Quick Update

Over the weekend and today, I learned so many things and rededicated myself on so many levels.

Sources of bloating: (I realize my stomach is already pretty darn flat, but unless there’s absolutely nothing but skin over them, no one can see my abs.)  I’m laying off all sugar, sodium, dairy, and gluten.  Which means I sadly give up my ice cream (even tofutti due to sugar), no matter how beloved and how many sprints I did at the gym to work it off.  So please, everyone else go get your free scoops of B&J for me tomorrow, okay?  I also have to find a substitute for oatmeal (which has gluten), since that’s a big part of so many of my recipes.

Protein sources: to build the most muscle the most effectively, some of us are doing hypertrophy training.  It involves supersetting (back to back with no rest) opposing motions: like push-ups with rows, or pull-ups and military presses.  It also involves eating our weight in grams of protein.  Even on 1600 calories a day, this is really tough for me.  Thankfully, there are Pure Protein bars.  They have about 10 g of protein for every 100 calories, very little sugar, and taste delicious.  Seriously, they’re so delicious and way more satisfying than ice cream.  They come in flavors like Chocolate Deluxe, Chocolate Peanut Butter, S’mores, and Peanut Butter Marshmallow.  Unfortunately, they use a lot of whey protein, which is dairy, so I’m going to have to watch that.

Digestive Cleanse:  I know, I know.  I think this kind of thing is a terrible idea.  I think the body is perfectly designed and my liver and my kidneys can take care of everything.  But if I’m in for a penny, why not be in for a pound?

Results: today I learned that as of day 45, I’d lost 8 lbs and 6 inches.  The inches count is from all over my body (and they took at least 8-10 measurements) so I don’t know what to make of that number.   Today is day 57, and I’ve lost a total of 10 lbs.

Fun:  A girlfriend from the class came down to the beach last weekend.  We ran sprints on the boardwalk and made a super delicious, ridiculously healthy chili.  I’ll post the recipe when I have more time.

Experimentation:  I went on an audition today for a workout DVD entitled “Brazilian Booty.”  I was almost immediately cut.  I haven’t been on an audition in years.  It felt good.  I’m going to start trying things like that again.

The Hundred

I completed my goal of 25 consecutive push-ups this morning!  Now, it’s time to move on to something bigger:

One Hundred Push Ups

These people really know their stuff, and they have a great system in place, even if you can only do a couple to start.  Based on my results of this morning, I’ll be starting Week 3 on Monday.  I would absolutely love it if someone would like to take on the 100 push-up challenge with me.  We can get matching t-shirts at the end.

 

In other news, I tossed part of the protein from my breakfast this morning and added half a piece of whole wheat toast.  I feel fabulous, and I didn’t need or want as many sugarfree candies.  Whole grains may be the secret to a happy Maria.

But I Already Like Myself

The results of my MRI are back.  I have Patella Tracking Disorder and some bone spurs.  In layman’s terms, that means my patella doesn’t slide the way it should over my knee, plus I have extra growths of bone.  Which explains why it hurts so much to take my knee repeatedly through full flexion (like on a bike or in lunges and squats). 

But it does mean that on some of the cardio machines at the gym, I don’t have pain.  I spent an awesome 20 minutes this morning just breathing hard and working up a good sweat.  I worked on push-ups as well, although I really hate doing them.  More importantly, the machine said I burned 150 calories, and Ben & Jerry’s FroYo Chocolate Fudge Brownie has 170 calories per 1/2 c serving.  FroYo Half Baked has 180.

 

I’ve decided on my goals:

Month 1: 25 push-ups and getting through this weekend (a good friend’s wedding and a day at the beach) without backsliding too much.

Month 2: 50 push-ups, some TBA ab goal, and finding some way to maintain this diet and be as happy-go-lucky as I used to be before starting this program.  However that happens, be it dinners out with friends, having oatmeal in the morning, or a beer on the beach, I want to stop being such a grump and have cheerfulness be as natural as it used to be.

Non-physical goal for whole program: None.  I am remarkably pleased with my life.  If I were dissatisfied with a part of it, I wouldn’t have waited for some crazy program to change it.  I don’t need to “discover the confidence to look in the mirror without make-up or fancy clothes and like what I see.”  I already quite enjoy being me, thankyouverymuch.   As for the other suggested goal of maintaining this lifestyle, well, I’ll continue to workout (as I was doing before, just with less intensity) but I guarantee my quality of life will go up once I return to having a beer with Monday night football, eating oatmeal with raspberries every morning, and go out in the evening with friends for dinner and drinks.

In the Thick of It

The end of the first phase of the tour is coming to an end.  Next Monday, I’ll be 1/3 of the way through.  These first 30 days have really been preparatory work.  The trainer has been teaching us how to work out.  Form has been emphasized (almost overly so) as well as getting everyone up to the same base level of fitness.  We’ve adjusted to the diet (or at least we’ve made our peace with the cheats we have – I love my sugarfree mentos!)  We’ve all seen some results, and we know what we need to do and where we need to be for more results.  For better or for worse, we’re in this for the long haul.

I feel like we’re at the place right before the flash sequence in a Rocky movie.

Except, I’m not quite sure I’m there with the crowd.  In the locker room, I talk the talk with the best of them, but I’ve already gotten everything I’ve wanted to out of the program.  If I drop another jean size, I won’t have any pants that fit me.  Today, I just wanted ice cream, but I think I’m the only one left having cravings.

Tomorrow morning, I’m going to the gym Maria-style.  I’m going to wear my favorite pink shorts, a great sports bra and screw the t-shirt.  I’ll go for a little run until my knee starts to act up, and then I’ll hit the weights like I used to love.  I can’t get their bent over rows to work, so I’ll do the ones I know: with dumbbells and with cables.  No more slow sets for 60 seconds with 60 second breaks.  It’s going to be 8-10 reps to failure.  Bench press, flys, lat pull downs.  Kettle bells and medicine balls.  Pull ups and push ups.  Old school.

If I can’t find my motivation and my goals doing that, well, at least I’ll have burned enough calories for ice cream.

A Night Off

Yesterday was amazing.  The workout was intense, but low impact, so I really got my heartrate up without hurting my knee.  The endorphin rush felt amazing.  It’s been so long since that happened that I wasn’t prepared to be that excited.

Maybe it was because my mom was here, too.  If she can’t cheer a girl up, I’m not sure who can.  Plus, we went out to an Indian restaurant and had delicious food.  Very small portions, and mostly healthy, but gosh it was good to have something hot, plated and served with condiments!  Also, the rice pudding at the end of the meal was just what I had been craving.  I had a sip of her wine as well, but it was the rice pudding I had been longing for. 

Taking the occasional night off from this diet is key and something I’ll be repeating in the future.  It gives me something to look forward to without wrecking the whole process.

I’m still thinking on my goals.  Likely, I’ll try to knock out 25 real push-ups all in a row by next Monday, and then 50+ for the following month.  For my second goal, I want to do something with abs.  It would be amazing to actually get some definition resembling a six pack, but I’m not sure how to do it.  I work really hard on my abs in class, and they really burn, but they’re never really that sore afterwards.

Goals

I need to come up with goals.  It’s something I’ve been saying to myself for a while, and it recently became a requirement.  I need to have 2 goals for the end of month 1 (Oct 6) and 2 goals for the end of month 2 (Nov 3).

To be honest, I’ve already seen the results I was looking for.  Mostly, I wasn’t looking for anything.  My jeans fit great, I’m back in shape (as much as my knee with allow), and man!, you should see me flex!

What more do I want?  I suppose I could try to lose some more weight.  But then I’d have to buy new clothes, and umm… do they make bras smaller than an A cup?  On the other hand, it would be fun to have a really flat, ripped stomach.  (I think an occasional ice cream would be way funner.)  I don’t want to accomplish anything I’m not willing to maintain, and the only way I know how to do either of those is to lace up my shoes and run for miles.

Today I’ll do a time trial and see how many real, boy push-ups I can do in a minute.  Then up it a bit.  I’ve always wanted to be able to do push-ups like a boy, but I always hated actually training for them.

That still leaves 3 goals.  Maybe some kind of pull-up thing?  Or stretch until I can hit my splits again?  How about “give my knee a flipping rest so some night I can go to sleep without pain?”