Workin' on my Fitness

I had a high school teacher that would tell us when we were writing papers, "If you don't know how to start, leave it blank, and come back to it." So that's what I did here, but an opener worth reading wasn't coming to me tonight. My b.

Workout Accountabilibuddy check from last week:

S: Yoga

Mon: Long Walk

Tues: Two a day, Chest and Tri AM, Race training PM

Wed: Legs

Thurs: Rest

Fri: Bike HIIT, Abs

Sat: Race training

S: Yoga + Back and Bi

Last week I planned a rest day on Thursday on my workout notebook, but forgot to consult said notebook before Target Practice. SuperDan and I also keep a workout calendar in the kitchen that we write our workouts on when we get back from the gym. It's fun to be competitive, and its really easy to see when its been too long for you to skip another day. Yep, that's three different locales for workout calendaring. Excessive you say? Quite possibly, but they make me happy, and I find cute free printables, and if I need a little bribe to keep up a good habit, so be it. Seriously though, check out the link. Her stuff is so cute!

Overall, I feel pretty happy with how last week went. Fitness wise at least! Saturday I had to cut my run a little short to get my hair did, but I was proud of myself to get in there and leave when I had to. Trying to not run late EVERYWHERE I go should be my life Target Practice like.every.single.week!

I have been frequenting the free yoga at lululemon in North Hills every Sunday that I'm in town for the past couple of months. I really can tell that the breathing helps with just every day stress, and I treat it more as a relaxation process than a workout, though I'm happy for the added benefits. This week's focus was on alignment, which is hard to do in a large class, but this instructor made it work. One of the creepy but beautiful things about yoga is how a good teacher gets inside your head. It's like she knows that my knee is rotating out before I even do, and that I should bring it back to center. Or that I *really* don't want to hold this pose, "but I can do anything for 5 breaths." Downward dog has always been a challenging pose for me. As of late, I've been having a little inflexibility (wasn't sure that was a word until Word said so) in my left shoulder, but even prior to this new and unwelcome development, Downward dog was so incredibly hard for me to hold. I'd look around the room and think "what could I possibly be missing!?" And then this class happened. Teacher said to push through your finger pads and think of the weight coming through your hands and out of your shoulders. And just like that, my dog got a little happier. While I was originally a little disappointed that this class wasn't the sweat rag the previous week was (literally, my pink pants turned red and I was horrified to give my mat back!), I did end up learning some things that I know I can take into my practice moving forward.

As I've said in previous posts, I tend to have fitness ADHD (rereading this post, I'm not at all convinced my ADHD is limited to fitness and not my thought process entirely). There are so many activities that I like, want to try, or want to be part of my weekly routine. I read a tip somewhere to think about making your routine based on a time frame that works for you, not necessarily constrained by calendar days. This is something I might continue to flirt with regarding my strength training workouts. I don't love that I work out each muscle group only once a week, but I have a hard time figuring out what to cut to get more time in. 

Anyways, here is my tentative schedule for this calendar week. I'll try to leave my Type A self behind in February and play with a 10 day rotation or something even crazier!

M- Race training

T- Bike Sprints + Shoulders and Abs (OUCH today!)

W- Race training + Incline hike

R- Legs

F- Yoga (Sign up with me! Donation class for GOTR.)

Sa- Race training + Chest and Tri

What about you? How do you divide up your workouts? Do you focus on muscle groups for lifting or hit em all at once?

Two a Day Tuesday and Target Practice

Getting back into blogging is a little like getting back into your gym routine or healthy eating habits. It takes a while to get in the habit, and its so incredibly easy to fall out of. I will never cease to be amazed by how one missed gym date begs to turn into another, and how I have to smack it down soon, knowing that the more you give into the begging, the louder and more whiny it is the next day.

I've adopted a philosophy that I used in law school- you have to stay up on your plan because if you fall behind, you'll never catch up. If I miss a workout I planned, I don't stress about trying to make it up anymore; I just go at the next scheduled time. Maybe this is what everyone has been doing and I'm just now finding out about it, but it sure does help me keep it all in balance.

This week I decided to come back with a Target Practice to refocus my efforts. I'm still working on my goal to run a 5K, but after the challenge in December became out of reach (maybe more on that later, maybe not), I need something to sort of jump start my giddy-up train.

Health: I went to a nutritionist about two weeks ago who told me I should be eating about 300 calories more a day than what I was shooting for and to NOT eat markedly differently on days I worked out vs. days I didn't, a la MyFitnessPal. Although a helpful tool for calorie counting, she really explained why I would need to intake more so my body wasn't going into starvation mode. This was a concept I was familiar with, but assumed my intake was fine and no where near that level. Guess that is why she gets paid the big bucks. This week I'm going to focus on taking her lessons and putting them into action, namely, focusing on healthy dinners. Dinners I find a lot more difficult to control because we are always out and about or get back from the gym later than planned but I need to commit to eating in more if I want to see the results!

Fitness: Buy running shoes. My lovely Brooks were great for Dance Trance (which I miss terribly) but do nothing to support my ankle, even on the shorter runs. If I really want to start running regularly, regardless of my attempts to underscore myself as a "runner" because I don't do long distance runs, I need to get better shoes. 

Life: Incorporate some relaxation. Wedding venue shopping has been stressful yall. Oh, did I mention I got engaged? While I've hired a venue coordinator, sometimes her bluntness of "you don't have enough money to get married in Raleigh, or really married period" has been tough to take. Okay okay, slight exaggeration on my part, but we haven't gotten much great news yet, though I feel like its about to turn a corner! I need to remember to prioritize the things that help me relax: yoga, reading in Chair (Chair needs a better name), walking Roxie, and the afterglow of a bad ass two-a-day. This weekend is pretty open right now, so I'm hoping to keep it that way and work in some relaxing around inevitable wedding planning.

Any suggestions for a name?

Workout Schedule for this week:

Sun: Yoga

Mon: Long walk with pup! 

Tues: Chest and Tri AM, Interval Run PM

Wed: Legs and Abs AM

Thurs: Interval Run AM

Fri: Back and Bi PM

Sat: Endurance Run

Dishes for the week:

Lunch-

Leftover Turkey, Beef, and Black Bean Chili

Gingery Red Lentils (Courtesy of Eat Live Run)

Dinner-

Apple Dijon Pork

Slow Cooker Pumpkin Chicken Chili (Courtesy of Get Crocked! SN: This is a fantastic website for slow cooker recipes, and healthy ones at that!)

Alright all. Happy New Years Resolutioning! 

Friday Follow-up

Hi there! 

Hope you all are doing well and that your holiday seasons are enjoyable! 

First of all, thank you guys so much for the emails and texts I got supporting me in this journey.  It's a interesting beast, this white elephant in the room, and perhaps an interesting conversation about why its so hard to have this conversation about struggles with weight. But that's for another day. Suffice it to say, for now, that I love you and I'm glad you are my friend. :-)

 

Today I'm doing a quick accountability check in so you can see how close I am in getting to my goal.  As always, tips and motivations appreciated!

1	Wed	Bi and Jog	-400
2	Thurs	Shoulders and Abs -425	-425
3	Fri	Pull muscles and Jog -460	-460
4	Sat	Legs	-330
5	Sun	Yoga	-300
6	Mon	Push muscles (Back and Bi)	-325
7	Tues	Off
8	Wed	Jog	-425
9	Thurs	Sprint intervals on the Elliptical	-300
Total: -2965

Goal: 3857

So I know I need to do roughly two additional workouts to make up for where I should be at this point (much less getting ahead for when I leave on vacation next week for the final push!).  That being said though, I'm pretty pleased with this. I had an incredibly busy week with engagements 6 out of the 9 days that cut into my workout time. So for example, last night our neighborhood through a holiday party at a wine store near us.  We missed the block party when we moved in, so it was really important to both of us to go and meet the people we've been living around for almost 5 months! However, the party started at 6:30, and while I thought I would be able to get home early to get in my workout before, my meeting ran long, so we got to the gym at 5:30. BUT we both squeezed in a workout! I originally had been planning to do my "push day"* but decided to do some interval sprints on the elliptical to maximize my calorie burn since I knew I had a deficit this week.

Lessons learned so far:

1- In this hectic season, it might have been a little optimistic that I would still be able to do my 90 min workouts with lifting and cardio. Whether it means breaking it up into two workouts, or settling with one 30 minute workout before the party, its about remembering that a short workout is better than no workout! And going to work with your hair wet on Friday *probably* won't get you in trouble with the boss.

2- Your mind will quit before your body more often than not. On my jogs, I'm focusing on distance. I want to be able to run a 5K with no walk breaks, so I've been doing Galloway, as mentioned in some of my previous posts. Each session I'm slightly increasing up the time, but have been keeping at the same pace, since pace wasn't my goal. But after talking to SuperDan, I realized that since my conditioning felt like it could take the push, I just needed to go for it! Plus, we are talking about upping it .5-- nothing crazy! So on Wed I finally tested it out, and I must report, I did indeed survive, and I was pretty darn proud of myself!

3- Wine tastes better after you've done something to deserve it, i.e. sprint intervals. Even if it makes the old man on the elliptical next to you give you the evil eye as your machine rocks-- no shame girlfriend!

So for the next 8 days, I have to average about 540 calories a day burned to be on track for the goal. Ouch. Suggestions welcome! Saturday the 21st I will leave for skiing for 4 days, so I'm unsure how I'll track/if I'll count that or what my available options will be. I certainly don't want to count on having to make up time when I'm at Snowshoe!

What are your tips for getting maximum calorie burn in a short amount of time? Are you a HIIT girl too?

Oh, and has anyone heard or tried swimming with your HRM and specifically Polar watch? Will I ruin it?

Thanks, and have a happy Friday evening! :-)

December Challenge!

Well hey there December!!

I know we are all trying to figure out a way to counteract the extra calories we inevitably take in during the holiday social season, and of course, since I never do things the easy way, I'm actually still trying to LOSE weight this month. Rough. 

I won't mention how I have a memory of being in this same situation last year, and the difference (-5? maybe?) of my weight at this time last year as opposed to currently. Chalking it up as motivation NOT to be in the same place this time 2014.

I briefly flirted with doing the #RWRunStreak, but altering it to allow cross training to count as run days, since I think going from training for a 5K to running every day would be a little excessive, and then I realized- that ain't a streak no mo. Whomp whomp.

I'm motivated by the immediate rewards (feeling proud of myself after a good workout, rubbing it in SuperDan's face when I get in a 2 a day, etc.) by also by short term rewards, i.e. money. Yes, friends, I can be bought. What can I say? I'm a good American, and if I'm going to be hyper controlling of my diet, you can bet your bottom dollar I'm setting my sites on something bigger. But February and Savannah are a long time away. Momma's gonna need some stuff along the way. 

So far, I've rewarded myself with a season of Homeland and a Polar watch/chest strap that I use all the time. I practically feel like a workout is wasted if I don't have that strap on to validate my efforts and to keep me motivated to keep my heart rate.

As we've discussed in a prior post, I'm on team inputs (Thanks Meg for agreeing with me!) while SuperDan is team outputs. Team inputs means I'll reward my efforts, aka what I have control over, and trust that the outputs will come if I keep focusing on the right inputs. So, I've decided, if I burn X number of calories by Christmas day, I can buy whatever I want off my Christmas List that Santa leaves (I'm sure accidentally!) at the North Pole.

Here's my plan:
I've made "All Day" events in my Google Calendar in my Workout calendar for these three weeks. I like this because I can drag and drop the workouts I want to get in on different days if I need to change it up.

I also found this cute (and free!) calendar at ShopHollyDays where I've blocked out nights I know I won't be able to work out, so I make sure I get my butt out of bed those mornings and make it count. 

I also had to do some math. If you know me, that's more like "get to do," but never mind that. There are 21 days, including today, before Christmas. I wanted the number to be a challenge, but I also want to be able to have a few rest days where if I just do yoga or a walk I won't completely derail. So assuming 18 solid workout days, burning an average of 450 (?), that's 8100.  So because I want it to be a challenge, I'm bumping it up to 9000 calories in 21 days. 

I agree, 10,000 is a prettier number, but I wanted this to be a challenge, not dictating my life! :-)

I'll have to figure out how to count yoga, since I'm sure my fellow classmates would not be a fan of my Polar beeping at me when my heart rate drops. Any suggestions for the hour?

And here, the fun part, are some of the contenders for the reward:

Sweat Once a Day Bag at Lululemon

Rose Gold Knot Earrings at Kohl's

Freya sports bra. Y'all top heavy beauties gotta try them out!

I've been saving up for Dutch Oven for a while, so I might let myself cash in the extra $$ here and grab it!

Anyone want to join me? Post what your holiday challenge is, whether you are doing it solo, with someone in the online community, or friends/family!

Target Practice Tuesday- Guilt Begone!

This morning, as I was lamenting the 2 jerks that almost side swiped me in traffic, the rude guy in the forerunner that wouldn't let me in his lane and help a sister out, and fuming how AGAIN I was going to be late for work, I came across this article informing me of my failures.

Well great. As if I wasn't already frustrated enough with not being able to get out the door on time, which was rewarded with the aforementioned calamity of affairs, let's see what else I've managed to screw up before my second cup of coffee.

Turns out, the biggest error was what I was doing in that moment: thinking about how rough of a day its going to be with a start out like this one. So I took their advice to learn how to push the reset button for myself and thought about things I was looking forward to today. And the first thing I thought of scared the patootie out of me- "I get to lift weights tonight at the gym." 

Ummm what?

So then, going into spastic overachiever mode, I decided that I would do a Target Practice Tuesday today. But as soon as I opened Blogger and realized how long it had been since my last post, I almost started this post with a similar whiny, apologetic, introduction. But instead, I am practicing hitting my reset button- guilt begone!

So without further ado, here is my target practice for November 18:

Health: Slim down for Savannah is still going strong! We even bought our hotel! However,a  dear friend got married the second weekend of November and that resulted in more of a set back than I had hoped. About a solid 10 days later, I'm back to where I was the Monday before that wedding weekend. Eesh. Sad that it takes that long when I don't feel like I made *horrible* decisions that weekend. Anywho, my goal this week is keep calorie counting, and focus on eating more lean protein!

Fitness: Yesterday, after a lot of studying of my training schedule that did not materialize for the 5K Turkey Trot I'm doing on Thanksgiving, I decided its out of the cards for me to get to a place where I can run the distance without walking. I'm trying not to let that be a defeat (although I am frustrated that this is my second 5K I've signed up for now where I haven't committed to running enough to get there). I'm loving my weight training and don't want to curb that to incorporate more running, so I will be doing the Galloway method for the race. My focus is to do my prep runs on the days I've scheduled them: Mon, Wed, Sat, Mon. Also will be pushing for 4-5 strength workouts over the week.

Life: Try not to stress out/over plan the upcoming week so much that I feel so much nervous energy as I do right now. Between Thanksgiving planning, cooking, decorating, Christmas list shopping, etc, I can fill my plate with entirely too much (although usually fun things to do) and forget to plan time to NOT do. Once I make my menu and cooking schedule, I WILL LEAVE IT ALONE. IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE REDONE. Here's to hoping this Type A doesn't fly for the coo coo's nest before next week's check in.

Hope your plans are coming together! Would love to hear your goals for the week as well! :-)

Target Practice Tuesday

Yall. My B. For some reason, every time I've thought about blogging lately I have had like zero, I mean crashing in bed at 9:30 while bf does dishes/fall asleep with the lights on zero, energy! I blame cooking incredibly low carb for the bf the past couple of weeks, which in turn is lowering my carb intake more than I realize.

Plus, its also fun to blame the bf for something (else). :-)

Seriously though, I'm going to try to focus on making baby steps. I'm doing *pretty well* holding myself accountable to our plans and have so far been seeing some positive results, although the lack of energy is not one I would categorize as positive.

Baby Step #1: Target Practice Tuesday

The ladies over at Fit.Fun.Femme put up their Target Practice every Tuesday, choosing goals for life, fitness, and health for the week. I think this is a great idea, especially for Type As- like a New Years resolution without so much pressure and a way to pick/drag yourself out of a slump every week should the need arise. Particularly for me, I notice when I'm trying to control one area of my life (weight/fitness) I either go into hyper-anxiety mode about the other projects I'm not focusing on (house set up) or completely let myself go (shopping--come on I deserve this!). This seems to be a good way to bite off little pieces at a time and still be productive.

So without further ado, my first official "Target Practice Tuesday!"

Fitness: The bf and I have committed to making weight lifting a part of our workout routine this month. Wait...that makes it sound like we had an actual conversation about it. Let's try that again. BF and I have been going to our neighborhood Snap Fitness probably 4-5 times a week, solely lifting weights. I really like weightlifting because I like feeling strong! Sometimes a bad cardio day can make me feel the exact opposite. This week, I've decided to try the Bob Harper, 3 on 1 off routine, for my workouts. I've pegged my day off as Thursday. My goal is to get these six workouts in, because next week I hope to get back to adding in cardio so I can start back training for a 5K. I've been doing Jamie Eason Body Building Phase 1, and should finish that this month, which also calls for no cardio. I'm skeptical of the no cardio, but hey its something new to try!

Friend me and follow me- User name DancinBabe923

Health: Keep logging my calorie counts for the day. It makes it difficult when I try to experiment with new Atkins friendly recipes for the bf, but I never feel good eating and not knowing how much of what I am eating. I'm always glad that I've done it, even if I am not super enjoying the process! 

I need a name for Chair. This is her in the showroom before she came home. Not a great picture- she is much happier here.

Life: Because we will be in town for the first weekend in a while, I am going to focus on getting a house project done- unpacking the home office. Bf got me a beautiful chair for my bday and my dad got me a beautiful desk when I started law school a while back, and both are sitting in that room lonely and neglected. While there are lots of fun things going on in Raleigh this weekend (Scary Carey, State Fair, UNC v. BC, Gravity IMAX, new golf clubs to try) I want to do the things I'm REALLY interested in and still allow for plenty of time to notice an improvement on the house. We are usually on the go on the weekends, which explains why since we moved in in August the house is getting set up at a snail's pace. We need to take advantage of the downtime this weekend and not fill our social calendar with things that impede making our house a home.

Do you have goals for this week? Any tips for goal making?

Sunday Setup, Shoutouts, and ADHD workout planning

Happy Sunday yall!

One of the many great lessons I've learned from Katrina and Karena @ToneitUp is to dedicate Sundays to prepping for the week. Now sometimes (read most!) this is a bit of a PIA when the bf is watching football in various states of catnapping, but it *always* pays off and I'm so glad I've done it throughout the week. My Sunday setup involves meal planning for the week (taking into account when we will be dining out for lunch and dinner to make sure we make good choices on the other evenings when we have more control over our menu) meal prepping. The bf has just started Atkins again, which I reserve the right to write a venting blog post about later, but that means A LOT of chopping vegetables for snacks during the work day and prepping meat and cheese roll ups. This last Sunday I also prepped a chopped mix of onions and green peppers and grilled up turkey sausage so that our scrambles in the AM would be ready to go and that worked out great!

But dag nabbit. Sunday showed up again! And so here I sit, trying to enjoy the process. Though it does make it easier when you have a little snuggle bug by your side.

Of course now she acts camera shy!

Like many Type A's out there, I find myself completely over analyzing/over planning/over thinking how to *best* work out and eat right this week. If I spent a fraction of the time actually doing the things instead of reading about them, I probably would see success much more quickly. But that being said, I enjoy the research and creativity from my friends and friends I have yet to meet on the web, so I thought I'd share a few along (and work them into my Sunday Routine as well!)

Teri at A Foodie Stays Fit is a friend of a bunch of girls I went to law school with, but I have yet to meet in person unfortunately. She has such a positive attitude and an infectious smile. While there are a million things I love about her blog, one of my favorite things is the Weekender she posts, which includes fun links to articles and a recap of her workouts that week. Being someone who feels like I'm constantly worrying about how/when to work out, I enjoy seeing how other people stack their weeks and use it for motivation. So, forgive me for starting my SlimDown Challenge on Wednesday/I was in Syracuse with family Sunday and Monday/I hurt my back trapeezing and can't do much/Excuse excuse excuse, but here is mine for the past week (would love suggestions for a icon/pic for this portion of the blog!):

S: Walk with my sister 

M: None

T: Strength- Chest and Tri (Doc has not cleared me for runs at this point, but suggested working in upper body strength)

W: Walk in the AM with bf and pup

R: Strength- Back and Biceps

F: Short walk in AM with bf and pup

Sa: Legs (really feeling them this morning!) and 2.5 mi walk with bf and pup

Thanks to one of the Monday Motivations from @TIU I'm following the Jamie Eason Body Building for the time being to focus on strength training this month. I had been doing the Couch to 5K to train for my color run a few weeks ago, but wasn't really seeing the results I wanted from moderate cardio (no HITT and no strength) so I figured I'd try this for a month and see how it goes. She also says no cardio the first month while you are working on building muscle, which I'm skeptical about. 

Does the ADHD workout planning portion of the title make sense now? :-)

Check back in later today where I'll post my plan for the week, Sunday Setup tips, and another Shoutout to one of my favorite blogs. Here's a teaser:

As always, I love and live for the support and motivation of this community. Post your workout recap or Sunday Setup in the comments below!