Last week in the WS

So the last two weeks of my project, my schedule flipped. I got put on the overnight shift. Normally, I wouldn't mind, but this time I had a bit of an episode because I knew that would screw up my workouts. Such is my life.
But I had to take on the mindset that working out is part of my regular day, no matter what.
I managed to get in a zumba class on Monday afternoon. I was very pleased that I got that one in, and I made it a point to go every day that week.

This week is different. I was exhausted and couldn't seem to get enough sleep to flip to days. I cancelled my session today even though I moved it to 1:30pm. I couldn't even get out of bed.

I dragged out of bed to get some food and thought that I had to get to a zumba class at least. Plus, I want to make sure I can say bye and thanks to my instructor. I downed some preworkout and headed over.

That preworkout kicked in like whoa, and I had a really fun class. Also, my knee was feeling good, and I was able to do a lot of the moves. So yay for that.

Tomorrow and Thursday are my last gym sessions. I should probably do all my packing up of this apartment bc I likely will not be able to walk around after this.

I'll try to remember to take my measurements again so I can see if theres' been any progress made.

Body Shock

It's been a good stretch between workouts. I didn't get any additional classes in over the weekend between the long shifts at work and my honey coming to visit for the weekend.

One thing I did notice was that my body was feeling that it needed, yes, NEEDED to work out...so that's a new thing. I think I've finally begun to make my body adjusted to working out. Even when I was going to Body Pump and Zumba a million times a week, my body never felt driven to go work out.
I've also definitely come to get used to working out first thing of my day. NOT MORNINGS, but I am used to it being the first thing that I do.

I felt my muscles were pretty tight and I had a rough day/night on Monday. 12 hour day and some crap messed up at work so I was on the higher end of anxiety. I slept in later and felt sluggish bc of my mood. This is a new challenge for me, to mentally get over bad days and the want to wallow in bad day-ness. I wasn't under-rested, though so it was good. I had moved my workouts to 11am and I think it's the best thing I've done so far.

I got to the gym, and like a trained rat got on the fucking stairmaster. He told me to go 7min. I usually just do 6 min. I realized I did not hydrate very much yesterday either. But I got on and raised the level from 6 to 8, since my last interval low was 8. I had to pause halfway through to drink water but I made it and it didn't feel SO terrible. Had to stretch out my muscles a lot though. Tight Tight Tight. My knee felt good, so that was a good sign.

HiiT part. He's been upping the HiiT a lot lately. I guess this is better for the weight loss, but I enjoy the lifting more.

5 pushups on bosu ball, then 10 sec box mountain climbers 3 times each
25 squat wall balls with big ball. I didn't pace myself, nor am i coordinated enough for this. I think i hit my chin a couple of times with the medicine ball. These were ugly
30 squats with 40 lb? kg? kettlebell. 2nd time around, he gave me 50 lb kettlebell and made me do 25. Heavy!

did chest and back on the machines.
chest 3 different machines, it's hard to describe them...
back
press ups 12 reps then drop set of 15
front pull downs narrow grip - 12 then drop set of 20
crosses 12 and then 20
did these all twice

then back to the HiiT - I was feeling it kicking in after the weights.

RopeBeast!

7 sec alternating / 10 sec mountain climbers on the box / 7 sec rope left hand over right / 10 sec box mountain climbers / 7 sec ropes right over left / 10 sec box mountain climbers / 7 sec both arms at once / 10 sec mountain climbers.
WHEW. I want to get better at these. I kicked up the mountain climbers halfway through when I started feeling my pace.

THEN THE DREADED STAIR INTERVALS. faaaaaack. Bc I had to wait for someone else to finish, he gave me another minute. I wanted to die. Then he and another trainer were talking about "suicides" and I was all, "what are those??" He said, "you don't know what those are? We'll do them on Thursday" DAMMIT. AND I THINK THEY ARE GOING TO BE OUTSIDE. fuck fuck fuck. never asking him what excersises are again.

Then the intervals came. He said that since I had a rest, we go to 4 minutes and he's going to drive. eek. we did 30 sec each. started at 8, went to 12, down to 9, up to 13, down to 9, and finished at 14. I made it and I wasn't as dying as before. I did feel super accomplished and really good about how this session ended. He said I pushed myself and it was a good session.

I am not good at working out through a bad mood yet, since the only way I can work out is if I'm really enjoying it. Today was a good trial in pushing through my bad mood wall, and I had some good milestones in this session despite all of the icky stuff. thumbs up.

Proof is in the Pudding

All that zumba last week + moving my workout session to 11am seems to have paid off. I had a really good session today.

Fucking stairmaster warmup - 6min, started back up at 7. I think I'm starting not to die on this fucking hateful thing.

Toe tap touches on the bosu ball. Hop back and forth on balls of your feet and touch the center of the bosu ball. 35sec. this round was me trying to keep my balance and not crack another ankle.

squats holding 25lb dumbbell and pushing it up at top of squat. 20 reps. I was afraid I would drop that fucking dumbbell on my face. Also, my hands are too small to hold that thing.

10 jumping squats. 3 pulses, 1 jump. I thank Body Pump for prepping me for this one. I owned these.

Hammer curls with 15lb dumbbells, 12-15 reps. Really had to concentrate and not depend on momentum to get these.

Step ups holding weights. - it was on the machine, so I don't know how heavy it was. 8 each leg.

Biceps and triceps on the machines.
classic curls - 15 reps, then drop sets, half the weight and 20 reps.
tricep pull downs - 15 then drop set of 20
tricep high extension. elbows up. 15 reps each arm. tough!
bicep overhand curls, these were weird but i did them 15 reps.
tricep classic extensions - 15 reps and drop sets. I had to go down to lightest weight :( even my trainer was surprised.

THE FUCKING STAIR INTERVALS 30 seconds each. Low-8, high - 11.  I was not dying and he's all, "go to 13" I was like, "fuck" but I did up to 12 and survived (I should have done 13) So something good is happening.

Second round of all the above. When it came to the bosu taps, he was all, "hello. you can go faster." and so I had to pick it up for fucking 35 seconds. I was able to hang and I think I can credit all the zumba. I didn't feel like my ass was so fucking heavy this time. Also, any time I'm asked to do anything on my toes, I can go to town on it.

so, 80% great session. I feel like improved so much on my cardio endurance and I that HAS to be due to all that zumba I did last week.

Why were my tris so weak today?! >:( usually I can rock the tricep days but I was failing by rep 12 on some of them. BOO.

interesting turn of events: this gym is being bought by Gold's. So that's going to be weird. I'll end up having a national membership, so that will be cool, but I know my personal training sessions will go up in price significantly. ugh. And I hope they can grandfather me in on the payment plan bc THIS SHIT IS SPENDY. But worth it. And if I leave here with unused sessions, it will carry over to any Gold's. So ok. Maybe it will work out. I was kind of looking forward to renewing my 24hr fitness when I'm back in the area, but there are sooo many Gold's gyms that I'll always have a place to go.

Session Fail.

Today I woke up and exhausted. I couldn't shake the previous two days off me. It was the first time i thought about canceling. But I went and tried to make the best of it.

The fucking stairmaster warmup. I made the 6 minutes and even bumped up the level towards the end. I felt better about today.

But then the rope jumps. 30 seconds of straight jumping from one side of the ropes to the other. I got winded pretty fast, and just the feeling of heaving my thighs and butt off the ground was pretty completely intolerable.

Extended straight leg lifts. 15 reps. Doable.

Man Makers - 8 of these with 15lb dumbbells.

Squats and shoulder presses holding 10lbs kettlebells. 15 reps. Fine.

2nd round, increased rope jumps to 35 seconds. Dying. I was like, "These suck hard" and he was all, "well, I usually make people only do it for 20 seconds at a time" - upside, but can't breathe.

Leg lifts - 15reps - fine.

Man Makers - 8 with 15lb dumbells - I struggled through them which sucked because it's been a while since I have done these and I really like them. If I wasn't winded from the jumping (and so exhausted from working) that I could have really killed these. Disappointed in my struggle.

Squats again - fine.

Mother fucking stair intervals. 3 minutes. I made it through 2 minutes, high at 11, 12 and low at 7, 8 then could not get my breathing, I had to stop and try to regulate. After a while, I did get back up and got one more high/low in but could not make it through another interval to finish out the 3 minutes.
Suck. bc this ate into my lifting time.

Lifting:
Back and biceps today. Got through it, but I feel like I didn't get to finish. My wheezing episode ate into my lifting time. mad. sad and I just wanted to go back to sleep.

Upside -
I did do the 2 sets of man makers.
I do 15s seconds more of the rope jump
He was proud of me that I got back up on the stairs to try to finish out that interval.

I really felt like I was fighting a losing battle with my body today. I'm never not tired, I'm not losing weight even though I've been eating healthy for the last 4 months, and I'm trying to work out more effectively than before but I don't know if my body can do it.
Even my trainer noticed that Tuesdays are hard for me.

I don't know why the stairmaster and the jumping is so hard. I just FEEL so HEAVY that I am not strong enough to bear my own weight when to jump or to lift my legs to each stair.
The messed up thing about this all is that I went to a zumba class over the weekend so that I would not have so much trouble with the stair master and have so much time in between workouts.
sigh. I don't know how to remedy this.

I Guess This is What "Eating to Live" Means

I am always thinking about food these days since I am am trying to shift from eating what I crave and for taste and enjoyment to eating bc it's just fuel. I'm on the clean eating path and the meal prep path.

Perhaps my biggest accomplishment is that I've stopped eating out when I work. I've always had this one big food pet peeve and it's cold lunches. (well, cold food in general) I just don't like food that could be warm but is cold. I also do not care for salads. So I always opted for getting a hot meal for lunch. I also have odd food anxieties: what if I don't want to eat what I brought? (happens often) what if I like what I brought but I didn't pack enough and I'm hungry for the rest of the day? (I am not a snacker)

But this project, I committed to bringing my lunch. And breakfast, too for that matter. I did allot one SBUX coffee and the new Protein and Greens drink by Naked. BUT THAT WAS IT. This was killing me because here I am, in North Carolina, surrounded by BBQ and I simply cannot indulge in that every day.

That was mid April. I've kept it up until now. And it was easier to do than I expected. I think this also had to do with my goals to eat as much vegetables as I can possibly stomach.  Dinner was a bit of a different story, I probably averaged 80/20 cooking to eating out, and that's because I found my favorite family style pho joint that I went to at least once a week.

I am currently using this Coach Calorie 4 week meal plan as a guide for how to eat the same thing every day. I really like it because it doesn't list very many salads.

I'm basically just cycling through proteins and eating kale and spinach and a sweet potato. The veggies are the healthy part, the potato is to make my stomach feel full, and the protein is my 4-6 oz of enjoyment.

I admit, I do feel properly filled, not full, after these meals. As in, I'm not hungry for hours after eating like this, so by the "don't eat for enjoyment" books, that meal did it's job.

But lately, I've been missing that feeling of enjoying what I'm eating and that pleasure of feeling satiated. None of these meals ever came close to that feeling of, "yes. that hit the spot." much less that, "oh my god, that meal was amazing, I need a minute to enjoy this afterglow" that something like tureen of foie gras or a proper fried catfish po-boy will elicit.

Does this mean I'm a food addict? I mean, it's my only vice left. I've given up everything else that makes a person feel good. I guess I'm going through withdrawals. I feel like I'm the Trainspotting of changing eating habits.