slcathena

Definitely in for the challenge.  Looking forward to it! 

*waves*

Hi all!

I took a bit of a break from challenges while the school year started up.  It was purposeful.  I'd been dieting/challenging myself for the better part of 9 months straight and I decided to give my body a bit of a break after reading some seriously wise advice to that effect on here...

...now I'm ready to get back in the game for 2013.

Looking forward to seeing everyone's goals/progress!

http://www.gradschools.com/search-programs/online-programs/political-science/masters

http://www.gradschools.com/search-programs/online-programs/communication-studies

I'll just leave these here...

<3 Thank you so much for these! Sorry I didn't see them earlier. The last 10 days I haven't been on NF for a variety of reasons. This helps me a ton with my big boss challenge though (which is so obviously grad school!) so thank you!!!

I have been super busy and will try to update more tonight, but I wanted to reply to this. Thank you!!

I've got to do this grad school thing. I have been avoiding it all challenge. By the end of the summer I will have a plan/send in apps to be ready to go.

Shmer.

I'm totally in. I'm just going to track my runkeeper runs for now. 17.2 miles since 6/27, which I'm super proud of!

I planned on running 5K today anyway, now I know it counts for the challenge!

Don't give up on grad school! Have you actually looked at political science/comm programs? Maybe there are some that are online (I know, not the best option, but you said you needed it for work)? If you want someone else to do the research, I really like researching obscure things on the internet. Give me a list of parameters and I will go to work!!!

Awww, thank you! I am in the Boston area, and basically need a program that isn't super expensive (although I have zero education debt now, so taking out loans for 2 years wouldn't be the worst thing). I also work 7:30-2:30 every day, I am at school 3 days a week until 4pm. I work out (and am not going to sacrifice that b/c I've worked so hard for it) from 5:15 until 6:30 or so every night. I travel 3-4 weekends a year for the program I direct from the second week of September until the first week of May. Basically online program or bust b/c me getting to class would be shmer...

Taking terrible classes you don't want to take is a fact of life in the education field. It would be ironic if it wasn't so sad. I hope you figure something out.

I know!!!! It's so incredibly sad. It bums me out to no end.

More updates on the food/workout side soon. That all has been going well, at least.

Workout

7/14: Ran 2.66 miles in the afternoon. Super happy about it. Did Insanity later that night for the challenge.

7/15: Recovery day. 2 days with running plus Insanity was too much. Just did a recovery video from the Insanity set that was pretty low key

7/16: Did a Barre class this AM, only one more in the groupon! I think I"ll run later today if it's not too hot.

Food

7/14: Was awesome during the day. We went out and did a ladies night thing that evening that was sort of ridiculous. Lots of alcohol followed by impromptu 2 am bacon. I was not the only person eating bacon. It was really fun though.

7/15: Definitely recovered food wise yesterday. Was super good, egg white omelets, chicken, broccoli, lots of win.

7/16: Still trying to recover food wise, had a smoothie this am, and am about to go get sushi.

Running: See above! Almost 5 miles in the last week and will attempt to do a full 5K this afternoon. YAY!

Grad School: I have no motivation here. I do not want a random education degree and will probably not find a program in political science or comm that has classes that meet when I am free so I'm stuck. I know I'm going to do terrible taking classes I don't want to take. This makes me feel sort of ill.

Sleep: Aside from Ladies night (which I still slept 7 hours but it meant I didn't get up until like 10 am...) has been awesome. Yesterday wasn't QUITE 7 hours b/c I feel asleep a little late with reading. Basically Game of Thrones (books and show) is singlehandedly responsible for me messing this up. SO GOOD.

I've been trying to figure out how to reign in my over-eating (the binge eating has decreased to just plain old over-eating) and I realized that if I just don't eat in front of the tv, I will eat so much more healthily.

I feel like I won the lottery. I've been thinking 'maybe I should do paleo, maybe I should go back to veganism, maybe I should cut out sugar, maybe I should stop eating at 8pm....' And then it dawned on me that I do the bulk of my eating in front of the tv... So my new diet is that I can eat whatever I want as long as I don't watch tv while I'm doing it. I suspect I'll start losing weight pretty quickly.

Anyone else try this? Or have any other diet breakthroughs? And I mean diet as in 'the food you eat' not as in 'eating less for a short period of time.'

I haven't tried this re: diet, but I had a similar breakthrough re: sleep recently. I realized that I kept waking up in the middle of the night/didn't fall asleep on time b/c the tv was a huge distraction and kept my brain working beyond when I wanted it to, I've slept loads better this summer solely b/c that isn't on.

YAY BREAKTHROUGHS! Nice work.

game of thrones is always worth it!

It was so good. I'm going to watch episode two of this season tonight.

Will do a more complete update later, but...

*drumroll*

I JUST GOT BACK FROM A RUN!!!!!!! 2.25 straight miles, pace was 10:40, which is sort of mer, but considering how long it's been and the number of traffic lights, it's okay. Tomorrow AM I'm going to try to do the full 5K. Tonight hopefully when I get home I'll do Insanity for the challenge.

YAY RUN!

"If you weren't spending so much effort dealing with this issue, what would you put that energy towards?"

Thanks for this. This is the precise encapsulation I've always struggled with. I put all that energy into loving my body instead and taking care of it. All of the energy I didn't have before, I now funnel into working out. It's pretty much awesome. Thank you!

I agree, what a great way to refocus.

I need to post more pics. I just haven't gotten around to it. I grew up in Utah, but I was born on Cape Cod- and I lived in Woburn for a while.

Small world!!!

Indeed! My gym is in Woburn!!! I live in Wakefield, about a mile from the lake. I look forward to more pics (and to going home to Utah in August).

Starting Insanity on Sunday, gonna stick with low carb Paleo for the duration, I'll post how I feel when we get partway through it (i.e. if low carb is even possible while doing high intensity workouts).

I am not paleo, and am also on week 3 of Insanity. I do tend to keep my carbs fairly low though and I haven't had a problem with this with Insanity yet. Energy is still good and I have been getting stronger on the workouts, improvement on the fit test and way stronger with the reps. I'm a little bummed that the scale hasn't moved even though I've been working my butt off, but I feel like I am leaning down a bit, so hopefully it's noticeable in non-scale places (I know, I know, don't focus solely on the scale...)

Congrats on the smoke-freeness!!! SO AWESOME.

I am super jealous of your road trip. I grew up in Utah, and that pic of Lake Powell totally tugged at my heart strings a bit. Looks like it was an awesome trip.

The HALTT strategy is awesome. I use something similar, but in addition to questioning, I postpone eating junk for an hour. If I still really want the potato chips in an hour I'll have a few, but I wait an hour to see if something else works. If I do have the chips, I eat them slowly and when they aren't as satisfying anymore (usually 5-10 chips) I put them back. It gives me time to sort out cravings and keep junk food in check.

Also, I think Ryan had some good advice, spending time doing productive awesome things away can be a godsend.

Good luck!

Also:

Julia Ladewski has an AMAZING back. Do want.

Her back is amazing. It's literally my new goal. Chin-ups/Pull-ups ahoy!!!

Workout amendment to yesterday - Didn't get to Insanity yesterday, will do it today.

7/12: Worked out with a trainer in the am. It was awesome core work for the most part and some weights - REAL ONES, and kettlebells. YAY!

Food:

7/11: was really good and hit my macros, EXCEPT that sort of cheated on dinner (and can literally feel the water weight I'm retaining as a result). I had a BLT with lobster a tiny bit of chipotle aioli and sweet potato fries. I don't regret it, they were delicious, but I sort of wish I had figured out something as delicious with fewer carbs. At least the bread was wheat...Still doing awesome at the avoiding drinking thing, still feel way better because of it.

Running: Tomorrow. For real. Maybe tonight instead of insanity. I am going to do it either today or tomorrow. I mean it. I need to figure out a reward system to make me do it.

Grad School: minor progress, will update Monday hopefully with real progress.

Sleep: Not great. Slept 5.5 hours last night because I got distracted by having access to season 2 of game of thrones on my computer finally. Sort of worth it though. More later.

http://mollygalbraith.com/blog/learning-to-love-your-body/

This post was pretty much one of the best things I've read in a long time. I've had a crazy relationship with my body over the years. Even when I was in shape all I did was pick out flaws/not appreciate it. Now that I'm getting fit again and doing it from a completely new perspective I love reading stuff like this and thought you all might as well.

Also, every woman in this piece is crazy beautiful and not a random airbrushed model. I basically want to be them when I grow up.

Enjoy!

Eh, you've been rocking this challenge. Go easy on yourself on the sweet potato fries. Sometimes they are a necessity.

Way to rock everything else!!

Workouts:

7/9: just did the fitness assessment and a ton of walking at about a 3 mph pace. Prob about 4 miles total (went back to the same gym/spa later in the afternoon to treat myself to a mani/pedi)

7/10: Started with a trainer. Nothing better than starting the day with a brisk walk to the gym followed by an hour of working out. It was so great to use weights again and have someone to give me personal feedback. I just felt energized the whole day. After working out I had to judge a practice debate, and then decided to take advantage of my 3 hour lunch break by doing the Insanity work out for today in order to bump up my HIIT minutes for the challenge. Pretty much a total win.

7/11: Did a Barre class in the morning (only one more left on the group on and then no more purple weights, YAY! I'm really being unfair here, the workout minus the weights is a pretty great recovery day workout. The isometric moves are challenging in their own right and the stretching is great. I can definitely feel it in my core. But the purple 3 lbs dumbbells....). Will do Insanity later tonight to contribute more to the HIIT challenge.

Food: 7/9 & 10 - pretty much awesome. I've hit my protein goal, not exceeded carbs, drank enough water and generally been great each day. The problem I've had the last couple of days is actually eating enough. After the 2 day drinking hiatus for the fit assessment I decided to just ride that momentum and keep abstaining for a bit. There is too much going out here at night and I realized it was making me a) retain water weirdly/dehydrate and was messing with my sleep. Both of those have been way more awesome in the last 4 days. So I think I'll keep that up at least until the weekend when we have a ladies' night planned. I hadn't even realized how much it was messing with me until I went back to normal.

Running: Gah. Failing here. Friday AM it's on. Tomorrow is training and Insanity so I don't think adding a run to that is a good idea...maybe I'll replace Insanity with running, not sure. This is definitely something I need to focus more on. I just have a hard time running by myself. My mind wanders and I have a hard time motivating myself to really push it. It's hard to explain.

Grad School ....I am clearly avoiding this. Mer.

Sleep: Has been awesome, see food note above. I really love that I've figured this out this summer. I was mystified by this last challenge, and now I'm rocking it, which is an awesome feeling.

Weakness - haven't been running enough at all. MUST RUN.

HIIT - Can someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure Insanity is HIIT. Ironically that is what I've been doing since the start of the challenge b/c I don't have a gym here. If so, I'll just log my time from that (obviously minus the warm-up/stretching).

Just added my last day of push-ups/dips.

Looked at total = more than 3 million.

We are rock stars. WOOT!

ETA: I did not push us over the top, b/c what I just added was less than what we are over, but still.

Very NICE! Well done.

GL on the run!

Grrr. Didn't get the run in. We didn't get out until 9:30 pm, and the person I work with was (rightly) concerned about me running by myself at night around a college campus. So I went back to the apt and did two insanity videos instead. (Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs). It was fine and about an hour of cardio and ab work that was moderately hard. I need to get on track again with running though.

I've been feeling like the Insanity thing isn't pushing me as hard as I want for a couple weeks. Don't get me wrong, it's just a shorter work out than I'm used to (40ish minutes) and while it's a good workout, it's not the same as what I was doing in MA intensity wise (typical gym day - 15 minute ab class, run a mile, spin for 45 minutes day one, circuit training including pretty solid weight work and cardio bursts for 60 minutes day two). I miss the challenge of that. So I signed up for a group on (this is a running theme, I start doing workouts with group ons to try them and see if I like them) for 3 personal training sessions about a mile away from my apt, figuring I could add that a couple of times a week for the next 4 weeks I'm here (obviously I'll be paying in full after the group on expires, but I'm okay with that). Before I could start I had to do a fitness assessment. Full results in the woot room, but I ACED it, and am super happy about that b/c I was really, REALLY nervous. I was hoping that I would "pass" as average, I ended up maxing out or above average on everything (well, except the last few pounds of fat I need to lose, but I knew that was still there).

Win!

More later when I'm updating for the whole day.

I started working out again seriously in November. I started very out of shape, and have lost a little over 30 lbs since then. Since I'm spending the summer away from my normal gym and trainer, I found a place I can train for the next 4 weeks while I'm here. To start out they did a fitness test today.

I still have some work to do on body comp (that I knew, it takes a while to get back to good when you start out way out of shape). But everything else was awesome (as follows):

80% percentile cardio

Maxed out the pushups for my age group (28, couldn't have done another one, I was aiming for 30, but apparently 27 is the goal for my age)

Maxed out leg curl-ups for my age group (This was like standing on a foam pad with one leg up for as long as you could, balancing. 22 sec right/21 sec left)

Maxed out plank for my age group (2 minutes, could have held longer)

Maxed out crunches (don't remember the number, but she stopped me and told me I was good)

Above average flexibility

I know these are just benchmarks and that it's more important to work towards other goals, etc. I still will. I was just really really nervous about this b/c I've worked so hard and didn't want to do poorly. Plus, if you had told me I could do any of these things after this much time in November I might have laughed at you, and I certainly would have called it a win. I'm pretty excited about it, especially because I was really nervous about this today.