Sunday, January 24, 2010

Monday, January 25th, 2010 - Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Food: 

Monday: Cheese wrap (250), Apple slices (240), 2 protein bars (360), 3 oz chicken tenderloins (175), 2 servings rice (480), total 1505 calories, 2424 calories burned, 919 deficit


Tuesday: Cheese wrap with extra cheese (300), Iced Oatmeal Cinnamon Roll (220), Pistacchios (170), protein bar (180), chicken tenderloins (605), total 1475 calories, 2666 calories burned, 1191 deficit

Wednesday: 2 cheese wraps (500), apple slices (240), 1.5 grapefruit cups (180), Pistacchios (170), 2 protein bars (360), chicken tenderloins (330), total 1780 calories, 3039 calories burned, 1259 deficit

Thursday: Cheese wrap (250), protein drink (180), 2 Pistacchios (340), 2 protein bars (360), chicken tenderloins (330), total 1460, 3243 burned, 1783 deficit

Friday: Cheese wrap (250), apple slices (240), IHOP Simply Chicken For Me with fruit bowl (440), 2 servings Pistacchios (340), 3 protein bars (540), chicken tenderloins (220), total 2030, 3421 burned, 1391 deficit

Saturday: Cheese wrap (250), 2 apple slices (480), Pistacchios (170), 2 protein bars (360), chicken tenderloins (220), total 1480, 2714 burned, 1234 deficit

Sunday: Apex Fit bar (210), 1.5 oz cod (35), cheese wrap (250), 2 apple slices (480), Egg Beaters (150), Pistacchios (170), protein bar (180), chicken tenderloins (332), total 1807 calories, 2162 burned, 355 deficit

Total calories consumed: 11537
Total calories burned: 19669
Total weekly deficit: 8132 calories
I'm still going to keep stats with the Polar for each class but I'm not going to use them to calculate them, just the BodyBugg.  I did an example day (in a previous blog) and it was pretty close, difference of 20 calories, pretty much spot on.  I do like the Polar because it lets me know peak and average heart rates.
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 Modified gym schedule (moving houses):

MONDAY 9a Ann Zumba Michele 59/558/40, 166/88, 147/78
TUESDAY 10a Trop TurboKick Linda 60/602/35, 178/94, 152/80
TUESDAY 5:30p Ann Lift Glen 52/312/55, 152/80, 118/62

Packing this week in order to move houses, hating every minute of it.  Got my No Complaining for 30 Days Bracelet and decided not to wait until the move is over.  Thought long and hard about the blog and decided that complaining is allowed here and it wouldn't count about the bracelet, because this blog is about chronicling the journey, whatever the journey turns out to be.

Cutting down on the classes this week to have time to move.  11 classes instead of 20, and hating every minute of it.  6 cardio, 3 lift, 2 cycle.  I noticed I feel like eating more this week.  But I'm not letting myself do it.  I went over 200 cals over one day and decided that was it, no more.  Kept to 1500 yesterday and today, going lower the whole week (1500 instead of 1625 average) because of the lower level of exercise.  Burning around 2500 calories a day or close to it.  I noticed how much I rely on the classes to be my stress reliever, and the lower number of classes and the stress from the move is making me want to eat.  The same things, but more of it.  Increased stress and lowered stress reliever is not a good mix.  But I got a handle on it now, and realized what was going on pretty quickly.

Had Linda for TKB and it was absolutely awesome.  I love the HAs and grunts.  Each instructor has their own distinct personality that comes through in the classes.  Wonder how I will do.  I'm going to start alternating Rachen/Kathy and Linda on Tuesday mornings from now on.  On days I have Linda I can stay for the whole duration of Michele's TKB because there's an hour in-between.

Had Glen (Michele's husband) for Lift today, and liked it.  Thinking of doing Glen on Tuesdays instead of Rachel and keeping Rachel for Thursday Lift.  Thinking of replacing Rachel's Thursday TKB with Megan's Thursday Zumba.  Trying to get as many instructors in a week as I can.  Took me a long time to go ahead and replace Rachel, but I think the larger variety will be good, and I still have her for Lift and every other week for Tuesday TKB.  Thinking of replacing Friday's Donalin with Zumba Mary (and Tuesday's Donalin with Glen's Lift and Nicola's Zumba).  Will probably replace Thursday's Donalin also to get one more instructor in.  Trying to keep any one instructor to once a week.  That'd get me 19-20 instructors a week.

Debbie out.


WEDNESDAY 8a Ann Cycle Dallas 55/516/40, 168/89, 147/78
WEDNESDAY 10a Ann Zumba Ginger 47/441/40, 162/86, 147/78

Ginger kicked my behind so hard in class that the heart monitor strap came off about 10 minutes before class ended.  The BB said I burned 492 calories.  I love having backups.

Pullup update:  I can do one at 85 lbs, and I weight 164 lbs clothed with shows (161 lbs base weight this
morning). That means I'm doing 79 lbs or so. I believe last time about a week ago I was at 74 or so, so I'm increasing around 5 lbs a week. I can almost do 85 comfortably. It goes in 15 lbs increments so I should be able to handle 70 lbs in three weeks, maybe sooner depending on the weight lost.

So this late morning I ran five minutes, twice. I thought I was going to need my running partner but I ended up running by myself. I think I'm going to run by myself from now on, I'm ready. And I DID give myself the shoutout in the mirror at the end.

Three weeks ago I got winded in less than a minute, now I can run a cumulative 16 minutes, 5 and 3 minutes at a time. It went Warmup 5, Run 3, Walk 1.5, Run 5, Walk 2.5, Run 3, Walk 1.5, Run 5, Cooldown 5. Day 1 of 3, week 4. My pace lowered a little bit, 32 seconds instead of 30 every 244 feet.

When I started running the five minutes the first time, I got scared. Of what, I don't know. I don't think it was failing, I think it was something else. I still haven't figured out what, though. But I looked at myself in the mirror as I was starting the first 5-minute run and whispered out loud "I know you're scared" and then I thought I hadn't heard it so I repeated it and then I noticed a runner catching up to me and I froze inside wishing he hadn't heard me. But I think verbalizing it helped, because I could embrace the fear, let it overtake me, feel it, get over it, move on, instead of ignoring it and letting it fester.

There's clocks in the middle of each side so when I start the run I note the start time and end time (not to record, just to know how much is left). And something happens. All of a sudden you've ran a minute. Then two. Then all of a sudden you're halfway. Then you only need two more minutes. Then just one. And who's going to stop when you're down to the last minute?

And I kept thinking, what's the difference between the first step and the next step, or the last ten steps and the next steps? Physically I can do it no problem. It's mentally that's the challenge. 99% of fitness is mental, not physical. But after last Saturday's debacle, I let my mind get away with less. I reached that point, that point where your mind says stop but your body still has a little bit left to go, the distance from mental exhaustion to physical exhaustion. And I failed. I gave up. I went low impact. I burned 100 calories less and I took off the gloves mid-class. The gloves more than anything were a huge blow to me, after convincing someone to wear hers the whole class, no less. But I took them off because I wanted more cardio than weights (that's how I rationalized it). But I've tasted the space between mental- and body-tiredness, and I'll be better prepared next time.

What does this all lead to, though? There comes a point where you do something you're not completely sure you can do. If you were to look at me you probably could go either way on whether I could run five minutes or not (if you didn't know me). Leaning more towards the not, probably. Still fat, still slow, in the middle of the journey where it takes a long, unglamorous time and the ... what's a good name for it... not really the highs, because a good class can be a high, but more of the mini-goals (200 lbs, 25 lbs lost, halfway, etc.) become fewer and longer apart. Pounds come off slowly, muscle builds slowly, if you go all the way in every class there's really no way to measure cardiovascular progress accurately (that's where the running comes in, I guess), etc. etc. etc.

But once you do something you shouldn't be able to do mentally and don't think you can but you do it anyway, time slows down and you stop yourself and think, what just happened? And you know something changed, YOU changed. And you don't know how you changed, or what the change will lead to, or what it all means, but you just know you're not and can never again be the same person you were five minutes ago, because of something that happened in your life. Because your core changed (and I'm not talking about muscles here).

And this is in my opinion the greatest gift exercise has given me. Because you start with one thing. And then when you encounter the next think you can't do, you think to yourself, well I did THAT, why can't I do THIS? And then when the NEXT thing comes along, there's two things backing you up. And slowly something in you changes that you know can never go back, because of everything that has happened. You change whether you want to or not, whether you are ready or not. And it starts strictly with exercise, but sooner or later it spills over into your personal life. There's no way to stop that, even if you want to. And you find yourself doing things that have nothing to do with exercise and that you don't think you can do. And you learn one of the best-kept secrets in life: you can do things even though you don't think you can. No one ever said you had to believe you could do something in order to do it. Next time you think you can't do something, do it anyway.  And all of a sudden you become someone who still gets scared of a lot of things but does them anyway.

And when you fail? You beat yourself up over it, you analyze it, you try to learn from it, you try to extract meaning from it, you wonder what and why it happened and why you stopped and why you failed and why you couldn't hang on, and you use that feeling of utter failure that you hate so much next time you find yourself in that situation. And the more time that passes from last Saturday and the more separated I become from the event, the more I think that may be one of the most powerful events of this journey and one that will help me the most.

Debbie out.

THURSDAY Noon Cheyenne Lift Rachel  62/404/55, 149/79, 121/64
THURSDAY 4:30p Cheyenne Zumba Nicola 57/658/25, 180/95, 165/87
FRIDAY 8a Ann Cycle Dallas 69/671/35 (may have forgotten to turn it off), 177/94, 149/79
FRIDAY 10a Trop TurboKick Beth 56/589/30, 177/94, 158/84
SATURDAY 9a Agassi Lift Mai 57/341/60, 141/75, 118/62
SATURDAY 10a Agassi TurboKick Kelly 59/569/35, 171/90, 150/79
SUNDAY 9a Sahara Cycle Dallas 57/281/60, 144/76, 111/59

Four days without blogging, and even though it's 2/1 in the morning, this update is about this past week, so it goes here.  Read it as if I were writing it on Sunday night).  I've been having health issues.  It started during Kelly's Sat class on 1/23 and it has gotten progressively worse.  I went all out on Saturday and it felt great but I had trouble catching my breath and had to stop in-between pretty much every routine.  The dizziness started around Friday.  Then on Saturday afternoon I started getting chest pains (mild and infrequent) so by Saturday night I went to the ER.  They did an EKG, chest X-Ray, bloodwork (to check for electrolytes, sugar, and such), examined me, BP, oxygen was 98%, and apparently I have the body of a healthy young woman (I just can't use it).  Went to Dallas on Sunday morning and just worked on keeping my legs moving the whole class, which I did, but was really dizzy the whole time.  Didn't get off the seat, went hard 20-30 seconds at a time and it felt great other than the dizziness and shortness of breath.  Going to go to Beth today Monday morning 2/1 and going all out because I want to see if it's worse or better.  Even at rest it's hard to breathe.  Not heaving hard, just shallow breathing.  The best way to describe is being unable to catch my breath.  So the numbers for Dallas were low.

Didn't run yesterday because of the breathing and dizziness, re-doing week 4 when I'm all better.  I'm threading the line between being a whiner who uses every little cough or sneeze to skip exercising and being stupid and exercising beyond my limit.  I want to push myself but not into worse health than I am right now.  And I'm only still going to the gym because all the tests were good (and I had a full workup about a month ago and everything was normal also).  In summary:  Body in great physical shape, can't breathe well (even at rest).

Here are some things I posted as comments on Facebook when talking about sticking to your own kind:
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You know I prefer being with fat people instead of thin people because I'm losing a big part of my identity (no pun intended) after 31 years and it's a big (again, no pun intended) adjustment... fat comforts me :(
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I disagree that weight doesn't have much to do with one's identity. Just as an example, just physically, more weight allows you to do less, and you slowly define yourself (and let's just leave it at the physical level) as someone who can't ... can't run, can't hike, can't bike, can't swim, etc. etc. and all of a sudden you have to redefine yourself as someone who can.
You really start noticing this if you go from one extreme to another, maybe not as much if you stay the same, so it's more a change in weight than the weight itself that makes a difference. But you can't lose weight (not sure about gaining, but I'd think that'd apply too) without your whole entire being changing, and you don't have a choice but to deal and adapt to it (well I guess you could go fat again but that's not an option for me, although tempting).
Just the way you eat... saw a piece of bread on the table an hour ago and almost wolfed it down before realizing I'm not that person anymore who uses food to change emotions.
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I think that sometimes you go through experiences in which you can never go back to the way you used to be, whether you want to or not, and have to deal with a life in which you are different, whether you want to or not.
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I'll write more about this later but yesterday I reached 156 lbs (156.5-157 lbs this morning) and I'm getting to a point where I AM getting skinnier whether I want to or not, and I have to leave behind an identity that I carried around for 31 years, and it's a big adjustment.  I've been thinking a lot about that this past week, even before starting those comments on Facebook.  Because I didn't want to tell myself "You look skinnier" and give myself false hope, so I've been telling myself I look the same, but now I'm getting skinny enough that when I look in the mirror there's no denying I look different, and right around now is when I have to start dealing with giving up Fat Debbie.  And I've had Fat Debbie pretty much my whole life.  Pretend that tomorrow you wake up a different gender and you had no say in it.  Big adjustment, right?  It's exactly the same thing, and now I finally have to deal with it.  Start to deal with it, though, I still have enough fat left over for a couple of months.  I'm down to the high 29's in fat % and goal is 21, so I may reach fat % goal before I reach weight goal (46 more lbs to lose).  I really do think weight is a big part of your identity, and losing the weight means I lost a huge part of my identity and I have to figure out what I'm left with and embrace that.

And the whole moving this week isn't helping.  I'm having to come face to face with being skinny this year, I have to deal with not being able to breathe, I have the move stressing me out and my stress-reliever (exercise) pretty much gone on a week when I have a major life stressor (two if you count the health issues), and it just makes for a very stressful week.  HALFWAY DONE!!  Two more rooms and it's DONE for me.  The new house has a bunch of stuff there already, will be sleeping there sometime this week.  Been throwing out a lot of junk and get to re-decorate.

So I'm trying to remind myself that I have a lot of life changes going on and allowing myself a little stress.

Something I noticed hasn't changed is that I still have trouble getting motivated to do something I don't want to do.  It's not whether it's hard or not, it's whether I want to do it or not.  One week is PLENTY of time to move and I didn't, and that bothers me that I'm not adult enough to take care of it in a week, mental block about it be damned.  So that's one thing that hasn't changed (and I mentioned it with the running a couple of weeks ago also) although I'm getting better at running when I don't feel like it, so maybe that will spill over into my outside life.

The running.  On Wednesday I decided to stop looking at the clock and looked at myself running in the mirrors instead, and again on Friday.  I wanted the feeling that I had to go on running forever and there was no end in sight.  If I look at the clocks I know how long I have left.  And you tell yourself just two more minutes, just one minute, just 10 more seconds, etc., and psychologically that helps you.  It gives you energy when you know there's an end in sight, it does wonders for you psychologically.  I want to take that away.  I want the despair and hopelessness to set in and to think there's no end in sight and that I'll have to keep running until the end of time and that I have no energy left.  Because when you have an end in sight you gauge your energy and you know you can do it, but when there's no end in sight you don't know that you will make it and you just have to keep running.  I want to experience all that AND run, and train myself to run into those conditions.  Because once you train yourself to just run without looking at the clock, you draw into a part of yourself that will keep going when you're mentally exhausted but your body can still go.  I want to overcome the normal mental anguish and despair that comes along not knowing how much longer you have to run.
Off to the doctor today!!  I need my body back !!

Debbie out.