighed myself this morning, I’ve lost 2 of those pounds. I want to be at least at the weight I was last week before my photo shoot.

My next trip is going to be Thanksgiving. I’ve got plenty of time to get back to my old self (or even be better than my old self) by then. This week, I’m just focused on my food and detoxing from all the yummy BBQ I ate this weekend.

I don’t detox with anything weird, I just record everything that I eat and try to eat as few processed foods as possible. And hopefully I’ll be back to me quickly.

Nerves vs. Excitement (or How to Think Positively)

In my acting class on Tuesday night, I heard some advice that I’ve heard previously. But for some reason this was the time that the advice really stuck with me.

Nerves are just excitement that is labeled negatively.

This advice come from Jack Plotnick (you can read the whole story that goes along with that advice here).

This advice is perfect for my acting career. I don’t always get nervous for auditions. When the part seems so far away from who I am or what I look like, I don’t worry at all. But when the part I’m reading for sounds just like me and I fit the physical description perfectly, I’m usually a bundle of nerves.

But this advice also works out perfectly for the weight loss journey that I’m on right now. I’m so nervous if this will work this time. Ever other time I’ve lost 100 pounds (and there have been a few times), I’ve done it on some crazy diet plan like the Zone food delivery or on the RFO plan. But this time, I’m doing it the right way. I’m exercising more and being careful what I eat.

One thing that I’ve kept with me from my RFO days is how to figure out how many calories you need to be at any weight. The standard is 10 calories for every pound. So if you want to weigh 130 pounds, you have to have an average of 1300 calories a day. You can eat more if you burn calories exercising, but your daily average is 10 calories per pound.  But within the RFO program, there was a way to figure out our exact numbers. And I only get to have 9.3 calories per pound.

I’m not at the calories right now that I would have to be at to maintain the weight that I hope to be at. That seems a bit too low for me now. So I’m slowly working my way down to that. Once the number of calories I eat every day seems to be ok, I’ll drop my number by 50 calories.

I’m incredibly nervous that I’m never going to like this again:

But now I am going to think how excited I’m going to be when I get closer to my goal. I’m going to be excited to put on clothes that used to fit that now live in a storage bag under my bed. I’m excited to see what the future has in store for me.

Being My Authentic Self (or Ignoring All The Outside Voices)

Yesterday, I was working at an interview for Inside Acting Podcast (I’m their production coordinator). I can’t share who was interviewed yet, but this person said some things that really stuck with me. And it wasn’t just what they said that affected me, it was the fact that over the past few days, I’ve heard this so many times.

What they said was that the most important thing to do is to always be true to yourself and be authentic. And to ignore what everyone else might be saying. As long as you are authentic, it doesn’t matter what other people think about yourself.

I first heard this after I wrote this post. People had told me that the girl who called me fat was an idiot (that’s actually one of the nicer words used to describe that person) and that I shouldn’t listen to other people’s opinions of me.

My opinion of myself is most important. The problem comes when my opinion of myself isn’t the most positive.

Since starting this blog, I’ve lost about 10 pounds. That should be amazing. I should be so happy.

But I’m not.

The first problem comes from something that shouldn’t matter. I’m used to getting so much positive reinforcement about my weight loss from other people. People say how good I look and ask me how much I’ve lost. But then when I maintain that weight, the compliments stop coming. And this is where I’ve lost focus in the past. I shouldn’t worry about other people commenting on the change in my body. Yet, I’m still a little peeved that nobody has mentioned anything to me yet (and I’m not fishing for compliments).

I’m also not happy because it doesn’t feel like I’ve lost enough. In the past, when I’ve been on crazy diets, 10 pounds could drop in a week. When you watch “The Biggest Loser”, losing under 10 pounds is a week is a huge disappointment. I need to get myself out of the mindset that losing 1-2 pounds a week is a bad thing.

I’m working really hard at getting all the outside voices out (and my own negative voice out). I’m trying to focus my energy on being true to myself and being the best Jen that I can be.

It sounds so cheesy, but I think it’s exactly what I need.