Officially over it

he would have fit right in w/ us last weekend

I do this to myself all the time. I still think I can party like I am in college. Well, reality has a way of telling you what's up when you don't follow it's rules. I always wondered when I was younger why adults don't drink that much, if at all. I know now. It's because it takes 3 times as long to get over it than it used to. 

I was at a bachelorette weekend (keep in mind I stopped drinking Saturday after dinner and literally drank 10 waters after that) and I am still recovering. I AM OFFICIALLY OVER IT! The amount of fun I have when I drink pales in comparison to the S-H-I-T that I feel like for days after. 

In light of my impending 30th birthday, I am feeling that I need to really stop acting like I am in college. I need to take care of myself so I don't end up looking prematurely haggard. 

Just some thoughts on this beautiful Tuesday. Tomorrow I'll be back to normal.

How much damage can you do in 36 hours?

(source)

Apparently a lot.

We had a friend's bachelorette weekend and it was by far one of the most fun weekends I've had in a long time. 10 girls in a beach house, Friday & Saturday nights, lots of beer, wine, and jello shots. We all had to bring food and supplies since it was a rental, and I made some "healthier" options- potato salad, tuna salad, watermelons and other fruit, hummus.

Guess what I ended up eating?

Cheez-its- lots of them. Potato chips and dip. Italian subs (with white bread). Peanut butter filled pretzels. I pretty much survived on snacks and refined carbs Friday night and all of Saturday until dinner at 8:30 PM, and then housed some more snacks when we got home from the bars at 2 am.

Needless to say, yesterday morning when I woke up I felt like a tornado had been tearing up my stomach. That was by far the worst I've eaten in a long time, probably since I started caring about all this stuff 2 years ago.

Time to start over. I feel like Mondays are the perfect start-over-because-I-destroyed-my-life-this-weekend day. It's literally 12:30ish right now and I haven't felt hungry until about 30 seconds ago.


We'll see how long that lasts, but I am actually looking forward to taking a partying break because the last month or so of summer weekends have really been taking their toll. This happens every summer. I go nuts for about a month and burn myself out. I'm over it! Time to get some S-H-I-T done.

This is my bold statement of the day: I am not capable of drinking like I used to and am going to take it easy for the next month (until the wedding). 

Falling in the Rain & Rolling Around in the Grass

Funny story. So Friday night we all went out for one of my bestie's birthdays at this really fun bar/club close by. I made the point of telling everyone to wear flip flops because they have an outside area with gravel (picture a camp ground with boccie ball and picnic tables). Long story short I fell in the gravel a few weeks ago because I was wearing crazy insane heels. So, I gave everyone fair warning.

After hours of dancing (in my flip flops) and drinking prosecco (yes I drink champagne when I go out) we were about to leave. The only problem was that the gusty wind turned into gusty wind + monsoon like conditions. Picture a hurricane minus the dangerous flying debris.

BEFORE

On the count of three we all sprinted to the car. I took a graceful leap off the curb to try to hop over the river puddle that was not draining into the over-flooded sewer. Well, have you ever miscalculated how deep something is? Haha, I did. I thought the puddle was about a foot shallower than it really was which sent me palms first, fully submerged under water. (OMG I can't even type I'm laughing so hard). I stood up and looked down at myself in complete shock that in 15 seconds I went from being doused with raindrops to looking like I jumped in a pool. Makeup running down my face, perfect hair turned stringy mess. COMPLETELY SOPPING WET!

AFTER

(PS...I'm almost 30 years old. When does ridiculous S-H-I-T like this stop happening?)

And the kicker was that my flipflops came off and were floating down the street. AWESOME! So apparently flip flops do not protect you from falling when you are falling into water. Take note of this.

So not only did I get wet, but so did everyone else with me as we were all paralyzed with laughter while they were trying to collect me and my things. I wish we got it on video so you all could've seen it. PRICELESS!

Anywho, when we got back to the house I got the great idea that since we were already soaked we might as well go play in the rain. And by play I mean roll around in the grass like we were 6 years old. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. 

When was the last time you played in the rain? Or took off your shoes and sat in the grass. If you are a beginner I would work up to rolling around. You might go into shock.

Anyway, it was so refreshing (not to mention fun) acting like I was a child again. Maybe that's why people drink? So they can feel okay about letting loose. If you watch kids play, and then watch adults drink, sometimes it's pretty similar.

The moral of this story...feed your inner child and have fun. There is no point in eating healthy if you aren't having fun at the same time. Assignment: take off your shoes, go outside, lay in the grass, then start rolling around (rain optional). 

1 Step Forward...2 Steps Back

This weekend I took 2 steps back. My plans got turned upside down and I ended up spending the majority of the weekend in the Hamptons with my sister, her fiance, their friends and his family. It is usually a pretty relaxing time when I go out there, but something was in the air this weekend. Everyone was in party mode. Maybe it was because it was a long weekend, maybe it was because the weather was beautiful, I don't know, but we sure had a fun party!

It was like I forgot about all of the "healthy" things I was supposed to be doing and found myself back in college. At least I was drinking like I was back in college. And I am still paying for it. I'm still trying to get ready for the week and Tuesday is almost over.

no sleep + lots of drinks = Jess is a disaster

The moral of the story is... I'm too young to drink vegetable juice straight through the weekend and not have fun. I'm not striving for perfection here. Plus I want to have some stories to tell my great grandchildren when I'm pushing 100. I'm trying to find the happy medium of lots of vegetables and fun times.

What did you all do for MDW? 

I am in college. How do I eat when all I am offered is junk?

Ladies in college. My beautiful cousin Erica asked me for advice on what to eat in college. It took me a while to get to this, but here it is. It's very simple. I assume most of you are eating at cafeterias with meal plans so I will go ahead and say that the prepared foods you are eating are most likely garbage. 

This is what you can do:

• eat all the fruit you can find
• eat the salads
• drink water instead of soda or "vitamin" waters
• buy mixed nuts, dried fruit, and apples/oranges/bananas and keep them in your room
• something tasty & healthy you can eat is hummus w/ cut up veggies
• absolutely do not eat late night
• do not eat fried foods or pizza

It may be fun now and you think you won't be one of the girls that blows up, but you aren't an exception to the rule. Speaking from experience, I thought I could keep up with the boys in drinking and eating. I gained a lot of weight in college. And guess what? I'm still working it off. I'm 29. 

Loosing weight sucks. It's much easier to stay slim than lose weight. It is actually quite simple. The more fruits and vegetables and whole foods you eat the better off you will be. What's a whole food? Something that still looks like it came from nature. Nuts, seeds, fruit, vegetables, brown rice, anything that is still in it's original form.

Here are some other facts:

• muffins are not a healthy option
• cheese is the best tasting thing in the world but if you eat a ton of it you will gain weight
• chips go straight to your hips
• most smoothies are sugar bombs unless it is made strictly with whole fruit
• late night eating is THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO
• the ice cream in the cafeteria is garbage

A few words about drinking. First of all, we all know drinking is an integral part of the college experience. If you are one of those that don't drink that much you are ahead of the curve. Alcohol is empty calories. Which means you are just inhaling calories that make you fat. Alcohol is a double whammy because you tend to eat more crappy food.

Here's the thing. The point isn't to be perfect all the time. The point is to be good most of the time. When you aren't partying make a point to be healthy. One or two pounds aren't that bad to get rid of, but 10-20 lb's will literally take you forever to work off. And you won't be able to do it while you are doing keg stands and eating pizza at 3am.

Women definitely have a disadvantage when it comes to packing on the pounds. But it can be easy to stay slim and healthy if you get in the habit of eating fruits and vegetables.

If you happen to be in college and have questions post a comment below and I'll do my best to get you answers. Stay beautiful ladies!

Weekend in Review

This weekend went fast- and I crammed a lot in. My usual winter weekends are filled with sleeping in, laying around, relaxing, and cooking. Unfortunately I didn't get to lay around this weekend but I did...

• take two naps
• two fun nights out 
• studied for 16 hours
• drank 2 giant glasses of dark green vegetable juice
• ate bacon and eggs twice
• spent zero minutes outside :(
• sneezed 75 times
• ate one hot dog w/ sauerkraut & spicy mustard and cheese fries

I really went off track with my eating this weekend. But it was soooooo good! I can't even tell you the last time I ate a hot dog... or cheese fries. You know when you eat really healthy most of the time, the really unhealthy foods taste that much better. I think it's okay to be a normal American every once and a while. And then afterwards I am way more excited to eat my raw foods. This weekend was a nice break. 

Huge agenda this week...then off to LA!

Beers & Burgers

I woke up this morning feeling like I was drunk last night. Foggy head, slight headache, no motivation. I did have a few beers last night (probably the first time I drank beer in a long time- wine is usually my drink of choice) but at no point was I even remotely close to being even slightly buzzed. I mean I literally had 3 beers over the course of 4 hours. But... I did have a cheese burger.

I couldn't help it! It was late and I was starving and I was at a place that serves tons of juicy, greasy bar food. And they had muenster cheese... my favorite!!! Anyway, that burger (+ the fries that came with it) was the unhealthiest thing I've eaten in a while. Add the fact that I've been eating like 90% raw fruits and vegetables for the past 2 weeks and I think I know why I feel like garbage today.

It is amazing to me how fast your body responds to eating healthy. I didn't really think that 1 greasy meal + a few beers would effect me as much as it did. So... time to clean up my act today (after the decaf coffee I am about to drink).

What are everyone's plans for the weekend? I am about to be a studying monster. Have to ace an exam next week before I'm off to L.A. for a long weekend!