Weight Loss Photos

Last time I posted weight loss photos I said I would do it in another 2 months just to see how fresh meat changed my body, and it did! I'm officially done losing weight though and I'm trying to gain back at least 3 or 4 pounds so the new jeans I bought last month fit rather than get more baggy. I'm currently at 181lbs.


May 26 - front


August 1 - front


October 22 - front


May 26 - side


August 1 - side


October 22 - side


May 26 - back


August 1 - back


October 22 - back


My favorite part of the difference between August 1 and today is that my thighs are actually bigger (yay muscle!). Also, here's a gif that shows May 26 to October 22.

Minimum Skills! Yay!

So, ummm, I kind of passed my minimum skills at practice yesterday…

I think.

I guess it takes a bit of explaining. With the season being over and everyone doing various holiday things, attendance at practice has pretty much plummeted. So yesterday (Thursday) it was a small group (less than 10 people) and one of the vets asked when the fresh meat would be testing out. The captain/president of the league replied that we’d be testing out around November 10th and the vet said, “Why not tonight?”

So we did.

It was only one other fresh meat and I testing out since our third girl didn’t show up to practice. We took to the track to do our 25-in-5 and I actually improved my time again! This time I got 4:45! It’s an improvement by 9 seconds, which I think is pretty damn awesome.

After that we went and did some other skills. Because it was an unplanned testing they didn’t actually have the list of skills and whatnot with them, so it probably wasn’t everything that would be on something when we test out. We did some weaving, stops, glides, falls, and jumping/hops.

Out of a possible 100 points, I got 89!! I need work on my t-stops (which I knew), my glides on my right foot (getting better!), and my lateral hops (I feel like I’m miserable at them, but I scored higher than I thought I would). I am very proud that I got a high score on my jumping and my tomahawks. We jumped over a small stack of books! Before derby I read books, but now I jump them.

So I’m technically not on the team since I still have a written test and my practice minimum skills test might not stick. I may have to do a more official testing out. The president is going to take it to the board and see if they agree that it counts as a pass, if not I’ll test again in a few weeks. I feel really awesome about it though! Unless I’m having a really horrible day, I can’t see myself doing any worse than I did yesterday. I actually screwed up a few things that I’m usually pretty okay at but I was insanely nervous.

In conclusion: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Bummed out

In various derby blogs I’ve read that every girl has a different fresh meat journey. While I agree that the specifics are sometimes vastly different, I think that reading a lot of fresh meat blogs has opened my eyes to the fact that we’re not special snowflakes. I think about 80% of fresh meat blogs follow this format:
- Introduction: “This is how I heard about derby.”
- Scared: “What did I get myself into?”
- Sore: “Oh god. Everything hurts.”
- Loved: “These girls are amazing!”
- Excitement: “I learned this and this and this and that!”
- Overwhelmed: “I don’t think I can do this.”
- Overjoyed: “I passed my minimum skills!”


I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It’s very reliable because I can see where I am compared to other fresh meat bloggers. Currently I’m in the Overwhelmed stage. I am generally optimistic about life, but I’ve had quite a bit of stress that isn’t doing me much good. On Saturday, I missed practice for the very first time. I’m feeling unsure of myself in my personal, professional, and derby lives. I’m stressing and worrying and kind of feeling like I can’t do it. Derby girls are supposed to be strong, confident, and tough. I am none of those things right now. I just want to feel great and accomplished after a practice rather than bummed that I can’t do ALL THE THINGS.

So how about a good old worrying/whining list like I did a few months ago?

• I will always be too timid to really hit anyone
  
• I will never be able to do a left-footed t-stop
  
• I’ll never be able to do a right-footed glide or hip twist
  
• I will keep saying sorry and apologizing for every little thing
  
• I won’t be able to pass my minimum skills
  
• I’ll never make a friend on the team
  
• I won’t ever feel like “part of the team”

This list is considerably shorter because I know where my problems are. I could also help to fix them by working on the skills on non-practice days, which I haven’t been doing at all. I meant to keep up with working out and skating whenever possible but I just haven’t done it. I know where my lack of motivation is coming from and I just wish it would go away.

Also, just for funsies, here’s my first worrying list from August with the reality in bold.

• My gear won’t arrive in time I got it in time
  
• My gear will be the wrong size Gear fits perfectly
  
• I will break a bone my very first practice 2.5 months later and all bones are okay!
  
• No one will like me At least a few people like me
  
• I won’t like anyone A lot of them are awesome
  
• I’ll be too shy to talk, and I won’t ever know if I would like anyone or they would like me Still kinda dealing with this; I am horribly shy sometimes
  
• I’ll die from the exercise Still alive!
  
• I won’t like roller derby I’m liking it so far
  
• I will never learn how to stop I can plow stop like a mofo, do a slightly ugly but effective tomahawk, but my t-stops still need work
  
• My crossovers aren’t actually crossovers and instead are some weird mutant leg thing I made up lol, they were crossovers, I am clearly mental – my crossovers are actually a lot more powerful now though
  
• I won’t be able to stand still without rolling Iol
  
• I will never be able to get low enough No comment on this one since it probably should still be a concern
  
• The team only has room for a few skaters and I won’t make the cut I think my bigger issue should be whether or not I’ll be able to roster for any bouts when the season starts
  
• I will only be able to do 15 laps in 5 minutes I got 4:54 on Thursday, so this one is definitely not a concern
  
• Heather and Itzel are lying when they say I’m good at skating I was pretty okay for a beginner but I still have lightyears until I’m actually good.
  
• I will fall flat on my face while everyone is watching Yup. A lot
  
• I will never be able to glide on my right foot for more than 5 seconds *cough* Still working on this one
  
• Work will keep me from being on time for practice so often that the team will tell me not to bother to come to training at all I change in the bathroom and then drive to the rink and am usually about 5 minutes early every practice
  
• I will be bad at everything Nope, only bad at some things
  
• Anxiety will get the best of me and I will skip this Saturday’s recruitment event Hahaha, nope

Long posts are my specialty!

“What week are we on?” a fellow fresh meat girl asked me as we were gearing up.

I didn’t know and I told her exactly that. A few weeks ago I had looked at a calendar and determined that the last week of fresh meat should be around the last full week in October, but it may be the week after that, depending how the weeks are counted (back in the beginning, we didn’t have practice for a full week so I don’t know how that factors in). So basically, there are about 3 weeks, or 9 practices until we do our minimum skills test (ack!).

A few weeks ago I was full of love for all of the girls in fresh meat, but now it has formed into some kind of strange anger. I’m angry at the girls that have quit. I know I shouldn’t be, but the fact that there are usually only 2 fresh meat girls (myself included) at any given practice is frustrating. There are essentially 3 of us left.

So this sort of goes against my personal rules regarding talking specifics about people that may read this in the future, but our fresh meat was like this:
--- deleted all of this, I think it was much too intrusive to people that may not want to be blogged about ---

I think a lot of the anger comes from the fact that people came out to try for derby and aren’t really trying. It isn’t something you can just do casually and it bothers me that some obviously tried to approach it that way. I am 100% committed to doing derby and even when I’m not feeling well or my life is crap I am going to go to derby practice and not spend the whole time whining about my various aches and pains (although I admit that last night I had to skate off the track during my 25-in-5 to puke and I didn’t finish my laps and get a time *sadface*).

Wow, this post is already long and I’ve got more to talk about. So, let’s start with Saturday.

Saturday was like fun & games. We did some drills for footwork and did the dodgeball exercise again. We also did the “last man standing” thing again and even though everyone was told not to hit me too hard (since I’m fresh meat and apparently have bones of glass), one of the guys that was skating with us didn’t hear that and got me good. Not the worst hit I’ve taken, but it was pretty brutal.

After practice I rushed home to shower, do homework, and watch Doctor Who before going back to the rink for some more skating. Yeah, even though I had skated for 3 hours I was going back to skate some more because I was meeting with a girl that I had skated with once before derby started. The coolest part was that I was able to convince my sister Laci to join me!! I was worried that the girl wouldn’t show, be late, or not want to skate very much (in the end, the girl was late and didn’t skate very much) and I didn’t want to be all alone.

I have been trying to convince my sister to skate with me for months! We got to the rink and it felt so weird. I had just left there two hours ago and it seemed like a different place completely. The colored lights were on, there were people of all ages, music was playing, and I was wearing jeans. Laci got some rentals and I had her wear my kneepads. It’s a good thing she was wearing them because she fell…a lot. The best part was that she kept getting up. She was sweating and it was a real work out for her (Laci used to be a lot heavier but over the last year and a half she’s lost about 100 lbs). She really enjoyed skating, too. I don’t think it’ll be too hard to get her to go with me again.

While we were there I saw the team’s former coach (he was up in the dj booth putting on some good music and said hi to me when I skated by), my fresh meat coach (he has a very young son that loves to skate), and one of the girls on the team that couldn’t make it to practice. It was refreshing just to skate without having to worry about doing a skill or being evaluated. I definitely want to go to next Saturday’s evening session (no practice that day).

So, on to last night’s practice (finally!). We started out with our normal routine of jogging, doing crunches, pushups, and other icky things and then geared up. Fresh meat was going to do the 25-in-5! I was hoping to get a lower time than my last one of 4:58 but that didn’t happen. After 4 laps I started to feel sick and skated off the track to throw up in the bathroom. When I get stressed and worried I get physically sick and worrying about real life crap made me ill. I shook it off and skated around the track while the other fresh meat girl did her 25 laps.

We split off with a vet and once again, we had to show her our falls just to make sure we were doing them right. Left-footed T-stops were discussed, and it has become very clear that everyone has a preference and most girls are crap with stopping on their non-dominant foot. Most say that they did it okay enough to pass their test, but haven’t really bothered with it since. We practiced plow stopping for a bit before another vet, S, that has led our fresh meat practice once before came over to us. We did some general stuff with stance, grapevines, and some sticky skating.

At one point I said that I thought I could kind of do a tomahawk but that I was still not good at all. S asked me to show her my tomahawk and she could help me out with it. I did one just fine and told her that it was a fluke. Then I did another one without any problems and said that was a second fluke. She told me that if I did it five times in a row that it means that I can do a tomahawk and that it’s not a fluke. So…yeah, I did 10 tomahawks in a row and only slightly stumbled on my very last one.

Sometime later in the practice I asked if we could go over pushes and whips, so we did that for a while. S said that, “If you fall, it means you’re doing it wrong.” I am glad that I am not doing it wrong, but it is kind of a bummer that I’m the heaviest girl and I think the other fresh meat girl was kinda pissed that I would be whipping from her.

While the other fresh meat girl was tending to her skates, S asked me if I wanted to learn something cool. Of course I do! It’s called a suicide fall and while there are a lot of other falls that can be done, this is basically just a crowd pleaser that looks cool. You go down on one knee and then tuck and roll back onto your skates. It’s really cool looking and I think with some more practice and speed on it, that I can do it. I don’t need to do it, but yay fun!

Practice was great for stress relief, and I’m hoping tomorrow’s practice is good like that too (although our fresh meat coach better come to practice!).