💪🏻 A Most Unreliable Narrator 👀 #182 I must, I must, I must increase my bust
We just want to pump…you up!
Dear Internet,
It’s Friday afternoon and today was leg day. After my workout, I iced my quads for 15 minutes each, drank a protein shake, and took Tylenol. When that was done, Mr. Lisa used a massage gun on my quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves. The pain in some areas was worse than the actual workout. In otherplaces, I almost cried. Yes, this is what leg day looks like. Yippee. /s
(After I showered today, Mr. Lisa and I did a 1.5 mile round trip walk to get lunch. While my quads ached, walking wasn’t an issue. Getting up or sitting down, however, is painful. Allegedly, Saturday will be rough. I’ll report back next week.)
Friday also marks the end of the first two weeks of Mr. Lisa’s plans to get me in shape. My weight has been steady for the last 10 months (no additional weight loss) and Mr. Lisa is convinced my metabolism is too slow. I’m keeping to the diet and moving my body but this time, Mr. Lisa is putting me through my paces to kickstart my metabolism.
I work out four times a week with the weekend and Wednesdays my days off. Each workout day is a different muscle group. I lift weights first for that muscle group and then do 15 minutes of cardio by either speed walking on a treadmill or rowing. Listening to podcasts helps take the boredom out of both.
Once we get to the cabin for the season, I’ll move my workouts to the local Y and continue there. I will also incorporate swimming instead of walking some days. Plus, I also plan to include more hiking and walks than we did last season. There are a lot of ways to get exercise in N. Michigan.
I set up an appointment with the fat girl surgery clinic last week and told them what is going on (diet remains at around 1400 calories, I’m walking 2-3x a week, and I keep losing/gaining the same five pounds). He said to cut carbs to 40 – 50 net carbs a day and then call back if that didn’t work. I said, wouldn’t age (I’m 51), hormones (I’m nearing perimenopause), and drugs (weight gain is a common side effect of several of my psych meds) also affect the weight loss? All he said was “Sure.” The appointment lasted less than 10 minutes. I told my therapist what the nutritionist said, and he was also flabbergasted by how the appointment went.
It's not that I’m opposed to cutting carbs, but when I did the special liver shrinking diet before surgery, it was three weeks of eating 40 – 50 net carbs a day. I did not lose weight. I was bitchy. It was not a fun time. My approach now is to keep on working out with Mr. Lisa, continue to move 2 – 3x a week, and when our current groceries are depleted, get rid of processed sugar. A long hard truth is that I enjoy processed sugar too much. I’ll also keep an eye on net carbs and continue tracking hydration. Hopefully these new additions will help.
I mentioned a few months back I was done tracking food because it’s so stressful. The stress level hasn’t changed but, unfortunately, I’m terrible with math and I need to do something to keep my carbs and sugar intake in line. I’m starting to accept that tracking food is in the same vein as taking my psych meds: I’ll probably do it until I die.
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I have a big announcement in this week’s issue of Lisa Writes Stuff. I cannot wait.
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This is a video I did for a conference back in 2019 so pre-surgery and 60lbs ago. Damn, those chins!
It's six minutes on why you should watch Love Island UK. Enjoy!
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Like many people, I have more than one Gmail account. Each one was set up for a specific purpose or to save the username. Over the years, I’ve been deactivating those Gmail accounts since they were not being used. I use my domain email address for stuff so having all these accounts are pointless.
Sometimes, to destress, I need a repetitive task to do. I decided earlier in the week to clean out one of those Gmail accounts and shut it down. Over the last few years, websites using that email address or newsletters I was subscribed too have been moved over to a new email address. I knew there was a few stragglers, so I hoped to catch them before deactivating the account.
I started with nearly 20K emails in that account. I’m now down to less than 20.
For the repetitive task itself, I searched for domains in that email’s inbox, deleted the emails, and unsubscribed any mailing lists I was still on. I also went through and updated any services tied to that email or deactivated those accounts.
I used this exercise as a digital archeological dig of some sort. The mailing lists I was subscribed to from 2016 – 2019 (when I used the address) was interesting. My interests were not that far off from Lisa today but for some, I wouldn’t even think twice. A lot of websites no longer existed for me to deactivate the account or unsubscribe from their mailing lists. A few mailing lists I subscribed to from my current primary email address. Going through this and culling the information was kinda neat. I liked looking into the life of Lisa eight years ago.
Unsurprising to me, there was a lot of frustration closing website accounts tied to that address. For one, several did not have the option to either update the email or delete the account. I had to call to customer service for a few of them to get those accounts closed. Still others, I had to go to a hidden privacy page (hidden because it is not linked anywhere on the site) to request deactivation / deletion of my account. I left a scathing review for one service because after nearly a decade of being a customer, I could not even update my email address, let alone deactivate the account. I asked the chat bot who directed me to email support (which is not listed on the website). I email support and I was directed to a hidden page to request the deletion of my account. The form was broken. I respond to support that I cannot complete the request. They tell me to clear my cache and try another browser. Same issue with three browsers. Support finally gives me an email to their legal team to get my request taken care of.
I email legal with the chain of support emails requesting deletion of my account. When I got the survey for this company, I marked I was unsatisfied and listed a litany of reasons why mainly illustrating that the chat bot had the incorrect information, that the company had been around for over a decade and you cannot delete the account, let alone update the email. It was very Karen-esque.
I got a response from them telling me the error message with the form I was directed to be a known tech issue and that the support agent forwarded my request to have my account deactivated. Would I please now update my rating. I responded that no, I would not. I asked why would I need to email the legal team to delete my account if the support person could do it and I still have yet to hear from legal on the status of my account. Another Karen-esque email. No response to that one.
To continue on my digital archeological dig, I went through my password stores with that email address. Same as before, any service with that email address got updated or deleted. I’ll keep the Gmail account open for a month or two for any outliers and then I will close it.
There was a very satisfying feeling of completing this task. I decided to do it to another Gmail account, one I used for many, many years until a dipshit also name Lisa Rabey in North Carolina started using that email address as her own. I tracked down her husband who told me this was all my fault. I’m still trying to figure this how. I congratulated him on his status with East Carolina University, their new Subaru, and how the house hunt was going? Never heard back. I was forwarding them those emails to also no response. Now I just either unsubscribe or shut down the account it was tied to.
(People using the wrong email address is not uncommon but it’s super frustrating when you track the person own who is doing this and they refuse to stop. Like moron, how is this benefiting you? And if you want to harass me, I just unsubscribe or close down your account.)
Yes, I can be an asshole.
Wonderful Thing
Reality Bites (the movie)
2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the movie, Reality Bites. I was the audience when the movie was released as I was 22 and same age as the characters. The story revolves around a group of friends who just graduated from college. They are attempting to find themselves in their new adulthood.
Trailer:
The cast is perfect and the soundtrack slaps (as the kids say). So much of what they were going through, I was also going through at the time. Growing up in that GenX era was tough. We were the first generation of divorced parents and latchkey kids. Regonomics was falling apart and we were told Social Security wouldn’t exist by the time we were of retirement age. The idea of working for the man for decades or even a pension was laughable. The cost of living included job wages, tuition, and house prices skyrocketed and made it difficult to achieve anything at the current rate of inflation. We were making $4/hr and expected to survive on that. We lived paycheck to paycheck and hoped we did not lose our jobs. The Silent Generation and Boomers were our parents. While they were off chasing the capitalistic dream, we were left alone to fend for ourselves.
Now, you can come at me with other generations having it suck but GenX is almost always forgotten.
A Google search for “forgotten generation” brings up pages of results referring specifically to GenX.
The article, Forgotten Generation X slackers no more, showing boomers and millennials how to deal when ‘Reality Bites’, presents this legit image that went viral a few years back:
Don’t get me started how AARP forgets us. The oldest GenXer is 60. SIXTY! We’re prime AARP material and they still cater to silent generation clingers of life and boomers. Fuck ‘em.
Yes, this is a very passionate topic for me.
But back to the movie!
You were either a Troy Dyer fan (Ethan Hawke) who represented the slacker, overly educated, bad boy or Michael Grates, the charming responsible yuppie. When the movie came out, I was #teamtroy. 30 years on, you’d think someone of my age would slide towards Michael. I’ve given this a lot of thought but nope, still #teamtroy to the chagrin of many of my GenXer friends.
From the winter of my discontent,
lisa x