Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Kinda Quiet

I've been kinda quiet on the blogging front this week; I apologize. I've got my thesis paper due at the end of Feb. and I'm scared I won't get it done, so I've been going hard-core on it. I hate research sometimes, and this paper is a research monster. I'm having a hard time just going through the articles (all 700 of them) that I've bookmarked. I do believe I need to find some way to cut them down, and quick. If I've never mentioned my topic before, it's treatments of childhood obesity. I plan to open a camp for children who are overweight and obese so they can have a summer finding out how much more fun it actually is to be moving and eating well than it is to sit in front of the video games and dive into a bag of potato chips. So obviously I want to be well-informed as to the current treatments, child exercise physiology, emotional consequences of obesity, and of course I have to have a good argument in the beginning as to why the study of treatment plans is a good idea (esp. since the attrition rate is soooo high in outpatient programs- up to 60%, but usually around 40%, while inpatient programs have a lower attrition rate AND higher results but don't always stick around- there's also the cost issue too). The research on this subject has really taken off in the last two years, so there's plenty to sift through and figure out which research is good and which is bunk. Ech. If I disappear, tell someone to come to my house and remove the pile of research papers that fell on top of me, please!

As for the workouts, I'm doing cardio-only this week. I was TIRED last week when it came to workouts, so I'm taking a "break". Doesn't mean I'm taking it easy, but the pressure is off. I'm using the extra time on research.

I'm going to leave you with this TMI thought of the day: What's it mean when your underwear is getting too big?

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Miss me When I'm Gone

How's this for cool? I'd been hearing this song on our local college alternative rock station, and finally remembered to figure out who it was by. Turns out it's called "When I'm Gone" by Simple Plan. Here are the lyrics and you can figure out why I love the song so much:


Simple Plan When I'm Gone Lyrics


And here's the music vid and song:


Simple Plan When I'm Gone Video

Not gonna waste another moment. Powerful stuff.

I also downloaded Okay Go +Nike's "Master the Treadmill" soundtrack. Awesome. Go to iTunes and get it, you'll have the best run ever. I know I did. I can tell my running's finally really coming along, I hit 7 mph for the hard stuff, found a groove, and went to town. Still not able to go for more than a minute at 7 mph, but it's better than nothing. It didn't hurt, although my hip is out of place.

Eating was better today. I lived off beef jerky the entire afternoon (including lunch), so that wasn't so great, but I don't feel like I need to eat the house. So I'm doing better than a couple others, who are feeling today what I felt yesterday. However, I need to go eat again.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Diet

Not much to say today, except that I was feeling very hungry for most of the day. Not completely sure why, but part of it could have to do with the fact that I've been researching different eating styles and diets again. I'm frustrated with myself, mostly. I know what I have to do, but I haven't been applying it. I've definitely been sloughing, and it doesn't help that I'm SO COLD this winter, so I find myself eating just to stay warm (hot chocolate, hot foods, forget eating anything straight from the fridge). This of course leads to overeating as well as a reliance on foods that are not fresh. So, I get frustrated with myself and start looking outside for a "diet" that I can use. I'm not a diet person. I don't do well on them, and I know that. I do best when I'm planning my week of meals in advance. I know that. I also find myself wanting a whole bunch of new recipes, and I DON'T want to search the internet for piecemeal. Highly tempted to buy Gourmet Nutrition 2.0 from Precision Nutrition, but $$ is very tight right now (we need to be able to buy groceries first, which isn't helping matters).

I've just got to do it.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

G'Day America!

I was watching (of all things) the Today Show this morning while doing some Wingates on the bike. Needless to say, I wasn't really paying attention once they started up, but before that, they had an interesting segment on with Bindy Irwin (the young daughter of Steve Irwin, the Australian WonderPet). Apparently today is National Celebrate Australia day, except it's only being celebrated in the US (I think). However, what's cool about it is that Bindy and her family are trying to raise enough funds to stop whaling within the next three years. I'm all about stopping the destruction of our environment. Anyone who's actually spent some time out there has the same feeling. So, go Bindy, and G'day America!

I bring the outdoors up because it's a chilly -25 degrees with wind chill out there today, and of course, I'm already thinking about summertime. I love summer. Something I rarely talk about but love to do in the summer is canoeing. I am a true canoe enthusiast, and each year about January I start drooling and dreaming about the wilderness that is Northeast Minnesota and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I did a stint with a canoe camp up there back in college, and forgot to bring my heart back with me, so I have a hard time staying away. I've been going back up nearly every year since, and I'm planning my trip up there again this summer. However, this year I won't be canoeing quite as much, because the camp I usually go through was hit hard by a forest fire last year. They lost around 60% of their property, which included most of their staff housing, their supplies cabin, lodges, and their nurses station. So I'm planning a work group for this year. I'm excited about it. I'm also working on drumming up registrants and donations, so if you're interested let me know. In my opinion, everyone should experience the great outdoors and the wilderness.

I had a great workout today. I did Bodyweight Workout #3 along with 10 minutes of Wingates and 20 minutes of Steady State. Yesterday I started the final week of Josh Hillis' Stubborn Holiday Fat Workout. The scale has gone down to, and stayed at, 145. However, I'm noticing changes in body composition, so something's going right. I'm going to have to start paying more attention to my food intake again soon.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

rdietq

This was a password I recently had to use to comment on someone's blog. I don't know why, but it kind of struck me as funny. R (Our) diet q(cue). Hmm not sure what to make of that!

My workout yesterday was awesome. I went into it kind of sore, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I had to up the weights because I had passed the limit of rounds on the last workout (there are two exercises, and you alternate between the two as many times as you can in the time allotted, do both exercises and it's considered one round. Optimally, one is able to perform 5-7 rounds, do more and your weight is too light). However, I got started and just flew through the workout like it was nothing (I did 12 rounds, which is higher than last week's performance, and this is with higher weights!), and even had it in me to do a mini-abs workout and then sprint intervals on the treadmill. I wish I had more days like that, where the workout is just easy-peasy even at my normal (or higher) levels. Today's workout was back to normal- push myself through it, continually giving myself the pep-talk (You know you can do it, it's not so bad, keep going, so-and-so will outperform you without thinking about it, it's the only way you're going to improve/see those abs, don't be a wimp, come on, you aren't a wimp-get going, etc.). I did the bodyweight #2 workout today, got 4 rounds done in 20 minutes which is what I was expecting.

My daughter's 4th birthday party is on Saturday, and we'll be baking a cake and some cupcakes tomorrow morning for that. She's pretty excited, and I'm just wondering how much cake I'm going to end up eating (wiping drool off mouth). LOL. Probably not as much as I'd eat if I didn't care if I gained 5 pounds!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

About those Pics,

You know, it's kinda funny, the more I look at my pics I posted yesterday, the better I feel about myself. Sheesh, my mirror lies, because I saw myself a lot bigger than I am in those pics. Or else my hubby is just a really good photographer.

I'm excited because I really see now how close I am to seeing those abs. I designed a bodyweight workout for me to do on Tue, Thurs, and Saturdays for the next month. It looks like this:

Tues: How many sets in 20 minutes:
Prisoner Squats x10
Push-ups (full body)x10
Bulgarian Split Squats x10
Inverted Rows x10
Ball Ab Crunch x10
Ball Leg Curl x10
(I got 5 sets done, and am going to shoot for 6 next week)
HIIT if I can stomach it, 20 minutes 30 sec on/ 90 sec off- I couldn't today, I was exhausted at the end of the bw circuit!

Thurs: How many sets in 20 minutes:
Split Squats x20
Inverted Rows x15
Kettlebell Swings x30
Ball Ab Crunch x20
(I'll be aiming for 5-7 sets)
HIIT if I can stomach it, 20 min: 1 min on/2 min off

Sat: Perform in circuit, rest 2 min at end of circuit then repeat 2x
Single Leg Deadlift 3x10
Pull-ups 3x5
Y-Squats 3x25
Push-ups 3x15
Rest 2 minutes
20 minutes of HIIT, 30 sec on/30 sec off for 8 rounds

This is, of course, on top of the bootcamp-style workouts I'm doing on Mon, Wed, and Fridays. I am thinking I may be sadistic.

Eh.

You're welcome to try it if you want, and let me know your "score" so I've got something to beat!

Monday, January 14, 2008

Updated Photos

Amazingly enough, I finally had my husband take pictures of me in my two-piece suit. Now, nobody laugh because this is taking a lot of guts to post here! You can find pics from November 2005, March 2007, and January 2008 by clicking here. See how far I've come. Now, for the current pics:

Not bad, huh? As you can see, I've still got some work to do, esp. in the lower belly and thighs. However, I've come a long way, and there's a lankiness to me that wasn't there prior to this past September or so.

Watch out abs, here I come!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Television?

I spend very little time watching television, which is a complete 180 from when I was in high school and watched tv straight from 4:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. or later (with an hour's break for supper). However, when I'm at the gym and I forget my iPod, it's kinda nice to have something to break the monotony. So on Tuesday, when I was doing the treadmill work, I found a tv show on the BBC America network entitled "You Are What You Eat." I swear, that show has got to be mind-changing.

Basically the premise is that a lady named Jillian something-or-other (not even sure if she's an RD, they never say- they only call her the "shock jock of nutrition") invades these people's homes and changes their eating habits in 8 weeks. And by change I mean complete overhaul. Then, during that time she provides education, recipes, phone consulting (aka "abuse"), etc.

Of course, this being television, the worst offenders must be found and showcased, and it was just absolutely amazing what kind of junk these people were living off of. And then they wonder why they're tired, look awful, can't seem to get a thing done, and have fat kids. On one show, a family of 6 went through 2 tubs of margarine and 12 loaves of white bread in a week! The next show had a family of two (2!) going through 4 LITERS of vegetable oil a week. I nearly puked. Of course, so did the people when they were told to "drink up!" as they were handed an 8 oz. glass of the pure oil. That, however, does not compare to the female in the family who actually did puke when she tried some bean soup.

However, on to the subject I really wanted to talk about: mindset. It was extremely interesting to see the differences in mindset between the first show and the second. In the first, the mother really did want her and her family's eating habits to change. Everything Jillian told them about how they were wrecking their health, they listened to and took seriously. The kids were totally willing to try the new foods after seeing the pile of lunch meat they went through in a week. As a consequence, the family was healthier, leaner, and much happier at the end of the eight weeks.

In the second show, the couple was completely in denial about how crappy they were eating. The man called his belly his "muscle" or some such thing, and the wife said it was "sexy". Both of them looked awful. However, they weren't taking Jillian seriously at all, the wife was laughing it off and the man kept saying things like "well it's good, it tastes good, and I need it." The wife was also completely unwilling to try the new foods. However, somehow Jillian managed to get through to them, and at the end of the eight weeks, they had made some progress. I don't believe for a second, however, that they stuck to their new habits after the show was done. If they did, then I'll be darned.

See the difference? A family who wanted to get educated and was willing to try something new, versus the couple who were in denial. Who had better progress? Who learned more? Who was more likely to stick to the new habits once the public eye was gone?

It's amazing what mindset can do to a person.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

One more thing

I wanted to gloat about the fact that I ran yesterday for 8 minutes straight, no stopping. I did a two minute walk warm-up, then started jogging at 5.5 mph and told myself to go for broke. I wanted to quit at minute 3, but I pushed. I wanted to quit at minute 5, but then I saw how close I was to a half a mile. At the half mile, I pushed it just a little bit longer to 8 minutes. I was very happy and satisfied. I then walked for 15 minutes, then did another 5 minute jog. All said, I did 40 minutes on the TM yesterday.

Now, while I am gloating about running for 8 minutes, I wanted to point out that only two months ago 3 minutes was a huge burden, and back in April, when I started to try running, I would be in pain (hip pain) after only 1-2 minutes. Hence why I hadn't ever been running before. However, even though the progress has been slow, it has been progress. I don't call myself a runner, heck, I don't believe that running is the end-all-be-all that it's usually made out to be, but I do believe that I need to increase my endurance no matter what.

Now, the progress has been slow because the hip hasn't been perfect, but it's also because I don't feel as good after a 40-60 minute steady state workout as I do after a 20-30 minute HIIT session. Usually after a stint like that, I hurt, feel drained, and don't get much energy boost afterward. So I don't do the endurance stuff very often. However, I did mention before in other posts that I'm trying to increase endurance, and it is one of my goals this year to do the Tour deKota bike tour (5 days of non-stop cycling). And that training starts this month, so I can progress as slowly as I need to. I would also like to run a 5k this year. It's not as big a goal as the bike tour, but it's something I would like to do to prove something to myself. So I'll be biking and running a lot more this year than I ever have.

Coming Back from Haunting

I realize that I haven't blogged since last Thursday, which is naughty on my part. My eating was pure crap through the weekend and Monday and Tuesday, but it's back on track today. My silly brain decided to try and see if I could cut calories to minimum levels, which worked for the first 3/4 of the day and then resulted in diving for the junk food. So- more proof that cutting excessively doesn't work!!

I'm back on my normal caloric intake today, have had three meals, my workout is done, and I've been studying excessively. Classes don't start until next week, but I've got a thesis that's due to my advisor at the end of February, and since I didn't get hardly any research done last semester, guess what I'm doing? I have no fewer than 10 textbooks sitting on my dining room table, and I've been attempting to chicken scratch at all of them. Man, I'm wishing right now that my school had offered a class or two on child exercise physiology. That would've saved me a bundle. However, that isn't an option, so I'm combing textbooks on my own. Soon will emerge my thesis on childhood obesity, causes, consequences, and treatment options.

Oh, by the way, has anyone ever read "The Obesity Myth" by Paul Campos? I haven't gotten too far into it, but so far it has been an extremely interesting read. I'll have to give a review of it later. If you've got one, please let me know your thoughts!

As for my weight, it has hit and stayed at 145.5. It hasn't budged since last Friday, hence the reasons why I wanted to do some calorie playing. However, I'm still too much of an emotional eater and not a long-term planner when it comes to food, so if I'm hungry, it doesn't matter what kind of crap I'll feel like in 30 minutes or two days or so. It only matters that I eat, hence the reason WHY I need to keep to small meals every 2-4 hours. I'll just have to work on getting my foods more volumized and less starchy, something that's always hard for me when it's cold outside. And I have been COLD this winter! Man!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Kettlebell Love Forever

As stated a week or so ago, I'm doing Josh Hillis' Stubborn Holiday Plan, and it's pretty awesome. I used my new 20# kettlebell for the first time during that workout (first structured workout anyway), and I have to say, it was pretty awesome. My back muscles are sore from the swings, which means that I got a great workout. So I love my new kettlebells.

In other news, it seems that my 144 was not long for this world, as I weighed in at a disappointing 147.5 this morning. Sigh. I'll get it back, and soon, and then I'll go for more.

I decided not to join the January challenge. Part of it is that I get really strange thinking patterns (i.e. less ability to control my eating habits, skipping meals then bingeing, etc). The rest of it is that I have so little to lose, my poundages seem like nothing even when they bring about great body composition changes. What I did like about the challenge: it controlled my eating portions quite a bit, as well as the choices I made during the holidays. However, I tend to sabotage in my effort to prove that I don't deserve to win anything (it's a self-esteem issue for sure). So I'll participate, but in my own little world and will compete against myself.

So, January beginning weight: 147.5
End of January goal weight: 138.0

I know I promised myself that December would be the end of it, but I want to see that elusive 20% bodyfat before summer (and keep it too). Since I haven't yet seen it, then I'm not going to be done until I am. I will attain the title of my own damn book so I don't feel like a hypocrite!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

New Year!

Happy New Year to one and all following the Gregorian Calendar! It is now officially 2008, in fact, it's already the second day.

New Years celebration was great for me, as I got to hang out with some friends who were visiting. Food and alcohol imbibed, I'm all partied out and ready to get back into the swing of things where diet and exercise are concerned. I got some KETTLEBELLS as a late Christmas present, and they're pretty sweet (I'll tell you a secret- get over to Shopko right now and you can get 3 for 50 bucks- really! They're from Reebok, and the workout included with them sucks, but hey, it's better than trying to dish out $100 for one. If you want a little more expensive, Scheels has them for $60). My husband's just waiting for me to impale something with one of them (or would that be crush? eh.). I have three different weights: a 10#, 15# & 20#. They don't go any higher at Shopko unfortunately, or I'd have a 15, 20, & 25# set.

You know you're addicted to fitness when the most exciting part of your Christmas was getting a piece of workout equipment...

Also, today's the LAST Day for the Turbulence Training promotion. Get over there and get your free bonuses before 11:59 EST tonight! If you already have TT and aren't signed up for the TT Member's site, you should check your email for a 1-day free pass so you can get the bonuses too. I got 'em and they're pretty good!