The Look Great/Feel Amazing Journey of Grokalicious!

Another pound has left the building. Only a teeny bit more to reach my goal. And, yes, I keep saying I shall continue on past my Whole 37 (extra week of fun and so on). This, because I want to keep getting fitter and keep feeling so damned amazing. I do, I do. I feel even more confident than I did before. Just quietly sure of myself.

The test will be the next few days. Tomorrow night I am making almond crescent Xmas cookies for my fave accounts and Friday morning I am making 5 quiche from scratch (including crust) for my biggest account. I think I shall be fine. None of that sounds appealing. The only serious jones I am having is for hot cocoa, and this, just because it's cold. Sadly, there is no such thing as a Whole 30 treat. Primal treats, yes. Ah, well.

My big big news of the week is that I've decided to start my own wine brokerage after the first of the year. Done with toiling for others. Low cost start up! Brokers do not take possession of the wine like Distributors. After the first of the year I am going to the local SBA and get hooked up with a mentor that will show me how to write a business plan. The SBA will also help find small business loans. Oh, I am so thrilled with this!! Everything is falling in place with my dreams and plans.

Now to find a great guest house and go, go, go!!!! And, even if Mr. Man is not the one, somewhere out there is someone cool and fun and funny and handsome with whom I would have great chemistry! Not to mention being able to go out with friends etc.

Woohoo hoooo!!!!

Goals and dreams are fun!!!!!

even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

I am not a patient person and make no pretensions about it. Being an only child, I always want what I want [B][I]when[/I][/B] I want it. As in "why isn't my body exactly how I want it in 27 days." Durrrrrrr.

Anyhoo, after taking my "during" photo last night, I hightailed it to the gym and listened to great tunes while I worked out. Planks are improving! Came home and had a GF burger mushed up with crispy bacon and a salad. Pretty yum!

I've decided to keep on with observing the tenets of Whole 30 indefinitely (never say never or always!). I will have a treat (what? Oh, jeez, what!) once a week, or ten days but nothing too whack (heh, what?). Then take photos again each month. Why not? I like eating this way and it's no big deal. I don't even discuss what I do or don't eat with people, except here. Most of my pals or business buddies not only eat grains and sugar and such, but eat downright crap. So, obviously they won't get it. No one notices what you eat anyway unless you make a big deal of it so on we go.

Just don't know what my first treat would be. :(

Wowsa. Navigated the landmines of holiday foods and parties. And, here I am quite ready for my next fun adventure. I took a few days off from the gym and moseyed back in there today all smiles and good to go. Excellent squats, 2 (!!!!) unassisted pull-ups and 1 minute and 15 seconds on planks. Yes! I just need to get more low intensity/long duration walks etc and with the holidays soon-to-be-over, voila!

Am sticking to no dairy, no grains, no sugar, no legumes. I may indeed have a glass of wine once in a while as I'm in the biz anyway and enjoy it every so often. I feel like I've found a way of eating that pleases my taste buds as well as gives me energy and keeps my moods up and ebullient. Life tastes good. Maybe dessert on my bday in May, maybe not!

I've made contact with the local SCORE office and will meet with a mentor (free!!!) to help with my business plan for my wine brokerage. I will also apply for a small business loan. Still no clever name but I have all of my friends working on it! Am on board to do my VoiceOver demo (with my voice teacher directing it) somewhere around the last week of January/first week of February. Exciting and the no dairy thing will certainly help with my voice (though not with my slight lisp!) All I need to buy is a computer so I can plug in a condenser mic and use some software to do auditions. I won't need to buy the actual mic because an old friend is loaning me one for as long as I need it and it's professional quality! I hope to leave my current job no later than May 1st, hopefully sooner. I'm very excited and driven.

Still haven't found the right guest house! It's there somewhere and soon enough I shall find it. The holidays weren't too bad with J. Kind of a nice easy bittersweet farewell to this all. I have not seen Mr. Man but will next weekend. Excited about that too. I feel rather giddy about him, about all of these changes. I like change. Don't like the same things day in and day out.

I do feel that primal eating and living have been the genesis for a lot of these changes. I feel very confident and positive and happy. (Grateful and lucky too!).

May the new year smile on us all with radiant health and happy dreams coming true!

Happy New Year!!

New year, new life. Still all primal with one brief foray into dessert which ended poorly (delish but crazed sugar high and low!). Workouts are great. Am at 1.5 minutes regularly with planks and getting up to as high as 2 minutes. Squats rule. Love dips. Can do 2 (!!!!) unassisted pull ups. I love HIIT but still have a hard time getting in enough slow and long cardio.

I'm moving out to my very own super cool guest house shortly. Have been bed and tv shopping, getting all the little necessities etc. and am interviewing for a new job (more moolah, thankfully) and taping my voice over demo at the end of Feb. I've seen Mr. Man a few times socially. Definitely an attraction there that goes beyond physicality but I need to move out and extricate myself emotionally from the last vestiges of my current so-called relationship. Time will tell on that front.

I predict even more working out once I'm out. I tend to do that sort of thing when bored or alone. Anyway, I'm wondering what to do to slow down on weight loss. It's coming off too quickly again. I just haven't any appetite to speak of, so I need to figure this out. I realized today that I thought I was doing well eating coconut oil to up my fat ad calories and then laughingly remembered that coconut oil is a medium chain triglyceride and will encourage weight loss. Duh moment.

I am excited and love having goals that I actually hit. I hope everyone's New Year is fabulous.

Missed you, Lish. Glad to hear all the good news.

Maybe I could use that coconut oil. I'm struggling to get back down to my pre-holiday weight.

Aww, thanks, Dio. Doing the Whole 30 during the holidays was both the craziest and the best thing I could have done. First time in my life I actually lost weight at that time.

Give the coconut oil a go! If you get the slightly more expensive organic coconut oil, you will love the taste. I'm actually so used to it now that I'd miss it if I stopped using it in food or cooking. And, it works!

I looked for your journal but didn't see it. Have you stopped blogging? Or am I just inept at finding it?

Yay!! I'm so happy to see you back. Thanks for your comment on my journal.

CONGRATULATIONS on the plank and pullups! I'm there with the plank but just starting to actively work on my pullups. Being able to do one (or three) is a goal of mine but I have been neglecting them in my weekly workouts. Lat pulldowns help some but not enough.

Congrats also on finding your new place. That's exciting.

I've been losing (maybe a bit too fast) as well, but am not concerned yet. More fat seems to be really easy for me to accomplish... eggs, bacon, sausage, olive oil, cream cheese... ahhh cream cheese.

I am of the mindset that if it's meant to be, it will happen. That said, good luck with the interview and your relationship stuffs!!

Zee, thanks for the nice comments. I sometimes wonder if anyone reads this bloody thing but also feel good just getting the words out of my system. I'd so love to enjoy some cream cheese and, in fact, involuntarily salivated when I read your post. Ha! Still no dairy! I made myself stronger for pull ups by using the assisted pull up machine and slowly decreased the amount of weight that the machine took care of for me. You'll get there!

Or, so it starts to feel. Everything is becoming more and more real each day. This is all happening to me. And, I'm excited and scared a little at the same time. It'll all turn out amazing. By this time next month, I'll be settled in and just getting ready to tape my demo!

I don't mess around. I just get all of the major changes out of the way at once. The three big arenas in which changes usually happen are all whisking me away to a new life all at the same time. New place to live, new relationship status (can you say "single?"!!!!!!!!!), and potentially a new job. Tomorrow is the interview. Now, here's the thing. Ages and ages ago I figured out how to be a great interviewee. I've aced every interview that appealed to me. So, that doesn't faze me a bit!

I had a sudden realization today. I hate the wine business. There, I said it. I just want to be able to wear perfume again (you can't sell wine and wear perfume). I don't want to worry about vineyards, points given to the wines by trade mags, whether they've oaked it, or not, if it's on goal for the company, if the account owes money. I just want to enjoy wine when I'm out for dinner and not wonder when I'm out how I could edge my wines in over the competition that currently have their wines on the list. I want to do voice overs and make sculptures, find something cool to blog about (not wine!!!!), act in a play and make people laugh, have fun, work out, hike, take an art class, do large scale calligraphy and illumination, go car racing, go to a car show, drink Champagne on a warm spring day in Reims or Ay, fly a glider, go on a helicopter ride, ride a horse at sunset, plant antique roses, paint a mural, take a stand up comedy class, join a cross fit class, throw parties and invite fun and funny people, make everyone laugh that I meet. Oh, and kiss Mr. Man. A lot.

And, you know what? So I shall. All of it.