Gimme SumO

The past several months have been weird.

So I focused on getting strength back into my left shoulder. The good news? It is all healed up. I have full range of motion. When I went to visit family a couple of months ago, I was able to carry my luggage on my left side. Very good news there.

I was busy before that, getting things done as maid of honor for my best friend’s wedding. The wedding was a blast and everything worked out great. I’m very happy for her, and I was glad that I had to take in a bit on my dress.

The job hunt has been futile, unfortunately. However, I did get The Job I was hoping on, and so I will be going to Japan at the end of July.

Being without a car has made it near to impossible to do any real weight training, so I’ve really fallen off the wagon, so far as that goes. But I renewed the gym membership this past Thursday! ….Except on Friday, I overstepped a step on the stairs and busted my right ankle. …So no borrowing the car to even go walking, much less working out at the gym. Once I can get around on my crutches (upper body workout!) well enough, I’ll have to beg for a ride to the gym to get everything but the injured part worked out.

We’ve talked about using the swimming pool to recoup, but I’ll have to be very careful, given how slippery those poolside floors are (and how clumsy I am known to be…).

The good thing is that the ankle isn’t broken. So in about 6-8 weeks, I’ll be alright. I was just really hoping to get stronger and slim up a bit before heading out on a 12 hour flight to Japan.

Time to get my diet back to something sensible, as well. I’ve been bad. No excuses, now.
-K

I know I haven’t written in awhile. As far as my fitness goes, I’ve plateau’d while in recovery from the wreck. I’m healing up pretty well, all things considered, though. I have full range of motion, though it still hurts when I reach too far. I am also too weak to lift much on my left side.

It’s very frustrating.

But I feel like I have been given a second chance at life, so I have to grab it by the whatsits, you know? I am ready to train again in the gym, and my mother has said she wants to join me (though she’s got some real issues, so will likely be training light).

I am writing on my novel again. Getting my mind in the right state for it. Very hopeful about that. I am also looking at some ways to bring income into the house, so that I can save up for a car and look for a FT position. I should know by the end of this month or the beginning of the next month, whether I interview for a position in Japan.

Provided that I don’t go to Japan until late July or sometime in August, there is another thing I will be doing this summer that I am STOKED about!!!  My sumo trainer has been in contact with a martial arts center north of Atlanta, about using their facilities for us to train. In the process of doing that, they have also asked if we would be up for teaching a sumo class during summer camp for kids. HECK YES! So I really hope that goes somewhere.

I told him that I have been thinking a lot about fitness and sumo, and how to approach bringing sumo into light for people in the US. You see, I think sumo is great because anyone at any age and any shape (so long as their joints are good!!) can participate! It’s a good way to get people who aren’t physically active interested in sports. How do I know this? Because that’s what brought me to body building! There are other, more fit body builders already in the sport, on the men’s side. I think it’s a wonderful way to crosstrain, and I do think there is potential for sumo to help kids lift their spirits and find their fighting spirit so they can either continue to be healthy, or get healthy in a fun and energetic way.

Yes, I’ve been thinking about it. At some point in my fitness "recovery" not only from the wreck, but from the massive amount of fat I’ve been toting around…. I want to get my personal training or fitness training certification.

I think I’ll be strong enough to do sumo by this summer. I’d better be! Grr!

Alright. Here it is, four days after the wreck. I decided I’d better take some pictures of it. Doubt I’ll need it for any legal reasons, but I also never want to have to go through this again, and looking at the pictures will remind me that yes, it did happen and I’ve been given a second chance.

I also got a fresh reminder of the pain, this morning, as I woke up outside of the 8-hour window for my pain meds, and yes, Virginia, there is pain on my left side. Yow. Funny thing is, I hurt behind my right shoulder blade now, likely due to compensating for not using my left shoulder and arm too much.

All things said, though, it could have been so much worse, and I am hopeful that once a couple of weeks to a month passes, I can slowly start building my strength back up. I’m just going to have to listen to my body and keep reading as much research on injury rehabilitation and PT as possible. Sadly, I can’t afford to go to PT myself, so this is something I have to be extra careful with.

So, how’s it look? Warning: Not pretty, my dears. Look at your own risk. (Pictures taken 4 days after wreck.)

              
Glad to be here, dear readers. And wishing you a safe and happy Holiday season. xx

I lost my car, Jill, last night. But I’m here.

I drove down to Columbus to see some friends and to see my friend Marie’s senior exhibit (along with some other of my art peers’). It was so good to see that everyone did so well with their work! And I am very proud of them all. I was so happy to see all my old fellow classmates, and even the illustrious Matt Ballard was there. What a fun night!

On my way home, roughly at mile marker 33, on I-85, between Hogansville and Newnan, a semi-truck ran me off the road. :-/ I was in the left lane, and he slowly swung over to where I was. I was already halfway between the head of the truck and the tail. I could have tried to speed up or slam on my breaks. Either way, I am pretty sure, there would have been a collision. I just couldn’t take the risk of bringing other people’s lives at risk. So I went into what little shoulder there was. I probably should have just hit the orange barrel (construction barrel. Sheesh. *sigh*) but instinct told me to avoid it. So I had to go into the island. Either a natural mound or one built up for whatever reason was there, and Jill pulled a Dukes of Hazard, except it also made the car flip several times.

No, I didn’t scream. No time, but to brace myself and grip tightly to the steering wheel, which I did. The car ended upside down, with the roof sunk into the mud (thank goodness for mud!!!) and me hanging upside down with my hands still in a death-grip on my steering wheel. I don’t think the semi even knew what happened. He didn’t know I was there, and he didn’t stop after I ran off the road.

Several people came to my aid. Each and every one of them is an angel to me. I can’t believe I made it out alive, and get this: no broken bones or major contusions. I have cuts on my left side, from my arm up to my ear, and I feel like I went up against the Yokozuna with my shoulder (LOL)… I did go to the emergency room.. That’ll be another story.

But the long and short of it is that I will be okay. Jill’s gone. And I didn’t find my cellphone. Oh, and the laptop works. *patpats laptop* If you need to reach me, please PM me and I’ll send you my home phone number.

I’m so thankful to be here among you all. I am thinking this means I’m not going to go to LA in January for the sumo tournament… but that’s okay. I have to get healed up and then I’ll be back for more.

So, after a week and a half of missing my weight training workouts… (Cry!!) I expected to be up 5 lbs, and having to kick back into gear. I went to a mini-convention at my alma mater, the weekend before Thanksgiving, then promptly got sick. I nipped the cold in the bud, in time for Thanksgiving… but my gym was closed for the holiday weekend. So one and a half week of… EEK! Off schedule. Eating-wise, as well, since I didn’t bring everything I needed, going out of town that weekend. And I didn’t feel like tracking things while sick, and then, of course… Thanksgiving cheats galore.

So expecting to be 5 lbs over is pretty safe. Actually, I was ready to face 5+ lbs when getting on the scale this morning.

But what did I see? 249! I was shocked to say the least. I just hope I didn’t trade in some muscle for fat. I guess I’ll find out next time I take measurements. What’s done is done, though. Time to get back on track and kick my butt into gear.

So, I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday. I did.

I also had to face some personal faults of mine last night. Sometimes, throwing in the towel isn’t even enough. Sometimes you throw it in, and you have to burn it down to the ground. I think that’s what choice I’m left with. The act of being stubborn can be very helpful in the gym or in your sport, but when it comes to matters of the heart, stubborness does not work well, when everything else tells you it’s time to move on. Alright, then. I give up.

So. Time to re-focus on my health. This pause in my weightloss regime needs to be set into play mode again. And I’ve just about had it with my unrealistic goals. LOL I think I’ll just set goals that are a bit more beneficial to me, like eating clean 6 out of 7 days (or even 7 out of 7! Bonus~) and making sure I get in all my workouts, each week.

I am going to a four-day split, and back on with my cardio tonight at the class up at church. There’s a chance it might not be going on tonight, but I’m going to show up for it, just in case.

Wishing you all well, dear readers.

xx

-K

Alright. Combined post, here. Got lots to go over:

Sumo!

Last Saturday’s Sumo practice went pretty well, though I wasn’t feeling overly energetic. I think I didn’t have enough carbs to run on, and thus, I was pretty exhausted, early on. I trucked through, though, as well as could be expected.  Unfortunately, I learned this session that I should probably invest in a mouthguard. I will undoubtedly get ribbed by my fellow sumoists in the club to no end for what happened. Packy and I were grappling and my mouth was open. When I went to grit my teeth, it just so happened his shoulder met my mouth. Not good timing. I’ll probably end up with some nickname like Nibbles or Choppers. :/

So. Mouthguard. Gotcha. x.x

Afterwards, we went to a sports grill and had lunch. I enjoyed a steak, very nice overall. If you happen to be in the Atlanta area, our next practice will be on December 6th, at 10 AM in the morning. Message me, and we’ll talk. It’s free to practice, but to compete, you’ll need to join the USSF ($20/year).

BodPod

So, I went to get my body fat percentage measured in a bod pod at Georgia Tech, this morning. It works much the same way as hydrostatic weighing, except that the device measures air displacement instead of water displacement. The machine reminds me of an egg, really, almost like one of those 1970s space chairs, if you remember. You sit inside the bod pod, and a technician closes the outside of the pod on you. You sit still, hear some whirring, and they repeat the process. Oh! And you have to wear skin-tight clothing or a bathing suit (which I opted for), as well as a skullcap.

So, the results? Not too pleasurable. I had been measuring with a tape measure and calculator online for my body fat, which was putting the percentage around 37.8. I came out of the bod pod with a body fat percentage of 43.8. YIKES. But! It’s more accurate, and it helps me discern how much protein to intake, as well as where my percentages should be along the weight milestones I’m shooting for.

Current: Lean: 141.1 lbs Fat: 109.9 (251 lbs) 43.8% fat
Projected:

• Lean: 141.1 lbs Fat: 83.9 (225 lbs) 37.2% fat
• Lean: 141.1 lbs Fat: 58.9 (200 lbs) 29.4% fat
• Lean: 141.1 lbs Fat: 33.9 (175 lbs) 19.3% fat

I would love to be 200-225 lbs by February. I don’t know if it will happen or not, as my body seems to like to hold onto its weight like glue on a stick. But we’ll see. Of course, should I build lean mass, in the meantime, then getting to 37.2% fat at a higher weight is not a problem. Originally, I was shooting for 25% body fat at 175. Ideally, I’d like to keep as much muscle mass as I can, while losing fat.

Here’s hopin’!

Take care, dear readers! More, later. xx

-K

Well, I would love to write up a post about how sumo practice was so much fun and how it’s giving me focus in life and inspiring me to become a stronger person.

I would really love to tell you how great it is to give it your all and kick butt in the dohyo.

I really would.

But, other things are weighing heavily on my mind and my heart, especially. And though I’d love to blame the cheats I made in my diet today, quite honestly, it’s been bugging me for awhile yet. I would love to pump my arm and rivet like Rosie. I would love to let bullets bounce off my chest like Supergirl or Rogue…

But right now, I’m feeling like such a girl. And not in the pink fuzzy handbag Elle the lawyer way, either. More like the down-trodden mucked up Bridget Jones. I wish I could take my heart out, and the emotions and hormones with it, and just… I don’t know. Put it through boot camp or something.

I am mad at myself for feeling so weak and vulnerable, but I have to be honest, here. Sumo doesn’t fix the broken heart. As much as I wish it could. I’m guessing lifting weights doesn’t, either… but it’d be nice to pump some iron to get it out of my system. And my gym closes at 12 PM on Saturdays. (And is closed on Sunday: it’s a church gym.)

I’ll do my best to write up a sumo post later, though. Promise. Until then, take care, dear readers. xx

-K

I’m trying to remember the last time I weighed less than 250 pounds. I know it was before I returned to college in Fall of 2004. So it’s been at least four and a half years, that I’ve been in the 250+ category, and for most of that, I was morbidly obese. Now, I’m ‘only’ severely obese, at least for awhile, but thank goodness, I’ve left that side of 250 lbs. I certainly have more energy now. I’m able to not only address my weight through proper diet, but through thorough exercise. My pace with walking is at least 3.0 mph, and I can go up to 4.2 or so and not fall over on the treadmill.

I still have high blood pressure, but it’s loads better than it had been, and as I get more fit, as I lose the fat, it is steadily returning to normal levels. I’ve already seen a difference in my pulse count, though. It used to be so fast. At least 114 beats per minute, at rest. Not good at all, that. Now? Well. Let me see… 60 beats per minute. How awesome is that?

I’ve lost 45 lbs! (Plus, really. I stopped weighing myself at 295, and didn’t weigh again until well after I had corrected my diet for two weeks… Apparently, this is a common practice for those who are just under one of the big round numbers like 200 or 300 lbs.) I’ve lost this much weight. It’s a third of what I have to lose before I get to my long-term goal of 175 lbs. I’ll be using that weight as a benchmark to cut and bulk around, until I have a better idea of just what my body can handle.

The fact is, I like being a big girl. I like the feel of knowing I could launch myself at someone if the need arises. Even though attacks can happen to any woman of any age or size, I’d like to think that any would-be theif or worse would think twice about taking me on, versus some waiflike girl who could be blown away several miles with a slight breeze. This is why it’s difficult for me to imagine myself weighing less than 175 lbs. I’ll be smaller, when fit. Muscle is more dense than fat, of course. But I’ll still feel that sense of assurance and strength, and what’s more, it will be more of a truth. Having started lifting, I know how weak I truly am, now. I can measure it by the weight, sets, and reps of each exercise. But I also can see how my strength is increasing, little by little, week to week. And I like the feedback I see when I jot it down on paper.

It’s been a long journey since 295 lbs. Tomorrow, I measure myself. Tuesday, I go to Georgia Tech to get my body fat measured via bodpod. I don’t know what my true body fat percentage was in the beginning. It didn’t seem to matter then. I knew I was grossly fat, so what good would it do to know my BF%? But since then, seeing how my body has changed through the measurements, and now needing to know my lean mass numbers to accurately define my macros for my diet, I need to know the truth. Is my BF% anywhere near what the calculator says? I doubt it is as low as 38%, but we shall see.

Now I have 200 lbs in my sights. It’s only 49 lbs away. I’ve come nearly that far, already. I’ve done it. I can do it again. Onederland is not a fantasy, and I will make it a reality someday. And then, I’ll only have 24 lbs to go, once I’m through the 200 lb barrier. How cool is that?!

First up: 240. I was hoping to be 225 lbs by the end of the year. It’s unlikely now. However, I do think that if I just keep up what I’m doing now, it won’t matter if I’m down to 240 or 230 by the end of the year. I know I’m doing it right, and the fat will go while I maintain muscle mass. That’s really the main thing, right? I have to be diligent, yet patient. I can do this. Heck! I AM doing this! ROCK ON!

Take care, dear readers; I wish you well in your own endeavors.

xx

-K

Hey, there, dear readers.

I had sumo practice yesterday. It’s kind of odd, trying to figure out the caloric expense for this sport, as you can’t really rely on those nifty calorie calculators. For some reason, they don’t have ’sumo wrestling’ as an option to calculate the expenditure. So I borrowed ‘football practice’ and lowered the amount of time, given that there’s resting involved between sparring. We were there for over two hours, so one hour of ‘football practice’ went into the food diary.

And let me tell you. It is intense. There’s something amazing that happens when you go up against an opponent in sumo. It’s almost like time slows down, and everything else in the world vanishes. There is only Sumo. There are various techniques to get the job done, which we worked on yesterday. The one I’m focusing on, since I’m bigger and taller than most females in the game, is ’suppari’ which is a slap-push-shove technique. It works amazingly well, but at the same time, there are counters against it, so I can’t rely on suppari alone!

Anyway, to give you an idea of how exhausting this was for me, I ended up going to bed around 5 PM or so, last night. I woke up around midnight and stayed up for a couple of hours, before returning to bed. Today, I’m pretty darn sore. I’m very glad that I don’t exercise on Sundays, for this reason. I just hope that tomorrow, I have enough energy to get through my lifting workout in the morning and circuit workout in the evening.

So, there’s a chance for me to go to Taiwan for the world competition in amateur sumo. But here’s the deal, I need to qualify at another event, in order to go. So there’s one coming up in January, in L.A. The other girl who is serious about sumo, in our group, is also wanting to go. So between our trainer and ourselves, we’ve decided to meet more than once a month, even though it’ll be tricky with the holidays coming up as they are. But we’re free next weekend, so more sumo then! This makes for a happy Komadori.

I want to encourage anyone who is interested in learning more about this sport, to follow these links. It’s a rare thing in the US, but if you’re lucky to live in the states where sumo is active, I’d suggest you to at least give it a view if they have a tournament or demo coming up. My mother first saw me participate, this last tournament in Georgia, and she was amazed how intense the bouts were. (And it’s even more fun to participate!)

Official ISF website:
http://amateursumo.com

Official USSF website
http://www.ussumofederation.com

Sumo Shimpo “THE VOICE OF CALIFORNIA SUMO SINCE 1999″
http://www.sumoshimpo.com

California Sumo Association website:
http://www.usasumo.com

If you’re on the Atlanta network on Facebook, you can look my local group up: "Georgia Sumo Association"

Take care and bright blessings! xx

-K

I spent a day out on the town, today. Met a friend for lunch and then we saw ‘Wicked’ playing at the Fox in downtown Atlanta. Of course, I planned for the occasion and brought a homemade protein bar (was gooey by the time I ate it at intermission).

But the whole eating lunch out thing was kinda scary for me. I’m used to eating at home, and well, the place we went to wasn’t the healthiest choices for a clean meal. I managed pretty well, though, I think. Oh. And I totally started the day off cheating. My mother made potato salad for a gathering she went to yesterday, and had some left over. So I measured out a cup of it and nom nom nom’d my way through it for breakfast.

An odd thing about lunch… I couldn’t eat much of the sweet stuff. Not cause I was being waifish. I wasn’t. But I didn’t want to foul up, and for another thing, having not had sugar in awhile, the stuff is POTENT. The little I did afford myself rushed me. It felt so weird, and perhaps was not as bothersome as a heavy buzz from alcohol, but annoying all the same. My body really is changing, and that includes how it reacts to junk. I’m not craving it, and when I have it, I’m disappointed that it doesn’t taste as good as remembered.

It’s not worth it to me to have something like that and know that I’m going to have to work that much harder to feel clean and strong again in a day or two, much less the possibility of putting on fat I don’t need.

Ugh. Three days in a row with no lifting*. I’ll feel good in the morning, when I head to the gym.

*Friday, errands and chores kept me from the gym until it was too late (closes at 5 pm). Saturday, I was very weak and near-ill feeling, so I didn’t want to risk getting myself sick. I caught up on rest, instead. Feeling better for it, too!