It's Officially Winter

Winter has swept into Chicago in a big way. After all those unseasonably warm days we enjoyed we've been hit with the double whammy. It rained incessantly all day yesterday and then around rush hour it turned very cold and the snow came. Taking the dog out this morning was a challenge due to the layer of ice on the sidewalks and driveways around my complex. I really really do not like ice because I really really do not like falling down. This weather puts a crimp in my walking schedule, which I kind of figured would happen at some point. I need to either look for an alternative I can do at home or start going to the gym every day so I get my cardio in. I hesitate to use the Air-Dyne exclusively because it tends to mess up my knees if I do too much. Maybe a kettlebell/bodyweight circuit could be devised. Hmm....

I've pretty much given up trying to maintain a deficit at this point. My son came home from Michigan Wednesday night and we are almost completely in Christmas mode full swing. Funny thing though, I haven't had any cravings to overeat or eat sugary treats. And I'm not going to question it but just go with what feels right. Maybe I am learning to prefer healthy foods over junk. I haven't weighed myself recently. My plan is to weigh and take pictures on New Years Day and dive back into the good fight after that. Chris and I are going up to Wisconsin to visit friends over the weekend before coming home to put up the tree and celebrate Christmas. I have one more workout tomorrow before we go so I'll post an update when I get back on Sunday.

Another quick update

I don't have much new to say so I'll just make a few quick points before I'm off to my busy day.

1. I'm feeling very good today.

2. I realized yesterday that the workout I'm doing makes me an anomaly in my gym. I'm the only woman there that works out as hard as I do. And I don't care.

3. I made the healthy brownie recipe on Sunday. It's just ok. Better than the last recipe I tried (using sweet potatoes. Really??) I need to keep looking because the holy grail is out there.

4. My son is coming home tomorrow night and I'm very excited to see him. I hope to get him to my gym this time to work out with me.

5. Work is about to get much busier and I need to get prepared.

6. Today is walk day so I need to get my butt out the door right now.

buh bye!

The Week in Review - December 16

I should do one of these every Sunday.

Workouts:
Fantastic. I did all three again. I've made time the last two weeks to go to the gym three times a week so I must love these new workouts. It's because I so want to hit the performance goals I set. That's going well. I've added reps every workout and haven't felt I've been pushing up to my boundaries. I've stuck with the rep limit on all the other exercises which have been getting easier but still challenging. So no change for that for at least another week. Soreness is still there but better. I'm doing more rehab and stretching work for the areas where I feel sore.

Diet:
Not so good but not so bad either. I'm hovering around 230 lbs. because I had a couple of episodes of caving to my hunger and/or cravings this week. I've been exploring the sensation of delaying food longer than 3 hours and it's been interesting to say the least. Some days it was ok and some days really difficult. Since this seems to be such a big issue for me, I think it needs to be a focus and goal. I'd like it not to be such a big deal. I've also been trying recipes for healthy treats in an effort to provide myself choices that scratch the treat itch but aren't full of sugar and chemical crap. Today I'm going to make a brownie recipe I found which is very low sugar (just whatever is in the dark chocolate chips I'll use). Hopefully it is tasty enough that I can use it for party situations. Report to follow...if the world doesn't end on Friday. LOL

It Baffles Me

First, the update on my workouts...they are going great! The day after every workout I have soreness right in the glute muscle, which tells me I'm doing all the glute exercises right. My butt has never looked so good. Still on the big side (diet!) but nicely shaped and firm. I think my legs are starting to look firmer too. So I'm very pleased with the new workout and enjoying the hard work very much.

I wish I were as pleased with the diet. Not that it's going badly but it's still a struggle. I had another overeating episode Tuesday night. I know I could have done something about it but didn't. As soon as my stomach started growling too much it was off to the kitchen for me. For some reason that baffles me, the physical signs of hunger seem to trigger an almost panicked response in my brain. As soon as I feel stomach pain or lightheadedness, I want to fix it so it stops. Instead of just waiting it out, I want to put food in my mouth.

I've decided I need to train my brain just like I train my muscles. I need to train my brain not to panic at the first sign of hunger. I need to train my brain to stay calm, breathe, use a non-food coping mechanism and wait it out. Yesterday and today I skipped my planned afternoon snack. Well, not skipped so much as delayed it. I'm working on extending the time between two meals from 3 hours to 6 hours. Yesterday and today it was between lunch and dinner. I'm taking the snack I planned in the afternoon, moving it to after dinner and working on dealing with the longer period between the meals. Yesterday I had a couple of moments of panic and had to breathe to calm myself. Once I relaxed I was able to move past it. But I'll tell you I was looking at the clock pretty regularly until dinner!

I want to get to the point where I can do this between any two meals that I decide. Once I'm able to delay my food without going into terrors then I'll be better able to reduce my calories a little further without worrying about it all collapsing. I can see this is going to take some time and isn't helped by beating myself up. It's going to take as long as it takes.

Pity Party

The pity party struck on Saturday night. As I mentioned, we had friends over for dinner and socializing. I made it through dinner just fine. However, as the night wore on I got hungrier and hungrier. So when we broke out the desserts later in the evening my internal pity party kicked in and I caved to the brownies that someone brought. Brownies are my kryptonite. As a result I gained a pound, so it's lots of water and back to the deficit today to get the bloat out.

The lesson here is that I need to keep on working on my hunger management strategies and specifically about those times when I'm up past my bedtime with no extra calories to use until morning. Maybe I need to work on extending the time between meals so I get used to not eating for longer than 4 hours. That has been a tough one for me. But it's a work in progress and something I can work on.

Going Into The Weekend Update

That workout yesterday kicked my ass. I was really sore this morning so I skipped my scheduled walk. I did walk the dog a bit farther than usual to make up for it and have been doing a lot of stretching and movement to keep the glutes and hammies from tightening up. I hit it again tomorrow. I'll have enough time to soak in the whirlpool afterwards, so I'm hoping to be over the soreness by the Tuesday workout.

We have people coming over Saturday night. Since I used last night's dinner for my "cheat" meal (we had Popeye's chicken) there will be no deviation from the plan tomorrow. I'm still at 228 so I need more deficit days and another weight drop before I consider any more treats.

My Trainer is An Evil Evil Man

After I did my first set of split squats, holding the down position for two seconds, for 8 reps, the title of this post was going to be "My Trainer is an Evil Man". But after doing the second set, I knew it needed more than that. So Rog gets two "evils".

My butt and upper hammies are so sore right now. I never fully got over the next-day soreness from the first workout and now this. I haven't been this sore from workouts in quite a while. And it's perfectly alright. It's the good kind that tells me that improvement is going to happen. It's just that it's been so long since I've felt that teeth grinding pain from cranking out tough reps that I just have to whine a bit.

I was able to handle 95# for the 5-rep sets of hip thrusts. I've decided I want to focus my improvement efforts on the rack pulls and low rep hip thrusts. I outlined my goal for the rack pulls in the last post. My goal for the hip thrusts is also to add 20# over the next two months, up to 115#. I'm not going to add any reps to any of the other exercises unless they get so stupid easy that I'm just going through the motions. I'm doing so much more effort in these workouts that I'd be in danger of overtraining fairly quickly if I try to add to every exercise I'm doing. Adding just 3-4 reps per workout should keep me improving while letting me recover sufficiently to keep going through the next two months.

Finding a Happy Medium

I just got back from the gym, having done Day A of my new workout. Things went very well (except for one thing which I will get to shortly).

I feel very strong on the rack pulls. I used my top weight of 115# for the 3 rep set and then down 5# each set from there on. I can definitely see making a progress goal of 135# for the 3 rep set by the end of January. For the next superset, I started with the 45# fat bar for the hip thrust which felt fairly easy so I went up to 55# for the next two. The cable pulldowns felt really good, and I went with 45# for those.

The problem came with the stability ball plank. I couldn't for the life of me balance on one arm to do the sword stab motion. Not even with my feet really wide. So I did it in a regular plank which was definitely hard enough. I'll email Rog to make sure this is an ok regression to do. Floor presses were good and I used 20# for those. The kettlebell sumo deadlifts were awesome. I used a 24 kg kettlebell for 2 sets. The trick with those is keeping my concentration to stay tight in my upper back and core, while making sure to use my glutes instead of my lower back to lift the weight. This will be good training for eventually going back to sumo deadlifts with the bar.

I took Rog's advice about eating more pre-workout. I had one of my healthy pumpkin muffins and a Quest bar with two cups of coffee before I left the house and it was plenty of fuel for the entire workout. So, as I see it, the most important thing for me to focus on in the coming weeks is to push myself enough with pushing too much. I can see I wasn't pushing myself hard enough the last couple of months, but now that I'm feeling better I can't let my eyes be bigger than my stomach, so to speak. I can't let my ego push me to try to lift heavier than what I can safely recover from. I'll need to carefully evaluate how I feel between workouts so that I can make a good judgement about whether I'm ready to increase reps or weight at the next workout. I really don't want to injure myself again and go back to square one.

Sleepy Sunday

Just a quick update today. Gotta take the dog out and then watch the Bears beat the Seahawks.

Bad news first: I missed my workout yesterday because I just got too busy and we decided to go see Skyfall at an early show. (Go see it. Serious fun.) I'm looking forward to the new workout Rog will be sending and am ready to hit it with a vengeance.

Good news: Diet is going well. I haven't been terribly hungry and I have dropped weight two days in a row. I was down to 229 Saturday morning and 227.8 this morning. Since I don't really feel any different I figure it's just bloat finally coming off from the Thanksgiving feast day. But it's good to see things moving in the right direction.

I Think I've Found What I'm Looking For

It was a very productive visit to the hand specialist yesterday and I think he's diagnosed the problem. After pressing on various areas of my hands and wrists, he found I have inflammation of the tendon sheaths associated with the index and middle fingers of my right hand and (less so) the index finger and pinkie of my left hand. He also said I have something called trigger finger which is when the inflammation of the tendon sheath causes a finger to become bent, stiff and to pop when straightened. This has been happening to my right middle finger at night when I'm sleeping.

His solution was to inject a steroid into the base of the two fingers in my right hand. Painful, you ask? Why yes, yes it was. However, it seems to have helped almost immediately, although I was told it might take several weeks for the inflammation to die down completely. So hopefully I'll see even more improvement over the coming weeks. He also wants me to go for physical therapy on the left hand and my wrists to get some ultrasound for the remaining inflammation and then some stretching and strengthening exercises. It seems I've been overusing my hands, mostly with all the computer work I do, and maybe somewhat with the weight training. The computer work I can cut back on since about 30% of it is simply recreational. Not cutting back on the weight training, no sir, no how.

Things are going well with the diet. I had a minor blip of binging Wednesday night after dinner (hungry, oh so hungry) but I was back this morning with a 1 lb loss (231 lbs). It seems I get gnarly about the fifth day of dieting so I'm thinking it might be a beneficial to have a planned "splurge" every fifth day after dinner to take the edge off so I don't have unplanned binges that make me feel bad about myself.

But it's time to go out for a walk...so later, alligator.

One More Trouble Off My Mind

I had my EMG yesterday. Helpful hint: If anyone offers you a free EMG don't take it. That is one sucky test. Not only do they stick needles in your limbs (in my case, hands and arms) but they jolt your muscles with electroshock. Totally not fun.

Anyway, after all that gritting of teeth, I got good news. I have no neurologic problem that's causing my hand and wrist pain. In other words, no carpal tunnel syndrome. That would have sucked because the only permanent solution to that is surgery. So this morning I see a hand specialist and that's the last train stop on the line. If he can't tell me what's wrong or what to do then I just live with this.

Another update to come....

Consistency Is The Key

I continue to feel good and I am amazed by that. Amazed and very happy. After months of daily pain, either my hands and wrists are really feeling better or I've learned to live with it with the help of Motrin (I suspect the latter). I finally am having the EMG tomorrow which will tell me if I have carpal tunnel syndrome or not. And I have an appointment Thursday morning with a hand specialist so I hope to have an answer as to what is going on and whether anything can be done about it.

So now I'm training through the pain, which is less but still there, and I'm pushing myself a little bit harder because I'm tired of feeling like I'm not making much progress. Today's workout was good. The rack pulls finally feel comfortable at the weight level I've been doing and I'm increasing reps at the bottom of the reverse pyramid. I'm working harder on my hip thrusts, using 40 lbs for 12 reps on all 4 sets today. My core feels so much stronger. I did the elevated planks on the ball with my feet narrowly apart and it was tough but solid.

I'm so looking forward to what Rog has in store for me next week.

My diet is good. I'm sleeping pretty well so far and don't feel depleted or deprived. Hungry, yes, but managable. My goal is to stay consistent and only take a break on Chistmas Day. Thank goodness I work from home now and don't have to deal with all the office parties and treats sitting out.

I Have Thoughts

Another good day. I slept like a rock after all the activity yesterday...a full morning of grocery shopping and a hard workout at the gym. My legs had that full heavy feeling you get after they've received a good amount of stress.

Cappy was looking at me longingly all morning, so reluctantly I bundled her in the car to go to the dog park. I limited it to a slow trudge around the perimeter, enough for her to burn off her energy and enough for me to stretch the leg muscles. I came home to put a beef stew in the crockpot, make a batch of pumpkin muffins and watch the Bears trounce the Vikings (8-3, booyah!).

So...I titled this post "I Have Thoughts". What thoughts? Crossfit thoughts. WHAT?!! Yes, I've been rolling this around in my head for a while, that maybe I should explore what Crossfit has to offer. I've been hesitant to say the least because I've heard some not so good things about it but I've also seen lots of fans on the paleo sites. I'm thinking it would be beneficial because there are movements I would never do because I wouldn't learn them on my own for fear of injury. Things like the snatch, cleans and pull-ups. Even deadlifts...I think one of the reasons I injured my back was not really knowing if I was doing them completely correctly. Crossfit would be beneficial because I would be able to learn these things with the help of a coach who is right there correcting me. My fear is that I wouldn't be able to keep up with the competiveness or advanced workouts that younger, fitter people can do.

There's a Crossfit gym about 10 minutes from my house and they have classes at 5:30 am which would be perfect. And a mobility class on Saturday. They require a two-week, 6 class intro before letting people take the open classes. I'm thinking perhaps I could do that intro class so I can figure out if it's something that would work for me and learn some of the moves in the process. I'm talking to Rog about it tomorrow to get his opinion on maybe taking an intro class in February. It would definitely be a challenge and hopefully I'd be up for it.

A Good Day

I had a really good day today. I'm back to tracking calories, 1950 for today. I feel clear and committed to get this weight loss job done. I had a great workout. My squats are getting so much better. Today I did my assisted squats with one hand on the bar and the other holding a 10 lb plate. I was able to get down to parallel with just enough assistance from the bar to get through the bottom-most sticking point. My core feels much stronger and although my back gets a little sore every so often, I don't worry about it as much as I did a couple of months ago. All in all, things are progressing quite well. Now I just have to stay consistent with my diet.

This Is What You Get When You Don't Pay Attention

You get to start over with a new life and a new identity, just like this was a witness protection program. I love starting over. Maybe that's why I do it so often.

So it's the day after Thanksgiving. All is quiet around my house. My son left to go back to Michigan. I briefly braved the Black Friday crowds. And all of us are still digesting the food babies we made yesterday.

I had such a great day yesterday. Thanksgiving is the one day I happily spend making food all day long. It's a way that I express my gratitude for my husband and son by making food with heaping helpings of love. But the end of dinner, I'm exhausted but oh so happy seeing the pleasure on their faces. I wouldn't trade it for a instant 10 lb weight loss.

And even though I ate like there was no tomorrow, I did something that I never done before. I went to the gym and worked out on a HOLIDAY!!!! A freaking holiday. And it was AWESOME!!! I had the best workout I've had in a while. Everything was hitting on all cylinders. I even felt so good, I did a metabolic finisher at the end. I was inspired by the Girls Gone Strong who posted a finisher on their blog. Of course I didn't do the exact finisher they suggested. Theirs was KB swings, KB squats and KB snatches. I couldn't do a snatch to save my life so I changed it to KB swings (15 reps), KB goblet squats (10 reps) and KB one arm rows (15 reps each side). I did two sets in 5 minutes. Discretion being the better part of valor, I left it at that, not wanting to risk ruining things with an injury.

I still need to get in a walk today, my third of the week, but it's really cold and windy so I need to work myself into it. Tomorrow is the gym and back to my food plan again. I'm going to start cutting my calories from 2000 to 1800 by 50 calorie increments over the next few weeks, getting me through the holidays. I don't think I'm going to make much progress as far as my weight goes until after the holidays, simply because I never really do. All I really want to go is get myself used to the calorie level I'll be at for the next few months and learn some more hunger management techniques. I tried the one Rog and I discussed last week, about pre- and post-workout food, and it seemed to help (see awesome workout above).  I'll experiment some more with that and with meal/macro changes to see what works best.