Hey Ya'll

Things are good with workouts and food, but my thyroid is acting up and I'm EXTREMELY EXHAUSTED. I've been reading all of your blogs, but I'm just too tired to comment (pretty pathetic, huh?). I'm too tired to write anything out about my new workout plan and move, too. Just waiting to hear back from my doctor about upping my medicine dosage... so hopefully I'll get some brain power and energy back.

For those who completed challenges recently, you ROCK.

xo, Rachel

P.S. Has anyone seen The Machinist with Christian Bale (most recent Batman)? OMGoodness. I can't believe his body in that movie. I fell asleep during the movie, but the entire time I watched it I couldn't pay attention to anything other than his body - not in a lustful way, either. Holy crap. How the hell did he do that?

Before:




After:

I have no idea what I’m doing.

Here’s yesterday’s LB Workout. Eh. It was an OK workout, but I’ll strive for much improvement next time. I’m walking like a wounded old lady today, so must’ve done something right... but I definitely took the easy route.

Quads:
Leg Press
1x12 – 90 lbs.
2x10 – 90 lbs. Oops, “forgot” to add weights. Ha.
3x8 – 90 lbs. Oops, “forgot” to add weights. Ha.
4x6 – 180 lbs.
5 x 12 – 90 lbs.
Leg Extension 1x12 – 60 lbs.

Hamstrings:
Sitting Leg Curl
1x12 – 70 lbs.
2x10 – 80 lbs.
3x8 – 90 lbs.
4x6 – 10 lbs.
5 x 12 – 70 lbs.
DB Lunge 1x12 – 15 lbs.

Calves:
45 Degree Calf (got a really good burn with these)
1x12 – 110 lbs.
2x10 – 120 lbs.
3x8 – 130 lbs.
4x6 – 140 lbs.
5 x 12 – 120 lbs.
Standing Calf Raise 1x12 – 130 lbs.

Abs
Decline sit-ups w/10 lb. weight
Hanging leg lifts
Cable Crunches

About today’s title: I’m seriously looking into an entirely new training workout – lifting heavy with lower reps (not BFL style at all). In fact, it’s 4 full body workouts per week with 2 HIIT’s and 1 SS. I still have much research to do… so we’ll see how soon I make the transition. Probably not for several weeks. My goal isn’t to bulk and then cut – that’s definitely not for me (I’m afraid it would suck me into some yo-yo diet madness again). I’m confused about whether I can add lots of muscle and lean out at the same time. Seems like everything I read about gaining muscle says you'll inevitably gain fat as well. So basically I have no idea what I’m doing, but I feel I’m ready for a change in my program. I really think BFL is an awesome program and helps people once afraid of the weight room to ease into it, but I’m feeling ready for forward progression. I’m no expert and still have a lot to learn, but if I wait till I feel I have enough knowledge, I’ll be waiting forever. Besides, I really hate loading the weight plates on the leg press with each set. HATE IT.

Food is good and clean. According to the calorie zig-zag calculator, I'm supposed to average about 1480 calories per day to lose weight. Here are my totals for this week so far and my plan of attack for the remainder:

Mon: 1420
Tue: 1641
Wed: 1450
Thu: Target - 1320
Fri: Target - 1350
Sat: Target - 1620
Sun: Target - 1350

Again, I really don't know what the hell I'm doing... hopefully this plan of attack is OK.

This morning’s workout was HIIT on the elliptical. I want to give my shins a little rest from running. It was a good workout, but certainly not as satisfying as Tuesday’s.

****Whine Alert****
My shins are really hurting. Every time I build up to a really good treadmill HIIT routine with continuous improvements my shin splints rear their ugly little heads. It’s really frustrating. Hopefully the physical therapist can help me with these as well as my knee. Wah.

****End Whine****

My lower body is hurting in all the right places. I’m actually looking forward to tomorrow’s upper body workout and upping the weights from Monday. Mojo is still going strong. Ba-da-bing.

Stef and Pamela – I’ve been so busy with packing, work project, moving sale, blah, blah, blah. The only times I have a chance to call is too early in the morning or too late at night. Things should settle down soon. Pamela, I’m so disappointed that I’ll miss meeting you at Phat Camp. ARGGG. =(

Jim – the chest presses are coming right along. I feel more soreness in my chest than I ever have and I really appreciate your pointers. You’re a rock star. My chest and I thank you!

BOOYA!!!!

Oops. Was supposed to start posting my workouts and meals again this week. Yesterday was UB and my bi’s/tri’s/chest/shoulers/back are hurtin’ today, so that’s all good.

What I’m really excited about is this morning’s HIIT workout. I pushed myself like never before. I loved the endorphin rush. Why can’t I get that same feeling with weight training????

Treadmill HIIT:

Warm up – 2 minutes
Alternating Hi/Low at 30 seconds/60 seconds
High: 9.5 to 11.0 mph (UH-HUH!)
Low: 5.0 to 5.5 mph (I usually recover at a fast walk, never a jog like today. Woooohooo!)
Cool down.
Total time: 26 minutes
Mileage at 20 minutes: 2.22 (still a long way to go to hit 3 miles in 20, but any forward movement makes me happy).

My morning definitely started out on the right foot… until I walked out dripping in sweat with a big grin on my face and reached into my pocket for my keys. Oops. They were still in the ignition. I guess I just couldn’t wait to do HIIT this morning and locked my keys in my car. Thankfully I caught my husband before he left for the gym so I only lost about 20 minutes from my day.

Yesterday I bought some index cards and I’m writing down every morsel of food I put in my mouth. I’ve started tracking food at fitday again, but I might not be as honest with myself as I need to be. Doesn’t make sense to be dishonest with myself, but it’s possible that I don’t track as carefully as I should and perhaps that’s why I’ve lost fat so slowly in the past. Maybe calories are slipping by that I somehow ‘let’ slip my mind. I play weird games on myself sometimes, so it is possible.

I definitely need to get myself a food scale. I hate the thought of weighing and measuring everything so carefully, but if that’s what it takes, I’ll do it.

Hope you all are having/had a FABULOUS Tuesday. My mojo is back in full swing baaaaay-by!

xo, Rachel

Still Super Busy…

Just wanted to give a quick update. I’m still super busy with my project at work and packing up our apartment for the move. Our house is almost finished and we’ll be moving next weekend! Yay!! We’ve been living in a teeny, tiny apartment for the past year and a half so moving into our brand new house is so exciting. We don’t have lots to pack, but we do have lots of stuff we’re getting rid of so we’re in the middle of organizing a moving sale for this weekend. We’re making room for all the new beautiful furnishings we’re buying. Fun.

Food is good. I’m really focusing on portion sizes. Water is GREAT. PMA is better some days than others (today I’m feeling fat, so I need to work on my PMA a tiny bit today). Workouts are good. I did sprints yesterday (fastest minutes were 9.5 mph – probably could’ve gone up to 10 but my hamstring started tweaking). Bad idea. My knee and hamstring are angry with me today. The results from my MRI indicated nothing too serious – just some fluid and inflammation of the knee. My doctor has prescribed physical therapy twice a week for the next month so I’m looking forward to getting that started and putting this discomfort behind me for good.

I’m seriously considering hiring a trainer to help me dial in a new workout and more precise diet. I’ve read some stuff about calorie zig-zagging and multiplying your body weight by 14 then subtracting… oh, hell, no time to really try to explain it (and I don’t feel qualified anyway), but here’s a link to a zig-zag calculator I found: Zig-Zag Calculator for Fat Loss/Muscle Gain

It looks interesting.

Anyway, I gotta get back to work. I’m reading your blogs but don’t always comment. I’m a little concerned about Karla – her blog isn’t showing up. Anyone have any news?

Hope you’re all doing wonderfully well. I miss you all.

xo, Rachel

Busy week…

Not much time to update this week. Things are going OK. Not Perfect, but on track. Eating is good. I even made it through PMS with no bingeing. Although the damn chocolate truffles in the fridge were calling my name. LOUDLY. But, I resisted and that feels good. Workouts are suffering due to the knee situation. I had an MRI on Wednesday (I thought about you, Mari and wished I could've had you do it!) and my doctor is out on Fridays so I won’t hear anything until at least Monday or Tuesday. I did run on the treadmill yesterday for about 45 minutes. A nice steady pace of 6.0 mph and a few minutes at 6.5 and then a few minutes at 7.0. I know I’ve been instructed not to run, but I couldn’t resist and the knee felt fine. The pain or discomfort is really only when my leg is fully extended or when my knee is bent for too long (like when I’m sitting on my arse at work all day. God, I wish I were a farmer – but that’s a story for another day).

I’ve been working really hard on keeping my inner-dialogue positive and things are going well. PMA, baby!

Just thought I’d let ya’ll know that I’m still on track. Thank goodness. I may start posting my food and workouts again starting next week. That seemed to keep me accountable and helps me keep track of things. Hey, does anyone know of a fitday type program for your PDA? Have you tried it? Did you like it? Things have to be neat, clean and easy for me to use consistently. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. It’s cold and raining and someone even said it snowed earlier today… didn’t see any snowflakes, but it feels cold enough. Brrrrr.

xo, Rachel

“Non-specific results from x-ray…”

I just got a call from my doctor’s office letting me know that I need to have an MRI. The x-ray showed some soft tissue swelling and there might be injury to the ligament. She told me not to run and definitely go easy on it. Bummer. Interestingly, I haven’t really felt any discomfort since last week and I ran Saturday and Sunday.

No workout this morning. We had a pretty heavy storm and a transformer blew up just as I was pulling in to the gym parking lot this morning. It was pretty cool - like a big, beautiful fireworks display. However, it did knock the electricity out and the gym closed down for the morning until power could be restored.

I probably won’t get home from work till after 8 tonight so I may double up my workout tomorrow. Not sure what to do about working lower body as I don’t want to risk further injury…

It’s PMS time and I’m H U N G R Y. Fortunately I’m not craving anything in particular, but I would’ve eaten my meals for the entire day by 10:30 this morning if I weren’t so busy. Whew. Things are finally gearing up for me at work with a project that’s been on-hold for many, many months.

Happy Monday!

xo, Rachel

“You’re Gettin’ Skinny”

I love my doctor. The title of this post is a direct quote from that fabulous and wonderful man. I could’ve kissed him. My first visit to his office was last June or July and my weight according to his chart was 147 lbs. He’s quite proud of my progress (so am I).

The doctor’s office scale read: 133 lbs. How is this possible? I’m not trying to sound negative, but I don’t really trust his scale. It may not have been calibrated properly. I can’t imagine it could be an accurate reading in light of my recent Oreo and peanut butter binges. Oh well, I’m going to go with it. I’m sure it can’t be off by that much.

My knee and hamstring pain definitely not as noticeable the past few days. I even ran at 6.5 mph yesterday morning for quite a while and the pain just isn’t there. Every once in a while I think I feel a twinge, but it may be in my head.

OK, so the Master Cleanse (fast I just did) is supposedly this super cure for all your ailments. Since my husband doesn’t know anything about my binge problem, when he asked me why I was doing this fasting cleanse I told him I was hoping it would help my knee/hamstring problem (I just can’t admit my other reason). Then today I was telling him how much better I felt and he said “ah shit, now you’re going to tell me the cleanse cured you.” What??? I hadn’t even thought of that (because of course I did the cleanse to help the bingeing, not the pain). But what if it did help? Weird… I've been experiencing this pain for at least two months.

We’ll see what happens. The doctor wasn’t sure what might have been causing the pain but since it’s been bothering me for so long he sent me for x-rays. I actually think it’s a soft tissue problem (possibly tendonitis in the knee which is affecting the hamstring?) so I’m pretty sure the x-rays will come back clean. He’s also prescribing a course of anti-inflammatory medication for 21 days, which I should be taking for the shin splints anyway.

Eating is SPOT ON. Workouts are HARDCORE. PMA is OUT-FREAKING-STANDING!

Time to get S E R I O U S.

I’ve realized that I may have been in a hurry or scattered or jet lagged or something when I set my goals for this most recent challenge. I keep forgetting the goals I set. I’ve pushed them aside and focused on all the wrong things. It’s like I said the words but didn’t really internalize them or something.

I’ve also been very down and negative. Why? It’s time to make a serious change in my mental attitude. Tom is so good about reminding us how important having a Positive Mental Attitude is. It’s all about the PMA. Then I read Stef’s Positive Posting entry today and something clicked. Duh. Finally. They’re both so right. It’s totally a mental game.

I’m not exactly sure why but I haven’t been in it mentally. I can’t put my finger on the reason. I hope the “why” isn’t important in overcoming this… I feel like something is starting to click. I’m on a positive road right now and I’m determined to stay en route.

I did complete 1.75 days of cleansing fast (Master Cleanse aka Lemonade diet) and while I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT think this is a good idea for anyone to try, I think it did help alter my thoughts about food and seemed to help me focus a little on what I need to do in order to overcome my food issues. The crazy (and SCAREY) thing is that I feel it’s almost easier to eat nothing at all than to control my portions at meals or control binges. The way an alcoholic can’t stop at one drink, I can’t stop at the correct portion sizes. Instead of one tablespoon of natural peanut butter, I consume SEVERAL tablespoons. I’ve got a few strategies lined out that I think will help with this.

I decided to “break the fast” with dinner last night. I grilled some ground chicken patties, cooked up some brown rice and steamed some snow peas. It was delicious. I did have a little more than I should have, but I was freakin’ hungry. Today’s food portions have been stellar. We had a company lunch and I left half of everything on the plate – and I know how to get a plate good and clean. We all know how large restaurant portions are so I feel really good about myself.

I see my doctor about my hamstring and knee tomorrow morning and I’m hoping it’s a simple fix like wearing a knee brace. I’m really hoping rest isn’t required. I really want to be able to max out on my workouts and hit my 10’s in cardio and lower body. The knee and hammy are actually feeling a little bit better today, so maybe it’s no big thing.

Oh, and thanks to Erin’s post, I kicked ASS at the gym this morning. Uh huh.

I’m starting to feel excited again. I’m back in the game. I’m getting focused. For real this time, Aiight?!