Lifestyle change

So I've been in Cincinnati for about three weeks now, and so far I'm loving it. I'm working at dunnhumbyUSA as a senior associate on the Johnson & Johnson team, though I have 8 weeks of onboarding with all the other new graduate hires before I'm allowed to do any "real" work. I've had a couple little team presentations to prepare for, but nothing too taxing yet. I really enjoy all my co-workers, and I'm reassured that it really is the perfect company for me.

I must admit, though, that working 8-5 every day is quite an adjustment from the rather relaxed schedule I had spring quarter. It hasn't been quite as easy to stick to the "eat every 3 hours" rule that I followed when I was training with Amanda, but I'm doing the best I can. dunnhumby also provides lunch for us at least a few times a week, and typically, it's a boxed lunch, which equals a lot of carbs (sandwiches and cookies are almost guaranteed to be on the menu). I've finally gotten to the point of bringing my own lunch, just to help stay on track. On occasion I will treat myself to a cookie for dessert, but I just can't let myself eat them every day.

In terms of working out, I joined Urban Active for $30 a month, and it's about 7 minutes from my apartment. When I signed up, I also got a free personal training session. I wasn't impressed, and the price was quite high ($45 for a half hour). Luckily, my manager at work recommended her former trainer, Marijana, who is located in Northern Kentucky. It should be about a 10 minute drive, but in bad traffic, it's more like 25. Still worth it to me.

I had a consult/initial training session with Marijana last week, and I've decided to hire her for two sessions a week. As much as I'd like to think I could train myself with weights at Urban Active, it's quite busy and crowded there, and it's hard to get to the equipment I'm familiar with. I also just do a lot better when I have someone else I'm accountable to. I can easily get myself to the gym to do 45 minutes of cardio and some core work 4 times a week, but I need that extra push to get a really good strength training workout, and that's what Marijana will do for me. She's fantastic-- a lot like Amanda in that she's young, does figure competitions, and is very encouraging. She complimented Amanda's training of me, and said that my form was already good and she looked forward to pushing me even harder in the future.

The one key difference is in the diet that she recommends. When I told her that I tried to keep carbs below 100 grams per day and protein of around 140, she said she thought I could up my carbs and lower my protein intake now. When I started with Amanda, my goal was to be bikini ready, so she essentially had me on a competition diet so that I would look really toned. However, now that I'm just trying to maintain a nice figure, I don't have to be quite as strict. Marijana was also concerned that since I'm working 40 hours a week, I will also start to feel sluggish if I only consume 100 g of carbs a day. She made it very clear that since the diet has been working well for me, she didn't want me to change if I felt healthy and energetic on it, but that if I started feeling tired, I should talk to her about potential changes. She did recommend adding a little bit of fruit (which I stayed away from due to the sugar content), so I'm looking forward to eating bananas again :)

We have "bootcamp" at work this week, so we'll learn everything there is to know about dunnhumby condensed into several sessions throughout the week. I went through it last year as an intern, and I'm actually looking forward to the refresher.