I liked blogging so much last week that I decided to keep doing it in my weekly entries from now on.
So I applied early this morning for a Group X instructor position. I was thinking about what I wrote in the blog, and I thought to myself, isn't not being a GX instructor because I'm scared (of forgetting routines, of freezing up in the middle or beginning of class, of not being able to learn the classes, etc.) going against what I said in my blog? And really, if I can do 24 classes in 1 week, why can't I be a GX instructor? Those classes last week have really boosted my confidence in that just as I decided to just do them, I can decide to just do other stuff. So I applied. We'll see what happens.
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Food:
Monday: 3 X protein bar (540), 3 cheese wraps (750), protein bar (180), Vitatop SF (90), total 1656
Tuesday: 1.5 servings Cheerios (150), 2 cheese wraps (500), Shakeology (140), Protein bar (180), footlong roast beef sub (580), total 1550
Wednesday: Cheese wrap (250), protein bar (180), footlong roast beef sub (580), Special K protein shake X 3 (570), total 1580
Thursday: 1 X Special K protein bar (180), 4 X servings Special K protein shake (760), footlong roasted chicken on wheat sub (660), total 1600
Friday: 2 X chicken breast on wheat footlongs (1280), 2 X Special K shakes (380), total 1660
Going to start upping my calories to 1700-1800 for a couple of weeks and see what happens. People still tell me 1600 might not be enough.
Saturday: 2 Special K (SK) protein bars (360), 1 SK protein shake (190), 4 Pluots (mix of plums and apricots, a fruit) (160), 1 cheese wrap (250), 1 bananas (120), footlong chicken breast on wheat (640), total 1720
Sunday: 21 strawberries (189), cheese wrap (250), banana (120), footlong chicken breast sub on wheat (640), 2 egg wraps (400), SK shake (190), total 1789
Total: 11555
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Exercise:
MONDAY 9a Sahara TurboKick Michelle 54/584/35, 175/93, 81/153
MONDAY Noon Zumba (32/358/35, 172/91, 157/83)/PowerSculpt (26/185/60, 141/75, 122/65) Kathy (totals 58/543)
I had no idea what PowerSculpt was. Took it once back in the first few days of September and never took it again and had forgotten the format. This class kicked my behind, at only 30 minutes. I have it again in a little under three hours for a full 45 minutes with 15 minutes of abs. I am going to skip Lift today.
I love it when classes kick my behind. I huff and puff, but for the most part I can hold my own at Zumba, TurboKick, 24Lift, etc. But when I take a class with a tough instructor (i.e. Michele) or a class I hadn't taken in a long time and was more difficult than I remember, I love that. I started taking Michele about two weeks ago and have taken her Zumba class twice. Before I had been doing Zumba for three months. So while each instructor varies it a bit, I can catch on pretty quickly. Not with her, her class is tough, and it invigorates me. So we'll see how tonight's PS goes.
At PS this afternoon my left knee started hurting, acute pinpointy pain right in the middle of the front of the knee, to the point that I had to do half-squats leaning to my right and keep my right leg going for both sets of lunges. I don't know what's up with that, it was fine during TK this morning and has never given me issues. Let's see if three hours of rest cures it.
I was all rested for TK and was able to go full force with it and it was just absolutely awesome. I love it when I can go hard on a class. It makes it more fun. I'm keeping good heart rates for cardio today.
MONDAY 4.30p Ann PowerSculpt Kathy 59/396/55, 152/80, 119/63
I think the 24 classes are going to end up being a pivotal point in my life. I've been thinking a lot about them. What's the difference between doing something or not, i.e. why does one person do it and another one doesn't, everything else being equal?
I underwent a little change back in May of this year, back before this whole weight thing and right around the time I turned 31. I was trying to decide whether to do something or not. It really doesn't matter what it was. But it was scary and I didn't know whether I should do it or not. And this is how I decided to do it: Let's assume whatever I choose, it's going to be the wrong decision, and I'm going to regret it the rest of my life. I.e. if I choose not to do it the right decision would have been doing it and I would regret not doing it the rest of my life, or if I chose to do it the right decision would have been not doing it and I would regret doing it the rest of my life. So assume I made the wrong choice and assume I will regret it the rest of my life. Which of the regrets would I rather live with, the regret of doing it or the regret of not doing it? Which wrong choice am I better able to live with? There have been three things, including that one, that I have decided in this way since late May. And I don't regret doing any of them. If it was the right choice, whoppee, if it was the wrong choice, I can live with it. I'm not sure whether I made the right choice or not, but I'm able to live with the choices I made.
The 24 classes are kind of a continuation of that. I feel myself slowly becoming more confident as I shed the pounds. I respect myself more and I like myself more. I start thinking about all the things I haven't done because I'm scared and then I wonder at the stupidity of not doing something just because of fear, and I want to go and do them. I think the 24 classes are going to change my life and I'm going to keep referring back to them a lot. It's like I already know that whenever I encounter something I don't want to do out of fear, I'll think of the 24 classes and how I can just go and do something. Not think about doing it, not weighing the pros and the cons, just doing it. I think I'm becoming stronger because of the whole weight experience. I hadn't really noticed much of an internal change until these past few days. Just like I'm finally starting to go down dress sizes fast, I'm also strengthening myself inside. Why can't I do something just because I'm scared? I control my fear.
I really liked PS and I think I'm going to change up the 3 X Lift for Lift/PowerSculpt/SET. Going to try and change up instructors a little from week to week.
I didn't have the pinpoint knee pain, but the knees felt a bit weird. I think they'll be fine by tomorrow. I'm not going to push through knee pain, though, but will rather adjust workouts around it. Although I have a feeling it'll be as good as new tomorrow for TK.
TUESDAY: I've really been feeling the fat lately. I still have a lot of stomach left, and I guess this is how pregnant women feel. I think I underwent a change inside in that I'm thin inside already and now the outside has to catch up... i.e. think, act, feel like a thin person. My stomach's been bothering me physically lately, especially when sitting down on chairs. I wonder if there's really something behind that and it's not all just in my head, for example what if I lost weight everywhere else so now my stomach is a heavier center of gravity that pulls me down more. But it's been really uncomfortable, especially this last week or so. I wonder when I'm going to lose my stomach.
What I really want to do is take the classes with my 110lb body. I can't wait for the day. When I can move fully and do every single exercise to the max of my natural ability.
TurboKick has really become my going all out class. Zumba's the fun class, and although I burn about the same amount of calories, I feel I exert more in TK. TK is where I go to work hard, cycle's where I go to leave it all on the bike, and Zumba's where I go to have a party.
Every time I go to the gym I feel lucky for every punch, kick, etc. that I get to throw. I feel blessed to have a healthy body that I can use and push. Doesn't matter what kind of shape I am, I will always be huffing and puffing at the end because I give it my all. There's no point in me going to the gym if I'm only going to go half force in class. I'm going to give it everything I got. Sometimes I don't have a lot left that day, but I give it. I feel it's a privilege to be able to move and exercise. The goal each is just to give it my all and hope that the rest (weight loss, muscle gain, cardiovascular health) follows. But all of this stopped being about weight loss a long time ago. Maybe it was never about weight loss this time around. I'm not even sure I know what it's all about this time around, all I know is that each day I watch what I eat and go to the gym. I went from my three food groups being pizza, hot dogs, and hamburgers, to learning about macros (40/40/20 protein/carbs/fat) and nutrition. More on that later.
The one thing I sense happening is that I'm becoming more daring, for lack of a better word, and I don't really want to use more brave yet. After those 24 classes it just seems that there's really no point in being scared of anything anymore (and I wasn't scared of the 24 classes but if I can do that, why can't I do ANYthing else?). I still of course will get scared at the prospect of doing things but I don't think that will stop me from doing them anymore. I feel a sense of serenity and strength and assuredness on a level I haven't had before. And I think it's happening right on time.
TUESDAY 9a TurboKick Kathy 57/531/46, 159/84, 141/75
TUESDAY 10a Pilates Rachel 61/186/60, 122/65, 90/48
TK awesome as always, that class is gaining ground on Zumba as my favorite class. And Cycle's getting up there also. I'm not pulling 600's anymore, I guess that's a byproduct of losing weight... you burn less at rest and you burn less exercising (because you're carrying around less weight). Today I touched both fingers while having the legs extended sitting down!!
A bit on nutrition. The following are MY BELIEFS and not held as "The Truth." I believe in 40/40/20 protein/carbs/fat. I find low-carb people funny (and hey, I was one of them... lost 47.5 lbs on the South Beach Diet during 2004 and gained it all back... wasn't exercising at all) because of how rabid in their beliefs they are. I don't argue with them, just nod my head at the bad carbs and slowly move away. Your brain needs carbs to function. You even need fat, you should never dip below 10%. I think that's the perfect ratio of nutrients.
TUESDAY 6.30p Craig TurboKick Donalin 53/487/45, 157/83, 140/74
Floor was really slippery and I was afraid to move too much. I had new shoes but they worked better at Cheyenne so I will test them again at Cheyenne this morning, maybe they had just cleaned the floor.
People are starting to call me an inspiration and I almost got two people motivated enough to start exercising, just by posting what I do. It's funny because I've never defined myself as an inspiration, so I don't know how to take that.
WEDNESDAY MORNING
So I logged in what I ate and I'm eating way too much fat, above the recommended daily max. Protein bars have an obscene amount of fat. So I'm playing with an online meal logger to come up with a good 40/40/20 that stays below the fat. Have come up with some configurations but all of them have too much sodium. Sigh. No damage done as I'm at the lowest weight I've obtained, but I haven't lost more in a week. Going to have to regroup and see what I come up with food-wise. This week I wish I didn't have to worry about food and macros and fat content and eating, just because it's so much of a hassle.
I made a decision about weights. Going to keep my 3X Lift (Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays) and on each of those days I will allow myself to do Power Sculpt or SET.
This week is a little different and I'm doing a Lift on a Wednesday. Rachel was subbing for a long time Lift and Step and I took both quite a bit so I'm going just because it's her last time teaching those before the regular instructor comes back.
WEDNESDAY 9a Lift Rachel 56/349/60, 139/74, 115/61
WEDNESDAY 10a Step Rachel 29/215/55/140/74, 126/67
WEDNESDAY Noon Zumba Kathy 61/586/45, 160/85, 143/76
WEDNESDAY 6.30p Craig Zumba Donalin 52/498/45, 182/96, 143/76
Do you ever get the feeling that your life just changed? I don't know how or what changed, but I can tell it's not a negative change. Something changed in me tonight. Only time will tell what it was and how it changed and how it will impact the rest of my life.
I think a lot lately about how I'm able to move. I'm enjoying moving. I keep thinking that all this stopped being about losing weight a long time ago. It started being part of who I am, part of what defines me, part of my core. I'm someone who exercises daily and watches what she eats. That's who I am now. I don't think I can ever go back to before, to eating whatever and not exercising. I've left that behind. I don't even know why I exercise anymore. But I know it's not to lose weight and no it's not really about gaining muscle and it's not about cardiovascular health or living longer or better. I exercise because I can, because I get a rush when I exercise and I feel alive.
I increased my weights to 30 for arms and legs, thinking about going to 40 for legs tomorrow. I can't handle anything larger for arms right now. Dumbbell wise, using a pair of 10s and a 15 for sitting bicep curls.
THURSDAY 9a Agassi TurboKick Rayna 54/507/45, 161/85, 141/75
THURSDAY 10.30a Craig Zumba Michelle 50/565/35, 173/92, 158/84
THURSDAY Noon 24Lift Rachel 57/437/55, 150/79, 127/67
Five Turbos during TurboKick this morning. Previous record was three I believe.
Rachel found Kelly!! (Well, knows Kelly) I'm going to Kelly's TurboKick on Saturday. Looking forward to that.
I think my core's getting stronger. About time!! Been working out for 5.5. months or so far. What's funny is that if I touch my stomach, I have MUCH better balance than if I hold my hand out, I think it reminds me to use my core. Been doing Pilates for months now. And the part that allows you to lay on your back and raise and lower your legs is getting stronger also.
Who would have ever thought that exercise could help a person in much more ways than just losing weight. Losing weight seems inconsequential now. I keep the numbers and weigh myself daily because I like to see fluctuations and I'm just used to the tracking by now, but losing weight is now just a byproduct of the exercising.
Exercise has given me courage. Strength. Determination. And fearlessness. I don't think of fearlessness necessarily as the lack of fear, but rather as doing something even if you're afraid. Whenever I think of doing something now that I don't think I can do, I picture myself doing it, and then think, why not? That could be me. Do this, say this, go here, do that. Just make the first move and the rest follows. I really thought I could go through this unchanged, but I was very wrong. And I have a much higher appreciation of life and health. There's fitness and there's health, and I'm glad to have my health. Moving is like a duty... I can move so I should move. I can do this move in class so I should. Going easy on class just cheats yourself. Going all out for me is the only way.
Losing weight does change your life, though. Makes you more confident, there's definite benefits to your dating life, helps you be more respected and better compensated at work, etc. Many non-health-and-fitness related benefits.
Have to leave like in the next four minutes, but I just had a brilliant idea: 24 Turbos in a row (right about now I feel lucky they didn't call it 72 Hour Fitness). Will learn a Turbo round then going to videotape myself doing it 24 times in a row and then post it on YouTube and link it here (it will run about an hour). Don't know if I can do it or not, so the plan is just to learn the Turbo like the back of my hand and then just press play on the stereo and record on the camera and start with #1. Video blog :) And I have a feeling I'll have a few thoughts about it afterwards to write about here.
And as always, safety first. Know your body, know your limits, live your body.
Thursday night: Well, had a flat tire and missed my night workout. Now I'm just ticked off. Going to have to
go harder at it tomorrow to make up for it.
FRIDAY MORNING - I had to weight myself 3 times this morning. 170.5 lbs. First time it surprises me. But it didn't go back up, it stayed there.
I think one of the best things I ever did was change the way I take the GX 24Lift class. I load up on the weight so that I can't last the three minutes, so I essentially changed the class for me from long reps low weights to short reps high weights. The former builds endurance and tones muscles while the latter builds muscles. I think after two weeks I can notice a huge difference.
FRIDAY 8a Ann Cycle Dallas 57/547/40, 163/86, 142/75
FRIDAY 10a Agassi Zumba Pam 54/519/45, 207/110, 143/76
Definitions. We all have definitions of ourselves. Good dresser. Bad dancer. PTA mom. Workaholics. We all have little boxes where we put ourselves. It helps us understand our place in the world, and it's not necessarily unhealthy. I think as human beings we need to know how we fit, where and how we belong, and how we are defined in terms of ourselves, other people, and the world. We are so and so's mom, so and so's sister, so and so's nephew. The world makes sense when we apply definitions.
I find my definitions changing. I'm going to start training for a triathlon in 2 weeks. I am scared witless. Because in my definition, I am not someone who runs triathlons. It's as weird as you telling me I'm a man. It's just who I am, part of my core makeup. So what happens when things go on in your life that change your definitions? Not things that allow you to change definitions of yourself, but things that change definitions of yourself. There's a big difference there. What if you change and had no part in deciding to change, if change just happened, and you wake up this morning with all these new definitions that you now are and just have to get used to being them?
Take the 24 Turbos in a row. It came as a joke on Facebook, and then I thought to myself, well, is it really such a crazy idea? Isn't that what I do now, come up with crazy off-the-wall fun ideas to challenge myself even more this time? Things that I have no idea whether I can do or not until I go and try them? And so far the only thing I've tried is the 24 classes and I was able to do that, and I'm pretty sure I can do the Turbos, but the real test will be the first time I fail one of my little experiments. And you can be sure I'll blog about it.
So back to definitions. I don't picture myself going through the finish line, I feel myself going through the finish line. It's this weird feeling I've been having nowadays that I KNOW I will do something. I don't think I will do something, I know. I know I will finish that Triathlon. It's not really a question whether I can do it or not, it's just a matter of waiting until May so I DO the Triathlon. So now there's all these new definitions of me that I have and have to get used to. My life is now being defined by what I CAN do instead of what I CAN'T do.
What's the real reason behind these challenges? Because it makes me feel alive. It helps me experience this new body I have. I like pushing myself now. Each new challenge redefines me without me planning it to. My life has become a life about new experiences. I was in cycle this morning and the music was loud, Dallas was yelling as usual, and I closed my eyes and thought... I'm alive. This is what feeling alive means. This is what being alive is. There's other things too that I don't blog about (surprising, I know... this is not an all-out confession, this is just what I don't mind people reading). But there's huge changes happening right now in my life because of all this and things that I find myself able to do now that have nothing to do with fitness/physicality/being in shape. An experience like the one I'm going through changes all aspects of your life, changes you. I thought the only thing I was doing was losing weight, but it turns out that's the least of what I'm doing. I don't really see it as me changing my life, I see it as my life changing whether I want it to or not, because I myself am changing in ways I haven't really fully grasped yet. It's kind of a minecart racing down an old dilapidated mine with me hanging on to it. It's a wild ride and I'm just hanging on while all these changes go on around me.
So.... definitions.
FRIDAY 5.45p Craig Zumba Donalin 59/627/40, 175/93, 151/80 ****
Saturday morning: Today's word of the day is FEAR. I've been thinking a lot about fear lately. About being afraid to do things. There's so many things we don't do because we're afraid. And sometimes we DO go ahead and do them and feel liberated. It can be something as simple as jumping off a pier into the lake below, it can be going out on a blind date, it can be sharing something with someone else. What are we afraid of? Failure? (big one) Rejection? Making mistakes? Being wrong?
Ever since I turned 30 a year and a half ago I've been thinking a lot about making mistakes. I give myself permission sometimes to make mistakes. Just sometimes. I'm getting to the point that I'd rather do something even if it was a mistake than not having done it. Life is fluid, changes from second to second.
This whole journey/weight loss thingie has facilitated that in that I allow myself to do things now even if they scare me. Even if they're wrong. Even if it was the wrong decision. And if there's one thing I'm not scared of anymore is failure. Fall down, get back up. Fail, try again. There's always tomorrow. Heck, there's always later today. Fall back, regroup, go at it again. If you fail at something now you know why it didn't work and you can change that.
I want to take a little detour and talk about losing weight. I hear stories all the time about people who just started exercising and the weight just fell off, just slipped off. I've had to work for every tenth of a pound lost. It hasn't just melted off. I have an average of about 1.85 lbs a weeks, which isn't a lot (in my opinion). It's about 96.2 lbs a year. You hear of people dropping 5 pounds in a week. That hasn't been me at all. It's been slow, it's been gradual. I see myself all the time so I don't notice the physical changes. As far as I know I'm still fat. I exercise every day so it's not easy for me to notice even fitness changes. Whatever level I'm at at the moment feels like the level I've been at forever. But I stopped exercising for progress a long time ago. Nowadays it's just what I do. Work, sleep, eat, exercise.
Life doesn't always give you what you expect. But maybe it gives you what you need, or maybe you can make do with what it gives you. And maybe what you wanted comes in a different package than what you expected. I find myself thinking, hhhmmm this isn't what I expected, but it'll do. It'll work out. Look around. There's life. Maybe not the life you expected, but life. And what are you going to do? Live it. That's all we CAN do. Adapt. Look at what's in front of you as foreign as it may seem and see if it's actually what you needed all along.
SATURDAY 9a Agassi Lift Karen
SATURDAY 10a Agassi TurboKick Kelly (!!)
(forgot to take my heart rate strap to work and I had to go from work to the gym, so no stats. I'm going to start leaving the strap in the glove compartment. Watch now how the first time I leave it there, it's the first time I get a ride to the gym!).
I took a class with Kelly today. Recognized her instantly. Turns out she subbed a lot more than just that one class, I had her for a few weeks, but it took me a bit longer than that to really get to know instructors. So there I was, inches from her, doing the same TurboKick moves months later. There's no other term to use but special. That's when you stop a second and go, Man, this is what life is all about. Those moments that you can keep forever. It was like a cycle. I must have lost about 30 pounds from the last time I saw her and I know of at least one exercise I couldn't do then that I could do now (TurboKick skiing, for anyone curious). Thinking of making that a regular Saturday class, and get to have seconds tomorrow morning.
I want to write a little about food. I hear of people who think of food as just fuel. They learn not to derive any pleasure from food and to just it to fuel their body. I think that's depressing. I like food. I enjoy it. And I think I can enjoy it and be healthy at the same time. I did emotional eating just like a lot of people. But I find that nowadays I do almost no emotional eating at all (I've had 3 cheat meals in the past 5.5 months and that's all the emotional eating I think I've done... more on that later) while still enjoying every bite. A few things happened to shift things that way. First, exercise physically fills you up with endorphins, so I'm pretty much on a constant state of exercise-high. It feels good. It didn't happen immediately, but now I have an ongoing buzz just like if I was sipping alcohol throughout the day every day. It built up enough and I exercise enough to keep it going. I've become an exercise and adrenaline junkie.
Second, this journey changes you and makes you stronger. You like yourself more and you respect yourself more and you start being happy with just you more and food kind of loses its grip and power on you. You don't really need emotional eating because your emotional needs are being met.
The best thing I did was read Eat This, Not That! Once I saw all the crap that goes into foods, I just couldn't eat that way anymore. I will rarely eat something without a nutritional label (i.e. something being offered at work). More than calories, I need to know what's inside and what I'm putting into my body. Take alcohol, for instance. There's beers with 25 calories but the alcohol itself wrecks havoc into your body that takes hours if not days to fix. Not worth it for me. So it's just about the label, but about what effect the ingredients will have on my body.
Here's my view on cheat meals: Let's say you eat very well Monday through Saturday and want to have a cheat day Sunday. You didn't really save anything for the cheat day. I view it more as I did this progress from Monday through Saturday and why would I sabotage it on Sunday? Cheat meals are an obstacle between me and my goal, and after a few weeks without cheat meals, I don't miss them. Lots of people use cheat meals as psychological aids but I'm enjoying pushing myself so much I don't need a mental nudge at the moment.
Saturday night: I didn't think I was going to go into this, but here it is. My dad passed away on June 3rd of this year. He was in great physical and mental health and was 69-years-old. He slipped down the stairs at home, hit his head, and died. The last thing I ever said to him was "Talk to you tomorrow." That was about six hours before he was dead.
Went to Venezuela (where he lived and died) for a month. Left on June 3rd and came back on July 2nd. On June 30th I purchased my 24 Hour Fitness membership online from the same house I was born in and the same house he died in, maybe even from the same computer he used (I had my netbook with me and can't remember which computer I used). Got home on 7/2 after 11p and on 7/3 I started going to the gym.
Have I dealt with him dying? Haven't even started. I have no idea how to deal with a parent dying so I just put it to the side while I figure that out. If you were to look me in the eye and ask me point blank whether I was using exercise to avoid dealing with my dad's death, I'd just look at your right back and say "yes."
But something unexpectedly happened. There's a lot of things you can use to numb the worst kind of pain you've ever felt in your life. Exercise just kind of fell in my lap and I latched on to it with all I had. But something evolved that I wasn't expecting. Exercise changed me, changed me internally, made me stronger. I started paying attention to how my muscles moved in order to better exercise but along the way I also started paying attention to my emotions, to myself. Exercise prepared me to in the near future BE able to go through dealing with my dad's death. It paved the way. So the one thing I used to escape something is the one thing that prepared me to face it.
If you were to ask me whether my dad dying got me to start exercising, I'd actually tell you no. Because I didn't really go, "my dad died now I have to change my life, make his death count," etc. There wasn't that much thought involved. If anything I think that my dad dying changed something inside me and maybe that change led to the exercise, so in a round-about way maybe it had something to do with it but I personally think they were two different unrelated events.
Calories in, calories out. In a world that all of a sudden made no sense (after all, he was supposed to die at least in my 50's if not later, not at 31), I could have numbers that made sense. I could have equations and gross calories and net calories and max and average heart rates. I could have a world that made sense. The rate is different for everybody but by and large exercise and eat right and you lose weight (it's actually a lot more complicated and difficult than that but for argument's sake we'll use the simplified version). I guess I would agree if you decided to call me an optimist. I always think that tomorrow is going to be better. But I seriously never in a million years thought that my world could change so irrevocably for the worse. Thought never entered my mind. My dad said he was never going to die and I believed him.
I no longer tell people it's going to be ok. I don't know that it's going to be ok. I never know if tomorrow's going to be worse. What I tell people is that WE'RE going to be ok. I've seen the human spirit and it's a wonderful thing. It can get through anything. People were designed to endure the worst kind of pain and come triumphant on the other side.
I've been thinking about emotions lately. And what I came up with is that a lot of the time we have an emotion and want to translate it into action. I'm sad, what do I do with it. I'm angry, what do I do with it. I'm anxious, what do I do with it. I'm happy, what do I do with it. And more and more I believe that the best thing to do with it is to just BE the emotions. If you're sad, you don't necessarily have to watch a funny movie, call someone, take a walk, or do something that takes away the sadness (you very well can, but I have another alternative). How about just sitting there and BEING sad? Live the emotion. Feel the emotion. Be the emotion. It's ok to have the emotion. It's ok to experience it. Crying helps, as does yelling. I remember in one of my worse nights I was sitting on the recliner and felt it coming and (being alone in the house) yelled at the top of my lungs something to the tune of "Come and get me AAARRRGGGHHH!!!" and I let the sadness and the searing pain overtake my heart, my soul, I surrendered all of myself to it. You feel the pain and the sadness and the helplessness coming, you embrace them, you feel them, you become pained and sad and helpless, and sooner or later it passes and you move on. Don't be afraid of experiencing emotions without having to run out and act on them. Become one with your emotions.
I'm actually not a very touchy-feely person, at least not a very touchy-feely-SHARING person. And if anything I'm more apt to share in writing than in person. But this journey has changed that and if we were standing in front of each other I may remember everything that has happened in the last few months and decide I'm scared out of my mind but one of my new definitions is I'm someone who shares and I'd be able to say all this as well. Maybe not. Maybe one day. But the point of this paragraph is that I think exercising and really embracing the journey allows you to get in better touch with your feelings and yourself, so that it starts as a physical journey but it ends up being an emotional and spiritual journey as well.
I used food to numb emotions. But maybe a reason I don't do that anymore is that I'm not scared anymore to feel and embrace whatever emotion I'm having, so food kind of became pointless for that. I mentioned I haven't eaten emotionally in months. That's because I stopped translating emotions into actions and just letting emotions be emotions. Get them, feel them, move on. I think that brings you closer to your humanity.
I've had a couple of good days (not that the days before sucked, but I've had some good stuff happen lately). I was in the car and I realized just as I wanted to run away from sadness before, I also wanted to run away from happiness. Just to shun emotion. But I thought to myself, this is good, let yourself feel good. Let the good wash over you and let yourself enjoy this. I had to give myself permission to really feel good. And if anything that's harder than letting myself feel sad. So if life is happy and serene, feel it, enjoy it, just as you would feel sad or alone. Let the high of happiness wash over you and enjoy it. And that's what life is, feeling the emotions as they come along and being ok with experiencing any of them. And I think that as we learn to feel the sadness and the happiness, each time we get to enjoy emotions more and feel more, and maybe one day I'll feel the happiness coming and yell out the same battle cry in glee.
I still don't know how to deal with my dad dying but it's more of an item now on my to-do list. I have the tools, I just have to find the instructions. And it's not something looming over me, it's just a task set to the side for now. I don't have all the answers. I'm not even sure I have ANY of the answers. But being ok with whatever life throws at you and whatever is in front of you at the moment gives you the security that you'll be able to handle anything that comes your way (even if you have to add an ", eventually" at the end).
SUNDAY 9.00a TurboKick Kelly 51/570/35, 173/92, 156/83
Good end to the week. Can't wait to start over tomorrow. I love Mondays, a whole fresh week ahead of me.
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19 classes, but two of them I didn't have the chest strap on so no stats.
For the other 17 classes: 8147 netcals, 912 minutes, 6815 gross cals
Lowest weight so far this week: 170.5 lbs.
Calories burned a day (based on 170 lbs): 2044 (14308 per week)
Calories consumed this week: 11555
14308 - 11555 + 6815 (+2 unaccounted for classes without stats, a lift and a TurboKick) = 9568
One unaccounted for TurboKick, and one unaccounted for Lift.
This coming week going to go for 1800 a day. So that's
14308 - 12600 = 1708 + exercise
Even if it doesn't work out to a 7k caloric loss, going to see how it works out because the net caloric difference is only part of the equation. I'm going heavy on the weighlifting and maybe revving up the metabolism.
I'm switching the food a bit in that I don't really plan it that much anymore, I just eat and log and then towards the end meal I adjust based on what I've consumed so far that day. And I like my cheese wraps and even though they have a relatively high amount of fat it's ok because since I eat low fat the rest of the day I'm still below the recommended value for the day. So this freedom to pick and choose works better for me than adhering to a certain pre-determined menu (but a pre-determined menu did work wonderfully for that 24 class week). I'm getting along enough that I can tell what I've eaten so far and keep a mental log until I can get to the computer.
I wanted to do a shout out to Ludovic Courtet, who runs Aristocrat Fitness (http://www.aristocratfitness.com/). I've messaged with him through Facebook and he has a ton of info on his website. He's a personal trainer and he says it costs to have him there physically but his knowledge is free. I wish I retain that spirit. Knowledge should be free and we should all help each other achieve our goals. We're all in this together, and losing weight and getting fit and this kind of journey in general is a group effort. I've had tons of support during the way. I've found Facebook to be incredible when it comes to support networks. I've met people there who I've never seen in real life who all support each other.
