No Alarm, No Problem? Not Quite.
Thank you to all who entered my giveaway for a personal wine cellar from Staples! Congrats to the winner…Heather! And remember to not forget Staples for your appliance needs…they don’t just sell paper clips!
Ever since I started going out more frequently on weekends, and staying out later when I do so, I’ve been fighting that little voice in my head telling me I “shouldn’t” be doing it. I figured/told myself that once temperatures started descending the summer nights would disappear and so would my desire to go out. However, this hasn’t been the case. I’ve got the energy to fight the cold, get dolled up, and hit the dance floor after dinner.
Rooftop 120 chocolate martini shots!
I went out to Rooftop 120 after Friday night’s Scotch vs Bourbon event (details to come by the way) and out to Barcelona West Hartford after Saturday night dinner at J. Gilbert’s. I didn’t go out because I had friends pressuring me to make plans…I went out because I wanted to. I initiated the plans. I woke up Saturday morning already wishing it was time to be out that evening with my dancing shoes on and a glass of bubbly in hand. I woke up yesterday morning already excited for this coming Friday and Saturday nights.
Jeff and I at Barcelona – the hipster glasses are continuing to make the rounds.
Something annoying kept happening this past weekend while I was out. I would be having an excellent time, look at my phone and see that it said something like 10PM. I’d get nervous, and think about the next morning. I have a weekend policy – unless I have somewhere I need to be I don’t set my alarm. I’m woken by one Monday through Friday and I don’t need one Saturday/Sunday too. There’s nothing like waking up naturally. So I don’t set my alarm and on weekends and I go to the gym whenever I wake up. But as I kept checking my phone for the time on Friday and Saturday night, I’d start stressing out. Okay, no alarm, so what if I wake up after 10? I can still go to the gym but I’d miss the harder classes. I’d miss the Step, the spin, the classes that are in my mind bigger calorie scorchers (though I do find them enjoyable too). Though I set no real alarm on weekend mornings, my mind tried to set a mental alarm and therefore a mental cutoff for how late I could stay out.
Seductive librarian mode.
I’m rambling here but I wanted to write this post to express to myself how annoyed I am with my constant first-instinct to squash my own fun. As soon as I’m out having a good time, being 24, dancing at a bar with a smile on my face, the bells go off in my mind. Check your phone. Oh man it’s almost 11! Be sure you’re asleep by midnight. I know the music is incredible right now but you really shouldn’t stay out. You’ll sleep too late and have a bad workout and waste your day. The later you stay out the more calories you will consume. So while I had a fabulous Friday and Saturday night and am glad I went out in the first place, I’m frustrated that I felt like I “had” to go home before I was ready – and then gave into that fear. Could I have stayed out later dancing and having a great time? Absolutely.
A photo from one of the most fun nights I had all summer.
My mornings this past weekend were enjoyable. I felt refreshed, hydrated, and well-rested. I killed it at the gym. But if I’d woken up an hour later, the same thing probably would have happened. I just might have had a different workout that wasn’t a group fitness class. And that would’ve been okay. I really need to work on not trying to control every little moment. Without an alarm on the weekends, I feel that lack of control and I think that’s why in my mind I felt I had to exercise control at night instead and go home before I wanted to. Man, I’m still rambling!
The point is life is short. If I want to go out on the weekends and stay out late and not set an alarm, that’s fine. I have a full time job. I wake up to an alarm five days a week and hold it down at the gym after work. Even if I were to wake up late on a weekend morning and miss a spin class and decide that means I don’t want to do ANY workout that day, the world would not end. I need to keep trying to give myself credit for the good I do in my life so that I can truly start believing that I deserve to enjoy myself. So no, I’m not going to start setting an alarm on the weekends. And yes, I am going to probably want to go out this weekend. And I hope I will remember this post when I do so, because I don’t want to check my phone like it’s a time bomb, and feel afraid to see “12:00 AM”.
Do you put pressure on yourself to get an early start on weekend mornings?
Do you ever find yourself associating nights out with extra calories?
