STEPPING UP FROM TOMORROW

Well Friday lived up to my expectations in terms of eating, drinking and being merry and I paid dearly the next day. I felt awful on Saturday and had no choice but to be on the go all day. That'll teach me to feel invincible when the next drink is offered.

 

Luckily Sunday was pretty much back to normal and it was Hour of Power day again. One hour of cardio nailed again and I felt invincible for all the RIGHT reasons by the end of it. I did a decent amount of stretching too and then rocked into a day of catching up on all that I couldnt face on Saturday.

 

I'm back at work now and tomorrow I start my 6+ weeks as Acting Director. To prepare for it I spent the day tidying my desk and organising my in-tray. *gasp* there is a lot there already. I'm quietly dreading how much more will land in it while I effectively do two jobs. But I'll just take each day one at a time and deal with stuff the best I can. Now more than ever I know its SUPER important to:

 

1. Eat well. Get my veges and fruit in every day. Stay hydrated. Not too much alcohol or crappy food.

 

2. Get some exercise every day - even if its 15 minutes of decent stretching and mobility work or a walk if I'm not up for running.

 

3. Get enough sleep. No matter how uncool it is to go to bed early, its a must if I'm going to function well every day (and God knows, I'll need to).

 

4. Keep a positive mindset. In fact, this one is probably the most important. If I tick all of the above boxes then it just about takes care of itself. But if I'm missing the mark on 1-3 then 4 becomes another struggle, another battle to be fought. (Hmm thats rather insightful, I just realised.)

 

Wish me luck guys. I want to come out the other end feeling good physically, mentally and with a healthier bank balance LOL.

 

M

TODAY AND TOMORROW

It was with much trepidation that I attempted a leg weights session today. I woke up headachey and everything from my waist down seemed to ache. Yep I'm a lean, mean, bundle of energy and fitness NOT!! I dropped my weights back a little from where they were for my last session some 3-4 weeks ago and they still felt really heavy. I kept it simple: squats, stiff-legged deadlifts and Fitball hip thrusts. Then I did a token amount of cardio on the spin bike for a total of about 30 minutes. Today's workout can only be called the workout you do when you absolutely dont feel like working out. I guess its still better than totally blowing it off :-)

 

Tomorrow I finally get a 'me-day' where I do some shopping in the city before going in to work to take care of a certain task and then its work's social club lunch followed by a catch up with Peter and the team from my old work. It will be a day of eating, drinking and being merry and I'm really looking forward to it :-) What's that saying ..... sin now, pray later ... that'll be me tomorrow :-)

 

M 

ITS A SPUR!!

Well the unofficial word on my right foot is that I do have a boney growth (spur). I called my podiatrist today and his assistant/colleague spilled the beans which I was grateful for as most will not give results over the phone just so they get you back for another consult - which I'm going back for anyways. If I wasnt at The Ice Arena when I made the call, I would've jumped up and done a little happy dance. This is good news as the achilles has been proving very slow to heal.

 

I'll stop speculating about 'what now' other than I'm 100% in for the op to remove it. Its limiting my foot's range of motion and its constantly painful when my foot is extended. Night times especially are challenging as I struggle to find a comfortable position for my foot. Plus, words cannot express how much I'm looking forward to wearing heels again. My nanna sandals just arent me!!

 

Funnily enough despite the spur I can still run and did so this morning. Geez I'm slow and unfit though, mostly through my right glute just aching constantly. Aaaargh FRUSTRATING. But I'll shut up as there are others FAR worse off than me.

 

Just 2 days left of holidays + the weekend. I'm loving this laid back life style although today I got stuck into some cleaning as well. Gotta do my bit for getting the house spic and span for Christmas.

 

:-) M

ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE ...

...... as I found in my last post. Its one of the things I love about social media. You put a question or concern out there and people come forth and help you. The comments I got were really helpful at the very least for making me realise that what I'm doing is probably all wrong for the results I'm looking for.

 

For some time I've been toying with the idea of getting some help with my training. Clearly my safe and comfortable formula was not working so a bit of a shake up probably wont do any harm and hopefully it will do some good. There is some thinking and research to do before I decide what to do next year. Plus my preference is to go with someone local that I can see for the occassional 1:1 but thats also food for thought.

 

After another break from weight training I ventured back today and did back, chest and core using my trusty, favourite program. *sigh* I DO love routine. It felt good to pick up, throw around and put down some heavy things and I can feel the chest DOMS starting already. Core strength had suffered a bit as my planks were back to 45 seconds after reaching a comfortable (well relatively) 1 minute a couple of months ago. Typically all my (piddly) weights felt really heavy but that didnt surprise me.

 

Finally, I'm enjoying a week off work as this is my only break over December and January bar the days between Christmas and New Year when our office closes. Its wonderful to have this bit of R & R especially as I'm getting some Christmas prep done as well as taking the time to smell the roses in the form of doing the daily crosswords, target and sudoku. Mitchell will have friends over tomorrow and Thursday so they will be my spring cleaning days, in between some enjoyable stuff as well.

 

Cheers all

 

M

 

    

TRAINING AND FRUSTRATION

Even though I'm on holidays I got up at 6.15 so that I could get my exercise done before Peter went to work and I'd be housebound. My right hip and glute were aching badly today and as I was heading on a somewhat uphill route to begin with, I decided to walk the first stretch of about 20 minutes. After I hit the downhill route home I picked it up to a jog for about 17 minutes and then decided to finish with some spin bike work. I clocked up about 5 minutes steady state and then did 5 sets of 30 sec sprint/30 sec recovery. Not bad considering it was an awful morning where it was cold and very windy :-(

 

One of the things that has continually frustrated me is my lack of results from my weight training. I keep reading about all these women who discover weight training and it changes their shape and does all these other wonderful things blah, blah, blah yet that never happens for me. And yes I have stuck with it for months at a time only to notice no difference whatsoever. Yes I have lost body fat but doing a decent amount of cardio has no doubt helped that. The other frustrating thing is that I never notice my strength improving. I get to a point with all of my exercises and then unless I'm really carbed up to the max, my strength just stays static.

 

It would be really nice to notice an improvement in my physique from the hard work put into training.Or perhaps I'm just too impatient and expect results too quickly. And I do concede that diet plays a big part and I may not be disciplined enough but for me its important to achieve a nice balance of eating well and enjoying the things I love as opposed to 'dieting for a look'. Perhaps I want to have my cake and eat it too and that aint never gonna happen LOL.

 

Anyways right now I'm far from being in any sort of good shape but I've been thinking about the future and where I want to be and how I might get there.

 

M 

SUNDAY HOUR OF POWER

My training has been all over the place for a few weeks now and admittedly there have been quite a few days where it hasnt happened, often for no good reason. Since Peter's been riding on a Sunday morning and he's out for a couple of hours, its been way too easy to find all sorts of excuses to NOT do anything. I marvel at this as Sundays have alweays been my favourite training day.

 

But today it was time for the tide to turn and turn it did. My challenge was to knock off an hour or so of cardio and do it without leaving Mitchell at home on his own for too long. Oh and BTW and hour on the bike or rower was not on the cards .... BORING!! So i planned this out in my head and did the following:

 

Headed out for a 5 minute walk just going around my block where my house stays pretty much in view most of the time. Then I picked it up to a jog pace sticking to laps around the same block. At the 20 or so minute mark I headed into my studio and did some steady state riding on my spin bike followed by 5 x 30 sec sprint/30 sec recovery and then 5 x 30 sec hill climb/30 sec recovery.  Bike done it was time to hop onto the rower where I did my favourite program for 2 rounds (thats 16 minutes). As I headed out the door for my second run I noticed an hour had passed and my legs were really feeling it. My run was a very pathetic Cliff Young Shuffle so I quickly switched to walking just 1 lap of the block before declaring my workout "over and out".

 

Calorie burn = 500+

Endorphin rush = mega

 

I followed this up with my pond slime drink (aka green smoothie), 10+ minutes of decent stretching, a delicious healthy breakfast and a leisurely read of the paper. Now tell me, why did I ever give this up??   

 

M

SPEECH NIGHT

Yesterday marked the end of the 2012 school year for my boy culminating in Speech Night last night. Whilst he wasnt the recipient of any awards, it was nevertheless a fantastic night showcasing a myriad of talents, hard work and utmost dedication. I always come away from those nights feeling mega proud, mega happy and beyond satisfied that my exhorbitant school fees are indeed money well spent LOL.

 

The head of the Preparatory school gave a wonderful speech (as he always does) basing it around the following saying:

 

The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what we want most for what we want right now. (I eventually found it on the internet and it read slightly different but we wont get totally technical.) The quote is from Don Herold.

 

Of course he applied this saying to the work done by staff in educating our boys to be well rounded students and citizens but when I heard it, it absolutely resonated with me - like 100%.

 

How many times have I chosen the "I want this now" vs "This is what I want long term." WAY too many times I can tell you. I wrote the saying out and stuck it to the bathroom mirror as a prompt for me to do different in future. At the end of the day I can analyse everything to the nth degree and I'd rule out 99% of possible causes, excuses, challenges in why I havent succeeded in managing my weight. Whereas the explanation is simple really.

 

I knew that giving up that hour and half of my precious Friday night was for a good outcome. Thanks Mr Head of the Prep School :-)

 

M

HANGING OUT FOR A HOLIDAY

Ask me on any normal day about my work and I'll tell you that I have a great job with a great boss, a really good team and am surrounded by hard working passionate people. My job pays well and when I need it there is some flexibility for parenting duties. We often joke that Peter will retire first and I'll happily keep working because I'd miss the social aspect of office life.

 

Well this week has been anything but the above and I have really struggled. I've felt totally flat and lacking motivation. I've dragged myself through the days struggling to maintain focus and have let myself drown in negative thoughts and feelings. This is not like me normally and I find myself REALLY looking forward to a week off next week. I desperately need to relax and recharge ready for my 7 week onslaught of acting Director whilst my boss heads to New York for a white Christmas. Right now I'm not ready for it physically, emotionally or mentally and this must change.

 

Last day is tomorrow and we have our section Christmas lunch which will be a very low key affair. I'm just hanging out for home time and being able to say "I'm on holidays now."

 

M

 

 

THE PENNY DROPS

When I wrote this post I struggled to articulate exactly what I wanted to say. It seemed like the correct words just didn't come. Then today Craig Harper posts this and hits the nail right on the head. This is that 'internally happy place' I talk about, summed up beautifully.

Skwigg wrote along the same lines here and what she said also really resonated with me. She says:

Now I make good decisions that support my goals, not out of guilt or fear, but because it's what I genuinely want. It's more enjoyable and rewarding than eating all the chocolate in the house, skipping my workout, and ordering takeout for dinner, all of which would make me look and feel worse, not better. 

What is that? Maturity? Laziness? Path of least resistance? I don't have it any me anymore to make a series of bad decisions, face the consequences, make the excuses, create a plan to get back on track, fail at the plan, face more consequences, listen to more excuses, make more plans. That was so tiring. I'll go with easy, boring, predictable, rock solid consistency every time now. Screwing up was too much drama. 

And I guess thats pretty much where I want to be too. Sometimes you just need to look around you to understand whats going on inside you that can help you move forward. Voila, the penny has dropped.

 

On a more practical note though, I managed a jog this morning with no trouble from my achilles or hip. Go figure! 

 

Thanks for listening.

 

M

 

DOES ANYTHING WORK PROPERLY?

Last week I ventured back to my chiro after several months of not needing a treatment. Ironically it was my neck that was giving me more grief than my back. Regardless he dug in for what was an excruciatingly painful treatment all round. I mentioned that my right hip had been aching and he did some fascia relief on it. It was a bit painful but not even close to the pain from my neck treatment.

 

Almost a week later and my right hip aches constantly, almost to the point where if I have to stand on my right leg only, it hurts and feels really weak. I havent run since Thursday but fingers crossed I'm ok for tomorrow morning. Not sure if there is a particular problem with my hip or if its just wear and tear that comes with age. Geez its annoying though.

 

Couple that with my flippin achilles injury and I'm feeling a bit worse for wear. I'm back to having my foot strapped for 3 days on then 4 days off. In normal everyday use and in flat shoes my ankle/achilles/foot is fine but I still cant extend my foot without pain and sitting with my legs and feet under me is just impossible. So my podiatrist now thinks I might have a boney spur on the back of my ankle (around the achilles). At the end of this week we're going to reassess my progress and perhaps get an x-ray done to see if that might be the problem. You know what! I hope it is. I hope the problem can be that easily pinpointed because then the cure is simple. It would need a minor op to shave off the boney spur and voila all should be good after a short recovery. High heels here I come again :-) :-)

 

In the meantime this recovery is dragging on forever and I can see it going nowhere over the coming months. Please, please, please let it be a spur.

 

Well sorry about my whingey post tonight but I just get so frustrated that the body I think I look after pretty well, keeps letting me down in little ways. I'll shut up now and come back in a better frame of mind next time LOL.