FOOD: Lowering the calories to make up for the lack of exercise but won't go below 1200.
Monday: 5.5 oz cod (128), cheese wrap (250), apple slices (240), Pistacchios (170), 2 protein bars (360), chicken tenderloins (165), 1313 total calories consumed, 2269 total calories burned, 956 deficit, 7 meals.
Tuesday: 2 protein bars (360), cheese wrap (250), chicken tenderloins (165), 12 oz salmon (442), fruit drink (110), 1327 total calories consumed, 2344 total calories burned, 1017 deficit, 7 meals.
Wednesday: 100 grapes (200), cheese wrap (250), 4 oz salmon (237), apple slices (240), Pistacchios (170), 3 oz tuna fillet (157), 1250 total calories consumed, 2644 total calories burned, 1394 deficit, 7 means
Thursday: Cheese wrap (250), 2 apple slices (480), Pistacchios (170), protein bar (180), 8 oz chicken tenderloins (220), 1300 total calories consumed, 2368 total calories burned, 1068 deficit, 7 meals.
Friday: Cheese wrap (250), apple slices (240), Fiber One cereal (120), 1 lb tilapia (580), Shakeology (140), 1330 total calories consumed, 2588 total calories burned, 1258 deficit, 7 meals
Saturday: Fiber One Cereal (120), 2 apple slices (480), protein bar (180), 8 oz chicken (220), cheese wrap (250), 1250 total calories consumed, 2588 total calories burned (!!, same as yesterday to the calorie), 1338 deficit, 6 meals
Sunday: 1.5 Fiber One cereal (180), four Flatout bread Light (360), Pistacchios (170), protein bar (180), apple slices (240), 4 oz chicken tenderloins (110), 1240 total calories consumed, 2663 total calories burned, 1423 deficit, 8 meals
9010 total calories consumed, 17464 total calories burned, 8454 deficit, 49 meals
Average of 1287 calories a day consumed, 2494 calories a day burned, 1207 deficit, 7 meals
MONDAY 9a Sahara TurboKick Beth Didn't have the Polar, the BodyBugg says I burned 282 calories, went low-impact because of sickness, blog talks about this). First time doing R39, talk about it below.
Three weeks until my TKB and HHH certifications (the HHH being worthless for me right now as I'll never use it but you never know and it's here in Vegas might as well take it). Really excited about being able to buy TKB rounds and teaching TKB.
Waiting for the doctor's office to open to make an appointment.
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MONDAY NIGHT: STILL sick. I don't know what's wrong. I went to TKB this morning and did what I could. I can't go high impact even if I want to, the dizziness prevents me, and I'm still not breathing well. Still having chest pains. And now I feel lousy, too, up to Saturday (the last day I was able to go high impact) I was feeling great. Couldn't get in to see the doctor today but I have an appointment for tomorrow at 10a. I have another TKB class tomorrow at 8a and plan to do what I can again. Didn't have my heart rate monitor this morning but the BB said I burned around 282, which I was pleased with as I was just pretty much standing there just moving my arms. The dizziness made it very hard to bend and so I didn't do any bending and stayed standing the whole class (not that there much bending, mostly one exercise where you squat down then push your legs back, which just happens to be my favorite exercise ever but I couldn't do it).
This was my first time with Round 39, and I'm in love with it. I don't really remember round 37 but really fell in love with round 38 (which I would say we started about a month after I started the group classes) and loved the Turbo, and didn't think I was going to like 39 (because it wasn't 38), but I am thoroughly pleased. The Turbo's awesome too. I really like the intensity, I would say it's higher intensity than 38. I was looking for ways to raise the intensity and found none, the whole round is solid and at a good intensity. I really can't wait to go full force with it.
I stayed in the back corner of class trying to hide out. I don't care exercising in the front but I don't want to set a bad example for other people. If I had something physical, i.e. a cast, I would, just to show you can exercise with a cast, but if it's something internal that cannot be easily seen it's different. I realized something, I don't really care about my size, but about how hard I can go in class. The harder I go the better I feel and the lower intensity I have to take, the fatter I feel, and I felt fat this morning.
Still moving, and today was pretty much a waste as I get winded getting out of bed. I'm not getting to the heaving part because I can't put out enough exertion to get there. A lot more dizzy laying in bed, sitting, standing. Trouble breathing even when laying down. Not so much gasping for air but more of a shallow breathing and I can tell I'm not breathing right or fully. So I have four days left to move 2 rooms and what's left of another, the bathroom, and the DVD tower in the hallway. I really want to get back to normal quick.
Other people at the gym have had sicknesses and injuries and I realized a few months ago how good it was to be healthy and able to exercise and enjoyed being able to move, so that if I'm able to move, it's my duty. Now I doubly appreciate it, and I can't wait to be able to exercise again. I miss it. In the same week I gained a major stressor (moving), fell sick, and lost my stress relief (exercise). So I'm allowing myself a little stress over it. I don't know if I have a cold, allergies, stress, or something else, but something is definitely physically wrong with me right now. I don't think it's dust because it started last week and it has been a slow but steady progression, and I started getting visibly winded on Thursday during Nicola, but noticed trouble breathing even before that earlier in the week. The dizziness started around Friday and the chest pains Saturday, when I went to the ER. EKG and chest X-ray normal, 98% oxygen saturation, BP something like 107/58, no fever, bloodwork (electrolytes and sugar) normal. Pretty much I have the body of a healthy young woman, I just can't use it. The doctor tomorrow better not tell me I'm fine. They also checked for a lung embolism (blood clot) in my lungs, found none.
Tuesday 8a Ann TurboKick Michele 57/405/50, 164/87, 125/66
Tuesday 5:30p Ann Lift Kathy 57/298/60, 129/68, 110/58
I was surprised I burned that many during TKB, I was expecting 250, not almost at capacity. I was able to go high impact maybe 10% of the class, I can't imagine this round when I'm all better and going at 100%. It's a 600 round for sure if it's a 400 round at 60% capacity.
So I went to the doctor and he said I have a virus. My eardrums are thinned out and pulled back, especially the right ear, causing the dizziness. Airways constricted, causing the difficulty to breathe. The chest pains are because viruses constrict the chest walls or something, so it's the actual chest that hurts, not the heart or anything like that. Low impact for another week or two then I should be able to go high impact, gone in 3-4 weeks. Recommends I don't take it high impact right away because that will just delay the healing, but sees nothing wrong in taking it up by Saturday of next week or so. Offered a bronchodilator but it was just for the symptoms, doesn't actually heal in any way, so I declined it. I prefer not to take medicine unless necessary, and I'd rather deal with a symptom for a week or so than take medicine if the symptom is not that bothersome.
The dizziness is still very prominent, and he said my right ear is worse than my left, and I did notice during Lift today that I had more trouble when I was lunging with my right leg in front than the left.
Losing last week and this week of running, trying to pick it up by Wednesday of next week at Week 4 and I should finish by the third week of March, giving me the whole month of April to run the whole thing and really prepare. Really hoping I can just go back to the 3/5/3/5 instead of having to start at week one.
So the dizziness is not helping the packing, but I'm determined to give it one last hurrah tomorrow and Thursday and finish with it. Room tomorrow (today, I guess, since it's just after midnight), garage Thursday, corridor and bathroom Friday, sleep in the new home for the first time Friday. So it's really two more nights in the old house.
Had a bit over a 1k caloric deficit today, making me 33 calories below the 2k goal for the week so far. I have cycle and Zumba today so maybe I can make up the calories. It's very hard to go low impact and still have a 1k daily deficit. Kind of stuck between 156-157 lbs, which I'm happy taking into consideration the almost non-existant level of activity. If I can hover around 156 and then come back full force in another week, I'll be happy. Losing two weeks or so to the virus. My goal is to be at 110 lbs by September 1st, the anniversary of starting the group classes (not going to make it by 7/3, the anniversary of when I started exercising, just had too much to lose). at 157, that's 47 lbs in 30 weeks (22 weeks until my workout anniversary), or 1.56 lbs a week, and right now I have high 80s low 90s (~1.8X, ~1.9X lbs a week) making it very doable. And the thinner I get, the harder I can go, and the running will help, and once I'm in better shape all the hiking and mountain climbing/biking and biking in general, etc. And I'm going to start a boot camp within the next month, that should kick things up a notch. It meets all throughout the week and it's a hardcore outside fitness experience. $150 a month unlimited classes, and I can make about 15 classes a month, making it $10 or so a class. Maybe I can make more classes if I skip the gym lifting on Saturday and see how it goes muscle-wise, they do have a lot of strength-training drills, so if this could be a possible schedule:
Thursdays and Fridays, there's a class at 5a and one at 6a, I can try and make it through as much as I can of both, so that could be 4 classes right there. Saturday there's a 7.30-9a class which would interfere with Lift but I wasn't crazy about that Lift class anyway, not sad to see it go, and in time to make Kelly's TKB. That's 5 classes. Everyday there's also a 6p class. Monday there's Linda so that's a no. Tuesday I could drop Donalin's since I have her for Wednesday Zumba, thinking of dropping her Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday classes and keeping just Wednesday, because I'm trying to vary it a bit, been taking her a lot for months now. So I could make it Tuesday to the class, making it six. Wednesday, that's Wednesday Night Zumba (see what I did there), so that's a no for boot camp. Thursday I could go, and also Friday, making it weight a week. So it would look this this:
THURSDAY 5a
THURSDAY 6a
FRIDAY 5a
FRIDAY 6a
SATURDAY 7.30a
TUESDAY 6p
THURSDAY 6p
FRIDAY 6p
That would make it 32 classes a month, or $4.68 a class. If at the beginning I can't hold out the double-classes, that would be 24 classes a month, or $6.25 a class. And it wouldn't interfere too much with the gym, just Donalin's clases. And I would have to drop Glen's Lift on Tuesdays, which I was thinking of doing, and sticking with Rachel on Mondays for Lift. I only took him once, so better now than later, although I still will take him 2-3 more times before I start the boot camp.
Just found out Kathy will do a TKB on Sunday at 9a at Craig next week, will have to take Dallas on Wednesday and Friday instead and scoot over to Kathy. I miss her TKBs. I like to go to the classes as much for each instructor's personality and idle banter as for the workout. I should be able to go all out by then.
The more I think about the boot camp, the more I like it, I like to be challenged. And they have sessions in which they measure pushups, situps, running, etc, so I'm going to make one of those my first session and see what improvement there is after a month. There's something really appetizing about working out outdoors and doing something different all the time. And if the only casualties are Glen and Saturday Lift, I'm good. Could be worse.
Here's a possible schedule once the move is done and I'm back to normal: (already accounting for the boot camp)
MONDAY 9a Ann Zumba Michele
MONDAY Noon Agassi Lift Rachel
MONDAY 4:30p Cheyenne SET Kathy
MONDAY 6p Agassi Zumba Linda
TUESDAY 8a Ann TKB Michele
TUESDAY 9a Cheyenne TKB Rachel (arrive a bit late)
TUESDAY 10a Cheyenne Pilates Rachel
WEDNESDAY 8a Ann Cycle Dallas
WEDNESDAY 6:30p Craig Zumba Donalin
THURSDAY 8a Ann SET Beth
THURSDAY 10a Agassi TKB Rachel
THURSDAY Noon Cheyenne Lift Rachel
THURSDAY 5:30p Ann Zumba Michele/Ginger (they alternate)
FRIDAY 8a Ann Cycle Dallas
FRIDAY 10a Trop TKB Beth
SATURDAY 10a Agassi TKB Kelly
SUNDAY 9a Sahara Cycle Dallas
17 classes, have to give up 3 gym classes to add 8 bootcamp classes. Good trade. And Wednesday is kind of open. I think just the boot camp will be a workout enough, so the gym's just icing on the cake, and other than the cycle and the Lift (the cycle for the triathlon, the Lift to avoid losing muscle) I can skip the other classes.
There's a combo at Trop on Friday mornings that I want to try out, Fabian 9a, Megan 10a. That means skipping Beth and Dallas, though, so I think I'll stick with what I have for now and just do that combo if Beth ever has a sub (since I take Dallas two other times a week).
Linda does a TKB Tuesdays at 10a that I want to try out. I don't know if I'll just give up Tuesdays TKB and Pilates for now and just do Michele and Linda, since I really enjoyed Linda's TKB, and then go back to Kathy's TKB in May when she comes back, that gives me about 12 weeks with Linda. Will probably end up doing that.
Did I mention I'm really looking forward to the boot camp?
Needless to say I've gone gloveless. Kelly advised I take the gloves off while I was doubled over heaving on Saturday but I politely refused. I will have to be pretty bad off for me to ever take my gloves off during a class again, and doubled over heaving isn't even close. I wonder now if that Saturday the week before last when I took my gloves off was the virus starting. I noticed it some during Megan, so that's even before that Saturday, on the Thursday of the week before last, and I -really- noticed it during Nicola on Thursday (of last week), and then I was heaving all over the place Saturday (of last week) during Kelly. Sunday during Dallas I went low-impact, and also Monday during Beth and Tuesday during Michele and Kathy. Today is officially Day 4 of going low-impact. So it's been a slow progression with feeling worse and worse. This morning my right ear bothers me, I have some stomach aches, I feel feverish and have a mild headache, and still with the shallow breath and chest pains. And dizzy of course.
So the gloves are staying off for now, I really need to go low-impact until I kick this, and it seems I'm still going downward and haven't started getting better yet, as I'm still seeing new symptoms. It's funny because I have the dizziness and shortness of breath and chest pain and stomach ache and headache and feel feeverish but I feel the symptoms, I don't actually feel that bad myself, i.e. I don't have that feeling of malaise, so other than each specific symptom, I feel pretty good.
Apparently my ears have to "pop" before the dizziness goes away, and my right eardrum is not perforated but really thin but I should not worry about it, all according to doctor.
Cycle and Zumba today, so even at low impact, I should be able to eat a couple hundred calories more today and still reach 3000 for all three days.
Cycle time!!
Wednesday 8a Ann Cycle Dallas 54/486/40, 167/88, 144/76
I was able to go high impact this morning and it felt absolutely wonderful to be able to use my body again. It feels good to exert it, to feel it move, to feel it fight against exhaustion and pain (good pain). It feels good to use it and to feel it move at my command. This morning was one of my most enjoyable exercise experiences ever. I felt on top of the world.
If I can go high impact during Zumba today I may wear the gloves tomorrow. I think a huge difference on why I went high impact today was because I lost the fear of doing something to my body as I now know it's just a virus and the worst that may happen is that I'll be a bit sick for another week, i.e. it's not a more serious medical condition that can really be worsened by exercise. I think this psychologically gave me permission to go all out while still sick. I was able to stand up on the bike and all (I stayed seated on Sunday, I don't think I've mentioned this before) and found that if I just grabbed on to the handlebars hard enough I could be dizzy but still do anything I wanted on the bike. Just made sure not to let go of the handlebars. Not sure how the dizziness will play out in Zumba. I think once the dizziness goes away the other symptoms will be easier to deal with and fight through.
I am making a conscious choice to go high impact right now even though it may delay the healing, but it's a conscious choice. I'd rather have five weeks of sickly high impact then two weeks of low impact, a week of sickly impact, and then well. I will trade off a longer recovery period for the ability to exercise now. But I feel a lot better now so I think the exercise will end up helping it. Although this morning wiped me out and I slept from 10 until after two (which is a lot for me).
Wednesday 6:30p Craig Zumba Donalin 55/510/40, 165/87, 146/77
I'm BAAAAAAACK. SO good to be able to exercise again. Still dizzy but balance good enough to move while standing. Still got all symptoms but now that I know it's nothing serious, I can push through them. It feels so good to move and I'm so grateful I can push myself again. I am going to exercise this virus away. Tomorrow trying the gloves and if one or two gloved classes go well moving to the front. Got a bit of nausea also now. Definitely sick but I don't care anymore. Monday restart my 20 classes a week, finishing the move this week and giving myself breathing room to get a bit better before adding volume again. I can BEND again!! I can pretty much do anything now, and it felt so weird not being able to those three days.
Good day. Good day.
Plan to do the third day of week 4 of running this Friday and pick it back up from there. So only lost a week. All in all it could have been worse.
Thursday Noon Cheyenne Lift Rachel 58/204/60, 132/70, 109/58
Thursday 5:30p Ann Zumba Michele 59/188/60, 139/74, 112/59
Well, gone again. Lift shouldn't have similar numbers to Zumba. During Lift I started getting out of breath. Trouble breathing and dizziness are the main symptoms now. I was able to bend but that was gone by Zumba. I was going to wear the weighted gloves to Zumba because of being able to go high impact yesterday but I reconsidered after Lift, and I'm glad. Zumba knocked the air out of me and I barely moved. Felt chest pressure and difficulty breathing. And during both I get tired easily and out of breath easily and it's harder to get air in.
Why go to the gym at all? Well, to Lift it's to preserve whatever muscle I have. I hear horror stories of losing tons of lean mass by staying home sick and I'm not going to let that happen. To cardio, I don't really know. I guess 118 calories burned (extra) is better than none. And I think I may be scared that if I stop one day, I won't go back. It's the symbolism of going to the gym, mostly, even if I can't do much. At least I went, and did what I could, at whatever level I was. I usually modify up, now I'm learning to modify down. Maybe this is a great experience to prepare me for all levels when I teach. I was thankful when Michele gave us some lower-impact moves. Jumping is out of the question, exacerbates the dizziness too much and wipes me out cardiovascularly. Can't bend. Get too dizzy. I went down for a second set of stretches at the end because I stuck out like a sore thumb being the only person standing up for the first set, and it was very hard to come back up because of the dizziness. Sore thumb it is next time. My body is very good at letting me know at what level I can go, all I have to do is listen and follow along. Still in the back, the front may be a couple of weeks off. But this virus is so unpredictable, I'm just reassessing it day by day.
I think it's very easy to go back, and I get scared that I really haven't changed at all. It's very easy to go back to no exercise and eating whatever I want. So I have to follow my routine of good diet and exercise. Hitting my 1k goals even with the reduced exercise, which I'm thankful for. It's very hard to manage your weight while sick and without exercising. And I do love the feeling of using my body, and really miss it when I can't. I've gone two weeks with just 12 classes and I'm scared I won't be able to take it to 20 again, even though I want to.
I like Dallas high-impact, hope I can do that tomorrow. I still haven't done R39 high impact. I get two more chances this week.
Debbie (down and) out.
FRIDAY MORNING: Wonder if I can go high impact today. Still sick, little bit of dizziness (laying down), some chest pains, little bit of a headache, shallow breathing. Did some packing yesterday night and felt awful, yesterday was a bad sick day. Gained half a lb over lowest, lost .5 % body fat, down to 28.7. Still straddling that line between being brave and being stupid. But I think I physically can either go high impact or not, I'm not sure it's a mental choice per se. If I can, I go, if I can't, I don't (and can't, even if I wanted to).
Friday 8a Ann Cycle Dallas 58/176/60, 140/74, 100/53
Friday 10a Trop TKB Beth
Back down. Got really dizzy during Dallas. Still having difficulty breathing. Tried to go up off the seat at the beginning of class and came back down, tried again, back down. I'm not going to push it to the point of feeling faint, the point of exercising is to feel good, and when I went high impact on Wednesday it felt GOOD. Today it didn't feel good. Tried to go faster sitting down, couldn't do that either, so just pedaled slowly the whole class. Didn't go to Beth, having accomplished my one class a day to keep my New Year's resolution of going to at least one class a day.
Still feel the same while moving. Today is a down day, wondering what tomorrow will bring. Almost a week and I haven't been able to try R39 full impact, looking forward to that. Got really sad when I couldn't join the rest of the class today in going hard at it, I miss that even when it's only been a couple of days.
Wanted to amend a line from this morning. Straddling the line between being hardcore and stupid. Don't really think brave fits, hardcore's a better word.
Trying to pack but I keep dropping stuff on the floor, taking a break.
FRIDAY NIGHT: House packed, movers come in tomorrow. Someone told me moving is one of life's stop stressors, right next to losing a loved one. Wish someone had told me that weeks ago.
Got REALLY nauseated right before coming to work, I don't know what that was all about. Still have it a little bit (maybe more than a little bit). I've lost my appetite a bit. I forgot to report a few days ago that I finally had the lowered appetite of someone sick, so even though I couldn't exercise as much, I wasn't eating as much, but that didn't even last through the afternoon. Been eating about 1300 calories a day, still lower than my 1500+ but high enough to insure the metabolism keeps going. But right now I don't really feel like eating and I haven't eaten since 8:30p.
Can't do a class tomorrow, so I'm going to do an hour on the bike instead. Same thing I did today. That way I can be with the movers in the morning, go to a BeachBody party thing in the afternoon, and then do the bike afterwards, then get a couple of hours rest. Then worry about the garage on Sunday.
Nothing much to report, other than the nausea. That's the highlight of the afternoon/night. In a couple of weeks the move will be over, I can rejoin the gym, life will be good again. Right now just a wee bit stressful.
SATURDAY MORNING - going to skip the gym today but I am going to get at least one weights class in tomorrow to make it three weights this week. I'm going to change my New Year's Resolution from one gym class a day to at least 60 minutes of exercise a day, which the BodyBugg records. I think that's better and it frees me up to do other stuff like going hiking one day and takes into consideration just walking or biking around or swimming or such.
SATURDAY EVENING - Well, lots to write about. On the couch in the new house, organizing. Let's recount the day. It started at midnight, and between midnight and 8a I ate a cup of FiberOne cereal. I started yesterday. About 28 grams of fiber, over the daily recommended value. Plus the fiber I get everywhere else. Drank more than usual but not by much. I normally don't drink much water while at rest, just when exercising (and didn't drink a lot before I started exercising). Around 8:30a I get home, start getting last-minute stuff put away before movers get here at 9a. Eat a cheese wrap. Start moving and everything going well. Around 11:30a I realize I haven't slept since 4p the day before (I work nights and I spent all afternoon/early night on Friday packing the TV room), so I grab one of the energy drinks I bought at the gas station.
I know you want to get ahead of the story, but let's hold on a second. I've had energy drinks before (not like Rockstar but like the 4-hour energy ones). The first time I had the one that advertises 4-hour energy in the yellow and red bottle, I felt heart palpitations and then later felt like I would never again sleep in my whole entire life even if I wanted to, which made me sad because I felt like I lost the ability to sleep. I did eventually sleep again. This time I had already taken one energy drink from another brand and it didn't give me the jitters, it just kept me up and alert, which is the perfect combination. A couple of days later drank the red/yellow 4- hour one and it did NOTHING for me, not even a buzz. Today, this morning, I tried a third brand. Tasted horrible. Threw the bottle away and walked to the living room. My stomach cramped up. I doubled over and sat on a table, clutching my stomach. Something was wrong, it didn't agree with me at all. Then I felt like there was a river of fiery lava starting in the center of my skull and emanating in huge bloody cascades off my ears. I literally stuck my right index finger into my right ear, took it out, and looked at it, certain it would be covered by blood because it felt like blood was pouring out of my head through my ears. There was no blood. There must be blood. None. It was then my nephew said I was red. Ran to the bathroom and indeed I was red as a tomato. My whole head. Even my arms started getting red. I started drinking lots of water and wondering if my head was about to explode. Kept drinking water and eventually the hotness disappeared (after half an hour or so, though). Then there came the chills. I was freezing and shaking and cold, the cold that you feel in the bones. Even with a blanket and sweater I was freezing. That lasted half an hour or so. Then there was a feeling of the center of my chest being crushed. I wasn't worried about my heart (too much) because both sides of my chest were being crushed, not just the left. That lasted half an hour or so. Then just felt bad for another half hour or so, making the whole hot-cold-pain-bad experience around two hours. Kept drinking water and it slowly flushed out of my system. Turns out me and 250% the daily recommended dose of Niacin don't mix. But my sinuses opened up wonderfully and I think the Niacin killed the virus or heated it or scared it away, because while I still feel somewhat sick, it's a different kind of sick (convalescing?) and not the virus sick I had the day before. Right now (Saturday night) still feel it drove away most of the virus. And Niacin's kind of trippy. So it was a unique experience. 1-6 g of Niacin is toxic and I had 50mg (.05 g) of it, so it was nowhere near a toxic dose, but still mind-blowing. I have never experienced anything like that before. Feel like virus will be gone by Monday (and so will the moving, tomorrow we finish the garage and we're done). Thinking of restarting normal gym routine Monday.
REALLY love the new house. Unpacking.
SUNDAY RIGHT AFTER MIDNIGHT - I am feeling GREAT right now physically, I really think I melted the virus away with the Niacin. I mean I still have a slight cought and sniffles, but nothing like a couple of days ago. I forgot to mention that right after I went to the doctor I started getting "normal" "flu" symptoms - runny nose, congestion, sniffles, etc. Up to the doctor I had none of those, associated with a head flu, hence I was taken aback by the chest flu since I can't remember the last time I had a chest flu, if ever. If I ever get another one again I can just go to the doctor right away and confirm it's a chest flu and not worry about it. But the Niacin was just wonderful and blasted it away, looking to restart regular gym Monday.
Today the plan is to get the garage moved to the storage, have a free month of storage, get to sort the items in the garage for the month, then take what I want to keep home. $20 for the truck, $20 an hour for the movers, $20 tip both. Then going to see if I go to a bar to watch the Super Bowl, then off to bed to catch a few zzzzzs for a few hours, and do my running around the neighborhood sometimes today, good test to check if I'm there physically. All in all coming back, that Niacin may be the best thing that happened to the virus. Unintended cure. My body's been through a lot these couple of weeks, time to nurture it a bit and maybe sleep a lot Wednesday and Thursday along with gym and unpacking.
I love the new house. I'm going to have an exercise area, a business/marketing area, and a writing area.
So on Saturday I didn't go to the gym and I didn't do weights or cardio. And I burned the exact same number of calories I did the day before, to the calorie, when I DID go to one class at the gym. So my new goal is one hour of activity per the BB, which I did have (I had over two hours on Friday and 1:25 on Saturday). So I can be active outside of the gym. I was burning over 100 calories an hour, today went down to about 80 an hour. 60 an hour is about my lowest. But I have running and moving the garage. 9185 steps, most of those going up and down stairs loading stuff into the trucks and cars.
During March, April, and May I won't go to 24HF. During March I will do Boot Camp Las Vegas and during April and May I am doing 60 days of Insanity, and I want to isolate the results. Then I will rejoin 24HF in June. Then around July 3rd audition to teach and hopefully teach my first class by September first. That's a good schedule. I think it's time to leave the gym for a bit and take my fitness outside and then inside, both physically and figuratively, as it's going to be hard to exercise by myself.
Going to try an accelerated running program. Starting boot camp on 3/2. I really want to finish the program, though. I know I can run 5 minutes, have one day of week 4 left.
So weeks 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 * 3 = 15 + 1 = 16.
7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 1
That's 12 days left and 16 days to do. But week 9 is just running 30, and week is just running 28 three times. So if I get rid of week 9 that's 13 days, and if I substitute the last day of week 8 for 30, I can do it all.
2/7 W4D3 J3 W90 J5 W2.5 J3 W90
2/9 W5D1 J5 W3 J5 W3 J5
2/11 W5D2 J8 W5 J8
2/13 W5D3 J20
2/15 W6D1 J5 W3 J8 W3 J5
2/17 W6D2 J10 W3 J10
2/19 W6D3 J25
2/21 W7D1 J25
2/23 W7D2 J25
2/24 W7D3 J25
2/25 W8D1 J28
2/27 W8D2 J28
3/1 FINAL J30
That way I can finish the program and still get BC going. I think I can physically run 30 minutes right now, so it's just taking care of the mental. It's going to be great having this new neighborhood because I don't have to drive anywhere to run. And it will prepare for the real road, hot, cold, etc. Although it own't get too hot by 3/1.
Time to take fitness outside of the gym. This move was good because it allowed me to see how the improvement in fitness can be applied in real life.
MONDAY JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT: I was getting stressed out about finishing the C25K program, and then out of the blue I decided to just try and just do the 30 minutes in a row now. That way I could get it over with. And am I in better physical shape than I give myself credit for? What's the difference between the previous, current, and next step?
But let me set up the stage a little bit before we begin. I had a chest virus for about two weeks or so, with dizzines, difficulty breathing, and chest pains. It finally went away when I ingested way too much Niacin, which made me hot for 30 minutes, cold for 30, in pain for 30, feel bad for 30 more. On Friday I slept 2-4 hours because I spent most of the day packing my room, then went to work, spent Saturday actually moving the stuff to the new house, slept a couple of hours, went to work, then spent Sunday doing the garage, slept a couple of hours, here we are. My back was killing me, I had slept about six hours in the last three days, and had spent over 15 hours in moving activities. That's when I decided to run the 30 minutes. It was really spur of the moment. So I went over to LVAC, and there was something chilly about the eyes that looked back at me when I looked in the mirror. The intensity, assuredness, tenacity, and belief that anything was possible.
Since my dad died, I have experienced moments in which I kind of know I will do something. Not clairvoyance, I don't see the future, it's more of I know how this turns out. One example was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. I usually didn't fast, but this was the first one post-dad-dead. And I didn't set out to fast to honor him or G-d or anything like that, and I didn't even set out to fast. Part of me "knew" I was going to fast. It wasn't me making a choice, it was me finding out how something ended that had already been determined. Same thing with the 24 classes in one week at 24HF, I knew I would make it, same thing with the running. As soon as I started running I knew I was going to do it, and it was great, I was along for the ride for something special. I wanted to just go out on a Sunday night and do something special and I did. I started the C25K program 5 weeks ago. Prior to that I couldn't run more than a minute. And I did the three days each of weeks one, two and three, and for week four I did two days before I got sick. So I was up to running five minutes at a time. And I just went for it. From not being able to run a minute to running 30 minutes straight in five weeks, two of those sick.
After the run I felt kind of woozy and lightheaded like when you're drunk. Towards the end my vision kind of blurred and I was wondering which would happen first, whether I would finish or faint first (I finished first). When I got in the car I let out my "battle cry in glee." Kind of deja-vuish.
Why did I do this? Because I want the body to do things the mind can't. I want the body to overtake the mind. And I want to push people to do things they can't. And what I really want to do is to have a belief so strong in somebody that they can lean in that belief while they do THEIR impossible until they are ready to believe themselves. That's what I want to do, believe in people until they can do it themselves. I want to shatter misconceptions, limits, mental barriers.
But I thought today the body was going to do what the mind couldn't but actually both worked pretty well together, I knew I could and I did it no problem. What's funny is that I saw Karen on the track and said "Sorry trying to run" as I ran past her and it wasn't until a minute later that I was surprised that my subconscious was "trying to run" while my conscious was "running" and that my subconscious wasn't as sure of itself (but maybe that's normal?)
I've noticed I'm a lot more outgoing and sure of myself. I was at work a couple of days ago and a co-worker thought I dropped something on the floor but then couldn't find it, and I told her it was "the shadow of my awesomeness." New Debbie jokes like that. New Debbie does things. ND looks for new impossibles to make possible. Zumba in particular is helping me a lot with the self-consciousness and also in getting comfortable in my own body.
I've been losing weight in my face lately and it's very noticeable. I look in the mirror and physically don't recognize who's looking back at me. It's not pudgy and soft and cushy, it's lean and strong as steel. The one thing that STILL refuses to go? The stomach. 49ish-40ish so far.
So I became a runner today, or maybe I was already a runner and I just didn't know it. What does this mean? No idea. How is this going to change me? I think I am developing a deep unbending determination to achieve my goals.
Debbie out (for now). Niacin 1, Virus 0.
Monday, February 1, 2010
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.
______________________________________________________
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
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:
----
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 :(
---
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.
______________________________________________________
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, 149/79FRIDAY 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:
----
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 :(
---
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.
---
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.
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.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Monday, January 18th, 2009 - Sunday, January 24th, 2009 (new number: calories BodyBugg says I burned in parenthesis)
FOOD
Monday: Goal 1525 Apple slices (240), cheese wrap (250), egg (200), protein drink (190), 2 X protein bar (420), fruit drink (120), apple slices (105), total 1525 (!!)
Tuesday: Goal 1625 Apple slices (105), turkey breast footlong on rye (560), cheese wrap (250), chicken and rice (396), apple slices (240), protein drink (190), total 1741
Redoing my food, reached 161 lbs, going to adjust down to 160 lbs, 1600 a day.
1500
1600
1700
1800
1700
1600
1500
1628 average calories a day.
Wednesday: Goal 1700 Apple slices (240), Cheese wrap (250), chicken and rice (340), pistacchios (170), IHOP healthy menu item (440), protein drink (190), total 1630
Thursday: Goal: 1800 Protein bar X 2 (220), Apple slices (240), Pistacchios (170), Chicken and rice X 2 (680), was supposed to have 300 calories more but fell asleep while deciding what to have for dinner, total 1510 calories
Friday: Goal: 1700
I have to get swimming this week, I just have to get on the water just once. Thinking that on Wednesday I'll just go to the pool and do the 32 laps and see where I'm at, because if I can already do the 32 laps I'll just do them once a week and have it done 16 times by triathlon day. Swimming is the least of my worries, and I'm not worried about cycling, and Danny (24HF cycling instructor) estimated I do 20K in a spinning class and the triathlon is 30K, so I'm not worried about it at all, plan to just go 32K in a real park in about 2 weeks and see how it goes. My weak point was the running and I have been training these past two weeks on that. There's just no time!! (and I'm not about to lower the amount of GX classes I do).
I don't know if I mentioned that I got cycling shoes. Lucky brand (that's the actual name of the brand, Lucky). Blue, my favorite color, and it matches my helmet!! Now the clip for gym bikes and for real bikes are different, and most people just buy two pairs of shoes, if not you have to keep on switching the clip adapters every time you switch (and it involves a screw), and I don't see myself doing that. But when I went in to Danny's store a helper was disassembling a bike, and Danny said that he could sell me the pedals for $40 instead of the $180 new ones go for, and these were old-school pedals that were the same as spin bikes, so now the shoes fit BOTH the gym and real bikes!!
Tried them out at Dallas' yesterday. One time I was standing and one shoe just came off. The other time I was sitting and both just came right off. I think I'm inadvertently pushing my feet outwards, activating the release mechanism. After they flew off the second time, I focused on keeping my feet pushing inwards and they didn't come off again.
MONDAY 9a Sahara TurboKick Michelle 55/502/40, 170/90, 144/76
MONDAY Noon Agassi Lift Rachel 53/234/60, 135/71, 105/56
MONDAY 4:30p Cheyenne SET Kathy 50/332/55, 162/86, 122/65
MONDAY 6.00p Agassi Zumba Linda 59/504/45, 159/84, 139/74
I'm pulling in lower numbers in Zumba and TKB since I got the gloves, but not sweating it as long as I edge 500 out of it. SET was low because I think I was just tired. Lift has been low the last couple of times... more weight?
I've been reading about good cycle form on the Internet and the reason that the instructors keep saying to push the heels down is because if not the top of the foot becomes numb. I hadn't experienced that with regular shoes/harnesses. But I definitely did with the spin shoes, the top of my feet became numb sometime around the middle of class, much harder to keep heels down with them, will have to work on that and on keeping them clipped in.
Kelly's TKB last Saturday was the first class I wore my weighted (0.75 lbs each hand) gloves to, and Linda's Zumba tonight was the first Zumba I wore them to. It definitely adds to the workout and I plan on using them for TKB and Zumba. Once I lose the stomach and can kick properly for a couple of months, I plan on adding ankle weights. Zumba wasn't falling-down hard, but TKB was. I've been taking TKB for 4.5 months now so I know I can get through any class no matter what they throw at me. But with the gloves it feels like I won't make it through the class, and I love that, because it makes the experience brand-new again, like the first time I ever took TKB, but different at the same time because now I'm a "veteran." So I'm really enjoying it. Can't wait until I use the ankle weights. With all this upper body toning, that pull-up bar doesn't stand a chance!!
I don't know if I mentioned this but I tried the assisted pull-ups after my run on Sunday. Before I was 166 and I could do with an assist of 100 lbs but not with an assist of 85 lbs, meaning I could lift 66 lbs. This week I'm at 162.5 lbs and I can do 85 lbs half-way, so maybe 92 lbs assist or so, meaning I can lift around 70.5 lbs, so I'm going up a bit. In 1-2 weeks I should be able to lift all the way with 85, with a combination of losing weight and gaining muscle. The weighted gloves should speed that up. This may go faster than expected and I think June is realistic for being able to do an unassisted pull-up.
So I went through a three-week plateau in which my weight didn't move, and then it starts moving again about a week ago. Then yesterday I "met" someone on Facebook who was asking how to get through a three-week plateau. Coincidence?!?! I think for me the zig-zagging did it, thanks to brilliant Debbie the other Debbie of Wednesday spin class.
I just looked at what this week's running includes: Warm up, then run for 90 secs, walk for 90 secs, run for THREE MINUTES, walk for three minutes, repeat once more. I have to run for three minutes. What's funny is that as soon as I read repeat the following two times, the first thing that popped into my head was Kathy's voice saying "You can do anything twice." So I guess I'll keep repeating that in my head during the six minutes of the two runs. This week I have to change my Definition to be someone who can run for three minutes straight. I don't think I can do it, but does that really matter lately, whether I think I can do something or not? It goes back to so many things have happened that it really doesn't matter whether I can do something or not, I just do it.
I do find myself running a lot (I seem to be running almost late to stuff), and it's great to be able to move from point A to point B quickly.
TUESDAY 8a Ann TurboKick Michele 37/395/30, 173/92, 158/84
TUESDAY 9a Cheyenne TurboKick Rachel 61/507/45, 160/85, 140/74
TUESDAY 10a Cheyenne Pilates Rachel 61/190/60, 117/62, 91/48
TUESDAY 6:30p Craig TurboKick Donalin 53/511/40, 169/89, 148/78
Michele's still giving me the highest per-minute numbers, at 53 minutes it would have been 565 calories and at 61 it would have been 651. That trio in the morning was brutal because I kept the gloves on all the time, even for Pilates. I almost took them off many times, especially during Pilates, but I refused to. I actually was not looking forward to doing it again next week but I know how beneficial the gloves are being so I'm willing to work for it. I was glad I passed 500 with Donalin, I had an idea that I barely hit 500 without gloves (have to check the numbers) so the gloves would put me slightly under 500, but at the beginning of the class I told myself to think of that class as a 500+ class and it turned out that way.
I told myself yesterday (2:57a right now) that as soon as I started kicking high I would add ankle weights and I noticed a HUGE difference in my kicking yesterday. Maybe I just really want the ankle weights.
NOT looking forward to the three-minute running, I am majorly psyching myself out.
WEDNESDAY 8a Ann Cycle Dallas Forgot strap at home, calling it 500
WEDNESDAY 6:30p Craig Zumba Donalin 57/587 (BB 524)/35, 169/89, 155/82
It's funny because for the third time this week or so, I end up talking to someone about something I was thinking about the previous days. Today's topic is shyness vs. confidence. Deep down I'm not a shy person, once I get to know people I will talk anybody's ear off and I usually don't take myself too seriously. But in new situation I can get extremely shy. Someone mentioned how they were shy until they became more confident. And I find myself becoming much more outgoing, daring, and sure of myself because of Zumba. It's combating the negative body image losing weight gave me (I was happier with my body 50 lbs ago than now, where every little bump of fat is very noticeable). And something very important is that Zumba is allowing me to get to know my body and what it feels like and how it moves and what shape it is, but Zumba kind of forces you to be sure of yourself and comfortable with yourself in public. And the gym classes in general have given me a huge boost of self-confidence and I really find myself reaching out a lot more to people. I'm sure I'll have my shy moments (old habits die hard; life-long habits die harder), but each day I have more outgoing moments.
I "lost" my iPod Touch so I had to come back home to get it. Resting for half an hour then running it is. I am not psyched about those three minutes at all.
Thursday morning, 1/21/10, 12:10a
I have to add a new Definition, whether I'd like to or not: 3-Minute Runner.
It all started before Zumba class. I couldn't find the iPod Touch (it fell inside the recliner, I found out later when I remembered that so did the remote control), so I had to leave for Zumba. I kind of need the Touch because it has the running program. So I came back from Zumba and found it but lazily went to bed for 10 minutes, then half an hour. Then I didn't want to get out of bed. Then I fell asleep for a couple of hours or so and woke up close to 11p and decided to go for it and do it before the clock struck 12 (the gym's 10 minutes away and the run is just under half an hour). I felt a lot better after that power nap. So I left the house to go to the gym.
But let's focus on this a moment. I was in bed, and knew Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday are my running days and it's a structured three-times a week, no-two-days-in-a-row program, and that I'm training for a triathlon. And I didn't get out of bed. I failed, I didn't push myself. I went only when I felt good going, not when I felt I didn't want to. I'm not going to beat myself up about it, but it's important to know that I'm not at the point yet where I will do things I don't like. That's why I wholeheartedly believe that if it wasn't for the group classes I wouldn't have stuck with it this long.
So I get to the gym and walk five minutes, then jog 1.5 minutes. I thought the main part of the program went 1.5, 1.5, 3, 3, I honestly did. So I start the second 1.5 run, and it's still going past the 1.5 minute mark, and right at 1.75 I realize that's the first 3-minute run, and that I'm almost a third of the way through. That's when Kathy "said" 'you can do anything for one minute.' It's nice to have memories of supportive people that you can call upon at will. So there I was, running for three minutes, and it felt great. Right before that second run I felt good and was looking forward to the three minutes with trepidation instead of fear. BIG difference. So I ran the three minutes. And when the second three minutes came around, *I* told myself I could do it, and smiled. Afterwards I even looked in the mirror and gave myself a shout-out by pointing to myself and smiling.
This is a turning point, because I'm beginning to think I can do anything (and by now I trust you know what I mean by that). I look forward to doing this again in two days.
THURSDAY Ann 8a SET Beth 57/384/55, 151/80, 123/65 (326)
THURSDAY Tropicana 10a Zumba Megan G. 63/593/40, 166/88, 147/78 (591)
THURSDAY Cheyenne Noon Lift Anita B. 56/244/60, 124/66, 103/55 (190)
THURSDAY Ann 5:30p Zumba Michele 59/564/40, 165/87, 148/78 (523)
THURSDAY Sahara 7:00p Zumba Donalin 55/511/40, 201/106, 145/77 (501)
First full day with the BodyBugg (1/21/2010) = BodyBugg estimate vs. my manual estimate.
BodyBugg = 3901 calories burned
(1510 calories consumed... I was supposed to consume 1800 calories but I fell asleep while deciding what to have for dinner).
5 classes. Here are the Polar numbers: (the number in parenthesis is how much the BB said I burned)
THURSDAY Ann 8a SET Beth 57/384/55, 151/80, 123/65 (326)
THURSDAY Tropicana 10a Zumba Megan G. 63/593/40, 166/88, 147/78 (591)
THURSDAY Cheyenne Noon Lift Anita B. 56/244/60, 124/66, 103/55 (190)
THURSDAY Ann 5:30p Zumba Michele 59/564/40, 165/87, 148/78 (523)
THURSDAY Sahara 7:00p Zumba Donalin 55/511/40, 201/106, 145/77 (501)
The difference is getting smaller. Could it be that the BB adapts to you and the Polar wasn't as far off as it seemed at the beginning? It started with a difference of 60 or so calories burned per class.
My own calculations, using the Polar data:
Current weight: 162.5 lbs
30.3 body fat %
290 minutes, 2296 gross calories, net calories = (2296 - (290*1.38 (see below))) = 2296-400 = 1896 net calories (so that I don't double count the calories because if I hadn't exercised, I would have still burned 400 calories, so I really just burned 1896 calories BECAUSE of the exercise).
per the 24 Hour Fitness online calculator, I burn 1985 calories (based on 162 lbs) a day at rest, 1.38 calories a minute.
1985 + 1896 = calories burned at rest + calories burned exercising = 3881
So the BodyBugg said I burned 3901 calories yesterday, and per my own calculations with the Polar like I've been doing I come up with 3881 calories. Difference of 20 calories.
FRIDAY 10a Tropicana TurboKick Beth 55/500/40, 172/91, 149/79
// ^-- I almost didn't find the chest strap and was going to rely on the BB. But I found it just in time and wore it and the BB reset itself towards the end of class. So much for not needing the Polar anymore, I would have been pissed if I hadn't had it!! //
FRIDAY 5:30p Tropicana Zumba Megan G. 63/584/45, 156/88, 145/77 (536)
SATURDAY 9a Agassi Lift Mai 49/203/60, 114/60, 101/53
SATURDAY 10a Agassi TurboKick Kelly 58/413/55, 153/81, 126/67
Don't have the BB #s recorded but it went lower on the Lift and higher on the TKB (first time the BB goes higher than the Polar).
A lot to write about today. Let's start with physical shape. My left ankle hurts when I walk, my right knee hurts sometimes depending on what I'm doing, both knees are making popping noises when flexed, and I am just exhausted. Today at TKB my body finally gave out. I didn't have anything left. I even took off my gloves towards the middle of the class. I failed. After telling someone else to wear the gloves and that they could make it through the whole class, I take mine off. I burned 100 calories less than usual. So I guess I finally come upon the question: What is the aftermath after failing?
There are two possible scenarios. #1: It was the 19th class of the week and I'd only been sleeping a handful (2-5) of hours a day. And I've been taking 11+ classes a week for about a month and a half now. #2: I just gave up when I had more left. That's the question, was that mental or physical exhaustion? Should I feel like I failed and be hard with myself or should I just chalk it up to being tired? But what is being tired? Is being tired a mental or a physical state, a little of each, or depends on the situation?
The most important question is, do I feel like a loser and derail or regroup and come back harder than ever? Or feel like a loser and then come back harder than ever? I wrote about how I failed to run when I didn't want to with the running. Is this preparation for something else? Is this preparation for the last five minutes of the triathlon when I have nothing left in me but I'll push through anyway? Do I need to feel like I failed now to keep from really failing later? Is this just one more step in the progression? Because I'll tell you, I feel like crap right now and I'll do anything from keeping from feeling like this again.
I think the move (starts today) came at a good time, if I didn't slow down now I could run the risk of injury, need to take it easier next week (which for me is 13 classes instead of 20... hey it's a start). Is this my body's way of preventing something more major? Am I really tired or was that just an excuse not to work out during that class? I wore my gloves during 14 of the previous 18 classes prior to Kelly's TKB (because I didn't wear them during the three Lifts and the SET, but I did wear them during Pilates). Is taking the gloves off during the middle of the 15th gloved class that week a failure? Maybe I just reached my limit, my limit is 14 gloved classes a week... this was my first real full week with them. So next time I just have to work up to 15 gloved classes a week.
This tiredness started a couple of days ago. And whatever I say here to stroke my ego doesn't diminish the sense of utter failure. I slept some today already and plan to sleep some more, then start moving (houses).
You know, losing weight is for the most part unglamorous. Sure you have the highs like halfway, healthy bloodwork, wearing smaller clothing, but most of the time it's just neutral and long. It's a long process. I think I'm stuck at another plateau at 162.5 but I'll just have to ride it out.
Debbie out.
SUNDAY 9a Sahara Cycle Dallas 59/552/40, 169/89, 147/78
I was able to go hard with Dallas today. Still not back to full form as I didn't feel "right," but able to push through. Right knee bothered me every time I stood up but I went a few slow reps and then I was able to use it normally. Bothered me while running too, a little bit of pain. Left ankle surprisingly doesn't bother me unless I specifically pay attention to it.
I still don't know what happened yesterday, but during's today run I was more tired than usual and it was harder than usual but I knew I would anything not to feel like yesterday again. I wish I could re-do yesterday and go full force. But what difference are we really talking about? Kelly+Dallas was 1030 last week and 965 this week. We're talking about a difference of 65 calories. Is it really worth it to get worked up over 65 calories?
But of course I know it's about more than that. I'm still trying to make sense of what happened yesterday. I gave up. I was scared, of what I don't know. I DO know of what I'm scared now. I still go to the classes because it's fun. But what happens when it ceases to be fun? What do I do then? I'm scared the classes will cease to be fun and I won't keep going to them, pretty much. But running is not fun and I'm doing. Well it is fun but it's hard work, and between Zumba and running, it's Zumba all the way.
The thing is that I don't know whether I reached mental exhaustion or physical exhaustion. I can do 20 classes a week no problem. But I added the gloves and I did 14 full gloved classes. So it's different this week. I think what may have happened is that I reached the edge, that edge between mental exhaustion and physical exhaustion, and gave up. I tasted that space that's like when your car turns on the low gas light, where you can still go a little bit further but you're almost out of gas. But I gave up. But I got there. So it's bittersweet. Next time I get there again I'll remember the feeling of utter failure and I'll go full force, renewed. I never want to feel like that again when it comes to exercising. It kept me going a bit today during the three minute runs. I told myself before the run that I wasn't going to stop, and I didn't. Kathy had to show up because I had no positive reinforcements left in me, and she held my hand that last minute. Surprising how much that helps. Next week I have to run five minutes. I did give myself another smiling shout-out in the mirror when I finished. Do you know how hard it is to do that in a gym full of people without anybody noticing?
Everything that has happened has built up to something else, so I'm not completely sure yesterday wasn't supposed to happen as part of the plan. I just wish I knew what the plan was. If failing one class makes me renew and go harder than ever before, isn't it worth it? If yesterday's feeling makes me finish the triathlon without stopping, wasn't it worth it? I just wish I could have done yesterday AND whatever is coming. But maybe this is the way it's supposed to be.
Debbie out.
Sunday night - another vague reference, but I think my life changed today. Again.
Monday: Goal 1525 Apple slices (240), cheese wrap (250), egg (200), protein drink (190), 2 X protein bar (420), fruit drink (120), apple slices (105), total 1525 (!!)
Tuesday: Goal 1625 Apple slices (105), turkey breast footlong on rye (560), cheese wrap (250), chicken and rice (396), apple slices (240), protein drink (190), total 1741
Redoing my food, reached 161 lbs, going to adjust down to 160 lbs, 1600 a day.
1500
1600
1700
1800
1700
1600
1500
1628 average calories a day.
Wednesday: Goal 1700 Apple slices (240), Cheese wrap (250), chicken and rice (340), pistacchios (170), IHOP healthy menu item (440), protein drink (190), total 1630
Thursday: Goal: 1800 Protein bar X 2 (220), Apple slices (240), Pistacchios (170), Chicken and rice X 2 (680), was supposed to have 300 calories more but fell asleep while deciding what to have for dinner, total 1510 calories
Friday: Goal: 1700
I have to get swimming this week, I just have to get on the water just once. Thinking that on Wednesday I'll just go to the pool and do the 32 laps and see where I'm at, because if I can already do the 32 laps I'll just do them once a week and have it done 16 times by triathlon day. Swimming is the least of my worries, and I'm not worried about cycling, and Danny (24HF cycling instructor) estimated I do 20K in a spinning class and the triathlon is 30K, so I'm not worried about it at all, plan to just go 32K in a real park in about 2 weeks and see how it goes. My weak point was the running and I have been training these past two weeks on that. There's just no time!! (and I'm not about to lower the amount of GX classes I do).
I don't know if I mentioned that I got cycling shoes. Lucky brand (that's the actual name of the brand, Lucky). Blue, my favorite color, and it matches my helmet!! Now the clip for gym bikes and for real bikes are different, and most people just buy two pairs of shoes, if not you have to keep on switching the clip adapters every time you switch (and it involves a screw), and I don't see myself doing that. But when I went in to Danny's store a helper was disassembling a bike, and Danny said that he could sell me the pedals for $40 instead of the $180 new ones go for, and these were old-school pedals that were the same as spin bikes, so now the shoes fit BOTH the gym and real bikes!!
Tried them out at Dallas' yesterday. One time I was standing and one shoe just came off. The other time I was sitting and both just came right off. I think I'm inadvertently pushing my feet outwards, activating the release mechanism. After they flew off the second time, I focused on keeping my feet pushing inwards and they didn't come off again.
MONDAY 9a Sahara TurboKick Michelle 55/502/40, 170/90, 144/76
MONDAY Noon Agassi Lift Rachel 53/234/60, 135/71, 105/56
MONDAY 4:30p Cheyenne SET Kathy 50/332/55, 162/86, 122/65
MONDAY 6.00p Agassi Zumba Linda 59/504/45, 159/84, 139/74
I'm pulling in lower numbers in Zumba and TKB since I got the gloves, but not sweating it as long as I edge 500 out of it. SET was low because I think I was just tired. Lift has been low the last couple of times... more weight?
I've been reading about good cycle form on the Internet and the reason that the instructors keep saying to push the heels down is because if not the top of the foot becomes numb. I hadn't experienced that with regular shoes/harnesses. But I definitely did with the spin shoes, the top of my feet became numb sometime around the middle of class, much harder to keep heels down with them, will have to work on that and on keeping them clipped in.
Kelly's TKB last Saturday was the first class I wore my weighted (0.75 lbs each hand) gloves to, and Linda's Zumba tonight was the first Zumba I wore them to. It definitely adds to the workout and I plan on using them for TKB and Zumba. Once I lose the stomach and can kick properly for a couple of months, I plan on adding ankle weights. Zumba wasn't falling-down hard, but TKB was. I've been taking TKB for 4.5 months now so I know I can get through any class no matter what they throw at me. But with the gloves it feels like I won't make it through the class, and I love that, because it makes the experience brand-new again, like the first time I ever took TKB, but different at the same time because now I'm a "veteran." So I'm really enjoying it. Can't wait until I use the ankle weights. With all this upper body toning, that pull-up bar doesn't stand a chance!!
I don't know if I mentioned this but I tried the assisted pull-ups after my run on Sunday. Before I was 166 and I could do with an assist of 100 lbs but not with an assist of 85 lbs, meaning I could lift 66 lbs. This week I'm at 162.5 lbs and I can do 85 lbs half-way, so maybe 92 lbs assist or so, meaning I can lift around 70.5 lbs, so I'm going up a bit. In 1-2 weeks I should be able to lift all the way with 85, with a combination of losing weight and gaining muscle. The weighted gloves should speed that up. This may go faster than expected and I think June is realistic for being able to do an unassisted pull-up.
So I went through a three-week plateau in which my weight didn't move, and then it starts moving again about a week ago. Then yesterday I "met" someone on Facebook who was asking how to get through a three-week plateau. Coincidence?!?! I think for me the zig-zagging did it, thanks to brilliant Debbie the other Debbie of Wednesday spin class.
I just looked at what this week's running includes: Warm up, then run for 90 secs, walk for 90 secs, run for THREE MINUTES, walk for three minutes, repeat once more. I have to run for three minutes. What's funny is that as soon as I read repeat the following two times, the first thing that popped into my head was Kathy's voice saying "You can do anything twice." So I guess I'll keep repeating that in my head during the six minutes of the two runs. This week I have to change my Definition to be someone who can run for three minutes straight. I don't think I can do it, but does that really matter lately, whether I think I can do something or not? It goes back to so many things have happened that it really doesn't matter whether I can do something or not, I just do it.
I do find myself running a lot (I seem to be running almost late to stuff), and it's great to be able to move from point A to point B quickly.
TUESDAY 8a Ann TurboKick Michele 37/395/30, 173/92, 158/84
TUESDAY 9a Cheyenne TurboKick Rachel 61/507/45, 160/85, 140/74
TUESDAY 10a Cheyenne Pilates Rachel 61/190/60, 117/62, 91/48
TUESDAY 6:30p Craig TurboKick Donalin 53/511/40, 169/89, 148/78
Michele's still giving me the highest per-minute numbers, at 53 minutes it would have been 565 calories and at 61 it would have been 651. That trio in the morning was brutal because I kept the gloves on all the time, even for Pilates. I almost took them off many times, especially during Pilates, but I refused to. I actually was not looking forward to doing it again next week but I know how beneficial the gloves are being so I'm willing to work for it. I was glad I passed 500 with Donalin, I had an idea that I barely hit 500 without gloves (have to check the numbers) so the gloves would put me slightly under 500, but at the beginning of the class I told myself to think of that class as a 500+ class and it turned out that way.
I told myself yesterday (2:57a right now) that as soon as I started kicking high I would add ankle weights and I noticed a HUGE difference in my kicking yesterday. Maybe I just really want the ankle weights.
NOT looking forward to the three-minute running, I am majorly psyching myself out.
WEDNESDAY 8a Ann Cycle Dallas Forgot strap at home, calling it 500
WEDNESDAY 6:30p Craig Zumba Donalin 57/587 (BB 524)/35, 169/89, 155/82
It's funny because for the third time this week or so, I end up talking to someone about something I was thinking about the previous days. Today's topic is shyness vs. confidence. Deep down I'm not a shy person, once I get to know people I will talk anybody's ear off and I usually don't take myself too seriously. But in new situation I can get extremely shy. Someone mentioned how they were shy until they became more confident. And I find myself becoming much more outgoing, daring, and sure of myself because of Zumba. It's combating the negative body image losing weight gave me (I was happier with my body 50 lbs ago than now, where every little bump of fat is very noticeable). And something very important is that Zumba is allowing me to get to know my body and what it feels like and how it moves and what shape it is, but Zumba kind of forces you to be sure of yourself and comfortable with yourself in public. And the gym classes in general have given me a huge boost of self-confidence and I really find myself reaching out a lot more to people. I'm sure I'll have my shy moments (old habits die hard; life-long habits die harder), but each day I have more outgoing moments.
I "lost" my iPod Touch so I had to come back home to get it. Resting for half an hour then running it is. I am not psyched about those three minutes at all.
Thursday morning, 1/21/10, 12:10a
I have to add a new Definition, whether I'd like to or not: 3-Minute Runner.
It all started before Zumba class. I couldn't find the iPod Touch (it fell inside the recliner, I found out later when I remembered that so did the remote control), so I had to leave for Zumba. I kind of need the Touch because it has the running program. So I came back from Zumba and found it but lazily went to bed for 10 minutes, then half an hour. Then I didn't want to get out of bed. Then I fell asleep for a couple of hours or so and woke up close to 11p and decided to go for it and do it before the clock struck 12 (the gym's 10 minutes away and the run is just under half an hour). I felt a lot better after that power nap. So I left the house to go to the gym.
But let's focus on this a moment. I was in bed, and knew Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday are my running days and it's a structured three-times a week, no-two-days-in-a-row program, and that I'm training for a triathlon. And I didn't get out of bed. I failed, I didn't push myself. I went only when I felt good going, not when I felt I didn't want to. I'm not going to beat myself up about it, but it's important to know that I'm not at the point yet where I will do things I don't like. That's why I wholeheartedly believe that if it wasn't for the group classes I wouldn't have stuck with it this long.
So I get to the gym and walk five minutes, then jog 1.5 minutes. I thought the main part of the program went 1.5, 1.5, 3, 3, I honestly did. So I start the second 1.5 run, and it's still going past the 1.5 minute mark, and right at 1.75 I realize that's the first 3-minute run, and that I'm almost a third of the way through. That's when Kathy "said" 'you can do anything for one minute.' It's nice to have memories of supportive people that you can call upon at will. So there I was, running for three minutes, and it felt great. Right before that second run I felt good and was looking forward to the three minutes with trepidation instead of fear. BIG difference. So I ran the three minutes. And when the second three minutes came around, *I* told myself I could do it, and smiled. Afterwards I even looked in the mirror and gave myself a shout-out by pointing to myself and smiling.
This is a turning point, because I'm beginning to think I can do anything (and by now I trust you know what I mean by that). I look forward to doing this again in two days.
THURSDAY Ann 8a SET Beth 57/384/55, 151/80, 123/65 (326)
THURSDAY Tropicana 10a Zumba Megan G. 63/593/40, 166/88, 147/78 (591)
THURSDAY Cheyenne Noon Lift Anita B. 56/244/60, 124/66, 103/55 (190)
THURSDAY Ann 5:30p Zumba Michele 59/564/40, 165/87, 148/78 (523)
THURSDAY Sahara 7:00p Zumba Donalin 55/511/40, 201/106, 145/77 (501)
First full day with the BodyBugg (1/21/2010) = BodyBugg estimate vs. my manual estimate.
BodyBugg = 3901 calories burned
(1510 calories consumed... I was supposed to consume 1800 calories but I fell asleep while deciding what to have for dinner).
5 classes. Here are the Polar numbers: (the number in parenthesis is how much the BB said I burned)
THURSDAY Ann 8a SET Beth 57/384/55, 151/80, 123/65 (326)
THURSDAY Tropicana 10a Zumba Megan G. 63/593/40, 166/88, 147/78 (591)
THURSDAY Cheyenne Noon Lift Anita B. 56/244/60, 124/66, 103/55 (190)
THURSDAY Ann 5:30p Zumba Michele 59/564/40, 165/87, 148/78 (523)
THURSDAY Sahara 7:00p Zumba Donalin 55/511/40, 201/106, 145/77 (501)
The difference is getting smaller. Could it be that the BB adapts to you and the Polar wasn't as far off as it seemed at the beginning? It started with a difference of 60 or so calories burned per class.
My own calculations, using the Polar data:
Current weight: 162.5 lbs
30.3 body fat %
290 minutes, 2296 gross calories, net calories = (2296 - (290*1.38 (see below))) = 2296-400 = 1896 net calories (so that I don't double count the calories because if I hadn't exercised, I would have still burned 400 calories, so I really just burned 1896 calories BECAUSE of the exercise).
per the 24 Hour Fitness online calculator, I burn 1985 calories (based on 162 lbs) a day at rest, 1.38 calories a minute.
1985 + 1896 = calories burned at rest + calories burned exercising = 3881
So the BodyBugg said I burned 3901 calories yesterday, and per my own calculations with the Polar like I've been doing I come up with 3881 calories. Difference of 20 calories.
FRIDAY 10a Tropicana TurboKick Beth 55/500/40, 172/91, 149/79
// ^-- I almost didn't find the chest strap and was going to rely on the BB. But I found it just in time and wore it and the BB reset itself towards the end of class. So much for not needing the Polar anymore, I would have been pissed if I hadn't had it!! //
FRIDAY 5:30p Tropicana Zumba Megan G. 63/584/45, 156/88, 145/77 (536)
Ran 3 minutes twice again. Still had to call on Kathy to get me through parts of the two minutes, but every time I did, I made sure to call on myself right afterwards in order to get used to it. Making myself think "Go Debbie, go!! You can do it." I already know I can do it. Sometimes it's harder to do something you know you can do than to do something you don't think you can do.
Have to run for FIVE MINUTES straight next week. I have to stop looking ahead.
I'm feeling beat up this week, especially the left ankle and the right knee. There's soreness and then there's pain. I feel sore ALL THE TIME (especially after Dallas' spinning classes), and soreness is fine and you can work through the soreness. Pain should be paid attention to and you should modify instead of working through pain. Working through pain leads to injury. So I guess it's good I'm moving starting tomorrow and limiting the gym to 2 classes a week... just 13 classes next week instead of 20.
I'm still fat and ashamed of the way I look. I went to Mary's class today (Megan was subbing) and whenever I go to a new class I feel I'm the fatty who has to prove herself. I hate the way I look, and wonder how I let myself go this way. I want to tell people not to judge the way I look now, that I'm skinny inside and the body just has to catch up. This is not me. I want to show them my fat picture (69 lbs ago, my heaviest) so that they understand. I wonder when the magic moment happens and you go, I'm skinny now.
SATURDAY 9a Agassi Lift Mai 49/203/60, 114/60, 101/53
SATURDAY 10a Agassi TurboKick Kelly 58/413/55, 153/81, 126/67
Don't have the BB #s recorded but it went lower on the Lift and higher on the TKB (first time the BB goes higher than the Polar).
A lot to write about today. Let's start with physical shape. My left ankle hurts when I walk, my right knee hurts sometimes depending on what I'm doing, both knees are making popping noises when flexed, and I am just exhausted. Today at TKB my body finally gave out. I didn't have anything left. I even took off my gloves towards the middle of the class. I failed. After telling someone else to wear the gloves and that they could make it through the whole class, I take mine off. I burned 100 calories less than usual. So I guess I finally come upon the question: What is the aftermath after failing?
There are two possible scenarios. #1: It was the 19th class of the week and I'd only been sleeping a handful (2-5) of hours a day. And I've been taking 11+ classes a week for about a month and a half now. #2: I just gave up when I had more left. That's the question, was that mental or physical exhaustion? Should I feel like I failed and be hard with myself or should I just chalk it up to being tired? But what is being tired? Is being tired a mental or a physical state, a little of each, or depends on the situation?
The most important question is, do I feel like a loser and derail or regroup and come back harder than ever? Or feel like a loser and then come back harder than ever? I wrote about how I failed to run when I didn't want to with the running. Is this preparation for something else? Is this preparation for the last five minutes of the triathlon when I have nothing left in me but I'll push through anyway? Do I need to feel like I failed now to keep from really failing later? Is this just one more step in the progression? Because I'll tell you, I feel like crap right now and I'll do anything from keeping from feeling like this again.
I think the move (starts today) came at a good time, if I didn't slow down now I could run the risk of injury, need to take it easier next week (which for me is 13 classes instead of 20... hey it's a start). Is this my body's way of preventing something more major? Am I really tired or was that just an excuse not to work out during that class? I wore my gloves during 14 of the previous 18 classes prior to Kelly's TKB (because I didn't wear them during the three Lifts and the SET, but I did wear them during Pilates). Is taking the gloves off during the middle of the 15th gloved class that week a failure? Maybe I just reached my limit, my limit is 14 gloved classes a week... this was my first real full week with them. So next time I just have to work up to 15 gloved classes a week.
This tiredness started a couple of days ago. And whatever I say here to stroke my ego doesn't diminish the sense of utter failure. I slept some today already and plan to sleep some more, then start moving (houses).
You know, losing weight is for the most part unglamorous. Sure you have the highs like halfway, healthy bloodwork, wearing smaller clothing, but most of the time it's just neutral and long. It's a long process. I think I'm stuck at another plateau at 162.5 but I'll just have to ride it out.
Debbie out.
SUNDAY 9a Sahara Cycle Dallas 59/552/40, 169/89, 147/78
I was able to go hard with Dallas today. Still not back to full form as I didn't feel "right," but able to push through. Right knee bothered me every time I stood up but I went a few slow reps and then I was able to use it normally. Bothered me while running too, a little bit of pain. Left ankle surprisingly doesn't bother me unless I specifically pay attention to it.
I still don't know what happened yesterday, but during's today run I was more tired than usual and it was harder than usual but I knew I would anything not to feel like yesterday again. I wish I could re-do yesterday and go full force. But what difference are we really talking about? Kelly+Dallas was 1030 last week and 965 this week. We're talking about a difference of 65 calories. Is it really worth it to get worked up over 65 calories?
But of course I know it's about more than that. I'm still trying to make sense of what happened yesterday. I gave up. I was scared, of what I don't know. I DO know of what I'm scared now. I still go to the classes because it's fun. But what happens when it ceases to be fun? What do I do then? I'm scared the classes will cease to be fun and I won't keep going to them, pretty much. But running is not fun and I'm doing. Well it is fun but it's hard work, and between Zumba and running, it's Zumba all the way.
The thing is that I don't know whether I reached mental exhaustion or physical exhaustion. I can do 20 classes a week no problem. But I added the gloves and I did 14 full gloved classes. So it's different this week. I think what may have happened is that I reached the edge, that edge between mental exhaustion and physical exhaustion, and gave up. I tasted that space that's like when your car turns on the low gas light, where you can still go a little bit further but you're almost out of gas. But I gave up. But I got there. So it's bittersweet. Next time I get there again I'll remember the feeling of utter failure and I'll go full force, renewed. I never want to feel like that again when it comes to exercising. It kept me going a bit today during the three minute runs. I told myself before the run that I wasn't going to stop, and I didn't. Kathy had to show up because I had no positive reinforcements left in me, and she held my hand that last minute. Surprising how much that helps. Next week I have to run five minutes. I did give myself another smiling shout-out in the mirror when I finished. Do you know how hard it is to do that in a gym full of people without anybody noticing?
Everything that has happened has built up to something else, so I'm not completely sure yesterday wasn't supposed to happen as part of the plan. I just wish I knew what the plan was. If failing one class makes me renew and go harder than ever before, isn't it worth it? If yesterday's feeling makes me finish the triathlon without stopping, wasn't it worth it? I just wish I could have done yesterday AND whatever is coming. But maybe this is the way it's supposed to be.
Debbie out.
Sunday night - another vague reference, but I think my life changed today. Again.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Monday, January 11th, 2010 to Sunday, January 17th, 2010
FOOD
Monday: Protein shake (190), protein bar (180), protein bar (180), cheese wrap (250), protein shake (190), pistacchios (170), apple (95), 88 cherries (352), banana (100), goal 1525 (total 1707)
Tuesday: Goal 1625 2 X banana (210), 2 X protein bar (360), cheese wrap (250), pistacchios (170), egg wrap (202), 2 fruit juices with fruit pieces (220), total 1412
Wednesday: Goal: 1725 Apple (95), 2X protein bar (360), cheese wrap (250), pistacchios (340), chicken wrap (222), fruit juice with pieces (110), protein drink (190), gym snack (190), total 1757
Thursday: Goal: 1825 Cheese wrap (250), pistacchios (170), protein drink (190), protein bar X2 (360), egg wrap (240), egg (150), Chilean Peach (40), 3 bowls of soup made from scratch, going to call the day 1825
Friday: Goal: 1725 Protein bar (170), cheese wrap (250), 30 cherries (120), pistacchios (170), brown chicken and rice (352), brown rice and chicken (352), Yogurt/nuts/fruit mix (300), 1/3 apple bag (80), total 1794
Saturday: Goal: 1625 Apple slices (320), protein drink X 2 (380), cheese wrap (250), pistacchios (170), yogurt mix (300), cheese and eggs (160), total 1580
Sunday: Goal 1525 Fruit platter (Kiwi, mango, strawberries, pineapple, 560), pistacchios (170), cheese wrap (250), chicken and rice (264+220=484) + apple slices (80) = 1544
1707, 1412, 1757, 1825, 1794, 1580, 1544 = 11619
MONDAY 9a Ann Zumba Michele 59/669/30, 177/94, 158/84
MONDAY Noon Agassi Lift Rachel 56/367/60, 140/74, 118/62
MONDAY 6p Agassi Zumba Linda 58/507/50, 156/83, 135/71
MONDAY 7p Agassi PiYo Linda 62/198/60, 116/61, 89/47
Totals so far: 4 classes, 233 mins, 1741 gross cals, 1404 net cals.
I went over 182 calories over goal for today. 1525 feels like too little, but I'm going to have to start eating less as I lose weight. Then there's the fact that I burned 1404 net cals today. I burn about 2000 calories at rest, so that's 3404 cals burned, so I ate just about half of what I burned and had a caloric deficit for the day of 1697 calories. My hope is that I "catch up" because it seems I'm always a meal behind. Sunday and Monday were my first 1525 calorie days and they sucked. On Sunday I ate all of it by 1p or so and then didn't eat again that day (but I wasn't hungry until 11p or so and just held it until after midnight.
I had very good numbers with Michele. I haven't done that high in a while because as people lose weight they burn less calories at rest and while exercising. Maybe I can still hit 700+ with her. I've been doing mid-500s lately.
I've been really careful in not doing anything I don't like. I held off group classes for the first couple of months because in the past they discouraged me. I held off spinning classes because I hated them at the beginning and by the time I retook them three months later I was in good enough shape for them. I held off running for a couple more months and now I'm in good shape for it. But I'm making an exception for PiYo. I hate Yoga. I suck at Yoga. I can barely do Yoga. I think I should hold off until I'm thin and able to do it, because so far I held off doing anything I didn't absolutely positively enjoy. But maybe it's time to change that with PiYo. I didn't like Pilates and a few months after taking it, I can stand it. And maybe it's good to take something I suck at.
I've been very cold lately, and other people around me haven't. And my hair is still falling out in clumps. Maybe mention it to the doctor when I see him in a month to get my blood test results back (that's when the appointment is; I'm going to sign off the results to myself within the next couple of days, hopefully tomorrow).
TUESDAY 8a Ann TurboKick Michele 35/431/25, 178/94, 164/87
TUESDAY 9a Cheyenne TurboKick Kathy 57/602/35, 170/90, 152/80
TUESDAY 10a Cheyenne Pilates Rachel 53/218/60, 123/65, 99/52
TUESDAY 6:30p Craig TurboKick Donalin 53/516/40, 167/88, 144/76
Took Michele's TKB for the first time today. Going to start taking it every Tuesday morning and then leave 20 minutes early to make it to Cheyenne TKB. 30-40 minutes is better than zero!! Good warmup for the second TKB.
I thought Kathy's TKB would have lower calories than normal, since I felt tired (and very cold). But not only did I not go down, I went up!! These are the last two weeks of Tuesday's Lineup:
TUESDAY 9a Cheyenne TurboKick Kathy 57/537/40, 167/88, 143/76
TUESDAY 10a Cheyenne Pilates Rachel 59/189/60, 115/61, 92/49
TUESDAY 6:30p TurboKick Donalin 50/476/40, 167/88, 143/76
TUESDAY 9a TurboKick Kathy 56/541/40,170/90, 145/77
TUESDAY 10a Pilates Rachel 60/299/60, 126/67, 106/56
TUESDAY 6.30p TurboKick Donalin 57/509/45, 164/87, 139/74
Pilates suffered a bit, but the TKBs were higher. I was very surprised. I figured even if Kathy's TKB went down 50 calories or so, I gained 400+ calories with Michele's, so it was a good addition. But if it makes everything else go up, it's even better!! Even helped Donalin's at night. Michele's per minute count is 12.31. At 53 minutes that's 652. I always burn more with her.
WEDNESDAY early morning - so I started writing the book. Two days ago I met my 1k daily goal but I didn't yesterday, but I'm determined to make it up today and hit 3k today. I should be getting the bloodwork back today, I'm really interested in peeking under the hood. It's funny because all of this is happenning both very slowly and very fast at the same time. Is one or even two years really that long of a time for your whole life to do a 360? It has been almost 4.5 months since I started taking the GX classes. When you think about it, that's really not such a long time. The bloodwork is pretty much four months to the date. Wonder how much of a difference four months can make.
So all of this is spilling over into other parts of my life but body composition is one of the fastest and easiest things to change (and it's not fast nor easy). So other parts take longer.
WEDNESDAY 8a Ann Spin Dallas 57/540/45, 160/85, 142/75
WEDNESDAY 10a Sahara Zumba Michelle 58/554/45, 161/85, 142/75
WEDNESDAY 6:30p Craig Zumba Donalin 56/594/35, 170/90, 152/80
Mid to high 500s again.
I wondered aloud to somebody a couple of days ago that I was curious as to when I would feel skinny. I'm still fat and I consider myself fat. What's the magic number in which I'll go, ok I'm skinny? When will I look in the mirror without seeing rolls of fat? 110 lbs? Is there a magic switch that just turns and one day you go, oh I'm skinny? My healthy weight is around 108-145, so I'm within 20 lbs of a healthy weight.
It's funny because not only your body changes but your mind has to adjust to being lighter. If you spend your whole life thinking of yourself as fat, there's a whole paradigm change that goes on inside once you finally consider yourself skilly.
I want to get to 107.5 because that would be half of 215, and then go up with muscle (I may go up to 110 lbs quickly and then stabilize while I build muscle.
I ran today, and I realized I was scared of running. I don't know why exactly. This was week 2, so I went from running a minute, walking a minute and a half X 9 to running a minute and a half, walking two minutes six times (same running time, nine minutes). I was able to complete the whole workout without a problem.
I noticed that I've developed what I refer to as the eye of the tiger, to borrow from one of my favorite franchises. I'm still scared a lot all the time, for example of running, but I think there's very few things I won't try now because of fear. And it's almost as if when I look into my eyes I smirk back at myself because I know how this all ends and I get to find out one day. It's like my image is a few steps ahead of me and knows what comes next, and maybe one day I get to find out. She knows what the future holds and she'll tell me in due time.
I have noticed that, while I still have the regular humanly anger, stress, sadness, anxiety, etc., I think I deal better with it and don't "freak out" when things are going badly out of order. And I also seem to have better reflexes. I was walking in a parking lot and a car turned on and I instinctively dove out of the way and when.... hey, that was fast!!
Fit-wise, I think I'm in better shape than I look. I can do 4 classes in a day or three classes in a row with no problem, and 5 in a day and 4 in a row with a bit of a problem in the last one.
THURSDAY morning - Yesterday I reached 52.5 lbs lost, the halfway mark. Now it's all downhill from there. Took 27 weeks and 6 days.
THURSDAY 8a Ann SET Beth 56/435/50, 157/83, 128/68
THURSDAY 9a Ann HipHop MoMo 56/359/55, 147/78, 116/61
THURSDAY Noon Lift Cheyenne Anita 55/327/60/130/69, 112/59
It's funny because Anita talked about something today that I was thinking about yesterday but didn't get to blog. Mental exhaustion vs. physical exhaustion. I don't think I myself have surpassed mental exhaustion. I stop the exercise when my brain says I'm tired, not when I'm really done physically. It's something I'm going to have to keep working on, breaking that barrier. I give up when I "feel" like I can't go any further, but I really believe that's just my mind talking.
Bloodwork results !!!
The first set is from 9/4. I started GX classes on 9/1 and I don't go to the other side of the gym. I started working out on 7/3 so the first set of numbers were already affected by 2 months of exercise. All other numbers were always normal, so just focusing on these:
Measurement ... Normal range ... 9/4 ... 1/9
Cholesterol ... 125-200 ... 231 ... 171
Triglycerides ... 0-150 ... 153 ... 72
HDL (good cholesterol) ... 46-199 ... 38 ... 52
Cholesterol/HDL ratio ... 0-5 ... 6.08 ... 3.29
LDL (bad cholesterol) ... 0-130 ... 162 ... 105
That didn't take years. That took four months. For the first time in my adult life I have normal levels for all of those. For the first time. I more than halved the triglycerides and almost halved the ratio of cholesterol to HDL. And I really didn't ramp up the exercise until the 24 classes right around six weeks ago, and started really eating well just about 3 weeks ago (my diet changed drastically from the beginning, but I've really perfected it lately).
Blood pressure is 114/54 (that lower one is near athlete level, the upper one is normal). Beats per minute hovers around 60 at rest.
I'd like to note that I don't eat vegetables. That's just who I am, never have my entire life. So that shows that you can make up a vegetable deficiency with other stuff and still have healthy numbers.
FRIDAY 9a Agassi Zumba Michelle 56/581//35, 202/107, 153/81
Someone made a comment on my Facebook today that ties in to something I've been thinking about lately. As I lose the weight I find myself being more outgoing. I think being fat traps your true personality inside, or maybe it's just that the same thing that made me fat was the same thing that subdued my true personality. But I find myself being more outgoing, more sure of myself, more out there. Not to mention more sharing. I think I've just decided that instead of being what people want me to be I'm just going to be me, and sooner or later connect with other who are the similar. I'm barely stressed nowadays. And I do find myself happier, more easygoing (if that's possible... I think I've always been easygoing). More chill. But I definitely notice not really a change in personality, but allowing my personality to show more. And it's weird because I'm both shy and talkative. But I have to really know you to be comfortable around you and I've always sucked at small talk. Not to say that I don't enjoy being around people, because I do, but I'd rather get the formalities out of the way quickly and get to the business of already having known each other for a while. If that makes any sense. But I find myself being more comfortable in more situations and being more daring, doing things I hadn't done before. I think it all ties in to being more confident, having a higher self-esteem, and being more sure of myself that's letting me allow me being myself. And it's not really that you try to go through life being a fake, but sometimes along the way you adapt to whoever is around you because we all like to be liked. But I find myself testing out being more outgoing and open, even though I don't know how it's all going to end up. Taking more chances, if you will. Who am I going to be at 110 lbs? I don't know. I'm finding out as I go along. I've lost half the weight and now, sometimes, I allow myself to really believe I will be 110 lbs someday. Someday this year. That it really may happen. That it's really in the realm of possibility. And then after that happens, I'm left standing with a 110 lb body that I made. So I end up being a person who did something in life, accomplished something. And that's a big change to adjust to. What happens when you are sitting there and all of a sudden you did something? What does that say as you as a person? What can you do next? Can you really lost 105 lbs and have low self-esteem? No, you can't, at least I don't think so. You can't go through all this and not have at least a little bit of appreciation that there's something inside of you that you never knew existed. Strength, if I had to sum it up in one word. I found an inner strength. I found MY inner strength. And once you find your inner strength there's really no going back, it's not something you can lose once you find it.
I find myself wondering a lot what this all means, where all this is leading, what kind of changes all this has prompted. My life changed right before my eyes. Everything's the same and everything's different. I have to get to know this new me. I have to adjust to being the new me. Whether I want to or not. There comes to a point that you really have no choice but to act different because your core is different, so all your actions are different. Your essence changes, and when that happens, there's really no choice on whether you want to go back, stay still, or go forward (you have to go forward).
I don't go the gym to exercise. I don't eat to lose weight. I still measure myself daily many times a day but I don't really put a lot of weight (pun intended) on what the scale says. It's just habit by now, all of it. I get off of work, I go to the gym, I go home, I go to the gym, I go home, X2, I go to work, etc. There's no other way to live but this one, an active lifestyle. There's no staying on the couch for days anymore.
FRIDAY 6p Craig Zumba Donalin 54/564/40, 165/87, 150/79
SATURDAY 9a Agassi Lift Janet 52/197/60, 12767, 97/51
SATURDAY 10a Agassi TurboKick Kelly 62/521/45, 166/88, 138/73
Unusually low day for Lift. For TKB I wore weighted gloves (0.75 lbs in each hand, from BeachBody) gloves and they were awesome, they really made it hard and the whole class was just brutal. I loved it!! Can't wait until Tuesday morning when I do 40 minutes of Michele with them and then to an hour of Kathy/Rachel and then later an hour of Donalin. That will be totally awesome. I would expect this TKB to have lower calories and heart rate and higher fat %.
Here's the fat % for the previous Kelly classes: 35. Well, that was short. What with the forgetting the monitor one time, two skipped weeks because of holiday class cancellations, and forgetting to turn off the Polar one time, these two are the only stats I have. But fat WAS higher with the gloves!!
SUNDAY 9a Sahara Spin Dallas 59/509/45, 159/84, 139/74
I burned less calories than usual. I had my new spin shoes. They flew off the pedals twice, once only one foot, the second time both feet. I think I push my feet outwards subconsciously. After they flew off the second time I focused on pushing my feet in and that seemed to fix the problem. I read on the web that the reason to keep your heels down is to keep the front of your feet from getting numb, and I never had that problem with regular shoes/harnesses, but my feet were way numb today, so that's the first order of business, learn to put my heels down.
Went running after cycling today and it WAS harder but more enjoyable than Friday. I think I just like a challenge. I'm going to keep this routine: Wednesday after Zumba, Friday after Zumba, Sunday after spinning. Once I don't need the indoor track anymore I'm going to do it after spinning on Wednesdays also at the treadmill, right now I can't because I have to go to another gym to another class and I don't have time to go to LVAC and do it in-between. I like the indoor track for intervals because I don't have to keep pressing buttons on the treadmill and I just enjoy running "for real" more.
SUNDAY afternoon - how many things in life are mental and how many are actual? I've been thinking about this a lot because of the running. At the triathlon. I did the swimming. I did the cycling. Now I'm running. I can either stop or not stop until I get to the finish line. What could cause me to stop, other than the obvious getting an injury or a bad cramp or SOMEthing like that? If I'm all in one piece, what really stops me from taking one more step vs. stopping? Nothing. It's me against me. It's my heart vs. my mind. But isn't most of life that? How many times do we stop just because we don't think we can vs. we can't? How many of our stops were really due to us not being able to keep going? I'd say about 5%. I'd say our mind defeats us 95% of the time and we mind-stop. Me included, and maybe more than most people. But if you're running what's keeping you from staying in motion? In cycling class what's keeping you from going faster and harder? I don't think I've reached or even neared my physical limit yet, I'm still trapped by mind-limits. I'm going to be running and there's really nothing stopping from running that 5K without stopping. I'll have the training under my belt, I'll have double the time in the group classes, I'll be stronger, leaner, faster. It goes back to being scared but doing it anyway. Feeling like you "can't" go on anymore but doing it anyway.
I found my calling, what I want to do the rest of my life (I've felt this way about many things before, last of all being a therapist, and that didn't work out that well... I hated it AND sucked at it). I want to be a motivational speaker. First hurdle is that I hate speaking in front of people, so I plan to join a Toastmasters club.
Let's shift gears a little and talk about how we act in front of people. I don't think most people go through life trying to be a fake version of themselves, but we all to some degree act differently depending of where we are, what we are doing, and who we are doing it with. We all want to be accepted. We all want to feel like we belong. So we adjust. But I've started to think, instead of is this acceptable or is that acceptable, could I live in a world where someone like that existed. Is it ok to have someone like that in the world? And in general going with what I want to do instead of what I think I should do or what other people think I should do. I'm still not a complete convert but I'm becoming a believer.
Going back to mind vs. body stops. I think that one benefit of exercising is that it increases your confidence and you find yourself improving and thinking you can apply this to other, or really any, area(s) of your life. But I think there's a subtle but important difference in believing that YOU can vs. believing that it can be done period. I think exercise really shifts your way of thinking in that you believe that anything's possible (within limits) and you start thinking that more and stuff is doable, and sooner or later that even YOU can do it. So in order to believe that you can accomplish something you have to believe that it can be done period. What's the difference between a person who does and a person who doesn't? Most of the time it isn't that the person who didn't couldn't, but that they had a mind-stop.
Caloric deficit for the week:
Goal = 7k
Food consumed: 11619
Exercise: 19 classes, 1044 minutes, 8689 gross cals, 7175 net cals
1985 cals burned a day (based on 162 lbs) = 13895 cals burned a week
13895 - 11619 + 7175 = 9451 caloric deficit.
Monday: Protein shake (190), protein bar (180), protein bar (180), cheese wrap (250), protein shake (190), pistacchios (170), apple (95), 88 cherries (352), banana (100), goal 1525 (total 1707)
Tuesday: Goal 1625 2 X banana (210), 2 X protein bar (360), cheese wrap (250), pistacchios (170), egg wrap (202), 2 fruit juices with fruit pieces (220), total 1412
Wednesday: Goal: 1725 Apple (95), 2X protein bar (360), cheese wrap (250), pistacchios (340), chicken wrap (222), fruit juice with pieces (110), protein drink (190), gym snack (190), total 1757
Thursday: Goal: 1825 Cheese wrap (250), pistacchios (170), protein drink (190), protein bar X2 (360), egg wrap (240), egg (150), Chilean Peach (40), 3 bowls of soup made from scratch, going to call the day 1825
Friday: Goal: 1725 Protein bar (170), cheese wrap (250), 30 cherries (120), pistacchios (170), brown chicken and rice (352), brown rice and chicken (352), Yogurt/nuts/fruit mix (300), 1/3 apple bag (80), total 1794
Saturday: Goal: 1625 Apple slices (320), protein drink X 2 (380), cheese wrap (250), pistacchios (170), yogurt mix (300), cheese and eggs (160), total 1580
Sunday: Goal 1525 Fruit platter (Kiwi, mango, strawberries, pineapple, 560), pistacchios (170), cheese wrap (250), chicken and rice (264+220=484) + apple slices (80) = 1544
1707, 1412, 1757, 1825, 1794, 1580, 1544 = 11619
MONDAY 9a Ann Zumba Michele 59/669/30, 177/94, 158/84
MONDAY Noon Agassi Lift Rachel 56/367/60, 140/74, 118/62
MONDAY 6p Agassi Zumba Linda 58/507/50, 156/83, 135/71
MONDAY 7p Agassi PiYo Linda 62/198/60, 116/61, 89/47
Totals so far: 4 classes, 233 mins, 1741 gross cals, 1404 net cals.
I went over 182 calories over goal for today. 1525 feels like too little, but I'm going to have to start eating less as I lose weight. Then there's the fact that I burned 1404 net cals today. I burn about 2000 calories at rest, so that's 3404 cals burned, so I ate just about half of what I burned and had a caloric deficit for the day of 1697 calories. My hope is that I "catch up" because it seems I'm always a meal behind. Sunday and Monday were my first 1525 calorie days and they sucked. On Sunday I ate all of it by 1p or so and then didn't eat again that day (but I wasn't hungry until 11p or so and just held it until after midnight.
I had very good numbers with Michele. I haven't done that high in a while because as people lose weight they burn less calories at rest and while exercising. Maybe I can still hit 700+ with her. I've been doing mid-500s lately.
I've been really careful in not doing anything I don't like. I held off group classes for the first couple of months because in the past they discouraged me. I held off spinning classes because I hated them at the beginning and by the time I retook them three months later I was in good enough shape for them. I held off running for a couple more months and now I'm in good shape for it. But I'm making an exception for PiYo. I hate Yoga. I suck at Yoga. I can barely do Yoga. I think I should hold off until I'm thin and able to do it, because so far I held off doing anything I didn't absolutely positively enjoy. But maybe it's time to change that with PiYo. I didn't like Pilates and a few months after taking it, I can stand it. And maybe it's good to take something I suck at.
I've been very cold lately, and other people around me haven't. And my hair is still falling out in clumps. Maybe mention it to the doctor when I see him in a month to get my blood test results back (that's when the appointment is; I'm going to sign off the results to myself within the next couple of days, hopefully tomorrow).
TUESDAY 8a Ann TurboKick Michele 35/431/25, 178/94, 164/87
TUESDAY 9a Cheyenne TurboKick Kathy 57/602/35, 170/90, 152/80
TUESDAY 10a Cheyenne Pilates Rachel 53/218/60, 123/65, 99/52
TUESDAY 6:30p Craig TurboKick Donalin 53/516/40, 167/88, 144/76
Took Michele's TKB for the first time today. Going to start taking it every Tuesday morning and then leave 20 minutes early to make it to Cheyenne TKB. 30-40 minutes is better than zero!! Good warmup for the second TKB.
I thought Kathy's TKB would have lower calories than normal, since I felt tired (and very cold). But not only did I not go down, I went up!! These are the last two weeks of Tuesday's Lineup:
TUESDAY 9a Cheyenne TurboKick Kathy 57/537/40, 167/88, 143/76
TUESDAY 10a Cheyenne Pilates Rachel 59/189/60, 115/61, 92/49
TUESDAY 6:30p TurboKick Donalin 50/476/40, 167/88, 143/76
TUESDAY 9a TurboKick Kathy 56/541/40,170/90, 145/77
TUESDAY 10a Pilates Rachel 60/299/60, 126/67, 106/56
TUESDAY 6.30p TurboKick Donalin 57/509/45, 164/87, 139/74
Pilates suffered a bit, but the TKBs were higher. I was very surprised. I figured even if Kathy's TKB went down 50 calories or so, I gained 400+ calories with Michele's, so it was a good addition. But if it makes everything else go up, it's even better!! Even helped Donalin's at night. Michele's per minute count is 12.31. At 53 minutes that's 652. I always burn more with her.
WEDNESDAY early morning - so I started writing the book. Two days ago I met my 1k daily goal but I didn't yesterday, but I'm determined to make it up today and hit 3k today. I should be getting the bloodwork back today, I'm really interested in peeking under the hood. It's funny because all of this is happenning both very slowly and very fast at the same time. Is one or even two years really that long of a time for your whole life to do a 360? It has been almost 4.5 months since I started taking the GX classes. When you think about it, that's really not such a long time. The bloodwork is pretty much four months to the date. Wonder how much of a difference four months can make.
So all of this is spilling over into other parts of my life but body composition is one of the fastest and easiest things to change (and it's not fast nor easy). So other parts take longer.
WEDNESDAY 8a Ann Spin Dallas 57/540/45, 160/85, 142/75
WEDNESDAY 10a Sahara Zumba Michelle 58/554/45, 161/85, 142/75
WEDNESDAY 6:30p Craig Zumba Donalin 56/594/35, 170/90, 152/80
Mid to high 500s again.
I wondered aloud to somebody a couple of days ago that I was curious as to when I would feel skinny. I'm still fat and I consider myself fat. What's the magic number in which I'll go, ok I'm skinny? When will I look in the mirror without seeing rolls of fat? 110 lbs? Is there a magic switch that just turns and one day you go, oh I'm skinny? My healthy weight is around 108-145, so I'm within 20 lbs of a healthy weight.
It's funny because not only your body changes but your mind has to adjust to being lighter. If you spend your whole life thinking of yourself as fat, there's a whole paradigm change that goes on inside once you finally consider yourself skilly.
I want to get to 107.5 because that would be half of 215, and then go up with muscle (I may go up to 110 lbs quickly and then stabilize while I build muscle.
I ran today, and I realized I was scared of running. I don't know why exactly. This was week 2, so I went from running a minute, walking a minute and a half X 9 to running a minute and a half, walking two minutes six times (same running time, nine minutes). I was able to complete the whole workout without a problem.
I noticed that I've developed what I refer to as the eye of the tiger, to borrow from one of my favorite franchises. I'm still scared a lot all the time, for example of running, but I think there's very few things I won't try now because of fear. And it's almost as if when I look into my eyes I smirk back at myself because I know how this all ends and I get to find out one day. It's like my image is a few steps ahead of me and knows what comes next, and maybe one day I get to find out. She knows what the future holds and she'll tell me in due time.
I have noticed that, while I still have the regular humanly anger, stress, sadness, anxiety, etc., I think I deal better with it and don't "freak out" when things are going badly out of order. And I also seem to have better reflexes. I was walking in a parking lot and a car turned on and I instinctively dove out of the way and when.... hey, that was fast!!
Fit-wise, I think I'm in better shape than I look. I can do 4 classes in a day or three classes in a row with no problem, and 5 in a day and 4 in a row with a bit of a problem in the last one.
THURSDAY morning - Yesterday I reached 52.5 lbs lost, the halfway mark. Now it's all downhill from there. Took 27 weeks and 6 days.
THURSDAY 8a Ann SET Beth 56/435/50, 157/83, 128/68
THURSDAY 9a Ann HipHop MoMo 56/359/55, 147/78, 116/61
THURSDAY Noon Lift Cheyenne Anita 55/327/60/130/69, 112/59
It's funny because Anita talked about something today that I was thinking about yesterday but didn't get to blog. Mental exhaustion vs. physical exhaustion. I don't think I myself have surpassed mental exhaustion. I stop the exercise when my brain says I'm tired, not when I'm really done physically. It's something I'm going to have to keep working on, breaking that barrier. I give up when I "feel" like I can't go any further, but I really believe that's just my mind talking.
Bloodwork results !!!
The first set is from 9/4. I started GX classes on 9/1 and I don't go to the other side of the gym. I started working out on 7/3 so the first set of numbers were already affected by 2 months of exercise. All other numbers were always normal, so just focusing on these:
Measurement ... Normal range ... 9/4 ... 1/9
Cholesterol ... 125-200 ... 231 ... 171
Triglycerides ... 0-150 ... 153 ... 72
HDL (good cholesterol) ... 46-199 ... 38 ... 52
Cholesterol/HDL ratio ... 0-5 ... 6.08 ... 3.29
LDL (bad cholesterol) ... 0-130 ... 162 ... 105
That didn't take years. That took four months. For the first time in my adult life I have normal levels for all of those. For the first time. I more than halved the triglycerides and almost halved the ratio of cholesterol to HDL. And I really didn't ramp up the exercise until the 24 classes right around six weeks ago, and started really eating well just about 3 weeks ago (my diet changed drastically from the beginning, but I've really perfected it lately).
Blood pressure is 114/54 (that lower one is near athlete level, the upper one is normal). Beats per minute hovers around 60 at rest.
I'd like to note that I don't eat vegetables. That's just who I am, never have my entire life. So that shows that you can make up a vegetable deficiency with other stuff and still have healthy numbers.
FRIDAY 9a Agassi Zumba Michelle 56/581//35, 202/107, 153/81
Someone made a comment on my Facebook today that ties in to something I've been thinking about lately. As I lose the weight I find myself being more outgoing. I think being fat traps your true personality inside, or maybe it's just that the same thing that made me fat was the same thing that subdued my true personality. But I find myself being more outgoing, more sure of myself, more out there. Not to mention more sharing. I think I've just decided that instead of being what people want me to be I'm just going to be me, and sooner or later connect with other who are the similar. I'm barely stressed nowadays. And I do find myself happier, more easygoing (if that's possible... I think I've always been easygoing). More chill. But I definitely notice not really a change in personality, but allowing my personality to show more. And it's weird because I'm both shy and talkative. But I have to really know you to be comfortable around you and I've always sucked at small talk. Not to say that I don't enjoy being around people, because I do, but I'd rather get the formalities out of the way quickly and get to the business of already having known each other for a while. If that makes any sense. But I find myself being more comfortable in more situations and being more daring, doing things I hadn't done before. I think it all ties in to being more confident, having a higher self-esteem, and being more sure of myself that's letting me allow me being myself. And it's not really that you try to go through life being a fake, but sometimes along the way you adapt to whoever is around you because we all like to be liked. But I find myself testing out being more outgoing and open, even though I don't know how it's all going to end up. Taking more chances, if you will. Who am I going to be at 110 lbs? I don't know. I'm finding out as I go along. I've lost half the weight and now, sometimes, I allow myself to really believe I will be 110 lbs someday. Someday this year. That it really may happen. That it's really in the realm of possibility. And then after that happens, I'm left standing with a 110 lb body that I made. So I end up being a person who did something in life, accomplished something. And that's a big change to adjust to. What happens when you are sitting there and all of a sudden you did something? What does that say as you as a person? What can you do next? Can you really lost 105 lbs and have low self-esteem? No, you can't, at least I don't think so. You can't go through all this and not have at least a little bit of appreciation that there's something inside of you that you never knew existed. Strength, if I had to sum it up in one word. I found an inner strength. I found MY inner strength. And once you find your inner strength there's really no going back, it's not something you can lose once you find it.
I find myself wondering a lot what this all means, where all this is leading, what kind of changes all this has prompted. My life changed right before my eyes. Everything's the same and everything's different. I have to get to know this new me. I have to adjust to being the new me. Whether I want to or not. There comes to a point that you really have no choice but to act different because your core is different, so all your actions are different. Your essence changes, and when that happens, there's really no choice on whether you want to go back, stay still, or go forward (you have to go forward).
I don't go the gym to exercise. I don't eat to lose weight. I still measure myself daily many times a day but I don't really put a lot of weight (pun intended) on what the scale says. It's just habit by now, all of it. I get off of work, I go to the gym, I go home, I go to the gym, I go home, X2, I go to work, etc. There's no other way to live but this one, an active lifestyle. There's no staying on the couch for days anymore.
FRIDAY 6p Craig Zumba Donalin 54/564/40, 165/87, 150/79
SATURDAY 9a Agassi Lift Janet 52/197/60, 12767, 97/51
SATURDAY 10a Agassi TurboKick Kelly 62/521/45, 166/88, 138/73
Unusually low day for Lift. For TKB I wore weighted gloves (0.75 lbs in each hand, from BeachBody) gloves and they were awesome, they really made it hard and the whole class was just brutal. I loved it!! Can't wait until Tuesday morning when I do 40 minutes of Michele with them and then to an hour of Kathy/Rachel and then later an hour of Donalin. That will be totally awesome. I would expect this TKB to have lower calories and heart rate and higher fat %.
Here's the fat % for the previous Kelly classes: 35. Well, that was short. What with the forgetting the monitor one time, two skipped weeks because of holiday class cancellations, and forgetting to turn off the Polar one time, these two are the only stats I have. But fat WAS higher with the gloves!!
SUNDAY 9a Sahara Spin Dallas 59/509/45, 159/84, 139/74
I burned less calories than usual. I had my new spin shoes. They flew off the pedals twice, once only one foot, the second time both feet. I think I push my feet outwards subconsciously. After they flew off the second time I focused on pushing my feet in and that seemed to fix the problem. I read on the web that the reason to keep your heels down is to keep the front of your feet from getting numb, and I never had that problem with regular shoes/harnesses, but my feet were way numb today, so that's the first order of business, learn to put my heels down.
Went running after cycling today and it WAS harder but more enjoyable than Friday. I think I just like a challenge. I'm going to keep this routine: Wednesday after Zumba, Friday after Zumba, Sunday after spinning. Once I don't need the indoor track anymore I'm going to do it after spinning on Wednesdays also at the treadmill, right now I can't because I have to go to another gym to another class and I don't have time to go to LVAC and do it in-between. I like the indoor track for intervals because I don't have to keep pressing buttons on the treadmill and I just enjoy running "for real" more.
SUNDAY afternoon - how many things in life are mental and how many are actual? I've been thinking about this a lot because of the running. At the triathlon. I did the swimming. I did the cycling. Now I'm running. I can either stop or not stop until I get to the finish line. What could cause me to stop, other than the obvious getting an injury or a bad cramp or SOMEthing like that? If I'm all in one piece, what really stops me from taking one more step vs. stopping? Nothing. It's me against me. It's my heart vs. my mind. But isn't most of life that? How many times do we stop just because we don't think we can vs. we can't? How many of our stops were really due to us not being able to keep going? I'd say about 5%. I'd say our mind defeats us 95% of the time and we mind-stop. Me included, and maybe more than most people. But if you're running what's keeping you from staying in motion? In cycling class what's keeping you from going faster and harder? I don't think I've reached or even neared my physical limit yet, I'm still trapped by mind-limits. I'm going to be running and there's really nothing stopping from running that 5K without stopping. I'll have the training under my belt, I'll have double the time in the group classes, I'll be stronger, leaner, faster. It goes back to being scared but doing it anyway. Feeling like you "can't" go on anymore but doing it anyway.
I found my calling, what I want to do the rest of my life (I've felt this way about many things before, last of all being a therapist, and that didn't work out that well... I hated it AND sucked at it). I want to be a motivational speaker. First hurdle is that I hate speaking in front of people, so I plan to join a Toastmasters club.
Let's shift gears a little and talk about how we act in front of people. I don't think most people go through life trying to be a fake version of themselves, but we all to some degree act differently depending of where we are, what we are doing, and who we are doing it with. We all want to be accepted. We all want to feel like we belong. So we adjust. But I've started to think, instead of is this acceptable or is that acceptable, could I live in a world where someone like that existed. Is it ok to have someone like that in the world? And in general going with what I want to do instead of what I think I should do or what other people think I should do. I'm still not a complete convert but I'm becoming a believer.
Going back to mind vs. body stops. I think that one benefit of exercising is that it increases your confidence and you find yourself improving and thinking you can apply this to other, or really any, area(s) of your life. But I think there's a subtle but important difference in believing that YOU can vs. believing that it can be done period. I think exercise really shifts your way of thinking in that you believe that anything's possible (within limits) and you start thinking that more and stuff is doable, and sooner or later that even YOU can do it. So in order to believe that you can accomplish something you have to believe that it can be done period. What's the difference between a person who does and a person who doesn't? Most of the time it isn't that the person who didn't couldn't, but that they had a mind-stop.
Caloric deficit for the week:
Goal = 7k
Food consumed: 11619
Exercise: 19 classes, 1044 minutes, 8689 gross cals, 7175 net cals
1985 cals burned a day (based on 162 lbs) = 13895 cals burned a week
13895 - 11619 + 7175 = 9451 caloric deficit.
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