Disaster Week

I feel like I've been having a case of the Mondays...for the past 7 days. It's been fantastic fun. 

After I last posted things went a bit downhill. I slept like crap Thursday night so by Friday I was exhausted and felt sick as heck, so I skipped the gym and even had to call out of work. Then spent most of the weekend just trying to recuperate, which I did semi-successfully. It wasn't until Sunday night that I actually slept the whole night....but then had to get up at 415 for the gym on Monday. Life is just unfair that way I guess. I was feeling kind of badly about not getting to the gym, but I managed to stay on track with my nutrition despite it all so I took the small victory. 

The one good thing to come out of the weekend was that I made the executive decision to delete the Facebook app off my phone. I wasn't sure why it needed to happen this weekend, other than wanting to focus on getting better instead of staring at my phone screen, but I'm glad I did it. I actually spent time relaxing and doing relaxing things instead of keeping up with the outside world. I still check in every once in awhile when I'm on my computer, but other than that my life no longer revolves around other people's lives. It's nice. You don't realize how much pointless time you waste on Facebook until you stop doing it. I actually read books and stuff now. 

Nutrition this week has been interesting, which I expected. I knew it was going to be an adjustment with the new macros and being a daywalker again and it certainly has been. I'm still working at planning my meals a day ahead, it's just tough finding things that perfectly fit into everything. I'm managing but I'm certainly not perfect. We didn't get our usual delivery of balanced body this week for lunches so in that respect we've kind of been winging it. One of our dinner meals was a one pot meatballs, rice and peas that we had made a ton of meals of so I ended up bringing that, but I'm quickly realizing rice is kind of a carb-killer. The other meal we made for this upcoming week was a salsa chicken and rice that we made in the instant pot. It's pretty good! But again, carb-killer. I would like to start working on that a little more because overall I do a little better with less hefty carbs. It's leaving me with like no room for fruit, and I love fruit. Plus it wouldn't hurt to leave extra room for veggies too so I get the fiber. Because my digestive system is becoming a cantankerous little wench. 

Speaking of cantankerous digestive systems...there was a lesson on the Precision Nutrition system today about dairy. It talked about how dairy products have a lot more complex nutrition than just protein and calcium and it can create some issues for people because we can't digest the sugar or we can't digest the other nutrients in it. Now most times, if you're lactose intolerant, it becomes apparent by the bloating, diarrhea and overall feeling really crappy. But, sometimes it's not that obvious and can manifest itself in other ways like constipation and acne. Back when I did strict paleo for awhile, when I came off it I found out quickly that I was lactose intolerant. Anytime I would eat anything with a hint of dairy, I would get pretty sick, especially with cheese. Over the years, that seemed to calm down a little because I fully reintroduced myself to it and would stop having such severe reactions. So when I started this journey, I was really excited for cheese because it's a great source of protein and fat. But now I'm starting to think maybe that's not such a great idea. So I'm going to give myself a week off from the cheese. I do ok with yogurt and I don't really eat a ton of it anyway. But cheese can wait for a bit. It's going to make getting my macros even more interesting, but maybe it'll actually leave room for other stuff since it's so heavy in protein and fat. Guess I'll find out! 

Monday we got to the gym. Workout was:

6x2-4 front squat with tempo, 75-80% of 1RM

then

15 min EMOM (every minute on the minute)

- Minute 1: 20 double unders (or 20 sec practice)

- Minute 2: 20 sec battle rope

- Minute 3: 150m ski

For me, 75% of my 1RM would be 131 pounds, rounded up to 135. I got up to 125 by my 2nd set and that honestly felt heavy enough. The way I've been going the past couple weeks, I usually get up to the prescribed percentage by like the 2nd to last round so I haven't really been spending much time at the weight I'm supposed to be at. I decided to stay with the 125 and just stick with it for the rest of my sets. They felt good this week and I kept my form solid the whole time so won't hear any complaining from me. The workout went really well. It was hard but borderline fun. I even managed to get a couple double unders! After I whipped myself about 10 times....don't mess with those jump ropes. They do not like to be trifled with. 

Tuesday we went back for more fun. Workout was: 

6 sets of snatch pull from the floor + hang snatch from below knee

then

7 min AMRAP

- 9 deadlift

- 6 hang power clean

- 3 shoulder to overhead

They wanted us using similar weight to last week, which for me was 55 pounds. I started off this workout feeling like crap. My lower back and pelvis were stiff and nothing I was doing was loosening that up. I stretched like crazy and tried every method I know. Wasn't working. It took until about the 4th set before I could even get into a full squat, which is super not normal for me. Squatting is usually the one thing I can always do no matter what. So that set off warning flags. Not to mention I just didn't feel like my hips were extending as explosively as they should have been. It's not like things hurt. I just felt stiff and immobile. But the show must go on. So we started setting up for the workout. I was so excited for this. The prescribed weight was 95 pounds and I was psyched to give it a try. Our coach was telling us that the limiting part was going to be what we could put overhead, but after the lifting session I'd had, I knew it was going to be the cleans. I threw 85 pounds on the bar. Tried a deadlift - it went great. Tried a clean - I was still super stiff but it was doable. Overhead was fine. So I took the safe route and just left the 85 on. I bumbled through my first round and things really started to not feel good. The deadlifts were fine as long as I kept my mind on my form. The cleans just started to fall apart. I still couldn't move my hips and getting into the hang position was murdering my back. By the 6th rep I was hurting bad. Then I knew I was in for a world of hurt when I clocked myself in the chin putting the bar overhead. Literally, I never do that. I should have taken it as a sign. I got to my 2nd round of cleans, went to try the first one and the moment that bar hit hip height and I tried to extend it felt like someone stabbed me right in the pelvis. I just dropped the bar right then and there. I told the coach there was no way I'd be able to do hangs and she just told me to take it as a sign and stop. So I did. 

I spent the rest of the day in so much pain I wasn't sure if I wanted to cry or vomit. Of course, I had to go to work, which I thought would be a blessing since it would keep me moving, but by noon time I was seriously considering checking myself in as a patient. Walking hurt, sitting hurt, standing hurt, I had to physically hold on to something to sneeze. I was miserable. And of course I had to deal with some of the worst people I've met in a long time that demanded attention I just could not give and it all added up to a no good miserable day. Probably one of the worst I've had in a long time. What was really worrisome was that this pain was different from anything I'd had before. It felt like my pelvis was being ripped apart from the inside. It didn't hurt to bend or squat or anything else like that, which usually those things are the first to go when I flare up my back. It was all just very weird.

Thankfully, I was seeing the chiropractor the next day anyway. I honestly think that's what just kept me going. As soon as I described what I was feeling, she told me it was probably a strain of my quadratus lumborum, which attaches at the top of the pelvis and causes a lot of problems once it gets tight. She also goes to the CrossFit gym I go to so she knows what the workouts and movements are like. We think what happened was that I was just tight and doing movements that can put a lot of stress on the back, like hang cleans, and it all added up to a decent muscle strain. So she adjusted me and did this suction cupping thing and I left already feeling better. For all of you that don't believe in chiropractic care, you're nuts. I've slowly gotten better since yesterday. I still feel a lot of spasms, especially when I'm sitting, but I'm more functional than I was and it's no longer excruciating to exist. I guess it goes without saying that I didn't work out today. I may go back tomorrow to do a mobility workout, but we'll see how things feel in the morning. 

So this has basically wrecked my week. I'm devastated and pissed off. I'm angry that it always seems to be something trying to hold me back. I'm even angrier that this week I was really excited to hit up these workouts and I got to see maybe 1.5 of them. And I'm pissed to see everyone's happy facebook posts about how they stuck it out through the workouts because I wanted to be doing them and feeling proud of it myself (yeah that one shocked me too, I don't even know myself anymore). It makes me sad to know that I've come so far and tried to get myself stronger, but it's still just as easy to get injured. It's been a tough pill to swallow and I've been doing a fantastic job of wallowing in my self-pity. I want nothing more than to just eat all the bad food, but luckily it still hurts to get in the car so I haven't done that. Although I haven't been an angel with the snacks at home. I just want it to be over so I can go back to the track I was on. I've been feeling really good lately and it just feels unfair that I've got this now. I'm not even really sure how it happened. I know when, obviously, but how I have no idea. My theory is that I was stiff from Monday with the ski-ing and battle ropes and the warm up I thought I needed Tuesday was not actually the one I really needed. And I just need to be really careful with doing things from the hang position apparently. 

I'm hoping I'll feel semi back to normal by Monday. I'm working all weekend so that'll at least keep me off the couch, although a little couch time has done me some good in the past couple days. Too much is bad though, I don't recommend that. Guess we'll just have to see what happens. I just need life to go kick someone else in the ass for like a week. 

Until next time, folks! 

Surviving Zombie Mode

Nights officially done. Thank goodness because my body did not like that round even a little bit. Wasn't the worst thing ever though. Just hoping I can sleep tonight since tomorrow is back to a daytime schedule already.

So Tuesday I was planning on going to the gym. Unfortunately the 730 AM class is no longer so that left me super indecisive on when I was actually going to get there. I debated with just going to open gym and trying to motivate myself to work out on my own, but yeah that just wasn't going to happen. Then I said I would just come up, make a quick breakfast and stay up until the 915. And then zombie mode kicked in at about 2 AM and I realized that was not going to happen. So I decided to try for the 545. Well I woke up at 2 and determined I didn't feel like waiting around for several hours so I went to the 330. So much drama and inner turmoil just to get to this one gym class, lemme tell ya.

3x3 snatch balance
5x2 hang snatch from below the knee
then...
2min AMRAP
- 3 power cleans
- 5 burpees
- max calories on the bike
Rest 4 minutes
Repeat 2 min AMRAP

I didn't think this workout was too bad, but my body, especially my quads, were just not feeling it. Plus I was dumb and didn't wear my lifting shoes, which help me feel much more stable with Olympic lifts. I have pretty good mobility but having the wider and completely flat base with the lifting shoes helps me keep my balance when I'm trust falling myself into a squat with a barbell over my head. Just one of my little nitpicky things. So, either way, didn't exactly hit the weights I was hoping to. I got up to 75 pounds with the balances. I tried 85 and could not keep it overhead safely. With the hang snatches I only got to 65 pounds. Kind of disappointing, but it gave me a chance to work on form at least. The workout really wasn't bad at all. The score was the total number of calories you were able to rack up between the two rounds. I got to 31, which was similar to the other women in the gym. I really love these short and sweet workouts, although my quads gave out in that last round of biking. They were pretty over it. It just felt good to get moving. I knew I wasn't going to break any records and I was ok with it.

I haven't been back to the gym since. I considered today, but I think I'm going to do tomorrow and Saturday instead. Which means I super have to try hard to get back on a normal sleeping schedule. I see Benadryl in my future tonight.

Eating this week has been interesting. I've been putting in a lot more effort to preplan my meals for the day the night before and it's been working out fairly well. Tuesday was tough because my plan got messed up with the ever-changing gym schedule so at 5 PM I still had like 1200 calories to eat before midnight. Don't get me wrong, I can eat my way through 1200 calories easily...but it wouldn't be on healthy stuff so doing it mindfully was tough. But I did it. Surprisingly I don't feel super full even with eating the actual amount I'm supposed to be eating and as of yesterday I had lost a little more weight compared to Sunday so it's certainly doing good things for my body. I'm definitely looking forward to trying it more while on a day schedule, which I think will feel a little less cumbersome since I'll actually be eating during normal person hours instead of over the span of two calendar days. We'll see how it goes.

Short post today. Mostly because I was actually just on here a couple days ago.....and my computer is about to die. And I should probably get off this couch at some point. *shrug*

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Gym Days and Check-Ins

What's up guys?! It's Monday...and it's actually my Monday...so ugh. Even more ugh is that I go back to nights this week. Not 8 in a row, thank God. It's just 3. But I am super psyched to be going back to  that "so can I have this snack before or after midnight and when am I even going to work out" baloney....not.

So the rest of last week was awesome. I was off for 3 days in a row and I loved it. Just kinda spent the time going to the gym and hanging out. Even got a little outside time, which was nice. Kept to my diet without any major slip-ups. I'd say I was in pretty good shape. I focused a lot on just trying to eat only when I was hungry. I did really well with this, which was pleasantly surprising. I just recently finished cleaning up our office from the wedding so I forced myself to sit at my desk instead of somewhere in close proximity to the kitchen and this helped a bit. The downside was that with having all the days off, I just wasn't getting super hungry so I was only eating like 1000 calories a day. Not quite a sustainable plan, but for a couple days it was ok. In the meantime, I started drinking upwards of 15-18 cups of water a day so I'm well-hydrated and peeing like a crazy person!

Also...after my last post, Matt convinced me to get a notebook. I officially gave in. It's ok though because it's small and cute and says "gotta start somewhere" on the front. Thanks Target!

Thursday was a gym day. Endurance day...ugh.
For time
2000m row
100 single unders
Rest 5 mins
3 mile bike
100 single unders

This workout was quite the spicy wench. Endurance Thursdays are all about finding a pace you can maintain for a long period of time. I think I found it? So for the row I was maintaining about a 2:10-2:15 per 500m pace so it took me like 9 minutes and change to do the row. The jump roping wasn't too intimidating. I honestly don't mind jump roping....as long as it doesn't make me need to pee. The mental battle began once I was a mile in on the bike. My legs were just worn out by that point so it was a little harder to maintain a decent pace with that one. Luckily Get Low came on, which I realized has a decent beat that I can bike to, so that got me through the last mile and a half and I just tore through the jump roping. I wasn't stopping for anything. I finished around 26 minutes, which is about where the rest of the women were finishing. It wasn't the worst endurance Thursday but it was certainly tough.

Friday we went again. Friday's workout was a little more fun. Except it meant hopping on a bike again...
5x6 deadlift with tempo, 65-70% of 1RM
4x8 dumbbell overhead tricep extensions with tempo
then
5 rounds for time
3+3 rotational med ball throws
6 toes to bar
12 calories on the bike

My deadlifts are starting to feel really great. I did 105 pounds the whole time, which is 65% of my 1RM and it borderline felt a little easy. Guess it's time to start pushing it a little more! The tricep extensions I got a little overzealous and used a 20 pound dumbbell. That was dumb, way too heavy after the 2nd round, but I got through it. The workout was a nice little sprint with the short rep scheme, which are my favorites. There's something cathartic about throwing a ball at a wall as hard as you can. I can't do toes to bar yet so I ended up doing knee tucks, which lemme tell ya my abs were feeling that one afterwards. I kinda hope we start doing more of those in the future because I like doing them. Then with the biking I ended up hopping on one of the older bikes, which I've discovered are easier than the new bikes they just got, so I was crushing 12 calories right around a minute, which is a good time for me. All in all, good workout to get the weekend started!

Saturday I worked the evening shift and it was thankfully busy so didn't have a ton of time for munching on things to keep me awake. I was very happy about that, except it meant I came home starving and just went to bed because it was 9PM.

We'll get to Sunday in a hot minute. Today we were back at the gym.
5x3 front squat with tempo, 70-75% of 1RM
5x8 dumbbell bicep curls with tempo
then
"Jackie"
For time
1000m row
50 thrusters with an empty 45 pound bar
30 pull-ups

The front squats felt ok today. I went for 70% of my 1RM which was 125 pounds. I need to fix my form a little bit with these because the way I did my first few rounds I wasn't really feeling it in my quads. I think I got it ok by the last round. For the dumbbell curls I used 12 pounds dumbbells, which felt a little on the lighter side. Then there was Jackie. I don't know who this Jackie chick is but I don't like her. In fact, I'd rather do Fran again. The row wasn't too bad. With all the rowing in the past couple weeks I'm actually getting decent at maintaining a pace when going more than 500m so it really wasn't the worst part. The real worst part was the thrusters. 50 thrusters all at once is a lot. I decided right from the beginning that I was going to do rounds of 10 and man my quads didn't even like that. Instead of the pull-ups I just did my normal ring rows, which 30 was unpleasant but not undoable. My time ended up being 11:48, which definitely put me at one of the last people done. Damn you, thrusters. Now my quads can't really decide if they wanna be sore or not.

So yesterday was our 1 month check-in with Melissa where we actually meet with her face to face as opposed to our weekly email check-ins. She put us both on the In Body scanner, which looks at your weight, your skeletal muscle mass, your body fat mass and where the muscle is distributed in your body. I was really happy to see that compared to the last time I was on the In Body, I lost like 8.5 pounds....but then it also told me that my body fat percentage went up and my skeletal muscle mass went down. So that was a little deflating to see. But I guess it can be a little fickle at times, especially with women (go figure), so we were told not to get too hung up on those numbers. Our next check-in will be in a month so hopefully it'll like us a little better. The one thing I DID find out was interesting is that I'm actually supposed to be trying to eat the prescribed macros, not working to come in under them. Oops. Definitely been doing that one wrong for the past couple weeks. I was more using them as guidelines for "this is your limit, don't exceed it," which it still technically is but I need to work just a little harder to actually be trying to eat to that limit. Melissa ended up changing things up a bit for me because I find it very easy to exceed my fat intake, very difficult to hit my carb/calorie goal and I feel like crap when I hit my protein goal. So now we're trying out slightly lower calorie goal with less carbs and protein and a teeny bit more fat. We'll see if that helps. But trying to actually hit my daily goals is going to take a lot more planning and work than I've done so far. Honestly maybe it's best I did it wrong at first because now it won't feel as overwhelming to be eating healthy AND hitting my macros. I'll keep you posted on that.

Overall, it's been a really good month so far. I got over some hurdles I didn't think I would like working out after working a night shift or working out on average 3 days a week for an entire month, or even logging my food consistently for an entire month. I've made some really positive changes. There were some mistakes, but I'm doing much better for myself than I was before now that's for sure! I even relented and took my measurements today, which I was dreading doing. But it'll be nice to use that as a progress indicator when the In Body decides to be a jerk again.

Let's see what else do we have to chat about. Oh yeah our meals for the week!

Our first one is a bruschetta chicken with roasted zucchini on the side. It's basically a chicken cutlet we threw in the sous vide and we'll put diced up tomato and mozzarella on top. Easy peasy. Then the second meal is a one pot turkey meatballs, rice and peas that I found on pinterest awhile ago.

All that's left now is for me to figure out when I'm going to the gym this week. It seems like a bad week to strive for 4, but I'm gonna try my darnedest.

I think that's all I have for now. Well it needs to be since I have to get ready for work now. But you're probably sick of reading by now anyway :P

Recap of a Week

Hello beautiful people!

What a week it has been. Most of it was quite emotional so I wasn't really present on here because well, who wants to talk about all of the things that are going wrong.

Things didn't get much better after my last post. Tuesday I had great intentions. Actually I was pretty good on Tuesday. But there IS a such thing as too much of the good stuff. I've started adding a protein shake after my workouts. It's a great and easy way to just get some protein in myself so I don't feel like passing out until I can actually eat something. We've started using Earth Fed Muscle and love it. Well, you're not really supposed to chug that down and then have a protein pancake, boiled eggs and a whole crapton of water to wash it all down with. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day at work hellaciously bloated. And then found out the hard way that excessive amounts of protein don't do your digestive system any favors so I actually spent the rest of the week feeling like I was toting around a beach ball in my stomach. Pro-tip, apparently my system cannot accommodate large amounts of water and protein at the same time anymore. I'm sure you can imagine how that felt at the gym.

Wednesday and Thursday I worked. My coworkers had a little mini celebration complete with cookies, muffins and mini-cupcakes. And it was like bringing an alcoholic to a bar. I was not ready to have temptation like right in my face. So I made some mistakes. Thursday I woke up hoping for a better day. Packed a metric ton of healthy stuff that I knew I'd like to eat and hoped for the best. Didn't happen. I think what got to me the most was that having the sweets were good, because it's better than none, but they weren't even the most delicious thing I've ever had so at the end of the day they weren't super worth it. But time and time again I would walk into the office, past the box of cookies and just like that I would have one in my hand and not even realize it until I was a couple bites in. It was scary to feel so out of control and it put me in a horrible place emotionally for the rest of the week. I won't even get into all the horrendous thoughts I was thinking because reliving it would suck. I just felt like I had failed myself and it hit me pretty hard that I'm still weak and despite how well I'd been doing up until now, I still have way more work to do than I thought. I knew if I could have just stayed away from the get-go I would have been perfectly fine. But once I get that one bite, it's all over. There was a lot of self-loathing going on. Because not only did I feel like shit emotionally, my body basically hated what I did to it too. I'm pretty sure it wasn't until like Monday that I felt like things were starting to work properly again. Before that, I felt like a pregnant oompa loompa. Yeah, picture that, no bueno.

Fortunately for me, I got Friday off and then my work week technically started on Saturday. So I got a little head start on a new week for myself. I'll admit, it hasn't been perfect. I was doing better before I slipped up, but it's an improvement from last week. Work thankfully kept me busy and the temptations were minimal. I've also changed up how I'm eating my protein in the morning. Now I just do a shake after the gym, with a pancake before work and I save the eggs until later, which has already made a huge difference. Only thing is work has been exhausting the past few days, hence why I haven't been doing a lot of blogging.

Today I finally got a day off after working the past 7 out of 8 days and my gosh it's amazing. The weather is nice so I spent a couple hours outside and just getting myself organized.

Our meals this week are a chicken stir fry that we made up. Couldn't get any veggies at the market this weekend since we were both working but we put yellow squash, zucchini and peppers in it. I flavored it with a little bit of sesame oil and coconut aminos, which is delicious. We kinda split off for the second meal because I've been jonesing fish and that's not really Matt's speed so he's having chicken and I'm having shrimp. We're making them with roasted green beans and potatoes on the side. Think I grabbed some mushrooms to put with mine too.

Now to catch up on some workouts.....

Last Tuesday:
Part 1
3x4 Snatch Balance
3x5 Hang Snatch
then....
For time, with a partner, row 3000 meters, switching every 500

By now, I forget the weight I used for the snatches. I remember the snatch balances feeling really good. Probably because it was nice to do something without a tempo for once. The hang snatches were tough because they wanted us doing them right from the hip so you lose a lot of momentum from that. I DO remember having to do those light. Now the conditioning. So my favorite partner wasn't in class, and my smart self thought that a husband and wife duo would be adorable and badass. Yeah, no. Mister "you're so much better at rowing than me" Rothberg kicked my ass. He starts off the first round at a 1:48/500m pace, AKA a full out sprint for me on a really good day if I make it the whole way. And he kept it up the whole time. So here I am dying and he's capitalizing on the fact that I'm slow and he gets a good break out of it. I can just hear Morgan Freeman now...."and that's when Ally realized she will never be doing that again."

Thursday I think I wanted to go but didn't for some reason? I forget why. Maybe I just wanted some sleep but I'm not quite sure. But I did go Friday.

4x6-8 deadlift
3x10 dumbbell overhead tricep extensions
then...
"Fran"
21-15-9
Thrusters
Kipping Pull-Ups

Wish I could say I remember what weight I used for this one too but I can't. This is the part where Matt's going to tell me to start carrying around a notebook. My back was feeling a little fired up so I definitely didn't go nuts, or anywhere near the 65% of my 1RM. But Fran. God I hate Fran. Thrusters are kind of one of the worst crossfit movements to ever exist. The prescribed weight is 65 pounds. I tried it for a whole rep and decided it just wasn't happening for an entire workout so I bumped it down to 55. Then did ring rows. I got 6:44 which is respectable. I wasn't the last to finish, but I was one of the most scaled so definitely room to improve.

Monday's workout wasn't too bad...
5x4-6 front squat at 65% 1RM with tempo
4x8 dumbbell curl
then...
10 min AMRAP
15 power snatch
60 single unders
15 wall balls
60 single unders

I didn't feel too horrible on this day. I ended up doing the front squats progressive because I didn't know how I was going to feel. By the last round I was at 65% of my 1RM, which ended up being 115 pounds. My knees aren't a fan of the tempo, but I felt strong doing it. The workout was a little rough. For some reason the power snatches were really hard despite only being 55 pounds. That's not normal for me. The wall balls I scaled down to 12 pounds, which I really shouldn't have done. I like AMRAPs because they're an opportunity to push myself. I don't have to worry about coming in last or being the person everyone is staring at because we're all working for the same amount of time. So I should have just done the prescribed weight with the wall balls. I'll get 'em next time.

Yesterday I woke up and it just wasn't going to happen. I was exhausted and decided to sleep. I'm kinda bummed I missed out on snatches again, but the extra couple hours of sleep was worth it. So I'll hit up the gym again on Thursday and Friday.

One of these weeks I need to force myself to go 4 times. Just once. I think it'll be good for me and I think I'm in a good place that I can handle it. I feel good after my workouts and the soreness isn't really a problem anymore. Plus I'm just going to need to push it there at some point if I want my body to keep getting better because soon 3 days a week won't be enough. Like wall balls, I'll get there.

I think that's all I have to report right now! I'd say I'll check back in within a few days but as I've learned the last couple weeks, life is a little unpredictable, so I'll just say see ya soon!

Recuperating, a Workout Day and Some Real Talk

So it's been way too hot to exist outside this weekend so for once I'm writing this from the comfort of my couch. I don't know what happened after Friday, but it currently feels like we live in Florida. Needless to say, I spent most of the weekend in the comfort of my AC.

I'm not even really sure where this weekend went. I've been off work since Wednesday and it's gone by so fast I have no idea what I've been doing with my life or if I ended up doing anything useful. I can't even remember what I did Friday other than start cleaning up the house a little bit. Saturday we got up and went to the market in the morning. This week, Matt found some recipe for deconstructed philly cheesesteaks. You basically slice up the steak and put it in tinfoil with peppers and onions and just toss it on the grill. So we grabbed a thing of flat iron steak and a thing of skirt steak from a local butcher for that along with some pork chops for a second meal. We marinated the pork chops in Chiavetta's again and threw that in the sous vide. Can you tell we love our sous vide yet? After that he went off to work and I did random sundry things around the house like cleaning up our office and our guest bedroom that have basically looked like an explosion occurred since like May. Pretty sure I did plenty of sitting around too.

Sunday we had good intentions of getting a lot done. In all fairness, we DID get the laundry done and knocked off a good chunk of our thank you cards.......but we also put a decent amount of work into building our Lego Death Star. And then went to see Jurassic World (so good, by the way). Because of that, the meal prepping got done tonight....oops. Which, honestly it's fine. We had leftovers and I was off today so it wasn't the worst thing ever.

Today was gym dayyyyy. The workout was:
4x6 front squat with tempo
3x10 dumbbell curl with tempo
then...
3 rounds for time
7 sumo deadlift
15 hand release pushups
30 calories on the bike
3 min rest

I was so excited to see no split squats. Like exceptionally excited. We were told to do about 65% of our 1 rep max front squat. I went with 85 pounds, which was closer to 55%. My knee was a little displeased about squatting so I took it a little easier, but it still felt challenging towards the end of the sets. Dumbbell curls weren't too bad. I definitely could have gone heavier than I did. We'll keep that one in mind for next week for sure. The workout itself wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The sumo deadlifts, I did 85 pounds which felt fine. Life continues to get so much better now that I know how to deadlift safely. I modified the hand release push ups to push ups with a kid bar. It's basically a bar you attach to the rig and it helps take away some of the weight you have to lift. I was just worried because I knew I wouldn't be able to do the prescribed push ups and keep adequate form. The bike had me nervous. I'm not the best at calories on the bike AKA it takes me forever. So I told myself to just see where I am. If I'm at 20 calories and everyone is well into their rest period I would just stop. Well I hit the 20 calories and at least all the women in the gym were still going so I ended up doing the 30 calories for all the rounds. To put it in perspective that's like a 3 minute bike ride at a decent pace. My total time, including the built in rest was 18:33. Biking is certainly not my best subject. I'm "decent" at it in short bursts amongst the girls that come to the 5AM, but once you start to add in more intervals and longer distance, I start to suck pretty quickly and just don't have the endurance to keep up. So the bike is definitely a source of anxiety. But I have yet to meet anyone in the gym that's like YEAH BIKES so I guess I have a little solidarity on my side.

Now on to the real talk.

I was naughty this weekend. Like I'm probably not going to think about stepping on the scale until next Saturday naughty. So we decided Thursday was going to be our date night. We went to Grappa for dinner and followed it up with ice cream for dessert. It was very delicious and so worth it. And I think my body was still going through some refeeding process because I dropped 2 pounds the next day. No idea how that happened. But then Saturday I got invited out for drinks/dinner by the river. I initially had good intentions. I looked up the menu beforehand, decided what salad I was going to get. Life would be good. And then I got there and ordered a cheeseburger wrap with fries. And a hard cider. Alright, no prob, not the end of the world. Then yesterday we woke up and ended up at a local diner for breakfast. I won't even tell you what I ate there because it probably was all of my calories for the day once you factor in the amount of oil they use. We skipped lunch because we were full, had a nice healthy dinner......and then had a popcorn at the movie. Well now my digestive system is just pissed. Like so mad I was having stomach cramps during the workout today, which I haven't had in weeks.

Was it worth it? I think so? It was nice to get out with Matt after not seeing him for pretty much over a week and we had a good time. It was really nice to go out with some friends that I normally only see at work. And it was nice to let someone else do the cooking for once. And movie popcorn is just its own category of delicious. I guess I'm a little disappointed that I didn't try to make better choices at the places I went to, because I could have. It wouldn't have been ideal, but it would have been better than what I did do. But it is what it is. I had a good time and I can't regret that.

What has me worried is that we're at that 3 week mark where it's about that time that I start to fall apart and having the cheats over the weekend has got my snack tooth salivating again. I feel like I lost a little of my focus and drive over the weekend and I know that I'm going to have to work super hard this week to get it back or I'm likely going to get myself into some trouble. And I have to do it with as little self-deprecation as possible because that's really never worked out for me. It's partly why I'm happy to be going back to work tomorrow. It gets me out of the house, away from the snacks, and forces me into a much more regimented routine than if I was just home alone all day. Not to mention, I'm obviously much more active physically at work than I would be at home. But I also don't want to go back because....well, work.

Part of the problem is that I still have a lot of leftover macro-heavy snacks in the house from my week on overnights. I've got things like greek yogurt and cheese and salami and peanut butter, none of which are bad, but really chip away at your macros much faster than other foods. They were great to have when I was eating two meals a day. But now that I'm back on a daytime schedule, I was still trying to fit them in over the weekend and it just wasn't going well. So if I want to continue eating those foods, I really have to work harder to plan them in (or eat miniscule amounts of them). So there's one tough aspect that I still struggle with. Before, I was having difficulty meeting a lot of my macros. Except for carbs. Carbs will never be an issue. And now I feel like I'm finding some really good, macro-rich foods that I enjoy eating - but I have to be careful how I combine them. It's not to say that I'm excessively going over my goals on a daily basis, but I am still going over at least a little and it's taking a little more daily planning/coordination. Definitely didn't see myself having this issue when this first started.....

So honestly I think this week is going to be a complete head game for me. I know I need to get my head back in the game and I want to. But this is always the point where I either slip up and fall down a hole I won't get out of....or I keep going. I'm hoping I do the latter this time. I gotta believe this is at least some tough part of the process and if I get through it, things will be just a little easier. But I have to get through it. And like I said, I'm fortunate that I can use my work schedule to my advantage, but it's not like that's foolproof. There's still vending machines and a cafeteria I need to keep myself out of. And that's not even counting any moments this week that are going to make me want wine and ice cream for dinner. Because I know those are coming. The struggle's real guys. I was really hoping after getting through last week that I'd be in the clear, but apparently that was just physically, now I have a mental battle to win.

Not to sound whiny for half this post. I DO feel better going into this week. My house is a lot cleaner than it was. Our cooking and our laundry is done. My lunch is already packed for tomorrow. So overall, we've set ourselves up in a much more controlled manner than last week, but this is just the reality I face all the time and I've never been able to fight back because there was always something else that came up too to distract me from caring for me. It's my "it's easier to be fat" struggle. Because it is. This isn't all proud moments and having fun at the gym. Shit's hard, man. But maybe this time I can actually fight for it.

Until next time folks! If I don't melt first...

Back to Some Normalcy

What an insane week, guys! I had totally planned to update this on gym days, but that obviously fell to the wayside. But I survived! Got through 8 nights straight and I may have just a teeny bit of sanity left.

In all reality, it could have been worse. I stayed pretty strong for the first 5 nights and then it was all downhill from there, but I got a lot further than I thought I was going to. It helped that things have gotten pretty busy in the hospital this week so we were basically steady all night for most of the nights. Sunday night came though and I hit the wall and I hit it hard. My patience was wearing thin, I was starting to run low on sleep and my food intake was basically consisting of one real meal a day with whatever snacks I had on the overnight. Luckily the one thing that hung on until almost the end was my energy levels. Maybe it's because we were busy, but I was making it through the night without issues and there were a couple days where I would come home and get other stuff done before sleeping. So that part was great!

I wasn't a perfect angel with my eating, but I'd say I was a solid 95%. There were a couple nights I hit up the breakfast potato bar in the cafeteria. Plus Matt and I did a mini date night at Moe's last Friday. I actually found towards the end of the week that I was not eating nearly enough. By the time I was actually getting home in the morning and getting to bed, I was waking up at a time where I basically ate dinner and then hung out until I went to work. So my daily food consumption consisted of whatever snacks I had on the overnight, and dinner. I was eating pretty hearty snacks like yogurt, granola, deli chicken and cheese so I didn't feel like I was starving. But I think that was part of the problem too because my hunger signals get so messed up on nights that I just never really felt hungry and never really felt that drive to eat. The one good thing that came out of it was that I was chugging water like a bandit. I was one well-hydrated machine, let me tell you.

Sleep. Yeah that sucked. The first two nights I just came home and got right into bed. The blackout curtains helped...but only so much. I would get like a solid 4-5 hours straight and then be off an on for another 2. So I was getting by with like 6 hours of sleep. Certainly could have been worse. As the week dragged on though it was harder and harder to wake up and get out of bed and I could feel myself getting a little more worn out towards the end of the night. But I still had the energy to get through most of my shift without having to excessively caffeinate so I'll take what I can get. These past few days I've been focusing more on staying off the phone and just reading a book instead which has helped a lot with letting me chill out before it's time to sleep. The reintegration back to a not nocturnal schedule has been tough. Wednesday night I slept for about 3 hours annnnnnd then was wide awake at 230. Last night was a little bit better but I was still off and on a lot after about 2AM.

The gym is the place where I can officially say I pulled off some stuff that I can look back on and be really proud of. So I knew I would need to find a day last week after work to get there so I could get my 3 days in. I picked Friday. The original plan was to do the 330PM class after I woke up but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that's not what was going to happen. So Thursday night I packed all my stuff up and decided I was biting the bullet and going to the 730AM class right after work. It was dicey because if anything catastrophic happened last minute I wouldn't have been able to make it, but I knew I'd be super relieved to just be done for the day and could just go home and go to sleep. So I did it, and honestly it didn't take as much convincing as I thought it would. I felt really energized and ready to go as I was walking out of work so I just got in the car and went.

The workout was:
3x10 Romanian Deadlift at 55-60% of 1RM deadlift
3x15 supine tricep extension
then
4 rounds for time
6 push jerk
12 reverse lunges
1 mile bike
2 min rest

The romanian deadlifts felt pretty good. They're basically straight leg deadlifts, which up until about 3 months ago I was always doing these anyway because I had horrible deadlift form. I took it easy and did 65 pounds. My back wasn't thrilled about these, but once I learned how to brace myself properly it started to feel better. The tricep extensions I did with one of the training bars which are 15 pounds. It doesn't sound heavy but once you're done with a set after using that slow tempo, you feel it. The conditioning felt really good. I did 65 pounds for the push jerks. I probably could have gone heavier. The reverse lunges went a lot better than I expected. Maybe those split squats are starting to do me some good! The bike it was taking me about 3 minutes to do a mile after finding a pace that I could keep up with the whole time.

Saturday morning we hit up the market for some food. We didn't buy any meat this time, but we got some good veggies. Our planned meals for this week were turkey taco "salads" which are basically ground turkey with taco seasoning, rice and tomatoes. We usually put a can of Rotel in there, but we had so many leftover tomatoes that I just used those and mixed some fresh cilantro in there. The other meal was grilled burgers with corn and a side salad. So we got all the veggies for those. We already had burgers in our freezer from one of Matt's coworkers and that just left needing to get ground turkey at Wegmans.

Sunday was really frustrating. Usually Sundays (or sometimes Saturdays) are our "get ready for the week" days, but with me sleeping during the day and Matt being at work all day both days, we missed out and I felt all kinds of out of sorts. I think that's about the time that I just hit a wall. I was sick of working and done with my normal schedule being royally messed up. Up until that day, I was doing fine and getting through it, but that's when it really hit me that I was at least temporarily still stuck in my alternative nocturnal universe. No meal prep got done and we barely finished the laundry. And it just felt really overwhelming that our week was not going to get off to a good start. We fortunately still had food left over from the week before so we didn't need to go find alternatives, which never ends up being anything good.

Monday I got out of work at 4AM so I drove home, picked Matt up and we went to the gym. I felt strangely pretty good about working out this day too. It helped that I was just full of rage from the night before so it helped to have the outlet.

The workout was:
3x12+12 split squats
4x12 banded barbell curls
then
"Diane"
21-15-9 Deadlifts and handstand pushups

I swear to god those split squats will never get easier. I'm still using an empty bar and it's just about impossible. My quads overall are feeling stronger....except I'm feeling the benefits in movements that aren't split squats. They're just ridiculous. The barbell curls felt pretty good. They just have us using the same weight everytime for now. Diane I felt really good. I finished in 6:09, which was about the same as everyone else. The prescribed weight for the deadlifts was 135, which would be very heavy for me, so I went with 95 pounds. Again, my back felt a little jacked up at first but once I got the form and the bracing down, it felt totally fine. Then instead of handstand push ups I did kneeling dumbbell presses. I felt so weak with those because I used the 20 pound dumbbells and it still was pretty hard.

Tuesday I got out at 4AM, but the gym just wasn't going to happen. I was exhausted and just felt awful. So I went home, took some zyrtec and coma'd for awhile. Got some decent sleep out of it too, which I think I was needing more than anything else. I was disappointed about missing gym time, but I was just done. So I did as much sleeping as I could instead.

Wednesday I got off work and was finally done! Yayyy!!! I was initially planning to find some people that could hang out with me and keep me awake so I could get off the nocturnal schedule as soon as possible, but as some of you likely saw on FB, I deemed Wednesday to be Antisocial Day. I ended up with no desire to be around people. I usually end up doing this every once in awhile after long stretches at my job because by the time I'm done with them, I just want a day where I can lay on the couch and not have to worry about solving problems, using my brain, or really doing anything productive at all. And once I saw it was forecasted to rain all day Wednesday, well, my mind was made up so I went for it. And it was the best decision I could have made. I took a couple hour nap when I got home and once I woke up, I fed myself then laid on the couch and caught up on some TV shows. I don't like doing these days as often as I used to because I end up feeling guilty for it if I start doing it too much, but every once in awhile, I just need the day to recharge. I also end up needing the day to take stock of the tasks I set aside while I was working and figure out when I'm going to get those done. So by nighttime on Wednesday I had a pretty hefty to do list.

Thursday morning we went to the gym. I literally felt like asshole. Not AN asshole, but just asshole. I'd been up since 230 and I now had a splitting headache to boot. So I took some Aleve and we went. It ended up being a really good workout though!

Workout was:
4-5 rounds for time
10 goblet squats
10 box jumps
400m run
Rest 3 min.

Part 2
50'x50' side shuffle
16 alternating walking lunges without weight
5+5 lateral lunge
100' + 100' one arm KB carry

I initially went into this workout just telling myself to move and not worry about my time or how exactly I did. I did the prescribed weight for the goblet squats, which was 35 pounds. The box jumps I initially grabbed a 16" box and just did step ups, but after the first round I realized that I felt pretty good and instead grabbed a shorter box and did the jumps instead. Then instead of the run I just biked for 2 minutes. For Part 2 I didn't do the full 12 minutes because we ran out of time but I got through 1.5 rounds. It ended up being a good cooldown but man my quads were not appreciative.

I likely won't be making it any other days this week. I might motivate myself to go to open gym tomorrow but we'll see. I'm taking the next 2 days to get my house in order because it looks like it exploded on the inside, plus it hasn't really been cleaned since my wedding, so it's time. Cleaning can be considered active recovery right?

Overall, I think this week went much better than I expected. It was tough. That part was expected and really there was nothing I could do about it. But we survived. We're still going to be playing catch up until at least Sunday, but at least we have that day this week to get things done so I don't have to go into another week feeling not ready.

Sorry for the super long catch-up post! Had a few other things to chat about, but I don't want this getting to be a novel, so we'll do it later. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up a little better this next week.

Have a fun weekend and don't melt!

Surviving Nights, A Crash Course

Happy Tuesday! The sun is shining, the temp has dropped like 20 degrees so I'm sitting outside to write this. I needed the excuse to test out the new lounge chair I got. My recent time on the West Coast has taught me that I definitely needed the Vitamin D so I told myself I would make an effort this summer to get outside more often. I also left the West Coast with horrendous tan lines and I need to make those go away before I go to Jamaica at the end of August. So here I am!

Today was another gym day. Workout was:
7x1 overhead squats, slow on the way down
then...
3 rounds for time
10 stone to shoulder
100' + 100' farmer carry each arm with a kettlebell
100 jump rope
2:00 rest

Wasn't feeling too bad today! My quads were a little tired from yesterday but they held up pretty well. I ended up using 95# for the overhead squats. Kind of makes sense since my snatch 1 rep is 95 pounds so I'm pretty on par with that.

The conditioning part was fun. It's been a hot minute since I did stones in a workout so it was cool to pick those up again. We were told to use a moderate weight, which I tried the stone that I would have thought would be "moderate" and determined there was no way I'd be picking that up 30 times so I went down in weight. Overall I felt good. Finished in 14:26. Really my biggest goal right now is not to be a speed demon or anything like that. I just want to be moving, finish the workouts and maybe keep up with a couple people in my class. I'm not too picky right now since it's a step above me sleeping in. Pickiness can come later since it's still a struggle just to get myself up at an ungodly hour.

After the workout, I came home and kind of forced myself to go back to sleep. I start a string of 8 nights in a row tonight (yes, 8) so I wanted to start off on the right foot. I bought myself some blackout curtains so I turned my room into a bat cave and got another couple hours of sleep in.

Working nights has me nervous honestly. Because 1) I finally feel like I'm coming up with a routine that works and here it is already getting screwed up, 2) I really struggle to sleep during the day so usually by 3-4 nights in my body is done because I'm just exhausted, 3) I have to figure out a gym schedule around it because I get out too late to hit up the 5AM and 4) the off shift is a huge trigger for me. I basically end up eating to stay awake, the crunchier the better, because what else is there to do during that 4AM lull. 

I'm hoping the blackout curtains make a difference with #2 so maybe I've already inadvertently solved that one. I'll let you know my findings with that experiment. It's either that or I take some Zyrtec, which will put me in a coma for a few hours. With #3 I luckily have a couple advantageous days off. Yesterday and today I didn't work so I hit up the gym to get 2 days done. That just leaves me having to suck it up and get my ass to an afternoon class either Thursday or Friday. Then next Monday and Tuesday I get out at 4AM so I'll just get myself home and hop in the car with Matt. It's gonna suck to work out after being up all night, but I think it's for the best. Then the hell streak ends so by the end of the week I should be back on a normal schedule. You know you've changed when you're horrified at the thought of going to any class other than 5AM simply because you know the people. They know me, I know them, we all get along, they know I'm riding the struggle bus. Not that the other classes don't have amazing people - I just don't know them. It's ridiculous, I know. But this is what happens when you work out in a group setting.

#1 and #4 are going to be where the real struggle comes in. It feels a little early in my journey to be throwing a huge wrench like this into the mix, but there's not really anything I can do about it. So I have to just deal and hope I can stay strong. I bought some healthy snacks already. I got myself some deli chicken slices and mozzarella along with yogurt that I can mix with some granola and PB2. I think we also have some cucumbers I can bring for a crunchy snack. I haven't put all this stuff into MyFitnessPal yet so I don't even know if it'll fit into the plan, so that might be a big wrench. Maybe I should just play it super safe and leave my credit cards at home....

The thing is, I'm actually excited for these snacks so I think they'll keep me on the straight and narrow. I have this granola that I discovered in Hawaii called Anahola Granola and oh my God it is amazing. All natural, no additives or things I've never heard about. It has all the usual oats and stuff along with dried pineapple, guava and mango. Ugh, so good. I mix it with plain yogurt and a little bit of honey as sweetener. I kind of want some right now but I have to be careful today since I'm not sleeping half the day away so I'm kind of holding myself back so I don't get stuck without any macros while I'm at work. Tomorrow hopefully it won't be so bad since I'll sleep through basically breakfast and lunch and then be on a night eating schedule officially.

Either way, my previous record for a night shift streak is 4, so I'm hoping I never have to do this again. Part of it is my fault, but at the same time it doesn't feel that way. I was scheduled for 4 in a row, 1 off, then 3 in a row. I saw there was an open shift on the night I had off so I decided to take it because at the end of the day, I'm still working nights until next Tuesday and why would I stay home for one night in the middle of it and get all kinds of even more screwed up. Just didn't make sense to me.

With me luck friends, this is about to be a massive suckfest. I'll probably check in on my next gym day :)