05 April 2014

Time to get serious


I first went to physical therapy in January I think - towards the end. She gave me some exercises and I did them and they helped. Both the shoulder and the knee. I went back in February and saw that I had progressed and she gave me some more advanced exercises and I didn't do them. Then I sat on my butt for a few weeks and didn't go to Crossfit. Then my knee started giving me real problems. Really? How surprising!!!! During this break I have been working on getting my knee back in shape, and it's getting there. Then yesterday I had a ortho appointment and talked him into another cortisone shot in my knee - woo hoo. Today the knee feels awesome. Really. Really. Awesome. Went to Crossfit this morning and for the very slightest moment considered just going all out since I felt so good. Luckily I came to my senses rather quickly. I modified. I didn't do a whole lot of double unders during the warm up because the pounding hurts my knee. Smart. I did not do the squat snatches as prescribed, because squatting is not good for me. I did push press instead. There were also lunges involved and I took them slow and easy to make sure my form was good and I did not twist my knee in any strange way. I got in a helluva workout and I felt totally proud of myself for not going crazy. I walked out of there not limping. Yea me!!!!!

One other thing I did during this break is cleaned up the spare room. That is the 'workout' room. I threw stuff away, rearranged furniture, purged a bunch of junk, and made room so it could be a real workout space. Then today, I used my birthday reward from Sports Authority, and got one of these:


I have been using the one at the gym and it is helping but I don't always have time there or want to hang out for 20 minutes rolling myself. So I bought my own. I am going to start a program in the mornings where I do my PT exercises and roll my back, hips, and legs out. I have to work out exactly how long these things will take me, but even if I have to break it up to morning and evening exercises - that would work. Do knee in the morning, shoulder at night. The goal here is to improve these areas, make them stronger before the cortisone shot wears off. Last time I got a shot in my knee, I can tell you exactly when i wore off, because I felt it. I don't want that to happen this time. I want to get 6 months out and say , "oh, my last cortisone shot was 6 months ago, I forgot." It can happen, it is just going to take diligence and persistence and patience. None of these things are my strong suits, but I live by habits. I'm going to make these all a habit and that will achieve the same results.

Right now, I am hungry. Very hungry. I will write more about my plan later.

03 April 2014

My nemesis


Yesterday went really well. Really. Really. Well. I had no junk food all day. I did not eat anything after lunch, which is usually the time I cave. I was very, very proud of myself. Then Hubby bought this home. If you have never had this, you must try it. Amazing!!!! It is a chocolate and vanilla ice cream with a core of caramel. OMG!!! Amazeballs!!!!! The good part is that I did not have very much of it. I had about 10 spoonfuls total. Hubby ate the rest. And it is all gone. But that was the only junk I ate all day. I knew I could do it, it was just a matter of actually doing it. So yesterday was rousing success. The question now is does my avoidance of junk food yesterday have any relation to me crushing the WOD last night? Or is that merely a coincidence? Hmm....food for thought....

02 April 2014

Gave it my all


Tonight, for the first time in about a week, I was really able to push it during a WOD. Tonight's WOD was 800 m run, 16 jerks, 32 sit ups. I couldn't run because of the knee so I rowed 500 m instead. Because none of these moves really used my knee, and my knee has been feeling much better, I was able to really push and kill myself. It was awesome. I haven't felt like that during a workout in a while. I came home sweaty and tired and now I'm hungry. That is the way it should be after a workout. So yea for me and no knee pain....

Responsibility


Just read a great post on a paleo blog about taking responsibility. Responsibility for you fitness, diet, body, everything. This post really made me think. I like to think that I accept responsibility for everything I do, but honestly I don't. The last couple of days I've been trying to get my diet under control. It's getting better, but I'm still succumbing to the sweet treats. I can give you any number of reasons excuses but the fact of the matter is, I've been abdicating responsibility of my diet to my cravings. That is ridiculous. Absolutely. Ridiculous. I don't want to live my life avoiding sweets forever, but I also don't need to have them every single day. They are meant to be eaten once in a while, hence the name treat. So no more abdicating responsibility of any parts of my life. While I might have given up on the weight loss thing, I have not given up on the healthy thing. I want to be healthy, to have energy, and to feel good. That is one thing Crossfit has taught me. The number on the scale does not determine my happiness or how good I feel. I have not weighed myself in easily 4 weeks and I don't care. I know how I feel - pretty good - and I know how I want to feel - amazing. The number on the scale has zero control over that. So there is my responsibility manifesto.I will not allow food, healthy or treat, to rule my life. I will not allow the scale to determine how I feel. I will take control over what I put in my body and what I do with my body. From this moment forward.

01 April 2014

Success


I'm counting yesterday as a success. My goal was to eat at regular intervals, not let my hunger get out of control, and restrain from the sweets. Well, I did eat at regular intervals. I did not let my hunger get out of control. I did however, have some sweets. After lunch I had a couple of cookies and after dinner I had some cake. Now, the real problem here is not so much that I ate them, the cookies I wanted, it's that I really didn't want the cake. I'm not a fan of that cake. At. All. The cake is a little dry and the icing is weird - peanut butter and cream cheese. Yet, I ate it. Actually, I ate 2 slices. Yeah, don't like it so I eat 2 slices. Awesome. But, I am still counting yesterday as a success. Oh yes, I got to Crossfit also. So, a rousing success. I plan to repeat the meals and crossfit and work to eliminate the sweets today. I'm thinking of dumping the cake completely and I have other snacks that I may just throw in the freezer - out of sight, out of mind. Regardless of trying to lose weight or anything, I want to feel good and eating right does that for me.

I pretty much decided the other day that I am over this whole losing weight thing. I have spent so many years of my life focused on my weight and what I eat, I am really, really tired of it. I decided the other day that I was going to focus on primarily a paleo diet, meat and veggies, and try not to get too involved in the numbers of anything. I am so over this whole weight thing. I just want to eat right, work out and live my life.

So there you have it. On today's agenda is some cleaning and some school work. I have some reading to do, which I am going to do on the treadmill, and I want to get some stuff written so I don't have to deal with it later in the week. I would also like to do some organizing. The major clean up is basically done, now I just need to organize what remains. But first, a nice, healthy breakfast.

Update: I have made it through the day fairly well and I just need a little boost to get through this evening. I did have a brownie after lunch, but that was it. I stopped when the brownie was gone. I did have a pretty lazy day too. My knee was really bothering me when I got up and I walked really slow on the treadmill and that helped a whole lot. It felt really good most of the day, I just took it really easy. I did go to Crossfit and modified the movements so the knee still feels pretty darn good. Now, I just need to make it through the rest of the night without going crazy. Help me do that...

31 March 2014

Trying not to get down


And some days it is harder than others. Today I spent all morning cleaning and reorganizing the spare room. I was moving furniture, throwing things away, cleaning, just going crazy in there. My knee felt fine. Not great, but it was working and not hurting me. It was doing what I needed it to do. I went to the 4pm Crossfit and just walking from the car the knee started acting up. WTF???? I couldn't do some of the warm up movements. I couldn't do 3 out of 3 of the WOD movements. There was a point where I just felt like crying. I'm so broken. My knee is so screwy. There are times I just want to cry. The knee is getting worse and something has to be done. I can not go on like this. I see the ortho on Friday and I think it's time to talk about what we can do. The knee joint feels loose, I have a hard time straightening it out, and I seem to hyperextend it a lot. Weird, I know, but I can't go on like this. Okay, I'm not going to get down about it. I modified the WOD and got a workout in, so things are good. I just need to suck it up and do what I can. No crying, no excuses, no whiners!!!!!!!

The Spring Break Trap


Every break I fall into a trap that, you would think, I would be over by now. But alas, there are times I am slow to learn. The break trap goes like this, I start break with big plans and ambitions. The first few days are either very busy or I'm collapsed on the couch napping. Either way, by the 3rd day things start to normalize and I'm doing things I want to do but also getting some rest in. The problem arises with my workouts. I consider myself a morning workout person. I consider myself a morning person in general. So I have the idea firmly planted in my head that I prefer to workout in the mornings. The truth of the matter is, working out in the morning screws me up and I'll tell you why.

Morning Crossfit is at 5, 7, 8, or 9. I never get up early enough for the 5 so that's out. I can usually make the 7 if I hurry (right now it's 6:40 and I'm still working on my first cup of coffee). So, realistically, the earliest I could make is 8. I can't eat before that, there is not enough time to digest before the WOD. I usually can't eat after wards for 30 minutes to an hour. So that makes the earliest I can have breakfast at 10 - the earliest. Usually after I get home, I start working on something and it's closer to 10:30 or 11. Which then pushes lunch back until late afternoon. Most times I forget to eat lunch and only get hungry around 3-3:30. I can not eat lunch at that time, so I eat junk. Then when it's dinner time around 6ish, I'm not hungry. So I've spent much of the day not properly fueled, or fueled with junk, and then I begin to feel like crap. The next day the cycle gets worse and worse. So today, it stops.

As soon as I am done with this post I am going to make myself breakfast, even though I'm not really hungry. I want to eat well today and the only way to do that is to fuel my body properly. So it's breakfast at 7-7:30, some house cleaning/organizing/rearranging, lunch will be around 11-11:30, then maybe some school work, followed by a snack at 2:30 and Crossfit at 4. The night will end with dinner and a relaxing evening. This sounds so much better than what I have been doing. I know it will be a little tough today because my body is not used to the schedule and I've been eating way, way too much junk. But, as I said the other day, one day...I can do this for one day...I will see how it feels for one day...also, I have not been drinking enough water...I will drink water like it's my job today.

Okay, off to put my plan into action.

30 March 2014

Perfectionism


I used to be a perfectionist. Seriously. Everything I did had to be absolutely perfect and nothing I did was good enough. As a result of this, many things were left unfinished. I would start things then stop. I used to think that I would get bored with them and move on to something else. The truth is, I would think that I could not do them good enough. And if I could not do it perfectly, I would not do it at all. Not a great way to live your life. The reason this just came up is because I was working on a paper for one of my classes. I'm not exactly sure what the instructor wants and I was fretting over it a little bit. Then I said to myself, screw this. He doesn't tell you exactly, you do it the way you want. It won't be perfect but it will be acceptable. And so I submitted it that way. Now, I'm sure it will be fine, it usually is. I'm way harder on myself than anyone else is. So apparently I'm moving away from perfectionism. That is a good thing, because being perfect takes a whole lot of time.

Junk food


I'm not sure exactly what happened yesterday. I think it was an accumulation of the past couple of days of not caring about what I eat. So yeah, I have not been caring about what I eat so I've been eating a lot of junk. Yesterday it was those - sugar wafers. I'm not even sure why I bought them, but I did and I ate them. No all, but most. I have got to stop this. So, one day. It is back to one day. One day, today, I am going to avoid the crap I bought yesterday. That's all, just one day. I can do this.

I plan on going to Crossfit this morning. I have some papers to finish and turn in. Then I'm going to try and talk Hubby into picking up some furniture a friend is giving us. It's a large hutch and 2 bookshelves. I'm very excited because I need something like this to organize the spare room. The hutch is kind of like this:

And since I don't really need a hutch, I was thinking of putting it in the computer room and then getting rid of another shelving unit I have. I need more room in here and I was thinking that would be the perfect thing. Is that weird?

Anyway, I've been in a cleaning and organizing mood. As I wrote about last time, I'm on a roll. I want to get the place all clean and organized before I head back to school. Then I can just work on maintaining it.

Alright. I'm done. I have school work that is due today, so I should get that done.

Conversation with Hubby

 So yesterday morning I presented my idea of working out at home to the Hubby. Once I presented it to him, he said he was in. I told him I h...