Dr. Conrad Murray was found guilty today in the involuntary manslaughter trial for the death of Michael Jackson. His sentencing will happen on November 29th, although the surprising part is that he was hauled off to jail immediately instead of being able to go home until the sentencing. The maximum sentence for his crime is four years although due to overcrowding in California jails he will only have to serve half of that and only at a county jail instead of a state prison. Michael Jackson’s family will get to speak out at the sentencing on the 29th, so it should be very interesting to hear what they have to say. The Los Angeles County DA’s office called Dr. Murray unscrupulous and corrupt, and mentioned how abuse of perscription drugs is now the leading cause of death in America.  The verdict gives the Jackson family a sense of justice, altough the sad thing is Dr. Murray was simply enabling Michael Jackson’s odd requests.

Liberty Enlighting the World AKA The Statue of Liberty who turns 125 tomorrow is getting five webcams placed around her toch, allowing live views of the New York City skyline and New York Harbor. Cameras will also be showing her torch which has been off limits to visitors since 1916 and the view of looking down!

Click here to check out the webcams when they go live on Friday!

I sustained an injury yesterday that will set my training back just a smidge. 

What happened??? I was sprinting through the office in flip flops obviously!  I was given 10 minutes to find as many items in the office as possible that could be used to make an elaborate Halloween costume.   I was making exceptionally good time  when I tripped over …. absolutely nothing. 

Electricity shot through my left foot immedietly and my only defense against the pain was to walk around in small circles with my hands on my hips repeating “I hurt my toe.  I really hurt my toe” over and over again.  This does not offer as much relief as you would think… Weird!

A few hours later Mike brought me to urgent care where we discovered that my toe was not broken… just sprained.  Yes, I sprained my toe.  Which is, easily, the least impressive injury of all time.  I think I would garner more sympathy if I had bruised my tail bone or had a boil lanced.

Long story short, I am wearing an ugly little boot because my toe is too swollen for shoes at the moment and I am taking pain killers every eight hours as needed.  Sadly, there was nothing the doctor could do for my sprained ego.

On Saturday Mike and I had an awesome Halloween party with finger foods, candy and lots and lots of drinks.  So instead of trying to fight the feeling .. I decided to go with the flow and eat anything I wanted.  This is best known as a “cheat day”.  Some people find a cheat day is a great motivational tool that gives dieters something to look forward to but I am steadfast in my belief that a cheat day is a HUGE MISTAKE.  

While I didn’t go completely crazy, I did kick the night of with pigs in a blanket (of course!) and from the second that pig hit my mouth it was all down hill from there.  I spent the rest of the night burping up sausage-y acid that burned my throat and tasted terrible.  I thought to myself ‘THIS IS POISON!  THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN INGESTING HAND OVER FIST FOR THE LAST 29 YEARS?!’.  For a moment I actually felt really  bad about the abuse I have been putting my body through with the foods that I used to eat.  My poor body that has been so good to me.  My poor body that keeps working every single day and never lets me down (except for a little gallbladder issue in 2010… but no body is perfect).

Finger foods were once a delightful treat but now they are my sworn enemy.  I am back to eating clean and it feels SO much better.  No more heart burn, no more upset stomach… AND I am looking better BONUS!

The biography of Steve Jobs came out today, written by a guy named Walter Isaacson, who interviewed the man behind all the cool Apple products about 40 times for the book. One of the big bombshells contained in the pages is the fact that Jobs hated the Android phone, and actually called it “grand theft” of his iPhone. He said that “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Andoid because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty.” Wow! The “they” that he is referring to, of course, is Google, the makers of Android phones. He later called Android products “$h!t.” What must have made this battle even more personal for Jobs is that he mentored the 2 guys who founded Google, and even later let Google’s CEO on Apple’s board of directors. Very interesting. I wonder if Google will suffer any sort of backlash due to this?

Yesterday was a great day!  I am finally making progress that can be measured. 

When I started this journey I sorta thought I was going to transform into a fit and fabulous glamazon over night…  In a shock to no one, that has not been the case.   I have been stepping on the scale for a few weeks now and showing very little change.  According to my scale I have gone down two pounds… TWO POUNDS?!  I have been working out like crazy, cut back on my drinking and eating clean and I have only lost TWO POUNDS?!  As you can imagine this was aggravating and above all else making me feel like all my hard work was for nothing.   I can live with an extra two pounds on me if I get to go back to drinking wine every night.

Well, my wonderful trainer Alisa (who will be known as “Amazing A” from this point forward) did my measurements and THANK YOU JESUS my body is changing despite what the scale says.  I am losing inches, losing fat and gaining muscle.  YAHOO!

I have committed to only drinking Fridays and Sarurdays  (which I have done very successfully for about two weeks)  but I had wine last night AND tonight ugh! 

Now, I know life is going to happened and life has happened two nights in a row  (dinner with Gavin’s family last night and my mommas bday tonight)  but I am still kinda disappointed in myself.  I am going to spend about 10 more minutes feeling bad about myself then I am going to pull myself together, drink some water… and  get over it.

Ps,  I burned just over a thousand calories today (if my heart rate monitor is correct…I have my doubts).

Pps, I didn’t eat the cake!!!

The first big change I am making is eating clean. What is eating clean you say?!  Great question.  I TRY to eat foods that haven’t been processed to the point that they are more chemical than actual food.  This isn’t as hard as it seems I promise. I live by the rule, if I don’t know where it came from (i.e. ground, tree bush, animal etc) I don’t eat it.  Not a hard rule to follow but does require more preperation than I am used to.

Here is where this is getting tricky for me… My family has no interest in eating clean which means I have to make two seperate meals every night and its a pain in the ass.  BUT I keep telling myself  ‘it’s not their fault I got fat’… So if they don’t want to eat my delicious ground turkey, black bean and cucumber salad then FINE!

My newest clean treat is sweat peppers stuffed with turkey

Today I have decided to publicize my new passion… fitness.   Why today? No idea.  It just felt right to start sharing.  My goal for this blog is to journal this journey for myself and for anyone else who is ready to make big changes in their lives, body and health.  This blog will not be perfect!  It will have misspellings, grammatical errors and rambling.  What can I say… that’s part of my charm!

I should start by saying I am no health nut.  I love fast food, I love booze and until recently, I wouldn’t even think of running unless someone was chasing me… and even then they would have to have a weapon of some sort to inspire me to really try.  I allowed my self to get to 210lb and that’s when I knew… somethings gotta give.

At this very moment I am 169lbs.  Clearly I have been working on this weight loss thing for awhile but I have never really been truly serious or inspired… until now!

Let the games begin!

Bright Shadow