Seth and I came back from our fabulous vacation in mid-November. Of course it was inevitably, albeit creatively, altered by my unique digestive system, but for the most part it was a successful trip. We saw everything we wanted to see and then some, and then we learned about ten times as many places that we have yet to see and must go back for, and of course we spent too much money. We could have done it all for a much smaller amount but in the end it all came down to accepting and enjoying life. And not sweating money too much.
So in January we found ourselves here, in Charlotte. I started working as an ESL teacher again (funny how it came back around) and Seth started working in sales in March. We do not make a lot of money. I make roughly what I made in Korea, in fact a bit more, BUT that is minus taxes and soon I will be paying for rent on top of car insurance, and we have been reintroduced to the daily struggles of life. Seth isn’t really quite sure what his salary will look like, because it will all depend on commission. Overall we make about as much as we need right now, but if we ever want to do something exciting like go on a trip, well, we have to figure something else out.
Back in November I signed up for the ACE personal certification course, and have studied off-and-on since. I’ve taken a break since starting my job in February, and with the wedding last weekend I really just thought it wasn’t going to happen since my life had turned into a void of planning, grading, working, exercising, eating, sleeping, and repeat. But two weeks post-wedding, I find myself with a little extra free time, a little more settled into my job, and wondering how I plan to make more than $22,000 per year. I checked my ACE profile and it turned out not to have expired yet, so I signed up for the test. I’m giving myself 3.5 more months to study, which means I’ll have to really get cracking on it. But it doesn’t seem unrealistic. A little extra motivation: the median salary for a full-time certified personal trainer in my area is $55,000. This makes me think, what the hell am I doing teaching??! You don’t even need a bachelor’s degree to be a personal trainer. I am such an idiot. The test alone costs $400, and a my college education cost… well, many many more dollars.
But I was never really smart with money. I mean, come on, I studied psychology. One of my mom’s personal favorite stories about me was when she found me crying as a toddler and asked what was wrong, to which I responded, “I need a money.” I consider this story to be symbolic, as I didn’t even know how to use money in a sentence with proper grammatical structure, which is one of my fundamental strengths.
So maybe what I’ll try to do is write a little every day about something I know that’s good for my health. One of my more new-found fundamental strengths is health and fitness. So today I’m going to preach this: skipping breakfast.
I know everybody says NOT to skip breakfast, and I used to be the biggest breakfast advocate I knew. Like an Italian mother, I would shake my finger and my head at people who “woke up too late” for breakfast or said they weren’t hungry in the mornings. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” I would parrot. But at some point I realized that whenever I ate breakfast, it seemed to stretch my stomach and make me hungrier all day, rather than what everyone says it’s supposed to do, which is fuel you. I tried everything though! Oatmeal, eggs, fruit, wraps, yogurt, bread-y cheesy meaty German breakfasts, even smoothies. It would just turn me into a more extreme form of the usual ravenous monster I inevitably become at the normal meal times. But the result would be that if I was trying to be calorie-conscious, my calorie budget would run out by dinnertime, which is the most fun part of the day for eating, let’s face it guys.
So here’s what’s worked for me, especially in times of getting ready for bikini season: skip breakfast, do a fast until an hour or so before lunch (like 10:30) and eat an apple. Then have a delicious salad for lunch with lots of fats like olive oil and avocado and a date or two for a snack, work out in the afternoon and then pig out for dinner. At least kind of pig out, you’ve definitely earned it by then. Oh yeah and water — lots.
Ah well I won’t divulge all my secrets right now. But there, Niya! I wrote. I’ll maybe do it again tomorrow.
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