Didn't have a chance to sit and do my daily exercise round up, so figured I'd sum up this week.
Monday 3/19 - Chased after my daughter. Might not sound so hard, but she's six and was riding her bike at the time, for well over a mile. She looped four times around our apartment complex and expected me to keep up, and I did my damnedest. At one point I was ahead of her and she was shouting for me to go faster, and a neighbor laughed that I had a very tough trainer. Indeed.
Tuesday 3/20 - Training session with Kristin. I was complaining that I have actually gained half and inch in my arms, and that I haven't lost weight recently, despite my diet. Her solution. Just make me do a lot of reps of things really fast. She gets that little stopwatch out, hands me a 30 lb barbell and it was all downhill.
Thursday 3/21 - Another training session with Kristin, since she murdered my arms on Tuesday and they were like jelly, she switched to legs, with lots of weighted squats and some awful exercise that has the quaintly called good mornings. Who comes up with these things? Then I had some time to kill before yoga so I hopped on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes. Went to yoga, where Adrienne was obsessed with planks, and made us hold full wheel for what seemed like an eternity. Was mostly just happy that I didn't cave and drop to the ground during it.
Friday 3/22 - Just a quick half hour on the elliptical at home after I put my crazy kid to bed. I think that it appreciated being used for something other than holding my sweaty gym clothes.
Saturday 3/23 - Had plans to go for a bike ride, but seasonal allergies and damp weather dissuaded me from that. So after trying hard to hang with Isabel on the monkey bars for a little bit (I still can't do them, or a chin up, despite my best efforts), I ended up getting stuck doing some household stuff and missing the gym altogether. But I got a bit of a workout when I helped my friend (a girl scout troop leader) bring all her 30 odd boxes of cookies into her house (up a flight of stairs) and then after they were sorted back down into the car.
Sunday 3/24 - Got up for my 8:30 AM yoga class, and lots of high planks were in store. She also really had us moving, and much as I may grumble and sweat while doing them, I love when we really get into the flow. I nearly passed out unconscious during Shavasana, and was almost completely able to tune out the screaming spinning teacher from across the hall. Then I had a little break when I saw my weight loss consultant, and headed back to the gym for a training session with Randi. Of course I thought it was at 11 and it was at 11:30. So I went upstairs and ran on the dreaded treadmill for about 25 minutes. Still hate the treadmill. No change there. And when I got down to the training station, I was still huffing and puffing and Randi wanted to know if I was OK. When I told her I'd just run, she told me that was stupid. I love some brutal honesty. She had me do some upper body stuff, and then some things that involved me hopping on and off the stair stepper, finished off with some tricep dips. I unsurprisingly passed out cold immediately after I ate lunch.
Hoping for the week to come to focus a little less on weights, and a lot more on cardio, just as a weight loss experiment, so we'll see how that goes.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Packing on the Pre-Pregnancy Pounds
I wrote about how after the birth of my beloved daughter, I ballooned up to 260 lbs... but it wasn't like I had the most svelte figure on the planet before that.
My freshman year of college, I weighed about 165 lbs and was probably in the best shape/size of my adult life (so far!). I've been told by countless doctors, fitness professionals and just random strangers that I'm either a "good solid girl" or that I "carry my weight well" or that I "don't look as heavy as I am." They are all well meaning compliments, that haunt me. But still at 165, I was working out because I was taking a fitness class, and the fitness center was completely on the other side of campus. I walked all the way there regularly and I was hooked on the rowing machine. Then again, the workout only balanced my really healthy diet of Doritos, pints of Ben & Jerry's and pizza. God, I miss my teenage metabolism.
After my freshman year in Long Island away from home, I moved back to Maine to finish school because of financial reasons. There I worked many hobs, was in a long distance relationship with my Hofstra boyfriend, went to my classes and rode my bike a lot because I was sharing a car with my dad. And that Renault wasn't exactly what you'd call reliable. So while I might have eaten more than my share of donuts while working at Tony's Donuts, I was constantly on the move. At one point, I had mono, but was too busy to even notice.
It wasn't until I moved down to New Jersey that the pounds really started to gather up. I lived in Hoboken where restaurants and bars rule. I knew about the cannoli's at the Cake Boss' shop... long before he had his TV show. And while I did walk to the PATH train in the morning, and around the city, there wasn't exactly a lot of energy being expended. Particularly a problem given the amount of high calorie foods that were being consumed. The pizza place knew my order of chicken parm hero and french fries by heart, and the chinese delivery had my sweet and sour chicken order at my door before I'd even hung up the phone. My then-husband had a miracle metabolism and could eat copious amounts of fast foods without ever gaining a pound, I was not so lucky.
I tried joining several gyms but would go for a bit and get bored quickly and stop going, or think that a once a week circut around the gym was going to make a difference. But I was exhausted (found out for a while at least, that it was due to the mono still in my system), and just really busy taking advantage of city life. Or at least seeing <I>Rent</I> once a week. Clearly, my priorities were in check.
After a trip to Orlando in November of 2001, I returned home with a lower back injury. I have a very high tolerance for pain (and a dislike of doctors) but I had slipped some discs on a ride (or a combination of rides... I still blame Back to the Future) and could barely move. I had to go to physical therapy for a bit, and distinctly remember a fit looking guy (who had something wrong with his shoulder) telling me that back injuries happened to people with weak core muscles. Gee, thanks for the unsolicited advice. Telling a girl who weighs over 200 lbs. that she should do crunches, while she's sitting there in pain is exactly the right thing to do. Like I wasn't aware that my stomach was one giant roll, or that none of my pants fit and I had to start shopping in the women's section.
After that stint in PT, I did start exercising more. I mean, I was already at the gym, it was hard to come up with excuses not to at least make a half-hearted effort. I tried Atkins briefly, which was bad idea as I lost weight and gained it back the instant I decided that I missed potatoes too much.
The pounds kept piling on, and when I first saw the scale cross over 200, I was convinced I could stop it. But Italian food tasted good, The person who invented vodka sauce is some kind of evil genius. I liked going out with my friends and having drinks and not worrying about every morsel that crossed my lips.
Then I moved out of Hoboken to a Jersey suburb, and I quickly realized that the small amount of walking I did was at least slowing my weight gain, while living in the suburbs and driving from place to place didn't offer any of that inadvertent exercise. I was working a crazy amount of hours, sitting on a bus, getting home to do projects around the house, like yardwork, watching TV and then passing out. Still, I credit the yard work for keeping my weight around 205.
But in 2004, I started having some severe foot problems that I ignored for a while. I do really
hate admitting to pain, especially when I just chalked it up to being fat. Problem is, that if your foot hurts, it makes it hard to really exercise. At that point, the weight was just really starting to add up, as I had to stop walking across Times Square to my office, and instead needed taxis. I finally went to the podiatrist who tried giving me orthotics to help my planter fasciitis. It's a foot problem that's normally found in athletes. And when the nurse at the front desk asked me (with a straight face, to her credit) if I was a runner. I laughed out loud, and told her that I only ran when I was being chased. There are times now as a fledgling runner that I think back to this moment and wish I could show my then self what I can do now.
The orthotics barely made any noticeable difference and despite some various treatments and some insanely painful cortisone shots which didn't help at all, by the end of 2004 I was having surgery on my right foot to shave down the giant bone spur and to snip the ligament (tendon? I'm not good with this medical stuff) to prevent a recurrence of this injury. Drugs and whatnot took my weight up into the 220s, a place where I never thought I'd be. And though it took a good month before I was really fully mobile, but after that I felt pretty great.
I started feeling like I could exercise, and was inspired by this new lease on life... and then ended up pregnant a few months later. So any weight loss was put on hold. I distinctly remember standing on the scale of the doctor's office during my very first visit and it reading 216 lbs.
So much as I'd like to blame all of my weight on having a baby, and all the stresses that came after it, the pounds didn't exactly happen overnight.
My freshman year of college, I weighed about 165 lbs and was probably in the best shape/size of my adult life (so far!). I've been told by countless doctors, fitness professionals and just random strangers that I'm either a "good solid girl" or that I "carry my weight well" or that I "don't look as heavy as I am." They are all well meaning compliments, that haunt me. But still at 165, I was working out because I was taking a fitness class, and the fitness center was completely on the other side of campus. I walked all the way there regularly and I was hooked on the rowing machine. Then again, the workout only balanced my really healthy diet of Doritos, pints of Ben & Jerry's and pizza. God, I miss my teenage metabolism.
After my freshman year in Long Island away from home, I moved back to Maine to finish school because of financial reasons. There I worked many hobs, was in a long distance relationship with my Hofstra boyfriend, went to my classes and rode my bike a lot because I was sharing a car with my dad. And that Renault wasn't exactly what you'd call reliable. So while I might have eaten more than my share of donuts while working at Tony's Donuts, I was constantly on the move. At one point, I had mono, but was too busy to even notice.
It wasn't until I moved down to New Jersey that the pounds really started to gather up. I lived in Hoboken where restaurants and bars rule. I knew about the cannoli's at the Cake Boss' shop... long before he had his TV show. And while I did walk to the PATH train in the morning, and around the city, there wasn't exactly a lot of energy being expended. Particularly a problem given the amount of high calorie foods that were being consumed. The pizza place knew my order of chicken parm hero and french fries by heart, and the chinese delivery had my sweet and sour chicken order at my door before I'd even hung up the phone. My then-husband had a miracle metabolism and could eat copious amounts of fast foods without ever gaining a pound, I was not so lucky.
I tried joining several gyms but would go for a bit and get bored quickly and stop going, or think that a once a week circut around the gym was going to make a difference. But I was exhausted (found out for a while at least, that it was due to the mono still in my system), and just really busy taking advantage of city life. Or at least seeing <I>Rent</I> once a week. Clearly, my priorities were in check.
After a trip to Orlando in November of 2001, I returned home with a lower back injury. I have a very high tolerance for pain (and a dislike of doctors) but I had slipped some discs on a ride (or a combination of rides... I still blame Back to the Future) and could barely move. I had to go to physical therapy for a bit, and distinctly remember a fit looking guy (who had something wrong with his shoulder) telling me that back injuries happened to people with weak core muscles. Gee, thanks for the unsolicited advice. Telling a girl who weighs over 200 lbs. that she should do crunches, while she's sitting there in pain is exactly the right thing to do. Like I wasn't aware that my stomach was one giant roll, or that none of my pants fit and I had to start shopping in the women's section.
After that stint in PT, I did start exercising more. I mean, I was already at the gym, it was hard to come up with excuses not to at least make a half-hearted effort. I tried Atkins briefly, which was bad idea as I lost weight and gained it back the instant I decided that I missed potatoes too much.
The pounds kept piling on, and when I first saw the scale cross over 200, I was convinced I could stop it. But Italian food tasted good, The person who invented vodka sauce is some kind of evil genius. I liked going out with my friends and having drinks and not worrying about every morsel that crossed my lips.
Then I moved out of Hoboken to a Jersey suburb, and I quickly realized that the small amount of walking I did was at least slowing my weight gain, while living in the suburbs and driving from place to place didn't offer any of that inadvertent exercise. I was working a crazy amount of hours, sitting on a bus, getting home to do projects around the house, like yardwork, watching TV and then passing out. Still, I credit the yard work for keeping my weight around 205.
But in 2004, I started having some severe foot problems that I ignored for a while. I do really
hate admitting to pain, especially when I just chalked it up to being fat. Problem is, that if your foot hurts, it makes it hard to really exercise. At that point, the weight was just really starting to add up, as I had to stop walking across Times Square to my office, and instead needed taxis. I finally went to the podiatrist who tried giving me orthotics to help my planter fasciitis. It's a foot problem that's normally found in athletes. And when the nurse at the front desk asked me (with a straight face, to her credit) if I was a runner. I laughed out loud, and told her that I only ran when I was being chased. There are times now as a fledgling runner that I think back to this moment and wish I could show my then self what I can do now.
The orthotics barely made any noticeable difference and despite some various treatments and some insanely painful cortisone shots which didn't help at all, by the end of 2004 I was having surgery on my right foot to shave down the giant bone spur and to snip the ligament (tendon? I'm not good with this medical stuff) to prevent a recurrence of this injury. Drugs and whatnot took my weight up into the 220s, a place where I never thought I'd be. And though it took a good month before I was really fully mobile, but after that I felt pretty great.
I started feeling like I could exercise, and was inspired by this new lease on life... and then ended up pregnant a few months later. So any weight loss was put on hold. I distinctly remember standing on the scale of the doctor's office during my very first visit and it reading 216 lbs.
So much as I'd like to blame all of my weight on having a baby, and all the stresses that came after it, the pounds didn't exactly happen overnight.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Today's Exercise: Never Ask For Specific Exercises...
I've been busting my butt this past week, just too exhausted to write about it. I worked out with a different trainer last Wednesday, he was fine, but didn't exactly push my limits. Then Thursday I was back to Kristin, who had me doing weighted lunges all over the darned place and really pushed me like crazy for a half hour. Then did yoga, with my favorite instructor Adrienne who was really big on the flow and left me barely breathing. On Sunday I went back for yoga, and Adrienne was all about side planks, I'm still not entirely sure how we kept ending up in that position. But I finally have a halfway decent looking chaturanga. Not perfect, but getting there. Afterwards I had a training session with Randi, who also was in a lunge happy mood, and threw in some abs for good measure. Monday night it was gorgeous here in New Jersey, so my daughter and I went to the park for a walk-run. She's six, so there was a lot of whining and some goofing around on the monkey bars, but we still made it about a mile and a half.
Tonight was yet another weight training session, with Kristin. While she was happily explaining the Draw Something app/game to me, she had me do six (yes, six!) sets of her little routine she made up. These squats that went straight up into a shoulder press, hunched over rows with a three second hold (don't you just love my technical jargon?), regular shoulder presses and then push-ups. Ten of each. Six times. No breaks. She's nuts, but I did it with the 30 lb. bar and it really wasn't even that bad.
My big mistake was telling her that I wanted to try the leg lift thing again, and suggested maybe in my upcoming Thursday session. Oh no, she wanted to do it tonight. So instead of the two sets of leg lifts that she had me do last time (you balance on your forearms and hold these bars while you lift your legs up), she had me do four sets of ten. Why do I do these things to myself? And because I did everything so fast (usually I take more breaks to breathe), there was time for walkouts. Where you bend over, walk your arms out (while your legs are straight), when you get to a push up position, you go down on your forearms, like a plank, then push yourself back up, and walk back to standing.
Lessons learned? Go slow and never tell a trainer you actually like a particular exercise. It's not going to end well.
Tonight was yet another weight training session, with Kristin. While she was happily explaining the Draw Something app/game to me, she had me do six (yes, six!) sets of her little routine she made up. These squats that went straight up into a shoulder press, hunched over rows with a three second hold (don't you just love my technical jargon?), regular shoulder presses and then push-ups. Ten of each. Six times. No breaks. She's nuts, but I did it with the 30 lb. bar and it really wasn't even that bad.
My big mistake was telling her that I wanted to try the leg lift thing again, and suggested maybe in my upcoming Thursday session. Oh no, she wanted to do it tonight. So instead of the two sets of leg lifts that she had me do last time (you balance on your forearms and hold these bars while you lift your legs up), she had me do four sets of ten. Why do I do these things to myself? And because I did everything so fast (usually I take more breaks to breathe), there was time for walkouts. Where you bend over, walk your arms out (while your legs are straight), when you get to a push up position, you go down on your forearms, like a plank, then push yourself back up, and walk back to standing.
Lessons learned? Go slow and never tell a trainer you actually like a particular exercise. It's not going to end well.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Today's Exercise: Just a Few Crunches
Didn't have a ton of time to exercise today since I had my daughter all weekend, but I did drag her to the Kids Klub at the gym while I worked out with my trainer for a half an hour. My trainer Randi was more than willing to squeeze in hard workout for me that worked lots of body parts at once. Starting with some maniacal thing where you hold weights in your hand and jump up on to a step with one leg and then over to the other side. I'm terrible at explaining it, and it usually takes me like five tries doing it to even remotely get it right. Usually she has me without weighs, but today was a fun exception to the rule.
Then there were squats and bicep curls, except that she wanted me to do the squats and then go up on my toes. Sure, with 15 pound weights in each hand? That's totally fine. And then she just tortured my abs in a series of weighted leg lifts and crunches that made me nauseous (in the good way). Before she finally sent me on my way with the "great news" that she'd recently changed her hours and would be there on Sundays as well. So next Sunday, extra ab work for me, I suppose.
Then there were squats and bicep curls, except that she wanted me to do the squats and then go up on my toes. Sure, with 15 pound weights in each hand? That's totally fine. And then she just tortured my abs in a series of weighted leg lifts and crunches that made me nauseous (in the good way). Before she finally sent me on my way with the "great news" that she'd recently changed her hours and would be there on Sundays as well. So next Sunday, extra ab work for me, I suppose.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Disney Princess Half-Marathon 2012: The Expo
On Friday (2/24) we got to go to the expo for the Disney Princess Half Marathon, and I have to admit, I love this sort of thing. We were greet by Cinderella's footmen, who were showing off her carriage (the woman with me is my big ChEARleader Maryanne. Then we go to go pick up our numbers and all that kind of stuff. There's a little bit of a thrill standing in these sorts of lines, at least since I'm relatively knew at all these organized activities. You have to sign a waiver (which is always a sign that something is going to be good) and there's an identifying number, which makes everything seem more real and urgent. All that training has been leading up to something, and in this case, getting a little bib with a tag (so Maryanne could track me along the course) that said my number and deemed me Princess Angel, was a big indicator that the race was imminent.
After picking up my number and posing for some picks with the infamous bib, we were sent inside the massive expo building proper that was at ESPN's Wide World of Sports. The whole facility is just gigantic, with football/soccer fields for days and building after building of sports arenas. It's really quite a treat. Inside the Expo building there were vendors galore and so many sporty things to look at. And this was about eight times the size of the one that I got to go to for my triathlon last summer, so it was a might overwhelming to say the least. And they had cute things like a glass slipper sneaker. I mean, honestly, how can you not love that?
He even signed my bib, and it was inspiration during the race to not think of myself as slow (in fact, I turned off my nike GPS early on and just ran and enjoyed myself, and it was fine).
I also managed to pick up my goody bag ( which was really just a t-shirt, but a cute tech one) and Maryanne got me the specially designed Princess Half Marathon ears (they even have a little veil in the back) that I'm sporting on my head. I saw a million motivational t-shirts that I wanted. Most especially an adorable one that said "Suck It Up, Buttercup", but a lot about only being half crazy, and others about the turtle winning the race. OK, and the ones about running for wine were pretty great too. I was tempted to change my leggings for some sparkly little running shorts and a skirt, but opted not to. The devil you know, and all. But did splurge on a device called simple, "The Stick." It's a magically little massage item that gets into those knots on the back of your leg and whatnot. I had been tempted to get a massage, but the man at the booth for the Stick spent about three minutes working on the knot I'd had in my leg for three days and when I stood up, it was completely gone. It didn't take me long to fork over my credit card for that one, though I did buy a small model so I could get it in my luggage for my return trip. I think I know what I'm buying all my sporty friends for the holidays this year.
The whole experience was rather enjoyable, and really helped set the mood for racing. Almost everyone was so nice... Well, aside from the bitchy girls I heard later on the bus complaining about how dirty it was -- it was spotless, and how they disapproved of the goody bags -- what do you expect for a race for 20,000 people? Some people just like to gripe about everything. But I was honestly quite pleased with the few hours I spent there.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Today's Exercise: Back to Business
I did a 30 minute training session with my bubbly trainer Kristin (who loves Mickey Mouse almost as much as a certain five-year-old I know). She had me doing a series of weightlifting exercises (dead lifts, shoulder presses, reverse arm curls, rows, weighted squats etc...) doing ten of each. Then when I finished I got to do the whole sequence again nine times. Then eight and so forth until I was begging for mercy at 1. She said some people only get down to five, so I feel pretty proud of myself. Perhaps because she was goofily dancing to "Groove Is in the Heart" and I was laughing through the pain.
Then I did my power yoga class, and she was all about the planks (high, side) and it was killer. She sat on me to help me get a real good hip stretch at one point, pushed me into a deep child's pose and spotted me while I did a headstand. And generally pushed my achy body to its limits. I feel fabulous! Though I loved vacation, and all my activities there... I'm glad I got back in my routine. Signing up for training sessions has really kept me motivated/obligated to go, even when I just want to curl up on the couch.
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