Challenge Reset – Now with Less Impact!

My knees are starting to get better. Still a bit achy, but mostly just tired. I should be good to go in another week or so, which got me to thinking on how I would adjust my Personal Challenge to accommodate the need to baby my knees.

Lower impact exercise is the key, at least until I gain strength and flexibility in my knees and hamstrings. I think I could go back to the 30 Day Shred eventually, and modify the Scary Lunges to something more appropriate. But that is for the future. For now, this is what I’m going to do:

Challenge (re)Start Date: November 1st
Challenge (re)End Date: November 30th

Exercise Routine:
– Sunday: 30 minutes of cardio, upper body strength exercises, abs
– Monday: 45 minutes of yoga
– Tuesday: 30 minutes of cardio, lower body strength exercises, abs
– Wednesday: 30 minutes of cardio, upper body strength exercises, abs
– Thursday: 30 minutes of cardio, lower body strength exercises, abs
– Friday: off
– Saturday: 45 minutes of pilates

Diet: Modified South Beach. Most of my RDA of fiber is coming from Fiber One cereal and YoPlus (yogurt with fiber and digestive enzymes) for breakfast, neither of which is on Phase One of South Beach but DAMMIT it’s what works for my digestion, so I’ll indulge for breakfast. Calories under 1500 per day. As low-fat/low-carb as possible.

I think by adding the yoga and pilates, that will help me gain the flexibility I’m looking for. The cardio will include the elliptical, walking, and possibly biking if I ever get around to buying a bike. I’ll probably continue a similar schedule and routine for December and up the cardio (maybe start running again) to at least 45 minutes, and increase the weights, but again, that’s in the future.

For now it’s one month at a time, here.

Personal Challenge – Bummed

I messed up my knees. They started hurting last Saturday (the 11th), so I thought I’d give myself a couple of days off from the Shred Torture From Hell, to let them recover. Here it is Thursday the 16th and they still hurt. So I’m going to the doctor’s, and maybe they can offer some advice on how to make my knees hold up so that I can kick my own ass into shape.

SIGH. Always with the setbacks!

Personal Challenge – Day Ten

Well, now.  Here’s a question for you.  Do the calories count if you toss your cookies right after lunch?

Yarg.

I was feeling GREAT this morning – light and fit and svelte.  I had a sandwich for lunch and promptly felt AWFUL.   About thirty seconds after chewing my last bite I was in the bathroom at work, returning my lunch – and NOT for a refund, ifyouknowwhatimean.

I’m thinking there was something wrong with the lunch meat.  I feel a lot better now, though my tummy has that unsettled feeling.  Sticking to a salad for dinner tonight.  And I’m still going to Shred when I get home from work, tummy troubles be damned!

Personal Challenge – Day Nine

Fiber seems to be a problem for me. Without taking a fiber supplement (which tends to constipate me no matter HOW MUCH WATER I drink) I can’t get the RDA (at least 25 grams) of fiber into my diet. I eat beans as often as I can (hello, gas), and raw fruits and veggies. But raw fruit is a no-no for Phase One of South Beach, and you’re supposed to limit it beyond Phase One. There’s only so much salad I can eat – and surprisingly, tossed salad doesn’t tend to have all that much fiber. So. Gotta figure that out.

I upped the weights to 5 lbs during Shred today, and it wasn’t too bad! I could definitely feel the difference but I was still able to keep the pace up and make it through the workout without pausing. Go me!

Personal Challenge – Day Eight

Why is it that some days I can be perfectly satisfied eating, say, 1200 calories, and other days I’m STARVING all day and the total calorie tally reaches somewhere around 1800? What the heck is up with that?

Today will be the third day in the row that I’ve eaten somewhere around the 1200 calorie mark, so it seems I’m finally getting my eating under control. As an aside, Michelob Ultra isn’t all that bad. I’m just sayin’.

Jillian continues to kick my ass, but I’ve noticed a BIG difference in my stamina now that I’ve got a week’s worth of Shred Level One under my belt. I’m thinking of moving up from three pound to five pound weights tomorrow, staying on Level One. If that continues to work out, I might increase to Level Two on the weekend.

We shall see.

Personal Challenge – Day Four

Well! Good news! NOT ONLY did I do the Shred this morning before work, I ALSO made it all the way through WITHOUT STOPPING (still on Level One), did NOT collapse in a sobbing heap after I was done, was able to walk and stand and SHOWER with non-shakey limbs, and recovered much more quickly than I have thus far.

AND nothing hurts right now, I can walk normally, and I feel just a good sense that I had a good, solid workout.

Something is improving! Which is good, because my eating habits are still in the crapper.

Personal Challenge – Day Three

Okay, so, after nearly DYING on Monday after doing a session of Shred Level One, I discovered that I am recovering much more quickly than I did last week when I did The Shred two days in a row and then hobbled around like a little old lady for FIVE. Yesterday Jen and I did a ton of walking, and then Calvin and I washed the car when I got home from work – AFTER an hour of grocery shopping – so I didn’t Shred yesterday. Still! I was able to walk, things hurt but not abominably so, and I’m actually LOOKING FORWARD to Shredding when I get home today.

I doubt I’ll ever get beyond Level Two, though. People MUCH fitter than I have confessed that Level Three is still too hard for them.

In other news, a chicken salad sandwich at Arby’s is 770 calories and 39 grams of fat. Note to self: “FUUUUUUCK.” Yeah, I’ll be having a leaf of lettuce and a glass of water for dinner tonight.

Dammit.

Personal Challenge – Day One

Today begins the first day of my 30-day Personal Challenge. And it’s going to be a LONG month, I can just tell.

For the next thirty days I’ll be adhering as strictly as I can to the South Beach diet rules, and I’ll be doing the 30 Day Shred along with it. I weighed in and took my measurements this morning and don’t even want to post what the stats are. Tell ya what, at the end of the 30 days I’ll post the “before” and “after” stats to have something to be proud of. How’s that.

I still intend on biking to work when the weather cools off (WHEN, God, WHEN???). I figured out that on a day that I do the Shred AND bike to work, I’ll burn over 500 calories. Sounds good to me! Any way that I can burn calories without thinking about it. I HATE thinking about it.

Now if my damned feet would just hold up. I’ve got bunions and a wicked case of plantar fasciitis, though the pain is in my arch more than my heel. I know I’m going to need surgery on my feet – both of them – but I keep putting off the consult. I’m going about this in the wrong order – I want to get to my goal weight FIRST and THEN get surgery. And then probably have to re-do all the hard work to get back down to my goal weight. SIGH.

WHY is this all so difficult?

I foresee a lot of whining in the next 30 days. You have been warned.

Shred = OW HOLY CRAP OW.

In October I’m doing a personal challenge. Every day of the month I will work out to Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred.

I wanted to warm up to the challenge, so I decided to do it a few times this week. I watched Level One all the way through, first (quoth Calvin, “It doesn’t work if you just sit on the couch and watch it, you know.” Thank you, Captain Obvious.). The whole thing was about 25 minutes, including warm-up and cool-down. I thought to myself, when it was done, “Well, that doesn’t look so bad.”

BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA. OH, my stars and garters. I was SO VERY WRONG.

I did Level One for the first time today. I struggled, and I mean STRUGGLED, through it. At the end I was perspiring and breathing very heavily. I levered myself up off the floor and staggered into the bathroom, where I could barely stand long enough to take a shower. I dried off. I sat down on the bed. Got back up, got dressed. Sat back down again. Staggered into the living room. Sat on the couch. Wished someone would come make me a sandwich. Got back up, went into the kitchen. Noticed that not only were my arms and legs all noodly, so were my FINGERS. Fumbled through putting together the sandwich.

Sat back on the couch. Ate my sandwich. Felt marginally better after eating. Here I am, nearly three hours later, and my limbs still feel weak.

I’m SO dreading how I’m probably going to feel tomorrow. It’s no wonder some people can boast losing twenty pounds after doing this workout for a month. The way I feel right now, it’s GOTTA work.

What’s working (at the moment)

So as you can see by my stats over on the right hand side, I’m making some progress. Not as fast as I would like, certainly (hence the push out of the final goal date from the end of July to the end of September), but I haven’t been as disciplined as I would like, either. So I’m lucky it’s going as well as it is. I’ve taken the past week or so off from working out, and will be getting back into the routine this week. It seems that working out five days a week is what is working the best for me. It’s better for me to keep in mind that I have five days out of seven that I need to exercise, rather than saying, “I’m going to work out this day, and this day, and then skip this day…” It gives me the flexibility to be able to say, “Fuck it,” on a day that I need to say, “Fuck it,” without stressing me out in the manner of failing to do something that was SCHEDULED for a certain time.

I keep meaning to renew my discipline on the whole South Beach thing, and keep rather failing at it. So at the moment I’m just keeping the portions and calories down, and renewing my determination to skip bread, etc. on a pretty much daily basis. It really does work well when I stick to it. I’ll get there. I think that fasting one day a week is a good idea for me, as well. Or, well, not so much fasting as going on a liquid diet for a day, where liquid = my fiber juice drink in the morning, and water and tea for the rest of the day. I’ve done it on two different days over the past three weeks and I really do think I feel better for it.

Speaking of the fiber thing, I’m still taking the Colonix fiber powder daily, as well as probiotics in the evening and digestive enzymes with lunch and dinner. The difference in my digestion now as compared to several months ago is like NIGHT AND DAY. I’m, erm, going regularly, have nearly no bloating at all AND no more heartburn/acid reflux. I’ll keep up with this regime as long as necessary – maybe even for the rest of my life – if that’s what it takes to be, well, normal.

On top of the digestive stuff, I’ve been taking glucosamine (I find I’m getting creaky in my old age and working out is doing a number on my joints, so this stuff helps) and fish oil caplets (my doc says I have high cholesterol). I’m going to track down a good multi-vitamin to throw on top of it all and I should be healthy as a horse. You know, aside from the allergies (dosing with Xyzal and Nasonex) and asthma (dosing with Advair and my good ol’ rescue inhaler).

Fuck, I take so many damn pills.