The Most Obvious News Ever

And in the most obvious news ever:

1. Once we found a house that we really liked, we started feeling ridiculously excited and impatient
2. We picked something with a little bit of ugly and a lot of charming over the newly redone and very modern houses we saw

I've known for a long time that I like things that are unique, and more old-fashioned (let's call it 'classic') rather than trendy. When I test drove a 1977 Toyota Corolla wagon that had rear-wheel drive (and  probably rack and pinion steering) and was 100% impractical as a college commuter, I had a really hard time not buying it. When I needed a bike for getting around the city, I bought an old Japanese cruiser with 3 gears. I do it all the time: look for something well made and classic because the new plastic stuff just always seems to disappoint me. And it is boring. The consequence is that sometimes I get something impractical or difficult to use because it's cooler (to me) than something else. Like that bike. Yes, I replaced it after a year with a Trek. But I did put a bell and an old timey rack on my bike, so I win.

So, we want to be realistic and smart about it. Yes, it's an older home (that's all that's in our price range) and the windows and doors have character, but we need to think about energy efficiency. I get it. And we need to have an inspection done and then decide for sure if the house is right for us. I want to go on the inspection and ask a hundred questions because we don't know anything about structure or plumbing or HVAC. We want to get a good price, and a mortgage that works for us. And if everything falls through and we don't get it, then we'll go back to looking at houses. That's fine. But damn it, people, let me get excited! It's exciting! We'll know by tomorrow what the terms of our offer may be, and go from there.

Trust me, we've been doing things the right way. We decided that, approaching 30, we're tired of jumping into things blindly and learning the hard way. We took home ownership classes. We did a home ownership assessment and credit check with a counselor. We did an assessment with a recommended lender. We found a buyer's agent. We looked for open houses. We checked out neighborhoods in person. We looked at the crime mapping. We asked around. We searched the internet. We learned about resale value. We got a pre-approval based on just one of our incomes. We set our budget for a very reasonable monthly payment, and we're overestimating on utilities. We are looking around for grants (that don't have to be paid back; boom, roasted). The process isn't over yet, but I feel damn prepared, and confident that we're making a good choice.

I appreciate input from other people because we have never done this before and there are things I'm sure we haven't considered, but I would like everyone to know that we are doing everything possible to be prepared, not get screwed, and get a great house that will be nearly perfect for us for many years, and then will be easy to sell. So don't worry!

Be Realistic

It's difficult for me to be realistic. If I'm guilty of anything, it's being too hard on myself, getting nostalgic, and romanticizing. I try really hard not to, and I think I'm better than I used to be, but only because I've made a conscious effort to be real about what my goals should be and how I can reach them.

When I first started running, I was did not plan on running a 5k. I had no goals in mind for distance. My plan was just to try it for a week or two and follow the early steps for couch to 5k and see what happened. It went well, and I did end up running a 5k after a couple months of training. One big motivator was that I lost a few pounds right off the bat, and I found some running pants that made my butt look awesome! Win win. But after I had been running for a while, I stopped losing weight and hovered around the same area for a long time. I was increasing my mileage and running what seemed like a TON, so I figured that my scale was broken. I'm not kidding. I bought a new scale because I literally thought there was no way I could be able to run five miles and still be within a couple pounds of the me that could not run two blocks. I should have realized then that it's way more about food than exercise, and I wasn't being honest about my food intake.

Of course, exercise is huge for me. I love running, hiking, biking, and walking, especially when I can do these things outside in my beautiful state, and with friends and family, but it doesn't matter if I run ten miles when I eat fatty, salty foods, and lots of alcohol later in the day. I can erase the calories burned in a long run with one fatty meal. If part of the goal is losing weight, then I have to get passed the idea that lots of exercise entitles me to food rewards, sweets, several delicious beers, and so on. I did for a long time and was sabotaging myself.

Once and a while, I have a beer/cheese/fries weekend where I'm doing something like hosting someone from out of town and I go a little overboard on food and skimp on exercise. That's just life. It's not the end of the world. But on the other three weekends of the month and during the work week, I only have one or two beers, a serving of cheese (a one inch cube—be realistic!), and a whole lot of sensible meals that I plan out. Plus, I use Lose It to track calories. You're more likely to lose weight if you keep a food log, and you can't kid yourself when you put in everything that you eat. It's simple math.

One more thing about being realistic: you're most likely to maintain your lost weight if you don't do much more than 1–2 pounds per week. Be realistic about goals! It will be more fun and less frustrating when you're not setting some unattainable number in your head.

Maybe goal-setting will be my next post. ;)

The Weighting is the Hardest Part

I did Runuary and had a good time running every day and blogging about it. With that in mind, I thought I'd start doing a regular blog post about the many things that are working for me on my weight loss journey. Keep in mind that everyone is different, and that there is a ton of bad advice out there. You should consult the professionals that you trust, keep a positive attitude, and remember that no matter what happens, this is a lifetime endeavor. You may have a short term goal of losing ten pounds or being able to run a race, but good health is something that you never stop working toward. That means that even if you mess up once, or if you flake on exercise for a month (or have a rough year), and you gain a little weight or lose your stamina, there's absolutely no reason not to get right back on track. Never ever ever give up! You're worth it!

Which thing should I talk about first? Oh! Breakfast. Look how clever I am.

Breakfast. You know it's the most important meal of the day, but do you eat it? And do you take a second to actually enjoy it? I have to get up by at least 6am every day in order to get ready and make the hour commute to work. I sure would love to sleep in a little longer and not eat breakfast, or grab a protein bar, but I did that for years and it didn't work for me. Now, I make an egg and toast, sometimes on a quarter of avocado. Mmmm. I'm hungry just thinking about it.

All I do is keep a small pan on the stove (I don't even wash it between uses—ain't nobody got time for that) so that I can stumble into the kitchen, crack an egg over really low heat, and let it start cooking while I make coffee, iron my pants, etc. It takes just a minute, and when it's done, I put my egg on toast with some sort of veggie and I sit down at the dining table just for a few minutes to enjoy my hot breakfast, coffee, and silence, or the radio. Wonderful.

I used to think that breakfast upset my stomach, but I couldn't blame my stomach. For a long time, my schedule was to get up late, go to class, and then work nights at a restaurant. I ate maybe twice a day and it was garbage, yet somehow I was 119 pounds. Don't ask me. But when I started trying to eat breakfast early in the morning, my stomach wasn't ready and I wasn't consistent. Now, I'm an adult and I started making myself eat a little toast every day. I found that I'd be hungrier later in the morning. That's because my body realized that I was awake when I kickstarted it with fuel. Instead of being in a sleepy fast, not burning calories, my body started right when I woke up and ate breakfast. That's what it's supposed to do! So get over it and eat breakfast, preferably something prepared that will be satisfying and warm and delicious.

If you don't know what to make, just search for healthy breakfast recipes. Be creative! I never would have put avocado on toast with a little sea salt, but it's so good! It has the added benefit of raising my HDL cholesterol, too! Yum.

I hope to write a lot more and I'm open to discussion on what has worked for other people. Mostly it's just fun to write, but I will be happy if someone gets something out of me talking about my lessons learned.