Jacked

I have (finally, perhaps) come to the realization that living a pain-free life in a flexible body is more important at this moment in time than losing weight.

I’m not losing weight, and my body is a jacked up mess of pain and stiffness. This is, just about entirely, due to my constant computer use. I can’t sit comfortably, stand comfortably, lie down comfortably, sleep comfortably, or BE comfortable. My workouts are suffering because I can’t be effective when I’m this stiff and in pain.

It’s time to take control, and take some action.

There were two times in my life when I felt like my body was flexible and pain-free – when I was getting regular massages, and when I was practicing yoga regularly. Fortunately, AcronymCo has a full-fledged wellness center – a doctor’s office, really – that has a full-time massage therapist on staff. We book appointments with her through our corporate calendar, and she charges $20 for each half-hour. Right here on campus. Work away, sneak off for a massage, come back and work some more. I’M ON IT.

The yoga studio I went to last year is still going strong and adding more classes all the time. There really ISN’T a reason why I haven’t continued to make use of them, other than that I just, well, haven’t.

My freelance stuff pretty much tossed my good intentions out the window to spend LESS time in front of the computer, so I’m going to have to modify and ENFORCE my off-line times. That’s going to be tough, but it HAS TO be done.

So (thinking out loud here), here’s how things are probably going to shake down:

Sunday: 9:00 a.m. yoga
Monday: Cardio/weights (possibly the gentle yoga class at 10:00 a.m.)
Tuesday: Massage session during the workday, followed by 5:00 p.m. yoga
Wednesday: off
Thursday: Cardio/weights
Friday: off
Saturday: Cardio/weights

THERE WILL BE NO COMPUTER USE AFTER WORK on Tuesday nights or Friday nights, and no computer use AT ALL all day Saturday. That’s right, you heard me. All day on a WEEKEND day. I’ll just have to fit in my freelance stuff on Sunday, Monday, lunchtime Tuesday through Friday, maybe some on Wednesday and Thursday evening depending on how much I have to do. I mean, damn, that’s GOT TO be do-able. Right?

Something’s gotta give, and if I keep going at this rate it’s gonna be my digestion from all the Advil I’ve been popping lately. I mean, damn.

I’m tired of hurting. Worst thing is, I did it to myself. Stupid girl.

Procrastination

I just read this somewhere else.  I think it had to do with budgeting or something, but as the author stated, it’s certainly a multipurpose issue.

When you commit to something — exercising more, eating better, saving money — it is challenging to stick with it.  Whole forests have been felled in the name of books meant to help us stick to self-improvement promises.

Every time I want to procrastinate about something, I shall now say to myself, “You’re killing a tree.”

I’m not necessarily the biggest tree-hugger that ever lived, but guilt?  Guilt, I can do.

I Feel Bad About My Body

I’ll bet that’s not a title that inspires confidence about this being a cheerful, upbeat post. Well, it ain’t.

I guess, more accurately, that I feel dubious about my body. The thing is, if I hadn’t gotten into such good shape last fall, I wouldn’t be so upset about the way things are now. When I got back from teacher training in October, I was shaved of most fat, and I’d picked up a huge amount of muscle tone in my legs, my arms, my butt, and my abs. (Climbing up a steep trail on the edge of a canyon twice a day, along with hours of yoga every morning and afternoon, will do that to you.) All my clothes were loose. I felt light and quick and strong, and I was over the moon with how I looked and felt.

But of course I couldn’t maintain that. I had other things to do than keeping up my body and doing yoga. I had to work, I had to commute, I had to cook, I had to deal with life. Quickly I got soggy, and even as I fought back feebly with halfhearted aerobics and tough yoga that I really didn’t want to do, I found myself caving more and more to the siren songs of California Tortilla and Chili’s instead of the good food I’d gotten in the habit of making for myself at home. I started buying chips at the grocery store again.

Running Through

In all my obsessive reading about exercise and nutrition (like most of us I think, when I get into something I really get into it) I’ve come across a lot of information regarding plateaus. One thing that caught my attention is the fact that supposedly your first big one usually occurs around the point when you’ve lost roughly 10% of your body weight.

Guess where I am.

Logically I knew this was coming; emotionally it still pretty much sucks all flavors of ass. Figuring my vacation week into it, for almost three weeks now I’ve been fluctuating between 147 and 149. And while I know a two-pound range isn’t something to lose my mind over, it’s still hellishly frustrating, especially when I’m still doing all the things I’ve been doing all along that have met with success. I read these stories about people who get stuck for MONTHS ON END and it makes my blood run cold (how many calories does blood running cold burn I wonder?).

I’ve also been reading (obviously) up on ways to break through the plateau and I’m ready to deploy some stuff. Increasing and changing up the exercise. Increasing water consumption and decreasing salt intake. Playing around with the daily calorie consumption. It all makes sense and this is why I’m not panicking (yet).

The first idea is adding some running into my walks. While I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns, I’m pretty sure it’s a good idea. And I love the idea of it – the health and beauty benefits, the endorphin high, the self-satisfied and condescending tone you’re able to take when talking about how you “just got back from a run,” or you’re “looking forward to a good run later,” or any line where you can casually add the word “run” into it. My father-in-law runs five miles every morning and has for years. He’s in his mid-sixties and in very good shape for his age or any age. Well yeah but he also reads the Bible every morning too, so it’s probably not best to compare. So far I can’t claim to have actually “run,” but I’m working on it. In the meantime it’s more of a walk + jog = wog type thing. I plan to wog again tonight and weather permitting, quite a few more times over the next week, hopefully progressing into more legitimate actual running soon. Just writing that hurts a little.

But hey nobody said this was supposed to be easy, right? If it was, this blog wouldn’t exist and that would be sad. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to break on through to the other side of this little obstacle. Bring on the sports bras and shin splints.

Penance

Since my good-feeling 5k race in mid-July, I’ve run precisely four times.  Including last night.  I have been a suckish bastard.

Now, I’ve done more exercise than that – heavy pack-mule labor at work – several 10+ mile bike rides, both with Boy (somewhat leisurely) and by myself (I pushed myself fairly hard) – climbing the 5-story stairs to the water slides last weekend over and over and over – etc.  But running?  No.  Considering that I’m trying hard to work up to a running goal, that’s not good.

But I have plenty of time.  The half-marathon that is the “end goal” isn’t until April.  I have time to be a fuckup on occasion.  But it’s not helped if I’m doing vacation-eating at the same time – which is precisely what I’ve been doing.

School has started, so I have to get myself re-focused into a different routine again.  I can’t get up and go running in the mornings anymore – the park doesn’t open until 6, and Boy needs to be up and about by 6:30.  I suppose I could get up at 5 or earlier and run around my neighborhood, but there is that slightly increased chance of getting run over or, possibly, shot as a Peeping Tom or something crazy like that.  And if the hills in the park are bad, the hills in my neighborhood are even more nutso.  I’m not sure I’m quite ready for that level of challenge quite yet.

So I’m trying to re-acclimate myself to running after work, or possibly later in the evening.  It’s too bad – early morning workouts are best for me, because I tend to be a morning person.  By afternoon, I’m already feeling kinda run down and looking for reasons to avoid working out (and with a family at home, those reasons usually aren’t hard to find).  If I stop on my way home from work, I’m prolonging my workday.  Once I get home, though, getting me to leave again and go work out or run or whatever is crazy hard.  Even if it is cooler at 8 than at 6.

Yesterday’s run was in a bad time of day for me, and yes it was probably 10 degrees hotter than I’ve been used to with my morning runs.  But that’s still no excuse for me turning in my first over-40-minute time for a 3.5 mile run since June.  The reason is that I’ve been a suckass slacker.  And that part has got to change.

I will now do penance by forcing myself not to suck.  And wow, sometimes that’s hard!

Scheduling Woe Redux

On the heels of Christunity’s post…

Ideal Schedule:

5:45 a.m. – Wake up.
6:40 a.m. – Prepare breakfast smoothie.
6:45 a.m. – Drive to work while consuming said smoothie.
7:00 a.m. – Ass In Seat.
11:00 a.m. – Home for a healthy lunch.
12:00 p.m. – Back to work.
4:00 p.m. – Back home.
4:05 p.m. – Begin workout.
5:00 p.m. – Finish workout.
6:00 p.m. – Consume a healthy dinner.
10:00 p.m. – Go to bed.

Actual Schedule:

5:45 a.m. – Wake up.
6:40 a.m. – Prepare breakfast smoothie.
6:45 a.m. – Drive to work while consuming said smoothie.
7:00 a.m. – Ass In Seat.
9:30 a.m. – Starving of the hunger, raid vending machine. Find stale cheesy crackers that only serve to give me heartburn.
11:00 a.m. – Home for lunch – contemplate making a salad but fix a sammich on white bread with mayo and Lays potato chips instead.
12:00 p.m. – Back to work.
3:00 p.m. – Starving of the hunger, hunt up an apple – my nod to nutrition.
4:00 p.m. – Back home.
4:10 p.m. – Still starving of the hunger, eat cottage cheese. Doesn’t cut it. Eat crackers and cheese.
4:20 p.m. – Sit on the couch and stare off into space. Feel guilty for skipping my workout, too tired to care really.
5:30 p.m. – Contemplate making dinner.
6:00 p.m. – Order a pizza.
7:00 p.m. – Eat too much pizza.
10:00 p.m. – Go to bed.

You guys, I have ENTIRELY lost my mojo.

Scheduling Woe

Ideal Schedule
6.30: wake up
7.20: leave for work
5.10: arrive home
5.15-6.00: exercise
6.05-7.00: make dinner
7.00-7.30: eat dinner
7.30-9.45: chores, life enjoyment, whatever
9.45/10.00: bedtime

How often this happens: never.

Timing

Well, pooh. I’d hoped to be much further along in my fitness goals (read: how I look in the mirror makes me go “yay!”) than I am right now. I have a little over two weeks until my Maine vacation and I’d hoped to be much more svelte. But two things threw off my progress, and therefore the timing of pre-trip svelteness. One, I threw my back out and had to take about a week off from working out. Two, I had the Essure procedure and am in the midst of taking another week off from working out. And three, during both of those periods of time off I was (am) an emotional eater.

So at this second in time, I am trying valiantly to limit my caloric intake, since I’ll be idle until Friday. Then when Friday rolls around I have to “ramp up” my workouts, instead of just jumping in full swing to the level I was at before. So, really, I’ll only have a week or so of solid workouts before we head to Maine. It’s not for a particular reason that I want to be fit for Maine, really; it was just a seemingly-achievable goal at the time that I set said goal. Now, it isn’t.

And that kind of bums me out.

Afternoon Quickie

Just a few quickies:

– As much as I try not to be a slave to the scale, it does help to see those numbers slowly but steadily decreasing. But when I’m stuck at or around one number for a few days, it does start to mess with my mind a little. I believe it’s too soon for a plateau but at the same time that’s what it kind of is by definition, so I’m trying to do a couple of things to push past it. Hopefully it won’t stick around too much longer.

– There’s no delicate way to say this. No matter how much roughage and vegetables I add to my diet, my body apparently still takes issue with letting go of the waste, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Thank God and/or medical science for the wonder that is Miralax. Stupid poopy.

– The weather is doing two things: (1) making it very, very easy to consume nothing but water and (2) making it very, very difficult for walking outside, which has been the main form of exercise I’ve been doing so far. I’ve literally had to force myself to wait until almost 8pm every night before starting off on my treks. Which, okay fine. I’m hoping all that extra sweat will add up after awhile and then I’ll be able to appreciate something, ANYTHING, about this hellish heat wave we’ve been saddled with the last few weeks.

– I still really want a bicycle and I believe that will be my first reward to myself once I reach a legitimate milestone. We have some serious hills in the neighborhood that I’d be interested to see how I’d handle on a bike.

– Lastly, a question: Do any of you guys ever use ankle or wrist weights for when you do walking, running or cardio? I’ve been using 2 lb ankle weights and I don’t know – do you think it matters? I figure I have them so it couldn’t hurt, but I also feel like a dweeb with them on. Like some poseur who’s walking, not running and not wearing cool work-out clothes or hundred dollar sneakers or something. Not that I honestly care what my neighbors think. I don’t know.

Either way, things are moving right along despite a little less activity on the scale and the potty.

Not today.

I’m not going to do aerobics today.

1) I’m tired from a weekend out of town.
2) I have a screaming headache, and jumping up and down sounds very unappealing.
3) Working my body as I did over the weekend meant working the leg that’s injured, and although it feels fine today, I don’t want to push it, because it felt downright shitty last night.

These all sound like whiny excuses to me, so rather than give in when I really didn’t want to do aerobics, I decided that to compensate, this would be my dinner:

Almonds, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and lettuce. And yes, I may have some leftover pasta later to supplement. (Carbs don’t do to me what they seem to do to everyone else.) Unfortunately, I added dressing afterward that was so salty I thought my tongue was going to shrivel up and fall out. The sodium must have calcified at the bottom; think I’ll throw that bottle out.

Anyway, I managed to justify not doing aerobics when, because of all the fast food and all the general quantity of food that I ate this weekend, I probably should have. But I wanted a rest, after driving 18 hours in a three-day span, and worrying about my leg, and not sleeping, and so on and so forth. Was this a good tradeoff or did I cheat?