It’s been a long time….

I have to admit, I’ve been cheating on you.

I’ve been blogging elsewhere privately during my pregnancy as I didn’t want this blog to become a pregnancy blog. I thought I could still write broad yet meaningful topics here on ThirtyStory while experiencing this life changing event – but, turns out – I couldn’t. I’m sorry about that – and sorry about my disappearing act.

As the day draws closer to actually having my son (we’re due April 23 – just a few weeks away now), I’m definitely feeling that same old current sweeping by me that I had before – that overwhelming feeling of “Can I do this?” And not the be a mom thing. Obviously, I’m doing that whether I’m ready or not, right? But my mind has turned toward those days and weeks after my son is here and I have no excuses to not be exercising regularly again. When I’ll be self-conscious again about my weight (not that that has truly stopped being an issue for me during pregnancy) and I won’t be buying clothes that are made especially for my large belly. At least, that’s the hope, right?

I’ve witnessed more than a few of my friends whip right back down to pre-baby weight and then some – and I wonder, will that happen for me? I’ve struggled with being overweight my entire life, can I honestly let myself believe that I’ll be one of the lucky few that bounce back to their pre-pregnancy bodies? Not that I was even all that happy with where I was BEFORE getting pregnant, but it would sure be nice to at least bounce back to that instead of staying bigger.

I am trying to prepare myself for battle. I know that finding the time and energy to exercise is going to be much harder as a new mom. Working full time, teaching, and having a little one is going to eat up most of my time, so I have to have a game plan. I know other moms and dads who find the time to work out – so I know it’s possible. I just have to find the right work out plan, the right timing and all that jazz. Unfortunately, I won’t know what the “right” plan is until I’m living it. I can’t predict what life will be like in less than a month for me. All I know is that I still have goals for myself – that I still want to reach toward being a healthier and fit person. I don’t want to lose that part of myself and I start this new chapter of my life.

Knowing who you are and who you WANT to be is a big part of any successful goal setting process. I think I have a pretty good grasp on both of those things right now – so it’s all about finding the right path to the goal. I know it will be another adventure – something totally new and different from anything I’ve experienced so far in my life. I’m nervous. I’m scared. I feel like I did the night before my first 5K – so afraid I’d fail, but excited to try.

And that’s what I’m sticking with – the excitement of trying.

When Nothing Else Works…

This whole being pregnant thing is a major cramp on my fitness parade. I’ve been trying hard to find ways to work out that still are fun and exciting – and of course, effective. But the word “effective” has lost it’s luster to me lately. What am I really doing, anyway? I think I’ve lived in a world where if I wasn’t dripping sweat at the end of the workout – I hadn’t really worked out. And I’m just not in a place at 31 weeks pregnant where I can push myself to that point, anymore. So I’m definitely stuck in a rut where I just am not inspired to work out because it doesn’t feel like it’s DOING anything.

I will say that my lifestyle is still pretty go-go-go. I’m not going home and immediately going to bed or sitting on the couch. On the weekends, we are still working on house projects, running errands, etc. I haven’t given up on life as I knew it – it’s just evolved to doing what I can right now. It’s weird.

Yesterday, I decided to try the yoga thing again. If you have read my blog along the way, or you know me at all (even though it’s been awhile since i’ve blogged here, I KNOW!) – you probably know that Yoga is not my thing. But I thought – I’m pregnant, stretching is good – I should give it a go. My chiropractor let me borrow a video that she had used during her pregnancy. I kept putting off doing it because it just didn’t sound exciting. But last night I finally hit play. During the intro part where the instructor comes on the video to tell you about herself, I kept repeating to myself: “Have  an open mind. Have an open mind.” I may have been making judgements about how the yoga was going to be just based on how this lady came across in the video. But I did it anyway – and I completed it.

But I didn’t really enjoy it. It wasn’t that everything was super easy and i wasn’t challenged. Having 25 extra pounds situated like a bowling ball between your lungs and pelvis is challenging even when I’m not trying to do a downward dog. But I kept getting distracted by how enormous my feet and ankles looks while I was in downward dog pose. And I thought – man, this is only going to get worse – I need more socks. More tall socks for sure.

But the video was a bit too “new age” for me. She kept saying things like “keep you heart soft!” and “breathe into the bottom of your belly – surround your child with air!” and I was like how the heck do I do that? I mean, a breathe is a breathe and lately – getting a deep one is a major win since my lungs feel like tiny little balloons right now. My favorite instruction from the yoga lady was “illuminate every cell of your body!” I literally had to just stop what I was doing and stare at the TV. What the heck is this lady on? If i knew how to illuminate every cell of my body, I probably wouldn’t need to be doing yoga. Or working – I’d be like a superstar or something. Or at least a circus performer.

I was irritated at myself by the end of the video. I wanted to have my mind changed, I wanted to find something that made me feel happy after the work out. But it’s just not yoga. Or maybe it’s just not THAT yoga video (I get that instructors make all the difference).

A lot of people have asked me what I miss most since I’ve been pregnant. Do I miss having a glass of wine with friends – for sure. Do I miss the luxury of a quick deli sandwich – yup. But I guess I’m realizing right now that the thing I miss most is just having a “go-to” work out that makes me forget about everything else. Right now – every work out feels “lame” to me – and I either try to turn up the intensity and realize that I can’t do that anymore – or I just feel like I’m not really using my time wisely.

I find myself thinking about what my work out challenge will be once baby is here. How will I challenge myself to get back into pre-baby shape? I’ll definitely have the motivation of extra pounds that need to be lost. But what about right now? I need something exciting, but healthy for me and baby. It just seems like right now I have a lot of questions but no answers.

I am crazy happy about being pregnant and can’t wait to meet this little guy. But I didn’t realize what I was missing until just lately – and I guess I have a limited amount of time to find something that is exciting before my requirements change all over again.

 

Water Running: Great Change Up to your Current Routine!

I finally got to try out a Water Running class this week. It wasn’t the normal instructor – so I’m curious to see how the next class will differ. Either way – I sort of went into the class wondering what we would be doing for an hour and if it would be a decent workout or not. I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of movements we did and how fast my heart was beating! For those of you with access to a pool but perhaps no access to a class version of water running, I thought I’d give you a run down (no pun intended) of things you can do in the water to get a good workout aside from simply swimming laps (which is no small feat on it’s own if you’ve tried it in your adult life).

You can start in the shallow end to get warmed up. Our pool has an open area and then about 4 lanes blocked off for swimming lanes. So we used the width of the pool in the shallow end from wall to first swim lane to do some shorter laps if that makes sense. We did the following:

Jog in the water (just like you would jog on land) forward to swim lane, return jogging backward. Keep your fingers uncupped so that you aren’t propelling yourself forward with your arms.
Move toward swim lane with alternating high knees, come back to wall doing butt kicks – focus on speed.
Move toward swim lane using a “skip” style – focusing on jumping out of the water and forward. So not focused on speed, but on height of your jump. Make sure you are switching which leg you are leading/jumping with. Return to wall in same style

Of course – you can repeat all these several times for a nice warm up.

The instructor also used Tabata style format to get our cardio workout in. If you aren’t familiar with Tabata – it forces you to work at high intensity for a short period of time and then rest and repeat. You can pick the times and how many times you repeat. For our class – we did different versions of Tabata. For example:

Shallow End Tabata (move so you are shoulder deep)
20 seconds: Sprint in place (focus on moving as fast as possible with hand/arm movement in water)
Rest 10 Seconds
20 Seconds: High Knees in place (focus on crunching and make sure you have your arms going)
Rest 10 seconds
20 Seconds: Butt Kicks (in place, quickly)
Rest 10 seconds

And then we would change it to 30 seconds with 10 second rest, etc. You could pick a variety of movements to suit your own needs and amount of time you have to spend for each section.

You will definitely feel all of these exercises in your hamstrings!

To really get into water running you have to incorporate the deep end – because jogging in the shallow end is super easy when you compare it to trying to propel yourself forward when you can’t touch the bottom. A few things on form when water running:

Don’t cup your hands – you want the forward motion to be coming from the leg movement. Pretend like you are doing a leg extension in the weight room – move your right leg to a 90 degree angle in front of you and pull back, repeat on other side – this is the motion you are doing to water run in the deep end. Your hands are moving, but fingers are straight, not cupped. Work to keep your body straight – not leaning forward or backward. You will feel like you are barely moving – but your heart rate will tell you otherwise!

When we got to the deep end wall, we did short kicks while holding onto the wall and  long scissor kicks (using Tabata style again). We also put our backs against the wall and arms on either side to support us as we lifted our legs straight up (back flat against the wall) and pushed them back down into the water. This was extremely difficult!

If you are comfortable in the deep end, you can move away from the wall and do another set of workouts such as the following:

30 seconds: Tread Water using hands and legs
30 seconds: Tread water using hands/arms only – keep legs straight (if this is too difficult, bend your legs some and that will help)
30 seconds: Treat water using legs only – put your arms out of the water to make sure you aren’t cheating!

You can repeat that several times and change up how long you are doing each thing until your hearts content!

Obviously once you are done with that you have to water run back to the shallow end!

A lot of the articles I looked at about water running show people running with floatation belts on. In our class, we didn’t utilize these, but I could see how you could probably work on speed more if you had a belt on to help you stay afloat. I’ll have to try that out one time to see what different it makes. Without the belt, I think it would be difficult to keep doing laps without stopping because it does require so much effort to stay afloat on your own and move forward!

This would be a great alternative to just swimming laps if you are bored with that routine. It’s also great if you are injured or pregnant and can’t do high impact stuff anymore! As always, check with your doctor before taking on any new exercise program as I am not a doctor and can only tell you my opinion of the workout!

 

 

 

 

 

Water Wings & Things

I have no idea why I decided that reconnecting with my inner swimmer was a good idea as we start moving into the winter months. There is nothing more fun than being freezing cold BEFORE you jump into slightly chilly water and then being even more cold as you desperately grab your towel and gear to get back to the locker room to shower and dry completely off before you head outside into the windy night.

Great idea, Dre!

But, I have to be realistic with myself that “going for a walk” every day is just not going to cut it. First off, I only ACTUALLY go for a walk maybe 2-3 times a week even though my goal is every day. So that isn’t a great success rate. It’s not that a walk is difficult, it just seems boring to me after years of high intensity cardio kickboxing or classes set to fun music blasting over the speakers. I need something that challenges my coordination and my mind in addition to just being a good workout.

On the other hand, I realize that working out while pregnant is a different story than just working out in general. I have more things to consider, and like it or not, it’s harder to catch my breath now that things are starting to happen inside me. Walking up stairs winds me more than usual and doing something as simple as vacuuming couch cushions got me out of breathe. It’s super annoying. And then I remind myself that there is a greater purpose  behind all of it and it’s not a forever thing. That helps. A little.

Exploring a New Workout

I’m sure my aerobics class will be pulling moves like this in no time.

So, yesterday I checked out a water aerobics class offered at my gym. Other than it being sort of freezing, I thought it was a good class. Definitely more low key, low intensity than I’m used to – but that IS sort of the point, I guess. And she did have us do some drills where I got to push myself a little harder and I liked those. We worked a lot on resistance stuff – so I felt like that was something I don’t do often enough. We used water weights and did some shoulder work, triceps, biceps – it was good stuff. Everyone was super friendly, and I definitely think I’ll go back.

It’s sort of interesting being back in the “searching for what works for me” stage of exercise. I feel like I went through this process several years ago and discovered I really liked TurboKick and group exercise. So in going back to my roots, I’m remembering that I’m way more likely to keep up with work outs if I’m part of a class/group program. So the water aerobics fits the bill for that. It’s definitely a class you can chat during which is different for me – but I liked it.

On Wednesdays, our gym offers another class called Water Running. The same instructor leads it and she said it’s more cardio focused – so I’m curious to give it a go. Of course, I’ll update you on my thoughts. I’ve never considered a water running class before – so I’m not even sure what to expect! But the part I hate about running the most is the pain in my joints and injuries – so running in the water might be an awesome solution.

Hey – maybe I’ll even find a 5k water running competition. It’s always fun to train for something!

So – in going back to this place in my life where I’m trying to find what works for me again – it’s reminded me of a few key decisions you have to make if you want to try and lead a healthier life. Funny enough, deciding to be healthy is only one piece of the healthy lifestyle puzzle. You have to do a little soul searching, too.

1) What are your priorities? Write them down & rank them.
2) Does your schedule reflect those priorities? (As in: If your #1 priority is your health….are you making time to prepare healthy meals and work out? If not…this is a red flag!)
3) Think of a time in your life when you were successful at something – what were the key factors? How can you replicate this in your current situation? (Example: I’m always more successful when I’m part of a group who are trying to accomplish similar things – so I know for me, finding a workout I can do with a group of people will help me stay on track vs. just trying to do something on my own 100% of the time).

Once you have these three items checked off – you can move to the next step which is actually making changes to your schedule and exploring options that are a match for your preferences. Of course, we’ll talk more about those next time!

My Big Secret

It’s been a long 15 weeks in terms of trying to NOT tell you what’s really been going on with me on my blog. When I first started this blog – my goal was to help others be inspired to make healthier life choices, to create and meet goals for themselves so they could be happier people. My biggest focus was typically on losing weight in a healthy way, exploring different ways of buying and cooking foods, and picking physical challenges to keep myself (and hopefully others) motivated.

But the last few months – I’ve pulled a bit of a disappearing act. Not because things weren’t going on, but because I couldn’t really talk about losing weight or tackling vigorous work outs anymore. In fact, over the last few months, I’ve gained 4 pounds. I’ve incorporated wheat and grains back into my diet out of necessity. I have even had to quit teaching my fitness class – I’m not even allowed to do TurboKick right now. Doctor’s orders!

My whole life has changed.

And it will forever be changed because I’m going to be a mommy!

We finally made our announcement “facebook official” today – so I feel okay sharing my news here on my blog as well for the world to see. I guess part of my ThirtyStory was bound to include pregnancy, right? So now that I’m openly sharing my news – I hope to be able to share my attempts at trying to eat healthy and work out in low impact ways while I work on creating this little baby to be inside of me. It’s already been super challenging after 3 months of feeling like I could barely keep my eyes open, and dealing with the feeling of “I’m about to be sick” 24/7. Eating healthy has been a struggle, because for the most part – I’ve had an aversion to basically all the eating/food changes I had made prior to getting pregnant. I toughed it out the first month and refused to eat crackers or  bread to help settled my stomach.

But a woman can only take so much! So, I’ve been eating breads again – but trying to stay with non processed versions, so I’m not eating a ton of preservatives. I’m hoping that as I am now in the 2nd trimester I’ll be able to wean myself off a lot of the grains/wheats again so I can focus on getting my energy from healthy carbs, lean protein and healthy fats. It’s just been a bit of an uphill battle these last few weeks and I’m sure it’s far from over.  I’ve missed my Primal ways after working so hard to get there in the first place. I hope to find a balance between the cravings and my preferred eating styles.

I hope you’ll stick around so I can share with you my journey and as usual, I’ll tell you the wins and defeats along the way. And for those of you who have “been there, done that” – I’d love to hear your feedback and advice.

I’m excited about this next chapter of my life, and I’m so glad that you all are finally in on our secret and I don’t have to write mysteriously vague blogs anymore. Tonight I’ll be trying out my first water aerobics class – since I can’t do my high impact stuff, I thought heading to the pool might be a good option. I’ll give you the low down on how it goes next time!

Until then….thanks for hanging in there with me until I could be 100% with you again. I promise interesting and helpful content from here on out!

View from the Middle of the Week

The days have been flying by it seems – so much to do at work, trying to keep up with email, projects – events. It feels like a whirlwind sometimes. My 11am appointment canceled, so I thought I’d take a quick moment to post here. I know I’ve become slack on posting regularly – but once the hectic schedule starts feeling normal again, I’ll find time. Just a little adjustment period!

They always have a mind of their own.

So I’m happy to report that I went for my walk on Monday as scheduled – even got the hubby to go with me despite him not feeling very well. I felt a little guilty because we just went and didn’t take the dogs – but sometimes they make going for a walk so very complicated and it becomes this huge production of barking, jumping, clawing and tripping over leases. Sometimes I just want to go for my walk. I know that probably sounds selfish – but if walking is going to be my “work out” a few times a week, then I have to have the perspective of – “Would I bring Yoshi & Peach to turbokick with me?” Nope. Okay, I’m feeling better already.

Yesterday, I taught TurobKick – and my leg actually felt better this time around! I broke it down into sections and did some individual exercises outside of the cardio – so doing some shoulder work, standing abs, squat series. I think that helped me not burn out my leg in the first 30 minutes. I’ll take it!

Today I brought my work out clothes and I’ve decided I have a date with The Ellen Degeneres Show on the treadmill at 5pm. Okay it will be more like 5:15 because I have to walk to the gym and change, etc. But I feel like I don’t really watch any “real tv” anymore since we cut our cable, so it’s a bit of a treat to watch the talk show and I find the commercials aren’t annoying because I haven’t seen them a million times already. Funny how that works. I am growing tired of seeing the same political ads and food ads on my Hulu account though. Apparently my dog Peach has started to enjoy TV. It all started with the Pedigree commercials that run on Hulu about “being a dog family.” For some reason, anytime this commercial comes on, she rouses herself from slumber to sit up and watch the TV. So now we’ve taken to telling her her favorite commercial is on and we get a kick out of watching her watch the screen with what LOOKS like rapt attention. I guess we’ll never know. But since I’m tired of the actual commercials – watching her is more fun anyway.

I’m hoping the weather will hold out for me to ride with the road bike crew on Saturday morning, and the hubby and I are contemplating a hike on Sunday. He has Monday off for Labor Day – my place of employment takes the holiday literally (meaning I have to labor on Labor Day). But apparently my husband plans on being super productive with his day off so that we can enjoy a hike or something non-chore related on Sunday. So sweet, right? I’ll never complain about not having to do chores. I remember in college I would literally climb into bed with all my text books and note books and binders still on the bed. I just didn’t want to clean it up. I didn’t want to make my bed, or put away my clothes. It was pretty terrible. I’m a slightly less messy version of my college self now (almost a decade later) – but I owe that to the “Fear of things being eaten by dogs” motto I’ve adopted over the last 3 years.  Sometimes I seriously wish I had a magic wand to just clean things up. Mop the floors, vacuum the rugs, sweep the floors. Scrub the toilet. Ugh. I hate chores!

Lastly, it’s my other niece’s birthday this weekend, and she is having her party at the gymnastic place. I’m sort of hoping I can jump into the foam pit or try my hand at the bars and balance beams. I never did gymnastics as a child (I was way too chubby), and even though I’m still kinda chubby, I like to think I’m now “athletic” instead. Plus, I have perfected my cartwheel in my adult years somehow (thank you Capoeria training – check out the cool video if you’ve never heard of it  before!) and I’m pretty sure someone will be impressed if I get a little floor time. Seriously though, I was so not anywhere NEAR these guys in the video – but some of the people I practiced with were amazing and I did some pretty cool stuff while training.

Alright, hope everyone is having a good week so far! 2 more Days of Work – we got this!

The “because I haven’t posted in awhile” random update

Okay, so it’s been a few minutes days since my last post – my apologies. Life has been a little overwhelming over the last few weeks. As in, I’m a professional slacker by nature and all of a sudden everything I had put off doing all summer was due! On the other hand, it’s amazing how much I can accomplish in so little time. A little proud of that fact, not going to lie.

So today is first day of classes, and tomorrow is the big event/party I am in charge of for our office and I’m praying every since hour that it doesn’t rain since it’s an outdoor event. A tiny bit stressed about it since we’ve had SO MUCH RAIN that I’m seriously pouring water out of our deck plants every other day. How can we have so much rain here when the Midwest is in a seriously scary drought? Life just isn’t fair.

Chillin on the fire truck!

Our neighborhood had our first block party this weekend and it was a major success! Some of my neighbors were on the committee who planned it and we were all a bit nervous that it would be the usual crew who showed up and that would make for the most expensive hang out ever. But luckily, LOTS of people came out and we had a chance to meet other folks who live in the ‘hood and we realized that there are like 600000000 children in our neighborhood. Note to self: more kid’s activities for next year, right? We had a DJ and the fire truck even came out and the kids (and I) loved it (<— obviously).

But it was a long, hot day – and I’ll admit that I cheated a bit and had a cupcake and pizza. No worries – I learned my lesson because it made me super sick. As much as fresh pizza is yummy going down, it’s just not worth how it makes me feel later on. This week – I’m back to my Primal eating ways and it’s definitely not so bad.

On this week’s menu:

Hot Italian Sausage Meatballs with a squash/onion medley
Shrimp Fra Diavolo – sans pasta of course.
A fresh grilled chicken salad with tons of veggies!
Pulled pork with okra (no bun)

So really, I can’t complain as the food we’ve been eating has been super yummy. It’s weird not counting calories – if I’m feeling like I need more control, checking in on my carb intake has been a better option for me. But the longer we do this, the more natural it seems. That feels like progress.

I’ve really been digging on full fat plain Greek yogurt with a splash of local honey to sweeten it. It’s so rich and creamy, you don’t need much of it to get your fix. It’s a great way to sneak in some extra protein, healthy fats and at least the sugar is coming from a natural place.

Some of my biggest struggles are getting used to regular sugar in my coffee vs. something like Splenda or Equal. I realize now just how EXTRA sweet those artificial sweeteners are and how my taste buds have  been robbed of their natural senses over the year. I long for the day that a tsp of regular sugar is enough for me. In the same vein of thought – I DO recognize how sweet some foods are now. Like when I cheated on Saturday and had a cupcake – I literally felt like sugar was coursing through my veins. While it was tasty, I didn’t love that  feeling.

This is basically what I go through every time I try a pull up.

Last week, I pulled/strained something in my left leg during my TurboKick class. I’ve been stretching, trying to walk it out and avoid high impact sorts of stuff, but man – it still hurts. Not like just walking from my building to another building, but on my longer walks it starts hurting about 5 minutes in. *sigh* Tonight is my first TurboKick class of our new semester, so I really wanted to be high energy and amazing – so I’m hoping my leg holds out for ONCE a week high impact exercises. I’m considering bartering with the exercise gods because I don’t want any newcomers to think my class is lame! My goal is to walk 45 minutes 5 days a week, do turbo 1-2 times per week (my class and I’m hoping to be able to go to my friends’ class as well because it’s nice to go to Turbo and not teach it sometimes!), and of course, I’m still doing my LHT (lift heavy things) work out 2x a week. But that really takes about 20 minutes of my day – so it’s not terrible.

What IS terrible is my attempt at doing a pull up. I even bought some big resistance bands to help me out and I’m still unable to even do 1 assisted pull ups with the band. Why are they so hard!!! I guess I just have to keep trying and maybe one day (like after I die and go to Heaven and all things are possible) I’ll be able to do one. Insert my annoyed face…HERE!

Okay – this is such a random and rambling post today – which is basically how I’m feeling lately, so maybe it’s not so terrible. I promise to be better with my updates soon and have some HELPFUL content rather than just updating you on my rather boring life!

 

Celebrating the BIG WIN

Last time, I talked about the little things along the way and how we shouldn’t overlook how important they are to us on our journey to being healthier. Today’s weigh in felt like a BIG WIN for me, and so I wanted to also properly celebrate that because all those little decisions I’ve been making this week paid off.

What I Did This Week:

I have been tracking my carbs a bit more – not writing down every single thing but paying a bit more attention to where I’m getting my carbs. I was surprised that one of the all natural fruit/nut bars I’ve been eating has like 23 carbs! That is a lot for such a small food item. I definitely want to be careful and not rely too heavily on those as a snack if I’m eating something starchy during the day (like my one allotted potato or corn based meal!). Just having that awareness has helped me make better decisions this week about what I should snack on based on what I had for lunch or what I’ll be having for dinner.

Apparently, it worked! I had gained a bit of weight last week unfortunately. But I sort of saw it coming because I just wasn’t on the bandwagon as much as I should have been. I had Mexican food twice PLUS a day at a baseball game where lunch was wings, popcorn and hot dogs. While I didn’t indulge in a bun with hot dog and  I passed on the cookies -there just is no recovery from so many off plan meals in one week. My weight REALLY fluctuated last Friday and it was depressing, but great motivation to pay more attention this week so I can meet my goals. So I was down about 4 pounds this week from my number last week which was a major win! I know a lot of it was probably just inflammation from eating the wrong types of food last week, but I think at least 1-2 pounds of it is reflective of my hard work this week.

Results

Either way, I am now about 7.4 pounds away from my first mini weight loss goal!!! 7.4 pounds away from my “wedding weight” as I like to call it. I’ve come a long way – I’ve lost about 10.6 pound since my initial visit with a nutritionist to do my metabolism testing back in December. My TurboFire program definitely helped light a fire under me again to take control of my situation instead of just being mad about it. And now my 30 Day Food Challenge has given me the tools I needed to make some life changing changes by really helping me focus on what I’m eating.

I’m finding that what Mark Sission (from marksdailyapple.com) says is true…80% of your fitness/health comes from your diet, 20% from exercising. I definitely think I had this ratio mixed up in the past. I was trying to work out all the time to compensate for some bad eating habits. Now I’m focused on making good decisions with my eating I can work out and not feel like I have to kill myself every time. I can be active in an enjoyable way – like on a hike, a walk with the dogs (although sometimes walking Yoshi is a nightmare!). Last night I wasn’t feeling that great so I didn’t do my strength training program (on the agenda for tonight!). But I decided to do a few sprint type things in the house – I did 50 jumping jacks and then jumped rope for 30 seconds. I did walking lunges and then quick feet drills. I ran up and down my stairs about 20 times as fast as I could (with my dog Peach running right along side me haha!). Something was better than nothing.

I feel like this new way of eating is very empowering. I am finally in control – and it’s a really good feeling. And today was definitely a reminder that all the little decisions along the way can pay off for a big win.

This is my BIG WIN Dance

Routine Vs. Flexbility – Which one works for you?

You ever had one of those weeks where you feel like things are spiraling out of control but you seem helpless against it? That is sort of how I feel at the moment. I’m feeling equally under and overwhelmed depending on what part of my life we are talking about.

During my chiropractor appointment this morning, I could tell that my doc was shaking her head at me. She asked me if I had something stressful going on and teased me about how stress in my life made her job harder. It’s really crazy how your  body reacts to stress. It manifests itself in physical ways. For some, you might have trouble sleeping, others may feel like all they do is sleep and it’s never enough. Maybe when you are stressed out, you reach for comfort foods. Apparently, when I stress out, my body declares war on itself and things stop working properly.

A big part of my journey (both on this blog and otherwise) is learning about myself. Figuring out what works for me, what doesn’t and hoping that along the way maybe I help a few other people out with their goals. I think the 30 Day Food Challenge (Primal/Wheat Free inspired) has helped me start listening more to my body and it’s certainly created new awareness about how different foods impact me – for better or worse! Doing my 90 day Summer Challenge (TurboFire) showed me  I had the energy and will power to work out 6x a week. It gave me routine and structure that I think I really needed at the time because I was feeling a little lost on the work out path.

So here I am, trying to pick up the pieces after my fitness challenge. I’m doing something new – but it’s not nearly as structured. There is a lot of room for flexibility (which I probably raved about a few days ago) – but what I didn’t consider was that with flexibility comes great responsibility. Okay – so that’s not quite how that quote goes, but you know what I mean? Having options for my work outs on most days means I also have the option to just not work out. That’s what I’m struggling with right now – I don’t want to not be active. But I also don’t want to have to stick to the same schedule every week. Where is the in-between?

I’ve been thinking about this for the last few weeks because I just haven’t been pushing myself as hard with my workouts…which is probably good because my body deserved a little break from 3 months of intense cardio workouts. But I feel like I’m dropping the ball a little and not sure that working out a LOT less is going to be the direction I want to go. And this is especially true if I have a day where my food is totally off-base, I need to be upping my workouts to try and negotiate a little body bartering:

Me #1:”You ate a lot of cheese, so that’s going to cost you 2 pounds on the scale.”
Me #2: “I hear what you are saying – but what if I worked out hard for an hour and get my food back in gear the rest of the day? Could we call it an even split?”
Me #1: “You want to play games, do you? Well how about you do your work out, you eat your cheese, and we’ll just see what happens.”

I’m not a very good negotiator. But I DO believe that if my food is not where it needs to be, I have to at least try and make up for it with increasing my workout.

SO all this non-sense to really get to one point (and yes, sometimes i need to ramble before I get to the main event).

If I don’t want a rigid schedule because I feel like it’s a bit suffocating, and I don’t want to have total freedom because I think I’ll just end up staring at the wall at home (or dragging my body behind like this giant bear) instead of doing something active there is really only one solution:

I’m going to try and plan my workouts one week at a time. Just like selecting my meals for the week – I’ll sit down and figure out my game plan for my workouts one week at a time. Then I’ll write those workouts on my schedule in advance so that way I don’t have to think much about it day of – I’ll know what’s on the schedule. But I’ll also have the choice for it to be something totally different the next week if I want.

 

 

 

Live & Learn

Encouragement for the day!

First, a quick update (i know this is probably more for me than you, but just pretend to care!)  This is from my Monday Lift Heavy Things session.

Circuit 1           C 2
Push Up (Goal: 30) 17                     13   (still doing knee push ups)
Pull Up (Goal 20)      20                     20    (used assisted machine which I’m still not thrilled with)
Squats (Goal 50)        50                      50   (I think I’m going to keep at this level for awhile since i’m already doing the essential move, it’s still hard to get to 50 on the C2!)
Plank (90 seconds)   60                     46  (knee/forearm style)
Left Side plank            45                     45   (knee/forearm)
Right Side Plank        45                      35

Notes: I’m still amazed at how hard it is to do push ups and pull ups. I have a lot of work to do before i even think about moving on in both of those areas. I know that i’m hitting my goal with the pull ups – but I’ve used the assisted pull up machine at the gym which is basically cheating I think. I’m supposed to be doing the 2 leg assisted with a pull up bar – so I bought a pull up bar for my house. Tonight I’ll be doing the lift heavy things session at home so i can see how I go with the actual 2 leg assisted versus the machine. I have a feeling it’s going to be WAY harder and I’ll see those numbers come down before they will go back up.

I still have quite a ways to go with the plank series as well. I’ve improved my time since last week, but adding another 30 seconds to my first plank is a big jump to shoot for..and then I have to double my time right now on the second circuit plank. I’ll get there! Still struggling a bit to get on a good schedule with things. Trying to do the lift heavy things series 2x a week and then sprint 1x a week. The other days are for the moderate cardio days. Tomorrow I’m going to my airobics class which will be fun. I’ll categorize that as a Play Day – but it will double as a good workout.

A Few Lessons I’m Learning

Warning: This section is wildly random and not very well written. I apologize in advance, my friends!

I feel like I’ve been totally off track this week, even though I really haven’t. I just had my 2 eat out days yesterday for lunch and dinner and that always makes me feel sort of gross because I’m just not eating what I had in mind. We had a work event yesterday and it included tickets to a skybox for a local baseball game. I was super proud of myself for not eating a bun along side my hotdog – totally ignoring the cookies (they even had chocolate chip, my fav!) and I tried to eat carrots and broccoli as my big snack vs. the wings. But still – totally not food that I would have eaten if I brought my lunch yesterday. But sometimes, life happens and you are at a work event and you just eat what they have and make it work even if it’s not ideal.

Met friends for dinner last night at a Mexican place and had a salad. So that was good. Then today our admin is celebrating her birthday so we went to lunch to celebrate. I ate my lunch before I went, but had this fear that I was going to be starving later on in the day so I ordered a little snack to eat while I was there and walked away feeling totally overfull. I’m not sure what happened – I just had a slight mental break even though I really haven’t struggled with being super hungry in between meals. It was like a flashback moment to how I used to be….and I’m sure some of those old habits will take a little longer to go away completely. Live and learn, right?

Even though our 30 day Challenge is almost up, I’m definitely not going back to how I used to eat. I feel SO much better avoiding most grains and processed foods. We haven’t even been as strict with all the processed stuff because we didn’t eat a whole lot of that to begin with – but I can really tell a difference when I’m eating food that we’ve prepared at the house versus what we have when we go to a restaurant. There are some places that are an exception because we are lucky to have some great local joints in Charlotte who use really good quality food. It’s easy to tell the difference between those places, as well!

I do think a personal challenge I may take on after this is to do a better job of avoiding more corn products. I can live without most of the breads and rolls and things like that. I didn’t think I would be okay, but really it’s not that bad. I don’t miss it for the most part. But as usual – chips and salsa are my personal krptonite. And I feel like if I go to a Mexican place to eat (which I do pretty often as it’s a common fav among my friends and family) – I can carefully order my meal but I really ruin it with too many tortilla chips. I need to get to a place where having just like 6-7 chips is plenty. I sometimes feel like I could sit in a room full of fresh tortilla chips and eat my way out of there with no problem. Okay, maybe not – but what I’m trying to say is: it seems like an addiction for me. So I gotta do something about it. Of course, most paleo/primal folks say to avoid corn products in general or encourage you to use “moderation” – but I think I can’t utilize moderation until I stop feeling like I have to have them, right?

If you could see me right now, I’d be making a super sad face. But because the idea of not having chips and salsa makes me so sad, it shows me even more that I have a problem.

“Hello, my name is Dre and I’m addicted to tortilla chips.” I guess that’s step 1, right?

Oh well, another lesson learned! More tomorrow folks….and maybe tomorrow’s post won’t be so scattered with random musings.