Diary of a Semi-Health Nut

ramblings + recipes of a semi-healthy nut

Bootcamp + Brunch + FEELINGS

by

Oh hey there! How is everyone? How was your weekend?

Me? My weekend? Good! Or wait…that is what I’ve said a million times today on auto pilot (“How are you?” slash “How was your weekend?” “Good!”).

How am I really?

The truth is, my feelings tend to be more complicated, just like everyone else. And although I’m mostly good, I also have a jumble of feelings bouncing around at any given time (probably just like you). Sometimes those feelings even tip towards the negative end.

You all can thank Armon for inspiring me to feeling-dump on the blog. I went back and forth between writing a happy-go-lucky post about my weekend, but opted for being real instead.

And to my “real-life” friends/family: I am okay.

Writing a post with feelings that are negative might be shocking with all of the smiley-face-ridden-my-life-is-peaches-and-cream-perfection Facebook posts we often see, but it’s important to recognize the fact that we all get down sometimes. And that it’s okay to talk about.

this is real life. it's okay to cry

Writing in this blog to me is much more healing than talking to a therapist who wants to dig deeper and convince me of how “sad I truly am” and how “awful my childhood really was” (I mean seriously, why do they all try to tell me how my childhood was? My parents loved the stuffing out of me and that’s all I used to remember about growing up before more than one therapist told me how hard it is to have divorced parents and why that messed me up! //end rant). 

 

So if you want, buckle up and let’s dive into the brain of Amanda.

 

This past weekend, for seemingly no reason at all, I absolutely broke down. More than once. Every little thing turned into nails on the chalkboard or a dart aimed at my brain (read: everything irritated me or made me anxious). My mind focused on the negative in every single situation. “Focused” isn’t even the right word…fixated or obsessed fit more closely. Anxiety up the wazoo over here.

It’s weird because I’ve been feeling pretty great about life the past couple of months, despite my somewhat pessimistic nature. I have found ways to deal with stress (hello treadmill and blogging!). I am focusing on how much I truly enjoy my cafe job and how blessed I really am to have a job where I’m on my feet and writing jobs that allow me to work from home. I was doing super awesome on my typed out to-do lists at the beginning of the weekend; finishing lots of articles and in general, being awesome.

Part of it was putting too much pressure on myself in regards to the brunch and bootcamp Lee and I hosted Saturday. (Oh and I just realized it was the perfect storm with my time-of-the-month-major-PMS-stuff too…sheesh having hormones stinks sometimes!)

You see, I tend to have a bit of social anxiety, which is hard for me to remember when I’m at my cafe job chatting away at customers. Maybe I’m able to talk to people at work because it’s my job or because the situation (such as a customer waiting on food) would be even more awkward if silent. Or maybe it’s that I don’t really know these people and have a pretty easy time not caring what strangers think about me. Maybe it’s knowing that the stylish customers can’t judge my outfit because it’s a work uniform. Or maybe it’s my love for people and wanting to make their day a little better. (Yes, I know; I’m a flipping oxymoron…socially-anxious people-lover.)

Whatever the case may be, I tend to be a nervous wreck when meeting new people that I actually want to be friends with…case-in-point: the lovely twin cities bloggers we met with Saturday.

So what about the event got me all in a tizzy?

Before the bootcamp + brunch…

First of all, the get-together was at my apartment community room, which cost 50 bucks. What if there isn’t enough room? What if not enough people show up? What if I have to pay the whole thing myself because everyone forgets their money? How will our food stay warm/cold? What should I make? I mean it has to be awesome since these are foodie/fitness bloggers… What will I wear??

The day of the bootcamp + brunch…

waffles

  • I didn’t get up early enough to make the fabulous egg bake I had planned, so waffles from a mix it was!
  • I was breaking out due to hormones (and probably stress), so I started out embarrassed at the fact that I had to put on make-up.
  • It snowed and poor Lee had to travel an hour when the roads were a mess.
  • Half of the ladies couldn’t make it so it was just me, Lee, Alex and Mellissa.
  • I worked out too hard and could barely walk the next day.
  • My apartment was a disaster and Lee ended up hanging out in the midst of all my chaos while I wanted to just blind-fold her and clean all the things!!

BUT. (<-big but!!!) I still view this experience as a success.

  • It turns out the smaller group made me feel more comfortable. Plus all of the girls are so flipping sweet it was hard to not feel comfortable. Even though I was pretty much dying half-ways through the bootcamp.
  • We didn’t end up having to pay for the room because our apartment manager is awesome and pretty much said “who else would use the room on a Saturday at 9am?”
  • The waffles from a box were gobbled up. There was also a microwave in the room to nuke things and a fridge with cold, running water. Bonus!
  • We had plenty of space and could even have more space if needed. 
  • Now I know what to expect for next time and it makes things a whole lot easier for my brain to deal with.

brunch and bootcamp food 

(Of course there were a couple of other factors over the weekend that played into me falling on the floor like a two-year-old crying big wet tears of emotion, but I think we’ve dived far enough into the brain of Amanda for one day, don’t ya think? If you really want to know you can e-mail or Facebook me and we shall discuss.)

 

The take-aways I got from this weekend were:

  • Cut yourself some slack. Blueberry waffles from a box can be pretty darn amazing and bloggers in general are very nice.
  • If you are feeling emotional, find something fun and happy to do instead of focusing on all of the things that need to be done.
  • Stop worrying so much about what other people think. You have your own style–be confident in it!
  • Pace yourself when doing new workouts…especially with super fit friends!
  • Pray the new upstairs neighbors get evicted (not really…but why does it have to sound like giant elephants tromping along at all hours of the night? makes it hard for a girl to fall asleep!)
  • A bad day doesn’t mean a bad life!

bad day doesn't mean a bad life #optimism 

 

Guess what guys?

Just because there was internal stress related to this brunch and bootcamp event, doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it again. How else will I grow? How else will I be able to make friends in my new hometown other than actually trying? 

So if you are one of the bloggers in the area that didn’t make it to the event…I hope I didn’t scare you away! I really did enjoy myself and hope to do something like this again in the near future! 🙂

bootcamp and brunch

 

Thus ends the worst promo for an event ever!! 😉 (The one and only post you need to see to know I’m not a marketing major.)

 
 use this one amanda

 

 

Tell me…

Can you relate to my stress or social anxiety?

What do you do to cope with stress?

 

Linking up to:

Week in Review with Meghan at Clean Eats, Fast Feets

Marvelous in my Monday with Katie at Healthy Diva Life 

Thinking Out Loud with Amanda at Running with Spoons

Fitness Friday with Jill at Fitness, Health and Happiness

 

PS I’m all about Pinterest this year, so I would LOVE IT if you could pin one (or two!) of these images. Just hover over the image to reveal the “pin it” button or use the handy dandy buttons at the bottom and top of each post to display the whole list of pins.

Also follow me so I can check out YOUR Pinterest account! 🙂
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Comments

  2. So 1. I love that you used your gym’s common area for a bootcamp + brunch. That’s a fabulous idea and I might do that here in the Bay Area as we have a great rental space for it at my apartment right beside our apartment gym.

    Argh. Neighbors. Boy do I have stories…we chose the top floor of our building for a reason…

    • haha it wasn’t even in the gym area! We pushed aside tables and couches and we were doing planks with food on the ground (I will be vacuuming next time!!). It was pretty great despite the worries beforehand. 🙂

  3. Hang in there girl! Hopefully everything that’s going on will start to calm down for you soon. I’m so glad you saw it as a success despite everything going on in your head because it sounds like an awesome time!

  4. Glad my post could be of inspiration- it sometimes can be so refreshing to simply vent it all out 🙂

    Hope things are on the up, and you can have some ‘amanda’ time. The double whammy of brunch and a workout sounds pretty stellar!

  5. I think you pretty much just summed up my first week of January there – uncontrollable tears and sadness at every little thing for absolutely no reason at all. It’s so hard to take yourself in hand but venting definitely helps (and helps the rest of us know we’re not alone too – thank you!) I tried to get out for a walk (or stomp) round the neighbourhood and sometimes would come home to more tears and other times I’d wonder what on earth the fuss had been about.

    Good on you for hosting the brunch. Sometimes it good to get your butt kicked too!

    • Glad you can relate! Pretty much one of the benefits I see to posts like this is that others can feel like they aren’t so crazy…but that Amanda girl, man…

      Hope you are feeling better now! Hormones/feelings are so tough to deal with because they feel so real and serious at the time!!

  6. What a great perspective. If I’m not careful a bad day can make me feel like a bad life. So not true! Thanks for linking up!

  7. A socially anxious people lover….now that’s funny and something I can relate to, being an oxymoron I mean. I’m an introvert who puts it all out there on the internet. I’m glad, despite your fears, you went through with it all and ended up having a good time. I would have eaten the blueberry waffles too, although you may need to ease up in those bootcamp classes. Didn’t the same thing happen to you at that blogging conference? Walking is important; you need to be able to do that the next day. Ha.

  8. OH MY GOSHHHH. The funny thing is…I NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN you were feeling like this, if I wouldn’t have read this. It’s crazy how anxious and stressed you can feel on the inside and then on the outside look and seem just fine. Seriously girl. I think Saturday turned out awesome despite the amount of people who ended up coming and the crazy snow 🙂 You don’t have to worry for a second! Your waffles were freaking delicious…high five Archer Farms. Next time we get together, lets drink some vino!

  9. Girl, I freaking LOVE you! You are so incredible, you don’t give yourself enough credit but I get it – I’m the same way sometimes! I can be very quiet and get a lot of anxiety but when it comes to my job, I can break out of that and just talk to people like it’s no problem. I think that’s OK though because as long as we’re aware, we can keep working on it and get more comfortable in general. 🙂

  10. Ugh. Oh man what a bummer! I am thinking of you dear. Those tears are never fun! I’m glad you found the bright side of the weekend! I wish I could have been there, I was sick and even with the snow I ended up coming down with my girlfriends, but it wasn’t a perfect weekend for me either. So I definitely know how you feel. I will definitely join you another time!

  11. Welcome to the life of a woman. We all have days, weeks, months like this and you know that good cry always helps! When you move to a new city is really hard to make friends, just know that you have 3 new ones now 🙂

  13. LOVE this post. Good for you for getting it out there. I would have felt the same way. I’m a socially anxious people person too. It’s fine when I don’t know anybody (which is why I think the first year of Blend went better for me), but when I know people and want to keep them around, I am a lot more anxious.

    Sorry I couldn’t make it. 🙁 Stupid snow ruins everything. The good news is that family stuff should hopefully be calming down because I’m up there more frequently, so it will become less of a novelty.

    PS I would have totally eaten the waffles — I’m not allergic. 🙂

    PPS — let me know if you need $$ for the room bc I did duck out VERY last-minute.

    • Yes I think it’s when I want to make friends I get all anxious…like going on a date haha.

      Actually my office manager said we didn’t have to pay (because who was going to rent the room at 9am on a Saturday lol) so that might be a good location for another get together! 🙂

  14. No fear, there’s more socially anxious people lovers than you think (myself included)! I’m always super nervous meeting new people at first which is why I’m probably such a home body granny that I am, but then when I do I remember..we’re all human! You’ve got plenty of love and support from your fellow bloggers who I am sure feel exactly like you do more often than you think. Wish I was closer to the area to revel in our social anxiety people lovin togetha! Here’s to better days ahead : )

  15. Oh girl can I ever relate to having to deal with stress and social anxiety — both of those things have been huge issues in my life for pretty much as far back as I can remember, and I’m pretty sure that everyone deals with them, so at least there’s some comfort in knowing that you’re not alone. When I start feeling that way, I’ve found what helps the most is taking a minute or two to practice some deep breathing. I’ve been doing it for a little over half a year now and it’s made a huge difference in terms of talking myself down from the ledge.

    • It really is comforting to know that others go through the same thing! I need to remember this!! Thank you so much! <3

      I think once I get into the situation it isn't so bad…it's just thinking about it obsessively beforehand sometimes!

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