H.I.I.T. me with your best shot!

In preparation for when my ankles decide to play nice again, I've been researching this trendy phenomenon people have been calling H.I.I.T.

I am most definitely going to try this, however much I think I will hate it.

There seems to be pleanty of resources out there, like HIIT source, to help a poor newb like me along. And this HIIT stuff has been talked about plenty recently, like Crabby McSlacker's post on the Cranky Fitness version S.H.I.I.T. ^_^

This is going to be another ongoing fitness experiment ala MizFit or The Great Fitness Experiment.

Anyone else up for this?
-Meg

Facing Workout Phobias

After a quick self diagnostic this afternoon, I have decided that I should be able to try swimming tomorrow. I hemmed and hawed about it, tried to convince myself that I really should give myself another couple days of rest, bartered with myself (I'll go to boxing on Sunday instead!) and ultimately decided that I need to face this.

So tomorrow I will face the fear and don a swimsuit in a public place. Once I'm in the water I will be fine, it's that walk of shame from wherever you leave the towel to when you hit the water that bothers me. Never mind that I picked the gym I signed up for (NYSC btw) because it had locations with pools. Never mind how much I love swimming (I had a brief career in competitive swimming cut short by my inability to focus on anything enough to actually train for it in elementary school) or how much I just enjoy being in the water (I also used to teach swimming). I haven't been able to get past that walk yet. I swim like a fish in my parents pool (which is located in their back yard, nicely screened from the outside world by a fence ) but ask me to put a swimsuit on in any kind of public location (beach, party, you name it) and that clenchy panicky feeling grabs me just below my solar plexus and I use every neuron in my creatively trained brain to come up with a reason, any reason that I just can't, so sorry maybe next time.

The last time I swam for fitness was back in 2000, when I was living in California, and had a pass to a 24hour gym with a huge pool and hot tub. I was overweight then, around 160, but I had been making strides towards loosing weight. I had purchased a very unfortunate silver tank suit, which I thought was The awesomest thing evah, and was all about getting my swim back. Until I realized that As I stood there on the deck, people could see me, and I came to the sudden realization that I looked like a shiny tube of paint. Totally cylindrical. So not hot. I panicked and plunked myself down in the water as fast as possible. I didn't go back.

The major contributing factor, this time, in my decision to face the pool again, is injury. I can barely walk right now, let alone get a decent workout on a treadmill or elliptical machine. I must find an alternative. The state of my body today is the direct result of a previous injury. Back in 2004 I was in decent shape, nay I was the hotness. I spent four or five days a week at the dojo. I kicked many butts. A knee injury ended all of that. Waking up one morning unable to walk, let alone kick, jump, roll, and knee people in the stomach, I totally freaked out. For a while I kept up doing modified exercises. I did all my upper body basics sitting in a chair with hand weights. I did massive numbers of sit ups and crunches and other exercises. But I slowly petered off, as I gave up hope that this was a passing injury. It ended up requiring surgery and totally incapacitated me. It's still not 100%, and I've learned to be nice to my knees, but it took me this long to get over the injury, and my subsequent failure at fitness.

I will not let this injury do the same thing to me. I will face my public swim suit wearing phobia down in the name of my quest to regain my fitness and eventually return to the dojo floor.

But I'm going to bring the biggest towel I own and I will be wearing it up to the very last second I can. One step at a time here.
-Meg

Modified Workouts

I couldn't face the gym today. After waking up and trying to walk to the bathroom, I wrapped my ankles, downed some Advil and decided to shoot for a Thursday return date at the gym. In the meantime I'm going to try and modify my workout so that most of what I do does not involve my ankles. I've been researching strength moves I can do to work various parts of my body with little to no equipment and without standing or using my ankles in any way.

So Far My list includes:
Push ups
Planks
SuperPeople
Sensei Mark Specials
Ab Choppers
Bicycle Crunches
Hamstring Ball Curl

If you've got any ideas on various workout moves I can try please let me know...I'm desperate here!

Of course I'm going to try (and I stress the try) to hit the pool to get some Cardio on Thursday. It's not that I don't have the time, or that I don't love swimming...it's well, er....it's the swimsuit issue. The idea of wearing a swimsuit in front of people I don't know makes me get slightly panicky. But since almost all forms of Cardio exercise that I can think of in some way involve my ankles, I may be forced (once again) to embrace a form of exercise that I've been avoiding.

I'm still bummed about the fact that I'm basically sidelined right now. Just when I was starting to catch the running bug, I manage to break myself.

Calorie counting is now of paramount importance. I'm terrified that if I'm not very careful I'm going to erase all the hard work I've done. Especially since I'm upset, and I'm an emotional eater.

Like tokaiangel said "Think like a surfer - 'stay stiff and ride the black wave'."
-Meg

The girl hit hard like a barracuda baby

Last night I tried an experiment. Since I only have one ace bandage I wrapped up my right ankle and not my left ankle, took some Tylenol PM and went to bed. This morning, surprisingly, my left ankle felt better than my right ankle. I have no clue. In the process of getting myself up and mobile and to the gym I determined that stairs were no longer trying to kill me, and therefore I would be fine on the treadmill. So I laced up my sneakers and hit it.

I ran for half an hour and felt ok. I even pushed myself to run a little faster. My ankles started aching a bit towards the end but I figured I was alright.

I did day two of week six of the Hundred push up challenge, or rather I tried to. My arms gave out at push up 38 out of 42 in the max set. Part of my problem I've realized is that my palms get sweaty while I'm doing my push ups and my hands start to slide outwards slowly, making for progressively difficult push ups. Anyone got any suggestions? But anyways that means I'm redoing week six next week.

I kinda ran out of time for my strength set unfortunately. All I did was a set of 20 sensei mark specials. I'm planning on doing some more sit ups and squats on my lunch break to make up for it.

Then it was time for Treadmill Round Two! Yeah, no. Running produced a decidedly unhealthy shooting pain from both ankles. So I walked. I put the incline up to 5 and kept my heart rate up above 150. It was a fast walk, but it was most definitely a walk. So I sucked at the workout today.

I really need to figure out this ankle problem though. It's slowin me down.

I had this big long introspective post about me being a tomboy that I was writing in my head while I was doing the first half of my workout, but I've forgotten most of what I wanted to say...I'll try to remember and post a bonus post later.

-Meg

Take a deep breath, babe, cause we've just started

It seems like I just can't get myself to exercise on the weekends. I make grandiose plans to do boxing and hit the gym and then *bam* real life interferes. After getting a grand total of 6 hours of sleep Saturday morning so that we could get up and traipse around Brooklyn looking at apartments, there was no way my body was letting me get up in time for boxing. Now mind you, normal people wouldn't have a problem getting up for a 12:30 class, but being the night dweller that I am, that's early.

I got myself back into the swing of things today (Monday was spent looking at more tiny overpriced apartments), and man do I hurt from it.

I did the half hour on the treadmill, with my body complaining the whole way. Then I did Day one of week six in the Hundred push up challenge. Ow. Just. Ow. I'm in the lowest bracket this time, and I barely made that last couple of push ups in the max set. I foresee redoing this week in my future. I did a wussy strength set, just the crunches I usually do, stretched and then tried to hit the treadmill again. My body was having none of that thank you very much. So I spent the next 25 minutes alternately walking and then jogging for a couple minutes, walking again for like 10 minutes, trying to run for a couple minutes, repeat.

And yet I feel like I ran a half marathon at this point..
-Meg

Check in the appropriate box for Boy or Girl

First things first, I would like to apologize for my recent foul mood. I did a very silly thing, and agreed to work overtime on a week when I already wasn't at my best. Being overtired, PMSing and getting almost no human interaction outside of work? Not good.

I've considered taking down my last post, because honestly I could see how it might offend someone with or recovering from an eating disorder, however I feel I need to leave it up, for me, because sometimes I'm afraid I'm starting to develop *very* bad habits and thought patterns.I need to be careful, because I have a highly competitive nature, not to turn my food journal into a competition with myself to see 'how low I can go'. Let me say instead that I was speaking out of frustration and hormones, and I'm sorry.

I had a short, but good, workout today. The S.O. gets out early on Fridays so I met him at 3:00 for some gym time. I talked him into the treadmills and proceeded to fly. I had been feeling tired and out of sorts when we got there, I had only gotten 6 hours of sleep and was cranky, but let me tell you, after the two minute warm up, I cranked the music and just ran for 30 minutes. I even did an 'interval' for the last two minutes, pushing myself hard, sweating buckets, and hitting that 'no room for any thoughts' zone.

I did my Hundred push up Challenge set, day 3 of week 5. Again I barely made the last set. Those last few push ups were done teeth clenched and making my "I will KILL this" face. (Coined so by one of my Sensei's back at the dojo as it is the face I make that scares people ^_^)

I did Abs (25 sensei mark specials, 10 each side 'ab choppers', 10 each side side crunches, 15 toe touches with 12 lb weight), and a little extra arm work, just 2 sets of 15 tricep kickbacks with the 12 lb weight. Then I did a full stretching set for once (since I had time) and hit the showers.

One thing I noticed while running is that the appropriate music really helps me go. A small sample of my "I will kick @$$" music (and yes I'm weird so sue me):
"Infrared" by Placebo
"Boy or Girl" by Electric Six
"Mystery Girl" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Come out Swinging" by The Offspring (or really most songs by them work)
"The Libertine" by Patrick Wolf
"Machete" by Moby

Yeah there's more...I have a huge workout playlist...but that's a good sample for now...

So what do you listen to?
-Meg

Keeping myself moving forward

Yesterday, after I had posted my blog and was getting myself all set up to charge full steam into the challenges in front of me, I found out that the apartment I thought I was moving into at the beginning of September had been rented out to someone else. A few hours of anger and panic later, and we once again have a plan and a way forward. My stress level is hovering right below "I'm going to give myself an stroke" but there is a plan and this will be ok.

To say that I needed my time at the gym today would be an understatement.

I ran for over half an hour today. Well, let me be more specific. I did a 5 minute warm up, ran for 20 minutes, walked for a minute, ran for 10 minutes, walked for a minute, ran for another 5 minutes, then did a 5 minute cool down. The last two sets of running I was to the "can't think can only try to concentrate on keeping myself moving" stage. That blissful point where the exertion of your body takes away everything else in the entire world. The last time I remember feeling that was at boxing, the time before that, in the dojo.

I used to get to that point almost every class at the dojo. And then after class I would collapse into sesea and meditate with the rest of the class, my pounding heart and deep breathing the only sound in my world.

Today was like that. It was wonderful.

I did my set for the Hundred Push Up Challenge, today there are eight levels to get through instead of the usual five, but the levels had fewer push ups. I was doing fine until the last set, which is the max rep set. I BARELY made the minimum 35.

On to the strength stuff. My arms were dead from the push ups, so I concentrated on sit ups. 20 "sensei mark specials", 20 ab choppers, 20 toe touches, 20 side crunches.Then I tried doing some of these:Straight Leg Bridge With Ball, I did 15 and stopped, partially because my butt was starting to hurt, but mostly because I felt REALLY silly.

I did some stretching, then when the S.O. got there, we hopped on the elliptical machines to do the 30 minutes to end my workout. Yeah, well I *tried* to do 30 minutes. Running is so much more tiring than elliptical-ing (is that even a word?) So much more tiring that I no longer had the energy left to do a full 30 minutes on the elliptical after that marathon on the treadmill. Sensing my flagging energy I attempted to compensate by upping the resistance level to ungodly heights, figuring I would make the most of whatever time I did manage to keep myself on the machine for. I managed to stay on for 20 minutes, plus a 5 minute cool down...so only 10 minutes short of my goal. Not too bad, especially considering I was going at a level *10* resistance! (now is the part where you all oooo in admiration).

I am now chowing down on carrots, and realizing that my butt is very not happy about that resistance level...

-Meg

Keeping Pace

Back to the gym today, for real.

I did a solid 20 minute run, with a five minute warm up and five minute cool down. I topped a mile. Somehow this is much more work, and feels like a much bigger accomplishment than the same distance on the elliptical machine..

I did day one of week five of the Hundred Push up Challenge. I had managed to do around 40 strait during my last test, so I was in the middle column this week. OMG WTF, it got so much harder this week! I barely did the 35 minimum for the last set. The last couple were BARELY eked out. I'm starting to worry that I'm going to end up having to repeat this week.

After that run, and the push ups, I did some light arm work and ab work (sensei mark specials, side crunches, and ab choppers) Stretched, and then about 20 minutes on the elliptical machine before realizing I was completely out of energy and hitting the shower.

I realized that I've never explained what a "sensei mark special" is. Well it's simple really, it's basically a modified set of crunches. First you start by laying down and holding your legs strait up, and crossing them at the ankles, so you're making an L out of your body with the long upper part being your legs, and the short lower part your torso. Now, you do a twisting crunch, touching your right elbow to your left knee, then another twist, left elbow to right knee, then two strait crunches. That's one. I usually alternate which elbow I'm using first so the second one would be left elbow to right knee, then right elbow to left knee, then two crunches.

Now do as many of those as you can. Lately I've been really weak and only been able to do about 20 before I have to stop and do the "omgi'minpain" face while trying to breathe without using my abs (which I've found is virtually impossible.)

I'm working my way back up to sets of 50 of those. Someday...
-Meg

Fitting into my skin

Today I woke up having one of *those* days. I was still in a funk from the night before, and I felt bloated and sluggish.

You know the feeling like you magically somehow gained 20 lbs overnight despite what the scale, which is obviously lying to make you feel better, says?

Yeah. That's how I felt.

I dragged myself out of bed and returned a voice mail from my S.O. saying he'd gotten out of work early, and wanted to meet up early. So I threw on clothes, grabbed the gym kit, and flew out the door.

I totally forgot to weigh myself this morning. *sigh*

At the gym we decided to just go for it and hit the treadmills for half an hour. I did a 5 minute walking warmup, then ran for fifteen minutes, walked for two, ran for five, walked for 30 seconds, then ran till the end of the half hour. I actually sprinted for the last minute too. I'm kinda proud of myself for that. I did a 5 minute cool down then hit the mats for strength.

I did day two of week four of the hundred pushup challenge, did 25 for my max set again. I did some extra arm work, and three sets of crunches: sensei mark specials, ab chops, and side crunches. I did some squats and then a lot of stretching.

After the workout we grabbed food and I totally blew my good work away with a turkey club wrap and a side of fries. I made up for that somewhat by walking from battery park to canal street before hopping on the subway to head to work.

It is DAYMN hot out there today folks.
-Meg

Running vs. Elipticalling

Today was my first real day back at the gym. I've been putting off going back to the gym because I was afraid of what I would find when I got there. How weak had I gotten in my time off? The fact that I have not gained a ton of weight since leaving helps, but really, that could just be loss of muscle right?

I decided to fool myself today instead of facing the issue head on. Instead of my normal two 30 minute sessions on the elliptical machines, I decided to take a page from my workout adventures in Maine, and do my first half on the treadmill. Now I reasoned with myself, saying that I had been gone a while, and need to ease back into this. So I granted myself a reprieve and decided I would only run for ten minutes, since that was what I had been able to do while in Maine. I took a couple minutes to walk on the treadmill to warm up and slowly worked the belt up faster to a comfortable jogging pace. I upped the incline a bit and occasionally, as I got comfortable, upped the speed by tiny increments. I almost made it to a mile.

I did my strength and some stretching, arm work and squats, a bunch of sit ups, and holding the plank position as long as I could.

Then I jumped on an elliptical machine for the second half of the workout (well more than half as I only did 15 minutes total on the treadmill including warm up and cool down) and noticed something. Running on a treadmill is MUCH HARDER than working on the elliptical machine. I have to go MUCH faster on the elliptical machine to feel like I'm working as hard as I am on the treadmill.

So my workout has forever changed now. I'm going to work my way up to half an hour on the treadmill, half an hour on the elliptical. I'm only keeping the elliptical for now because I have really messed up knees, and I need to be nice to them.

Hopefully by next week I'll feel fully back into the groove. I still feel decidedly un-groovy.

-Meg

The rollercoster of fitness emotion

Today was a rough day at the gym. I only got about five hours of sleep last night, so just dragging my sorry carcass to the gym was difficult enough. I had to go earlier than I usually do since my s.o. gets out early on Fridays for summer, and since he's my workout partner, he was meeting me at the gym at 3 instead of 5. So I'm down two hits already, it's early and I'm tired.

An aside, I work nights, my work schedule is T-F 7pm - 5am. So 3pm is early for me, really early.

Then, there are none of the type of eliptical machines that I like to use available. Yeah I know, whine whine whine, but *old* me would use that as an excuse to turn around and go home. Luckily I couldn't leave as I had a "workout buddy" to not let down. So I got on one of the types I don't particularly like, and remembered why I don't like them. I felt like I was working just as hard as normal, and my heart rate confirmed it, but my speed was way slow. But I slogged through the workout, focusing on just keeping my heart rate at the usual level and doing sprints for the last minute of each set of ten minutes (by sprinting I mean I turn the resistance up and go as fast as I can for a minute) and managed to get a close-to-decent workout in. Strength training was a practical bust, but seeing as it's my third session this week, I wasn't about to beat myself up about it. I just did what I could and pushed myself when I could (like the bicep curls) and then gave myself permission to end the workout with a few machines left out.

After a quick stop at starbucks for a "IcedSkinnyVanillaLate" (yes you must say it like that or they will make you repeat yourself) we walked up Broadway (starting at Wall street) until I got too hungry (I hadn't had time for breakfast before I left the house) and we detoured to Whole Foods on Houston to get sushi from their sushi bar.

Tasty sushi......

Anyways, we ended up walking the rest of the way up to Union Square and then sat down in the park for a bit where we ended up talking about my weight loss.

This is not a good thing for us to talk about.

My renewed commitment to the gym started because my s.o. told me I was gaining too much weight and it was affecting our relationship. The problem is, his idea of where I should be is where I was when we started dating. Which was around 130lbs with the ability to fit into his 23" Jeans.

At the height of my weight I was getting close to 180lbs, wearing a size 14, and yes I knew I was fat and yes I knew I needed to loose weight. Having my boyfriend tell me I was fat sent me into panic mode. I subscribed to this "transitions(tm) lifestyle plan" with some friends which started with a "detox" diet. For a week I ate only egg whites, vegetables, and fruit. I cut my calories back drastically. I started working out. And I started loosing weight.

For a while I was loosing a respectable 2lbs a week, and then around 160lbs it stopped. I was still working out, I was still watching what I ate (although I was eating more than I was at first) but no weight loss. No body fat percentage loss. Just nothing. Out of desperation I pushed for my s.o. to come with me to a Sunday morning non-contact boxing class at a nearby gym. I got up at 11am on a Sunday to go to a 12:30 Boxing class, and pushed myself to the point where I could barely lift my arms afterwards. It was beautiful. I'm going again this Sunday (we skipped last week due to birthday party induced hangover.)

I've started loosing weight again. I'm down to 157/158 depending on when I weigh myself, and my body fat is down a few more percentage points to 32.6% (ish I'll get a hard number up on here when I do my *official weekly number* on Monday.) But I have absolutely no faith in my ability to maintain this rate of weight loss.

In fact, while the number say it, and my clothing size confirms it (I'm down to a size 10 jeans) when I look in the mirror I don't see any weight loss. I don't look any different. I still have a fat belly and saggy arms and huge thighs. And I know when my s.o. looks at me he sees these things and he's just patiently waiting to get his "hot girlfriend" back.

Our conversation this afternoon highlighted that to me. I was expressing my doubt about my ability to attain my "goal weight" of 135lbs. He said "Well you said before it would take you a year to get there, now you say you don't know if you can? what the hell?" When I responded that I just have no faith in my ability to continue my weight loss, he said "You just do it, or don't do it. It's not that hard."

I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to curl up in a little ball and hide with a giant dove chocolate bar and a bacon cheeseburger. I wanted to give up.

I don't know if I can every make him understand what a battle this is for me. How closely I have to monitor everything I eat and how obsessively I have to exercise. I can't just "coast" through a workout because that dosn't burn enough calories. And the more weight I loose, the harder I have to work to maintain that same speed of weight loss.

*sigh*

Like I said, today was a rough day, and I *just* got settled in at work.
-Meg