Holy Life Change Batman!

Ok, I realize that I'm being kinda criptic with some of this, but it's an ongoing problem that really can't be talked about. So. Suffice to say that my employment situation is unstable. I am also moving this coming weekend.

My best intentions for going to the gym have been back burner-ed by the current situation coupled with my traitor ankles.

The ankles are feeling much better today. One of the major obstacles to my recovery has been the fact that I live in Brooklyn and work (for now) in Manhattan. Not walking is not an option.

I'm going to attempt swimming again this week, once I have a better idea on where things stand in the rest of my life, and start back on the Hundred Push Up Challenge, although I do believe I'll have to drop back a few weeks.

I'm trying to see this as a positive thing, change is inevitable, and I was unhappy with my situation as it was.

I've also lost about two pounds from this. It's not that I haven't been eating, although I've been having to force myself to eat. I just haven't been eating much. And the things that I can stomach right now are very lite fare. Like I mentioned before, apparently my body reacts to this kind of stress by imposing a forced diet on me.

Things will be a bit more settled and clarified after today.

Change is inevitable.
-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

Workout, with a vengeance!

I feel much better today. Later last night, after posting I had a wicked vertigo attack, so I do believe that my negative state of mind was in part associated with the oncoming attack. Gotta love the human body. I would like to thank tokaiangel very much for her kind words about my state of mind last night , it's always good to know that there are people out there pulling for you. ^_^

Today I hit the gym hard. With a Vengeance!! I got there earlier than usual, and jumped on the treadmill. I warmed up for two minutes then ran steady for a full 30 minutes. No stopping, No slowing. I even managed to run a little faster on a little bit of an incline for the last two minutes. I cooled down for 5 minutes then hit the mats for strength.

This is my second time through week 5 of the Hundred Push Up Challenge, today was day 2 redux. I'm still just barely making it through the required sets. I feel fine up until the last "max" set. Then I BARELY eek out those last few push ups.

After the push ups I did a set of 25 "sensei mark specials" (I'm trying to work my way back up to sets of 50 of them) a set of 15 "toe touch crunches" with a 10 lb weight in my hands, 2 sets of 10 "ab choppers" (one set on each side), 2 sets of 15 side crunches (again one set on each side), 2 sets on each side of 15 triceps kick backs with a 10 lb weight, and 2 sets in each direction side squats.

I stretched for a while until the S.O. showed up then we hit the ellipticals. One thing I'm noticing now that I'm doing running on the treadmill before I get on the elliptical machines is how freaking tired I am by the time I get to the ellipticals. But I managed to keep myself moving at a respectable rate with the resistance up at 10 for 30 minutes, even if every minute felt like I was trying to run in knee deep snow.

I hit the showers and then we headed to Starbucks for my daily indulgence (a tall iced skinny vanilla late...mmmm.)

I started keeping a food journal yesterday, and over the course of the day I racked up a total of 1606 Calories, 47.7g Fat, 188 Carbs, and a measly 58g Protein. I'm going to report my daily totals here and hopefully that'll help keep me accountable.

The word for today is Rededicated.
-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

Overtime week

No, not in a good way. Not in a fitness way.

This week I'm doing an extra shift at work. So I'll be doing a 50 hour work week this week. Because I'm not willing to give up any of my other after school activities (drawing group on Mondays, relaxing and stuff on weekends) that means that my workout time is seriously crunched. I did not go to the gym today. I did not do my pushups today.

I will go tomorrow and start week 5 of the Challenge tomorrow..

Again, I'm seeing my numbers decreasing, inexplicably (seeing how little exercise I've been getting and how horribly I've been eating) and yet I'm still feeling increasingly bloated. I wonder if I'm filling up with air...

More tomorrow.
-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

Back in the Big City

The vacation is over, and I'm back to the daily routine.

Exercise wise, the vacation did not go as planned. Family obligations took over my good intentions and Kayaks were not available for rent as we had hoped. We did do a lot of walking, and ran twice.

The first day we ran, I felt my body as heavier than ever before. We ran for a good long while before I needed my first walk break. I had forgotten my watch so I'm not sur exactly how long. We walked and ran (more walking than running) for the rest of the 3.6 miles, out and back through the woods, a long the paved road across the island.

I felt the run the next day. I didn't expect the ache across my ribs. We didn't do much moving at all that day. The day after that was spent doing a lot of running around and getting stuff done.

The second day we ran, I did much better at first. We ran for a full ten minutes, and got way farther than the first time. We later measured it out on the trip odomoter in the car, and we had ran for a full mile. We ran/walked the rest of the loop, and then on the way back, I had the inspired Idea to sprint across one of the bridges. About halfway across the bridge I felt this sharp pain on the inside of my hip. Every step shot pain from the inside of my hip to the outside of my hip, and down the inside of my leg. We walked the rest of the way back, and by the time we got home I was limping to favor my hip.

Two days and a lot of Advil later the pain was gone, and I'm still not sure what I did, but it resulted in me not getting a whole lot more exercise over the rest of the trip.

I finished off week three of the Hundred push up Challenge, but completely dropped the ball on even starting week four. So, I'm going to start week four tonight, when we hit the gym.

I'm convinced running is a better workout than the elliptical machine now, and I'm also equally convinced that I am not in good enough shape to be a runner yet. I'm going to start easing running into my routine, hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be able to do some running in Central Park before it gets cold.

I weighed myself this morning to see how I had done, since I had completely stopped watching what I ate while in Maine, and found that I hadn't done horribly. Not great, but no the disaster I was expecting.

Weight: 160 (up from 158.7)
Body Fat %: 32.9 (up from 32.6)

Now that I'm back in the City, I'm getting back to the routine. We'll see if the Holiday Weight Gain goes away ^_^

-Meg

Keep pushin it!

Big News first: Today was day one of my version of the Hundred push up challenge. I had tested myself on Sunday to see how many push ups I could do, with good form, in a row. I topped out at 10, so that's the column i put myself into. I must have been really tired on Sunday or something because today when I did the challenge set, it was way too easy, and for the last set when it says "do your max" I did 15. So I'm bumping myself into the higher column for the next set on Thursday.

We went to boxing on sunday, which was an accomplishment in itself, seeing how exhausted I was when we woke up to go. I tried to push myself as hard as I could, and I think I did pretty well, which means I must be getting stronger, since I was so much better off after class than I had been the first time we went. My hands still shook a little when I held them out, but that went away after a couple hours, and by Monday the only thing that was still sore was that spot between my shoulder blades that always used to bother me when I was doing Karate.

I did my weigh in on Monday and saw 159 lbs and then forgot entirely to record the body fat % because I was so bummed by the number. I'll get another number on Wednesday and make sure I record the *important* number (the bf%)

I know with all the strength training I'm doing, that lb number is gonna stop going down due to muscle gain, but man it's hard to face that when it's the numbers on the scale staring at you. I think I'm going to do three weigh-ins a week (m,w,f) to chart how my weight fluctuates during the week.

Here's hoping that Wednesdays number is inspiring!
-Meg