Snow vs. Graduate School

[FemHawke]

Dayum! 130 burpees?! Yowza! I've never tried them, something tells me I should. While I sure as heck won't get to 130 in my first try at them, you're certainly an inspiration! Hope your day 3 is going well  

[iatetheyeti]

First time around I read that as 30 and was impressed. Now I'm seeing the 1 in front of that number and am impressed and, well, kind of envious. That's a pretty great achievement, glad you got through it alive!

[Meta]

 

Hey guys with weight loss goals, another cool research article!!! (this is a re-post from the Brigade thread)

 

...

 

I also recently put up a link (post #14) to a study looking at the effects of capsaicin on body composition.

For anyone not in the Brigade, here's my thoughts on the weight loss articles.

 

The capsaicin study is interesting. I've heard about cold activating brown fat before, but I didn't realize that capsaicin does the same! Gosh, this is a terribly formatted paper - it's not skimmable at all! <searching, searching> It looks like the exposure was to 9mg of capsaicin per day, which you can get from one chili, red, or cayenne pepper (dubious reference references some papers I didn't look at). I'll have to keep that in mind!

 

P.S.: Your 130 burpees makes me feel lazy!

[the 13th letter]

However, I feel like I've totally kicked butt today so I had to update this: today not only did I survive my krav maga class, but I've done a total of 130 burpees. While I may feel a bit like death, I also rocked my own expectations.

Now that… sounds painful.

Remind me to call up Merriam-Webster and tell them that the spelling for masochism has been changed to [insert spelling of the name of your Krav Maga gym here].

[Certified Wong Buggalo]

Hi Snow! Ah, graduate school... I graduated in 2011 with my M.S.W., which is recent enough to remember the surreality of it all. My husband is a current Ph.D. student in clinical psychology, and we are embarking on his 6th year (this being his 3rd year applying for internship, because why would APA-approved required internship sites have enough space for all of the Ph.D. students? That would just be silly.) Since he's completed and defended his dissertation, we expected to be out of here two years ago, and hoped to move back home, but alas, it is not yet to be. This constant uncertainty has had a tremendous impact on both of our lives and both of our careers. So, right there with ya. Also, it's very hard to find people who understand how much this sucks. They don't realize the sacrifices and massive expense involved in such a commitment.

 

But you are doing the best possible thing you could be doing, and that is taking care of yourself. It's important to have a life outside of academia.

 

(Daily burpees? Blargh.)

[Snow]

Now that… sounds painful.

Remind me to call up Merriam-Webster and tell them that the spelling for masochism has been changed to [insert spelling of the name of your Krav Maga gym here].

Haha! The gym is Triangle Krav Maga, but the instructor's name is Molotov (like the cocktail :-P).

 

 

it's very hard to find people who understand how much this sucks. They don't realize the sacrifices and massive expense involved in such a commitment.

Very true! I'm glad you reached out, there seem to be a bunch of us on the site and we're all checking up on each other. The energy and support on this site has been great so far! How is your challenge coming?

 

Day 3 Update: Today was a krav day but I learned my lesson this time about doing my burpees before hand. We spent the hour working on ground defense which in krav level 1 amounts to lying on your back in a curl position (one foot by your butt, the other knee cocked to your chest, shoulder blades off the floor, hands guarding your face) and practicing different strikes. Lest you think they went easy on us, we had to hold this position between strikes and if you relaxed you had to do burpees. :-)

[Meta]

Lest you think they went easy on us, we had to hold this position between strikes and if you relaxed you had to do burpees. :-)

And how many burpees did you have to do?

[Snow]

And how many burpees did you have to do?

Haha! Only 8...not too bad for an hour-long class.

[Meta]

Only 8 sounds really good for an hour-long class!

 

So I realized today that burpees are a big part of Insanity - Shaun T just calls them "suicide jumps." It's been so long that I've done a burpee by name that I had forgotten what they actually are. Today, I did ~30 or so, but on days where there's a lot of them in the workout, I bet I approach your 130 from the other day!

 

Weird how things work out, huh?

[Snow]

So I realized today that burpees are a big part of Insanity - Shaun T just calls them "suicide jumps." It's been so long that I've done a burpee by name that I had forgotten what they actually are. Today, I did ~30 or so, but on days where there's a lot of them in the workout, I bet I approach your 130 from the other day!

Haha! Nice. How are you liking Insanity?

[TheHalfie]

Snow, I just gotta say, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the spreadsheet in your first post. If I thought I'd be religious about it I would certainly do that. Such a good accountability aid though. Nice stuff!

[Certified Wong Buggalo]

Snow, I just gotta say, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the spreadsheet in your first post. If I thought I'd be religious about it I would certainly do that. Such a good accountability aid though. Nice stuff!

I've been using a free program called Routine Tap to track my progress. It's pretty easy to use and you can see at a glance which days you succeeded and which days you didn't. Just a suggestion.

[Meta]

Haha! Nice. How are you liking Insanity?

I really like it. It's a much harder workout than I could force myself to do unaided and I'm seeing good results so far. I'm definitely more toned than I was and I'm dropping weight like mad (though that's mostly from diet and reduced stress) and their use of the fit tests to gauge your progress is really nice - it gives you some metrics for an otherwise difficult-to-measure phenomenon (changes in fitness).

 

Also, I just noticed your spreadsheet because of TheHalfie's comment; very nice!

[Hero]

Yo, good work and nice tracker! Keep it going!!

[Snow]

Week 1 Summary:

 

Goal 1: Gym 4x a week (2+krav maga training) 100%

This week's krav maga sessions stressed endurance and ground defense. I realized from them that I definitely need to work on my stamina and side planks as the 100 burpees in a single set on Monday nearly killed me and some of the ground based strikes require a stronger core to be really effective.

Accordingly, I've been working on endurance and surviving muscle confusion at the gym (sprints and weight training mash-up) as well as core-focused exercises.

 

Goal 2: Get on a semi-regular schedule 88% (7 out of 8)

Surprisingly getting 7+ hours of sleep wasn't that hard after I decided to start getting ready for bed around 9:30-10pm and get up between 6-7am (4 out of 4). Harder than expected was getting to work before 8am as there is only 1 possible bus that I can take. After missing this bus twice (through no fault of my own) I've decided to amend my goal to getting to work before 8:30, giving me two possible buses to catch. At the end of this week, I am at 3 points. If I start going to work before 8:30am more than 4 days a week then I can recover some ground, giving me more of an incentive to get onto a schedule.

 

Goal 3: Get down to 138lbs (from ~145-148lbs) (4lbs to go)

Not sure how I feel about this goal. I'm currently sitting at 142lbs and concerned that getting to below 140 might not be realistic as I can tell that I'm putting on muscle. Don't get me wrong, I love the definition I'm getting in my arms and legs, but that probably means that getting to 138lbs might be a struggle. We'll see how this goes!

 

Burpees: 325 of 1300 (25%)

 

Overall: Week 1 was a success!

 

Also, here is a 'before' pic taken at the beach yesterday. I'm not entirely convinced that there will be a noticeable difference after 6 weeks (after all I'm not trying for a drastic transformation), but here is the pic anyway.

 

[Meta]

Man, you are kicking ass on your burpees because of Monday's PvP challenge! I think your adjustment on your second goal is 100% right - only having one possible bus just makes for a stressful morning.

 

Congrats a great first week! And nice shades.

[wideeyed]

Awesome first week!

[Ayla]

Great job! As for getting bellow 140... maybe you should just change that goal. It's not like you'd be giving up on it, just changing it to something that makes more sense as a way to measure your success. Maybe you could take some measurements and make it an inches lost/gained goal? I don't know. Either way, awesome first week. Keep it up!

[iatetheyeti]

Congrats on the awesome first week! I reckon those 1300 burpees are within easy reach if you've done 25% in just the first week!

[DELETED]

Overall: Week 1 was a success!

 

Yes! Go, Snow, go!

[Hero]

Snooowwwww!!!! Are you alive?! Did those Krav guys get you?! I swear I will march right in there and stare at them very sternly!! Bahahaha. Seriously though, hope all is well and you're still kicking ass in your challenge!!

[bluekiwi1]

 

Overall: Week 1 was a success!

 

Also, here is a 'before' pic taken at the beach yesterday. I'm not entirely convinced that there will be a noticeable difference after 6 weeks (after all I'm not trying for a drastic transformation), but here is the pic anyway.

YAY!  I think you will see some differences, especially if you keep doing those burpees like you have been and lift heavy things like those books, backpacks, stacks of papers, lab equipment, etc etc, you know what I am talking about.

 

Good luck!

[Hero]

Snooowwwww!!!! Are you alive?! Did those Krav guys get you?! I swear I will march right in there and stare at them very sternly!! Bahahaha. Seriously though, hope all is well and you're still kicking ass in your challenge!!

 

I've been practicing my stern stare! Hope you're still kicking ass and taking names!!

[Snow]

Week 2 Summary:

 

Goal 1: Gym 4x a week (2+krav maga training) 75%

This week's krav maga session stressed balance and core strength. I woke up the next day and my back was freaking out so I ended up only going once. Thankfully by Friday everything felt fine so I made up the other 2 gym sessions over the weekend.

 

Goal 2: Get on a semi-regular schedule 100% (8 out of 8)

Once you get into the habit of going to bed earlier, getting into work earlier becomes a breeze!!!

 

Goal 3: Get down to 138lbs (from ~145-148lbs) (4lbs to go)

Still at 142lbs but I've definitely got a 6-pack that's appearing so I'm not terribly upset. A friend that is a personal trainer and has experience with estimating body fat % says that I'm probably around 22% so I might amend my goal to pertain to body fat % instead.

 

Burpees: 550 of 1300 (42%)

 

Overall: Week 2 was a success! Killin' it!

If it hadn't been for my back injury, I would have rocked everything despite having an absolutely insane week at work.

 

Here are some pics of me practicing krav moves for a friend's tumblr project. She graciously gave me these sweet photos.

[Certified Wong Buggalo]

She lives!!!

 

Awesome pics. That's a lot of burpees.