Evi's Sticky Blog

[Evicious]

Good morning!
 
It's been a while since I started a DBL. My failed attempt at the last 6WC really nailed home that I have a hard time sticking to these kind of commitments. I have yet to finish a single 6WC, let alone maintain a DBL for any length of time!  
 
My purpose this time around is to create the habit of logging in and writing something. Even if I just copy and paste my daily workout stats from Fitocracy, the fact that I contributed to my DBL that counts. 
 
I want to accomplish this because it will help keep me accountable in many ways: my fitness, my eating habits, and my drinking   . Like many people, when I fail in one aspect I have a tendency to give up on the others as well. I have been working on changing that mental approach for many years now, and I am becoming more resilient. I don't let things snowball as often, or for as long, as I used to; however, it does still happen.
 
And it really shows in the extra 20Lbs I've managed to accumulate since I got back from Korea. 
 
Now, I kinda won the genetic lottery: I have an athletic frame that builds muscle quickly, and when I do put on weight it's distributed pretty evenly across my body. At this moment, I'm almost 180Lbs at 5' 7". My mirror me went from a sleek moon-skinned khajit to a pretty plump-tastic house cat. With clothes on, there aren't many people who would say that I need to lose weight. (Plus, the extra weight makes my boobs look FANTASTIC!)  But my "normal" weight is anywhere from 155-165Lbs, and even if the average onlooker doesn't see it, I can feel the extra fluff with every step. And I don't like feeling that.
 

 
 
 
 

 
More importantly, however, that weight is an indication of how much strength and stamina I've lost. I was never the type to be at the gym for more than hour, on my own terms. But when I did work out, I put all my effort and focus on doing so - and it made me pretty strong. I started slacking on that intensity, and by now, I'm fairly certain I've reached the bottom of that slippery slope. 
 
So it's time to refocus. And it's time to make it stick. Ergo: Sticky Blog!
 
I'm currently out on exercise (again), this time for anywhere between a month to a month-and-a-half. It feels like the perfect time to get back to the basics and work the kinks out of my fitness foundation.
 
Thus far, I've bought a good, mostly-clean refrigerator's worth of food. I bought a food scale, and have measured and repackaged everything out by 100-200 calorie portions. I'm tracking my calories again (SparkPeople - not a great site, but it'll do for now). 

 

 

 

Exercising out here may get a little tricky, but so far (ie, the past two days) I've done well. 
 
I know I'm going to get very, very tired in the near future (some days I already know I'll be working 18+ hours). My plan is to work out in the mornings as often as possible, so I'm not tempted to skip them at the end of the day. And when I can't feasibly get up any earlier to fit one in, I have several [very] short work out routines ready and on-hand for the days I can't do much more than bodyweight exercises in my hotel room. 
 
Ultimately, I hope to renew my enthusiasm for healthy living through this DBL - and maybe even drop 5Lbs by the time I get to go home.

[Evicious]

[Historical post] Cardio Workout for 19APR15

 

 

0.00-0.25 mi Walked
0.25-0.50 mi Ran (4.5)
0.50-1.00 mi Ran (5.0)
1.00-1.50 mi Ran (5.5)
1.50-1.75 mi Ran (4.5)
1.75-2.00 mi Ran (5.0)
2.00-2.25 mi Ran (5.5)
2.25-2.50 mi Walked

 

Did a quick set of close-armed push-ups (just 10) and then 25 sit-ups afterwards. 

 

Breakfast was an "Italian Poached Egg" - aka, Prego Traditional Italian Sauce in the bottom of a cup with an egg cracked on top and microwaved for 1.30 minutes. DELICIOUS, btw! Plus my glass of 2% milk and my cup of coffee (milk, no sugar) the total calorie count came to 346.

 

Lunch was 2 Spinach, Greek Yogurt, and Rotisserie Chicken wraps. 590 calories, according to SparkPeople.

 

Dinner was a bowl of my Mushroom, Beef, and Bell Pepper stew; half a snack-pack of imitation crab; two strawberries for desert (389 calories), and four 12oz PBRs (612 calories - ugh!).

 

Total calories for the day: 1937.

[Evicious]

Cardio Workout for 20APR15

 

 

0.00-1.00 mi Ran (4.5)
1.00-1.10 mi Ran (4.6)
1.10-1.20 mi Ran (4.7)
1.20-1.30 mi Ran (4.8)
1.30-1.40 mi Ran (4.9)
1.40-1.50 mi Ran (5.0)
1.50-1.60 mi Ran (5.1)
1.60-1.70 mi Ran (5.2)
1.70-1.80 mi Ran (5.3)
1.80-1.90 mi Ran (5.4)
1.90-2.00 mi Ran (5.5)
2.00-2.10 mi Ran (5.4)
2.10-2.20 mi Ran (5.3)
2.20-2.30 mi Ran (5.2)
2.30-2.40 mi Ran (5.1)
2.40-2.50 mi Ran (5.0)
2.50-3.00 mi Walked

 

I slept in this morning, due to feeling sluggish after last night's beer consumption. But when I did get up I stretched for a bit, then did a fast 20 push-ups, 30 sit-ups, and 50 jumping-jacks before showering. By that time, I didn't have time to eat breakfast so I threw two wraps in my backpack for lunch and made do with coffee from the hotel breakfast bar.

 

So breakfast calories were: 141 (I'm counting the numerous cups I downed that were all 1/4 nonfat milk to make it cool enough to drink quickly).

 

Lunch was the two wraps (I used imitation crab in one: same number of calories tho), so 544 calories there.

 

I did my cardio when I got back to the hotel after work. Dinner was a bowl of my Mushroom, Beef, and Bell Pepper stew; the leftover crab from last night's snack pack munch (40 cal); and water. I may have some peppermint tea this evening, or maybe warm up a cup of milk - I love the way warm milk makes me sleepy.

 

Tomorrow, I have to be at work at 06:45, so I plan to be up at 04:30 to get my workout in. I will likely do a HIIT routine, or perhaps just free weights (the hotel gym has a complete rack of dumbells) and save the cardio for later that evening.

 

Now, I have to pack my lunch for tomorrow. Looking at my current caloric intake, I'm a little concerned at how low it seems in conjunction with the "calories burned" (supposedly) and I think I may need to increase. So I believe I will pack one regular chicken wrap and one with 100 calories of precooked shrimp (3.5oz, btw), and include a crab snack pack (this one is 5.6oz; I've only eaten 1 thus far of the 6 I made) and a chicken, spinach, cherry tomato and feta salad.

 

 

According to SparkPeople, if I eat everything it will come to 912 calories. Add in breakfast, which will likely be another 'Italian Poached Egg' (gods, I love that recipe!) and dinner, which will probably be another bowl of stew, that's another probable 600 calories... and I'm still barely hitting 1500+ish calories.

 

Hmm... I will have to think of some way to pad that...

 

Anyway, good night, NF!

[Evicious]

21APR15 Bodyweight Workout

 

 

 

According to the pin on Pinterest, Level I (beginner) is 3 sets; Level II (intermediate) is 5; and Level III (advanced) is 7. Today, I accomplished Level 1. And now, I must shower and go to work.

[Teros]

*waves*

[Evicious]

I got up at 04:30. I was done with work at 19:45. I got back to the hotel at 20:20. I did not manage to eat all of my lunch for lunch, so I've had the leftovers for dinner plus a PBR. Now I'm nursing a warm cup of milk (and planning on drinking a second), after I've called my S.O. and said goodnight. Then I am going to bed. 

 

Goodnight, NF: I will see you for PT tomorrow.

[Evicious]

Took yesterday as a rest day... and it looks like I'm doing the same for today. I have to be up at 04:00 tomorrow, and won't likely be done until at least 19:00... I'm pledging now to do at least one set of my previous bodyweight exercise before I get in the shower. 

 

Tonight's dinner was off-the-cuff, and totally delicious: eggplant "chili". Basically, I sliced 2/3rds of eggplant into thin coins and cooked it until it started to soften with garlic and sundried tomatoes (jarred stuff, both - and wonderful). Then I added about a cup of Prego's Traditional sauce and a can of dark kidney beans. I turned the heat down and let everything meld together. 

 

 

It. Was. AWESOME!

 

I'm not going to lie, I have no idea what the calorie count on this dish is. Maybe I'll try to figure that out later. What I do know is that I had two bowlfuls, and I've rolled up all but a cupful into two wraps for tomorrow's for lunch. 

[Evicious]

Work has been unrelenting. Last night I had four hours of sleep - in 2 hour segments. I finally have a day off tomorrow, which I will be using to recharge and rethink how to go about fitting in workouts. Eating healthy has been simple, thanks to the crockpot, but my workouts have suffered drastically with this schedule. 

 

I need sleep.

[TMedina]

Ack!  Hope you figure something out!

[Evicious]

So the past few days have been... fun. My day off turned out to be a half-day off, as did the next day; and then the week rolled right back into full work days. My loving husband made the long drive with our dog to come visit in the short amount of free time I had. We spent some time at the pool, enjoyed an enormous amount of calories at the nearby pub, and lazed around watching all the strange things that America calls entertainment on the boob-tube. Then he and the pup made the long return trip home, and I got moved immediately to the night shift. Yay, sleep-cycle-madness!

 

In spite of being up for over 24 hours yesterday/last night/this morning, I woke up after just 4 hours of sleep this morning. Rather than fight it, I decided to get up and eat some breakfast. I purchased a microwave egg cooker before I left for this exercise, and I am happy to report that it works quite well! And yes, it is a "As seen on TV" product - thank you Walmart for rendering my decision not to pay for cable in my house moot.

 

 

So breakfast this morning was a spinach-egg burrito. One egg, roughly 1/4 cup spinach leaves, and a tablespoon of salsa on a Mission Homestyle Tortilla = 271 calories. I've officially decided it is too much trouble to track my coffee intake, as I find it tedious to measure the amount of 2% milk that I splash in. Most of the time at work I just drink it black for convenience.

 

I need to make a grocery run to resupply my Greek yogurt, milk, fresh spinach and some more chicken thighs. I need to figure out how I'm going to schedule my workouts on this new schedule. I need to go back to sleep for at least a couple more hours.

 

*sigh*

[TMedina]

Ugh, that sucks.

 

Glad to see you're making it work!

[Evicious]

I'm finally starting to get used to the nightshift hours. I did some light stretching and a [very] quick workout this "morning", which is more than I've done for the past week (other than all the usual work-hour walking). Breakfast was heartening as well:

 

 

Egg, spinach and salsa wrap; Greek yogurt and raspberries; black tea with milk (Celestial Seasonings' Morning Thunder). I'm really pleased with the tea: it has mate', which I've never tried before: I like it! It has a kind of... almost smoky flavor. I'm glad I didn't try it sweetened. I think that would ruin the taste entirely.

 

Wanna see how crazy I've been going? 

 

 

Grasshopper wrangling. That's how crazy.

[Teros]

Grasshopper wrangling is huge in south korea.  Seems like you're doing just fine.

[Evicious]

Grasshopper wrangling is huge in south korea.  Seems like you're doing just fine.

 

I'm actually back from Korea. That was in Texas Koreans seem to prefer moth larvae to grasshoppers; Texans aren't terribly fond of either, but - hey! Who knows? The beef has to run out sometime, right? We're already facing a possible egg shortage from Walmart...

[Evicious]

Ok, so I'm back again (finally). I am exceedingly confident that I have not only regained what few pounds I lost during exercise, I have multplied them by at least 2.

 

HOWEVER.

 

I have discovered hashing. My husband is joining me for my morning PT. And I have a school coming up in a couple of months that requires another PT test, soooo....

 

[Evicious]

Workout for Today:

Cardio - 2 mile run (21:18)

Strength - TBD

 

Calories for Today:

Breakfast - 189 (Egg white with sriracha and spinach leaves on whole wheat tortilla + coffee (with cream and sugar))

Lunch - 616 (Spinach (canned) and veggie (frozen california blend) in cream of mushroom soup + 1 serving pack of Pringles sour cream 'n' onion chips)

Dinner - TBD

[Muscle Professor]

Glad to see your pack. Your posts are awesome so please keep posting!

[TMedina]

Wooooot! Welcome back to the wagon. =}

[Evicious]

Clawing my way through mandatory training at work... Gods, I hate this online bullshit. It takes forever, and it makes me loath every single topic it addresses, even when I know it's actually very relevant or important.

 

On the up/down-side, I'm enjoying my two classes for school - although I recently discovered I've been turning in assignments late on one class, due to my inattention to the instructions posted for the forums. Oops. :-/ Oh well... just means I have to get straight A's through the rest of the semester!

 

My husband joined a gym last week, which gives me a 1-month free membership. I'm planning on taking spin classes (AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! pain) 3x a week - because cardio, that's why! Seriously though, the Army is all about cardio and I have not been paying my dues in that area lately. So yeah, bi-sigh-cling Mon-Wed-Fri, with the usual 2 mile runs Tue-Thur. The gym also offers a yoga class Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I'll be doing those as well. I've been wanting/meaning to learn yoga for...ever, really... It should prove interesting, if nothing else.

 

FYI, I've restarted my Fitocracy account (re: deleted and re-registered). It just didn't feel right to be logging my stats as a Level 13 when my workouts are only Level 2, at best. I'm using a different approach now than I was before, too: I'm recording my workouts before I complete them as a way of goal-setting. I amend the results if I don't achieve what I set out to do. For instance, today I am looking to up my 2 mile run on the treadmill here at work to 2.25 - and I'm looking to do it 30 minutes or less. That's approximately a 13 minute-mile, which I know I am capable of running... if I push myself. I find it very difficult to have a motivated workout on treadmills, so I'm hoping that setting a time limit for my desired distance will help push me out of my mental lethargy.

 

After all, something may be better than nothing - but a sweaty, heart-pumping, "burns-mah-muskals"-something is better than a, "Took my whole lunch time to burn my requisite 200 calories because exercise-blahs"-something.

[Evicious]

Spin class is what gets me out of bed Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I'm going to try a "group power" (dumbell/kettlebell/barbell) class on Thursday morning and see how that works. I've very surprised to actually be enjoying this gym... I'm even more surprised to that enjoy a group class. But I'm happy and excited to be working out regularly again.

[TMedina]

WOOOOT!

[Evicious]

I attended my first "group power" class today. It, like my spin class, is 60 minutes. It, unlike my spin class, made me question my sanity in the first 10 minutes.

 

Y'see, spin class is many things - distractingly disco-lit; heart-pumping; and one-goal-at-a-time ("climb this hill", "sprint for 45 seconds", "don't fall off the bike"). Group power, on the other hand, is just one thing:

 

Lactic acid.

 

I didn't even have real weight on the bar (which is plastic, and weighs about 5 pounds itself), just two puny 2.5Lbers. I know I'm out of practice, and I went into the class with a general idea that there was supposed to be music and some kind of a lifting tempo set to it. I was being cautious. I don't want to hurt myself; I just want to get a decent workout and see where I'm at to determine how to get where I want to be in a month.

 

What I failed to realize was that this class doesn't really care about the weight. Sure, it says "power" in the title - but that might as well be written "pain"! Because while it is about lifting, this class is NOT about lifting heavy. It's about endurance, both physical and mental. There are no sets, only reps. A set (by the class' definition) is one song. Usually a techno song, btw; a couple were classic rock ballads that had been sped up (although the guitar solos were spared, for some reason?!) So each set is approximately 4-6 minutes long. Which might not be a problem if they didn't flow directly into one another, with the only pause being the amount of time it takes to switch your grip on the barbell for the next exercise.

 

The result is more squats, lunges, "deadlifts" (definitely not full deadlifts, just half-reps), clean 'n' presses, bench presses, shoulders presses, bicep curls, tricep extensions, and weighted crunches in one hour than I have done in the last MONTH. 

 

By the end of it, my left leg was at muscle failure just being attached to my body. I'm serious! Standing still, the poor thing was just vibrating all on its own. It kept vibrating as I stumbled out the door back to my car. I'm sure I raised a lot of eyebrows, walking like that - arms out for balance, practically dragging one leg and hop-scooting on the other. The policeman doing lat pull-downs might have stopped me from leaving if he'd known I drive a stick shift.

 

So.... after all of that, I can't say I'm exactly in love with group power. I'm sure in 2 days, I'll be bedridden. Ok, that's not exactly true - hashing will get me out of bed, at least for a few hours. But I can say that I'll go back to class again. For one thing, it really brought home just how out-of-shape I've become. For another, it's become a hard truth in my life that I'm no good at motivating myself at the gym, at least for now. Knowing that I can just wake up, get dressed and go, and not have to think about what my exercise will consist of for the day makes it a lot easier to wake up, get dressed and go. I just have too much else brain-wise that I'm trying to do.

 

Classes do the thinking for me, and all I have to do is show up to reap the benefits. I can deal with the stanky leg syndrome for that.

[TMedina]

Uh...ouch.  Better you than me, woman.

[Evicious]

I just have a minor, non-fitness related rant here...

 

So our new colonel gave his introductory brief today. I found it both interesting and heartening that he spoke at length about his family, even before he touched on his career path and credentials (this is backwards from the usual format most high-ranking military give their biographies). One thing ruined it, however... After spending approximately 10 minutes detailing his two sons' sports accomplishments, a single slide of himself and his young daughter appeared; he stated that she was a dancer - and then proceeded to tell us that he could never remember what "kind of dance" she performed. "I know one of 'em's ballet," he said, and then spoke a sentence or two about how he disliked that she wore makeup for her performances - and then moved immediately on to the next slide.

 

One minute. He spoke for just one minute about his little girl.

 

After rambling on and on about his boys, all he had to say about his daughter was that she danced and he didn't like her makeup.

 

If there are any fathers out there who stumble across this entry of mine, I want you to take just one thing away from having read it: don't be this guy. Don't be the 'old fashioned' man who doesn't pay attention to 'women's things'; don't be the dad who can't even remember what style of dance your daughter pours her heart and soul into, but can recite every end score from every single Little League game your son has ever played. Don't be this guy, please.

 

Do you know what I thought about this colonel after witnessing that brief? "I don't trust him." In spite of the fact that he spent an incredible amount of time talking about how important his family is to him, and how dedicated he is to taking of each of his soldiers and their families, all I could think was, "Liar." I say that because I witnessed him leave out the only person in his family whom I could have identified with, as a female. I can't identify with his wife - she's had six kids and looks every bit the part of the kind of Army Wife I've come to hate over the course of my career. But I could identify with that little girl who loved to dance. He likely meant his spiel to appeal to us, his new subordinates, as humans rather than the uniforms we wear - and I suppose it worked. As a soldier, I obviously will follow his lawful orders and fulfill every aspect of my assigned duties without question. But as a human?...

 

That man lost any respect he might have earned from me in that one, sad, empty minute.

[Evicious]

So my one free month at the gym I've been going to is up. I decided I enjoyed the classes, and the location is literally less than a mile from my home, so I went ahead and signed up. Free t-shirt promotion was going, so yay! I now have a pretty blue cheap one to get sweat stains on, instead of my poor old grey t-shirt (I am convinced the day is coming when it will suddenly dissapate from my body into a sad cloud of dust. Probably while I am on the treadmill.)

 

They also offer a free "assessment", which I took advantage of this morning at oh-god-not-even-a-thirty-in-there (re: 0500). Basically, they asked my height, weighed me (179Lbs?!?!?!?!!!!!!! *panic*), measured me (suspiciously, I was not shown these numbers. I should ask.... wait, no.... I probably don't want to know.... do I?), did a bioelectric impedance analysis (fancy!) to measure my body fat percentage, and took my blood pressure. The results are that I am apparently somewhat outside the "good" range regarding my weight and BF%, but that I'm not so far gone that what I'm currently doing (an hour a day at the gym and enforcing a slight calorie restriction on my diet) won't correct all that in a few months. Obviously, upping the ante at the gym would speed the process up a bit, which has been the plan anyway.

 

I'm back on MyFitnessPal and Fitocracy. Aside from the morning classes, I'm looking to add 30 - 60 minutes in the gym again either at lunch time or after work. I JUST FINISHED MY CONDENSED SEMESTER TODAY!!! So I will no longer be concerned with splitting my time between work, school, and gym. Let me tell you what: two classes doesn't sound difficult until it dawns on you that the full semester load is expected to be completed in half the time. Awful, awful realization to have.... anyhoo, it's over now, and I learned from the experience. From now on, regular semesters will do me juuuuust fine.