Setting Goals and Not Letting the "Food Baby" get in the way of those goals!

So she made it halfway through!  Yay Barbara!    What are your goals for the New Year?!  

12.9.13 – You know those ropes? The real heavy ones that are in the training room at the gym? You see them on the biggest loser and cross fit. Well today I got really lucky. Have you ever done jumping jacks with the rope? Yes. You feel me. No. You have been spared a special kind of agony these afford your whole body. I love that Lisa is always coming up with new exercises for me to loathe, I mean love.

Totally unprompted, an out of body moment for Lisa I can only assume, Lisa says, “If you reach your goals in February I’ll let you train me for an hour.” What the what? Is she for reals? Oh my goodness my mind is jumping for joy. I will most likely start her session with a 7 minute wall sit. Aahhh it feels good just to think about.

12.11.13 and 12.16.13 – Motivation to eat right is flying out the window. Thanksgiving is over but here comes Christmas. The parties, the brunches, the sweets! Oh yum the sweets. “You can’t out exercise what you eat.” Says Lisa. Not what I want to hear. “You can undo all your hard work during the week in the gym by eating poorly on the weekend.” Again, and I can’t stress this enough, NOT what I wanted to hear. I can focus and rock it out at the gym. Even eating during the week but wow is the weekend hard. I have to be responsible for the choices I’m making. My food baby may continue to grow for a few more weeks.  

12.18.13 – Part 1: I have goals set for my final check. I did 27 push ups my goal is 40 in a row on my toes. I want to be able to do one pull up or chin up unassisted. I am 25.2% body fat, that’s the one we are going with. My goal is to lose 10% body fat, 2.5%. Feeling good about my chances! Ran sprints yesterday and dead lifted 165lbs today. Lisa is such a cheerleader for my success that I would have to try really hard to fail. She wanted me to start trying to see how many push ups I can do. I am excited and nervous to see. I would love to weigh in the lower 160’s but the scale is not the goal and I won’t let a number on the scale control how I feel about my journey.

Part 2: I went to physical therapy today for my knee. I know your like, wait you back was hurt now what? My knee has been bothering me for over a month, okay almost two, and now it hasn’t gotten bad enough for me to seek help. Good news is that I have not torn anything. Yet. So for the next two weeks I need to go to therapy twice a week and do no high intensity stuff. Hip hop class, cardio party, plyos, tae box all the stuff. What can I do for cardio? The elliptical and the bike at a low level. So I have already established that I hate cardio. These classes allow me to do cardio without too much thought. Plyos and sprints allow me to get cardio over with. This will be a challenge. It is happening during the holidays so that’s both good and bad! Let’s see what happens.

Numbers are a tool! MidWay Point!!!

12.5.13 – 

THIS IS WHY I LOVE PRO! 

Numbers are a tool. Some of them are accurate to how you feel some are not. Numbers are not the end all be all but they are a measurement to take into consideration when assessing your past and planning for the future. I didn’t feel that the scale would show much movement. And guess what? I was right. Three pounds which honestly I fluctuate that much on a daily basis. Body fat was a little more surprising. It didn’t change which I thought it would. I haven’t been focusing on my diet and these numbers show me that I need to if I want any more changes in that area. Part of PRO is measurements. Much was the same. I lost some off my waist and my arms! I gained in my arms when making a muscle. A difference that I noticed throughout training was my heart rate and breath. That changed a lot! My resting heart rate changed from 73 to 67! The treadmill test I went from below average with my heart rate increasing to 130 within 9 minutes to above average with my heart rate taking 13 minutes to increase to 130. My grip strength went from above average to well above average. But here it is. The end all be all. I went from 27 push ups on my knees to 27 push ups on my TOES!!!!!! What?!?!?! I am so excited.  

My next check in is February  6^th. I am looking forward to even more changes!

Just like that it's December!

12.2.13 I feel as though I gained 50 pounds over the Thanksgiving break. Yikes! I weigh in on Thursday. While there is a part of me that says, do a cleanse and shed some pounds in the next 3 days, I will not. This is all part of life. The holidays. Gaining and losing. Struggling to get in a workout. I am challenged to find the balance but I will be honest and up front about my journey. Lisa is so encouraging. Truly. She makes me feel like I can succeed when I can barely put one foot in front of the other.  

Lisa does a body good.

11.25.13 Forget milk doing a body good, I’m changing it to Lisa does MY body good. Yup I needed a little one two punch of my little Lisa. She changes the exercises every time. Every time they are hard. Some of the time I have never done the exercise before. It’s so fun! That’s right. I said it. Awful. Horrible. But new different and even, at times, fun. Please don’t tell Lisa I said that!

Breaking Bad... Habits

11.16.13 

Lisa is having surgery. 

I am on my own for one week. 

Thank goodness there are a ton of classes to fill my time! I so wanted to bail today. You know those days where you just don’t wanna. I did want to curl up on the couch in my sweats and drink another cup of coffee. But I didn’t want to leave the house. I didn’t want to sweat. I didn’t want to work hard. But as fate would have it I do not cancel unless I am really sick. Or laid out. So there I went off to work out with Lisa. And it did go by fast-ish. And it wasn’t super awful.

My husband came home from the gym deflated. “I’ve been loyal this working out 3 days a week. We having been eating poorly and the scale has not moved an inch!” I am dumbstruck. “Are you lifting heavier weights?” “yes.” “Are you running faster and longer?” “Yes.” “Are your clothes fitting the same or better?” “yes.” “Do I think you are crazy sexy and have a super hot bod?” “Yes.” “Then WHY would you care what that scale says? It reflects absolutely NOTHING but a number. It only holds power if you give it power.” 

Then I feel quite proud of myself. I am elevated to a higher plain of self realization and acceptance. Me, the Buddha, and oh darn it. Practice what you preach I hear, probably Buddha, whisper in my head.  I have heard this saying a million and a half times. Now I am having to apply this to every thought that creeps into my brain. Sometimes that voice whispers the f word. And I am no longer elevated to a higher plain. Why oh why does my little brain what me to feel bad about my body? The definition of a habit is: A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition. Seriously?! That could not be a better fit. Okay they say to successfully break a bad habit you have to: replace it. 

Okay good thoughts. Check. 

I have been self worshiping quite a bit lately, if I do say so myself.  Reading a lot about habits I found this great quote:

So rather than beating yourself up over a mistake, plan for it. We all get off track, what separates top performers from everyone else is that they get back on track very quickly.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clear/breaking-habits_b_3540148.html

That’s what I want to do! Here we go. Back in the saddle! 

Transformation Inside First?!

11/13/13 –  I am still on my high of loving myself and my body. Today with Lisa was great. Instead of complaining, yes I do complain mostly funny complaining but complaining none the less. I used sarcasm. Fake it till you make it. “Lisa that sounds lovely I am so very excited” said with a big smile. Here’s the thing it may have worked. I did everything and then some. There was an exercise that I knew with my balance I would not be able to do. So I didn’t take the weighs she had out and did it without. Here’s the thing I kind of know what I can do. I have to take responsibility to do what I can. Lisa pushes me to do things I didn’t think I could do. I have limits that I do allow others to see. Well I am starting to. I began to think back.

I remember vividly being at the mall right across from my rehabilitation center. My therapists loved to take me there to do laps so I could practice walking with my cane. Now to be clear I never actually made it a full lap around the mall but I tired. One day as I was slowly shuffling around I looked up and saw people rushing all around me. Some people doing errands most likely on a break from work. Other people running late for something or just busy bees. In that very moment the desire to rush overwhelmed me. Please, I thought, just let me rush too someday. 

I do rush now. 

And for that I am so very thankful. This body of mine I love. Every inch of beautiful me. 

Show Respect... "I didn’t learn to speak again so I could mimic unkind words to myself."

11-9-13:  I am not one of those people that can focus on diet or exercise or cardio. Lucky me I have all three. I have hit the proverbial wall. I am not entering in my food. Weights, are you ready for it, are REALLY heavy. Cardio makes me tired. I feel like taking a page from my 3 year olds book and having a temper tantrum. Full out with wailing and complaining but not all that movement. It looks like a lot of work. I shared my flat line status with Lisa. Of course she was understanding and totally said all the right things. What ever Lisa! I want to be b**chy and lazy. 

No go. 

A few days later IT HAPPENS! Sunday night I am chillaxing with some Ellen, as if I need to clarify Ellen DeGeneres but I will. Robyn Lawley was a guest. She is a plus sized model. 

Meaning she is an actual sized person. 

She is 6’2” , drop dead gorgeous and a size 12. Really?! In this very moment I am DONE with the hate that American culture puts on women’s bodies. I have been brainwashed my whole life of what I should look like and always falling short. Who wins? When I was dying on the hospital bed I didn’t think, “I wish this hospital gown would be a little looser.” I didn’t learn to speak again so I could mimic unkind words to myself. I didn’t relearn to walk so that I could run away from my reflection. This body of mine, all 171 pounds of it, fought for where I am. It’s about time I show some respect.