Making_A_Change’s BodyBlog

I ended up doing a leg workout with Billy, this morning. He asked me what I worked last, and that was arms and chest. He asked me if I could do legs and I said, pensively, alright. They weren’t sore, so why not. Man, it was really hard, but I expect nothing less and I enjoy it at the end. We used the gyms ramp for squats, backwards lunges ( I felt and looked extrememly uncoordinated, there.), mre squats, and more lunges. We hit the hack squat rack, did deadlifts immediately followed by step-ups. Then sat there and did two types of shoulder presses. I couldn’t have been more happy to just sit there and bang those out for a while. We did the adductor machine, where he just kept increasing the weight–my crotch is going to the soo-oore. Leg extensions and leg curls were next–ouch! More squats. Then, oh yeah squatting. My face must have been so distored and turned up, because I would think I was looking at Billy with a fairly straight face, and he would just bust out laughing. My 10 minutes of cardio at the end of the work out was so labored. But I was awake and ready to start my day. Tonight, I’ll stretch and maybe take an epsom salt bath. My husband says they work for him.

Today’s lunch is the leftover curry chicken. And tonight’s dinner is the chicken bean soup. I hope Little Bit likes it. She is really good about trying things. If she doesn’t, I’ll whip up some turkey patties for her and sautee some spinach.  She LOVES spinach! And when I put a little curry sauce on it she proclaims that I am ‘the best cooker in the world’! Who can argue with that!

I am trying to finish the week strong. I took two days off this week. My body was feeling a bit beat up and on top of that my right knee hurts. My range of motion isn’t limited or anything, but there is a little sore spot right below my knee. I’ve been babying it a little, with a little ice, a little rest, and some of my husband’s Tiger Balm–a pungent balm from Singapore that claims to give temporary relief to muscle aches. I slathered that on–don’t think it helped but didn’t hurt. Then I took two glutamine capsules and made sure to get my multi-vitamin and my flax seed oil to help my body be at it’s best and recover.

Yesterday, I did manage to get a really good leg workout in. I did a plyometric workout. Then moved over to the leg press. I suprised myself by putting on 90 pounds, to start, then added 20, another 20, then another 10 pounds while managing to do 15-20 reps. My strength is still there and continues to improve. If only my butt would get with the program–come on, now! But I know it takes time, patience, and consistency. It’s not if anymore–just when?

Next week, I am going to go ahead and get the size 8 jeans. My husband is saying, "Can’t you get a cheaper jean?" I did spend more than I have ever spent on a pair of pants–around $70. But, when you find something that works–you go with it. I do envy his ability to face a huge wall of pants, look for his size, grab a few dozen pairs, and take them home, and know they will fit. It is alot harder for women. Just because a pair of pants has ‘your size’, doesn’t mean its going to be your size. You have manufactures, rises, cuts, etc. Although, I was tickled to see my wondering out loud why a man would want to wear low-rise jeans. Then we laughed as we imagined him in some–that would be hilarious and, as my daughter says, not cute.

Tomorrow is another meeting with The Man, Billy. I look forward to Mondays now, even though they begin at 4:30 a.m. I actually have to eat something before meeting with him. Otherwise, there’d be NO WAY I could get through it.

I had every intention of not going to the gym today, but off to the gym I went with minutes to spare before taking our daughter to see Diego LIVE! (Diego is Dora the Explorer’s cousin. I don’t know on whose side, though. He’s an animal rescuer.) It is a hoot to see grown men and women playing a child’s part. Our daughter looked real confused for the first 10 minutes or so of the show. Then, she seemed to just accept it. I did chest and triceps. Bill would have been proud–I did bench dips as he showed me. I had straight legs and dipped all the way down, and my butt grazed the floor. I can only do 8 per set, but it’s intense!

While cleaning the kitchen today, I cleared the counter of my ‘fitness stuff’–3 jars of protein powder, flax seed oil, vitamins, etc. and put them on the fridge temporarily. My husband said, "Looks like I live with a bodybuilder or something". That’s pretty funny–I’m not even hardcore, just dedicated.

I cooked tonight. I made curry chicken (with curry, carrots, spinach, chicken, and onions) and a large pot of brown rice. And in the slow cooker, I’m making soup with white beans, chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions. Now, no one can tell me that either of those meals are boring. They are full of good stuff and taste really good. And, more importantly can be cooked using minimal pots. I don’t like to do dishes–ask anyone. So, I cook with alot of foil or single pot dishes.

Maybe I’m a bit burnt out on the BSN Banana Nut, because I decided to have the little bit of chocolate flavor that I had left–and it was screamin’! I put a lil’ natural peanut butter in there and it was like a peanut butter cup–but not–but close enough! I did cardio for 40 minutes last night on the stairmill. Oh-wee, so hard, but so good. Then I did abs. Then, I got up this morning with the intention of doing back, but had a week workout, probably because what I did was the equivalent of two workouts in a day–within 8 hours of each other. So, tomorrow’s workout will be way better because there will be some recovery time in there. But, I got it done. I’ll probably do legs–we’ll see.

October 23 

My husband chuckled as I got up late this morning. "Looks like Tuesdays are your rest days after being with Billy". Yes, indeed. My arms are dog tired and I am draggin’, in a good way, of course. This means that I have been broken down, and the extra sleep (and beef!) are building me back up!

October 24

I stayed in bed this morning. I will be doing some hard cardio this evening–probably late. I am thinking after Little Bit goes to bed. I don’t like to miss workouts so I know I’ll be there at least for 30 minutes followed by abs.

I have been tearin’ up the beef stew. It is so warm and garlicy. I think I am ovulating early. Sometimes, working with ALOT of women will do that to you. I have been scarfing down red meat like there’s no tomorrow and I have taken in more than my share of ice cream. Two clear signs that I am about to start my period. Otherwise, eating and working out is going well. Billy says my legs are looking good and starting to pop. My shoulders are taking shape. I am looking forward to my butt tightening up. My daughter comes up behind me and pushes on my butt and sings the Flat Buns song from the Carl’s Jr. commercial (it’s in my video section if you haven’t seen it). Flat buns, mommy’s got flat buns.  The she proceeds to show me that her buns don’t move like miine do. I told her their flabby, not flat. LOL! But it all takes time and I am in this for the long run.

I bought a crockpot this weekend. It was weird smelling garlic throughout the night. Smells wake me up. Sometimes I smell a skunk outside and that wakes me up, and I guess garlic does the same thing. The cool thing is now I have beef stew ready to go when I get home just heat and eat. I put in beef, tomatoes, fresh stringbeans, mushrooms, onions, and carrots–super easy, and really good. I didn’t want to leave it plugged in. I have this fear of setting my apartment on fire leaving 12 families/couples homeless.
Another session with Billy brought new challenges. He said we were ‘going to take it easy’–what does that mean? We were doing more mass-building excercises using low reps and heavy weights. What a challenge it was. We did basic movements, no squatting today. And I got to rest a little longer. I swear, it felt like my arms were going to fall off. He scoffed at my tricep dips telling me to put my butt close to the bench, my hands under my butt, and a 20 pound dumbell between my legs. Holy crap! I could only do 5 and then I had to push for 8. Having a trainer really makes me look forward to Monday mornings. I was up at 4:30 and at the gym by 4:50 to do my 1 minute warm-up. I told him about how I was in a size 10 shortly after being with him and last week slipping into an 8. He was very pleased and so am I. The size decrease is nice, but I love feeling and looking better every week. I like feeling strong and most of all I like that I get to eat really good food. It still boggles the mind of some people I know, that losing weight requires that you eat and eat really good foods. There are an infinite number of dishes and foods to choose from. It is easier to choose a few and stick with it; that seems to be what  most people do. I still eat bread maybe 1-2 meals per week. But I have incorporated cereal back into my diet. I have it around 3 times per week. I enjoy oatmeal and the occasional pancake. It does take some time to get adjusted to smaller portion sizes, but once you do, you don’t miss eating larger portions. Now, larger portions, like my three tacos yesterday, leave me feeing bloated and uncomfortable. I can’t eat that way regularly. Working out more, has given me more freedom to eat some of the things that I enjoy. And they last longer because I am not eating the whole pan of brownies, for example, in one day. I can enjoy them over the course of a week or so.
I am really going to push myself this week–squeezing every rep and making my workouts count. My husband has been playing more basketball, so he’s feeling alot better, too. He is not into weight lifting or anything like that–it’s not his thing.
I ordered some chocolate/peanut butter and it can’t get here fast enough. I read about it on Maddi’s blog. She made it sound so good that I had to get some! I bet it tastes good on bananas, pancakes, oatmeal, apples, ice cream…Mmmmm…endless possibilities.

I did 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical followed by bout 15 minutes of abs. It was a fairly easy day compared to other days. I took the Little One to a birthday party. We went to an area that has great food, so we went a little early for lunch. Ther was an excellent Mexical restaurant there that has the best tacos al pastor. I had two and ate the chicken taco that she didn’t eat. The tacos are wrapped in two small shells and I just ate one, but I was still bloated. It was to be expected. After the party, we went home. I decided to go ahead and run the lake. Hey, at least I can make that food work for me. Tomorrow, I’ll be working with the trainer and I can’t wait to se what he has in store for me.

This whole ‘taking better care of myself’ thing really has be paying attention to other parts of me. I treated myself to an eyebrow and upper lip waxing. I didn’t pay attention to the upper lip until my daughter said to me, "Mommy, you have a mustache just like daddy." After that I couldn’t stop looking at my upper lip. I went to a new place for the waxing. I have a place that I like to go to, but she is alwasy so busy. And my schedule is a bit irregular. And forget about getting in the weekends. But she’s excellent! She’s a Persian woman who tells you how gorgeous you are as she waxes you. I was a little anxious about the women I went to today. Her brows were okay and she had on this horrible eyeshadow on. But she did a beautiful job. I have thin brows and she managed to make them look full. Then I treated myself to foundation and eyebrow gel from MAC. I just felt compelled to add a bit of ooh-la-la to the face. I don’t wear make-up, just 99 cent lipgloss. But I thought I needed a bit of –not improvement but–refining. I have quite a few scars on my fact from a severe bout of chicken pox the summer before 7th grade.

Oh, that was a baaa-aad summer. I had huge, juicy blisters that seemed to seep and reproduce like nobody’s business. They were in my mouth, my ears, everywhere. I lost all sense of modesty as I let my mom put on the calamine lotion and the only time I had any relief was when I was alseep. So, I did that as much as possible. I was catagious for about 4 weeks, then scabby for another 3 weeks or so. I don’t remember, was my family said to me, I do know that I went to school with little self-consicousness about it. Today, as an adult I have alot of scarring on my back and some on my face. I said all of that to say that I had to make sure that the MAC lady knew that I wasn’t trying to hide my scars, just even out my skin tone. I was trying to avoid the hookery look as much as possible. I’m sure I got on her nerves, but I tried to keep it as light as possible. When she would try something on me, I would go outside. We eventually found a great creamy product that looked natural and sort of dewey! I wouldn’t have gone through all of that if I weren’t going to buy something from her. It was fun and I guess another part of my metamorphesis.

Today, we went to the pumpkin patch and to the Halloween store to get the Little One a costume. She is going to be a pixie with butterfuly wings. She is happy with her costume and is wearing it as we speak. Of course,  I don’t mind. The more she wear it, the more bang for my buck. We are going to get her some ballet slippers, and tights to finish off the costume.

This morning’s workout was great–chest, shoulders, and abs. Then I ended it with a 15 minute run at 6.0-6.7 mph. I felt so good. I worked out next to a guy who worked his biceps…the whole time. I supersetted two sets of excercises (The Billy Way), did abs, and was sweating up a storm. He used the incline bench and curled and rested and curled and rested.

My body seems to be going through some major changes. I put on my jeans to go out on our errands. And they were a bit big. I thought, maybe they were stretched out a bit because I wore them the day before. We go to the mall to buy a crockpot, and I decide to stop at the Gap to try another pair of jeans. I am curious to see if I can wear and 8. And I’ll be darned to find out that I can! I am blown away. I can’t do anything about this until payday. The interesting this is that I have increased my carb intake over the passed few weeks, because I needed to shop and haven’t cooked as usual. The eating was pretty clean, just not as much protein.

Tomorrow is probably back and abs. I am looking forward to it.

I took Tuesday off. Yesterday, I couldn’t wake up, so I ended up doing evening cardio. And once again, I just could wake up this morning. I had every intention of doing so. I pushed the snooze button. Mind you, I don’t have my alarm clock next to my bed. I have it across the room so i actually have to get out of bed to turn it off! When it was next to the bed I would snooze for an hour and be late. I still manage to snooze alot and have perfected a sort of cat woman move that I do where I seamlessly remove the covers, stretch my body and press snooze, and tuck myself back in. I am sure 5-6 a.m. is the worst time for my husband. I bet he wishes I would just get up. This morning, I turned the clock off, which is usually and indication that I am getting up. I don’t remember what happened. I just woke up to my husband saying, "It’s almost 7 p.m." It was 6:40! Crap! I have to leave at 7 a.m.! So I showered, did my hair, got dressed, kissed the little one, threw some food in the cooler, and then had to walk hella far because there was no parking last night. But I did manage to make it to work on time. And made one of many vows to myself to just get up when the alarm goes off. I hate rushing. You forget things. You feel frazzled. And it is such a headache. I t looks like another late workout for me. The gym is so crowded at night, but it has to be done in order to stay on track. This could also be an indication that I need a few days off, but I will wait and see how the rest of the week goes. I have been getting more sleep since deciding to take time off of school. I also decided that a year is way to long to be away, so I will be readmitted in January. It is enough time to really think about what I want to do and get a much needed break.

This Saturday, the plan is to go to a pumpkin patch and get a costume for Little One. She is still unsure of what she wants to be, but she does know Disney Princesses are out of the question. I am very adamant about her loving herself and her heritage. And last year, seeing beautiful African-American girls wearing blonde wigs–and feeling more beautiful that way– saddened me. It is a tie, right now, between a butterfly ballerina, a butterfly, a ballerina, or an ATM machine.  Last year, she was a witch/princess and was happy until she got to school and saw princesses and butterflies. When she was two she was Run DMC–the best costume ever–fadora, black jeans, Adidas, and all! The year before she was sick (and only 1) so we put on her Christening dress and some wings and took a few pictures with green snot running out of her nose. Lovely. This year, we will probably just do Hallelujah Night at the church or go to the inlaws and hit a few blocks for about an hour.

I did it. I was so close to not doing it, but I did my cardio. I was thinking that it would help with the stiffness and soreness and I was right. I did 20 minutes on the elliptical with handles and 20 minutes on the treadmill running @ 6.0 mph (2 miles). I feel better, now. But I still can’t touch my toes, yet.

Tomorrow morning will be upper body, but I am not sure about all of the squatting. May still be too sore for that. My second pair of jeans came in the mail today. I should be good for the next few months? Weeks? Who knows.  

Skipped my workout this morning. I have an evening meeting after work, so I am just going to hit the gym after that. I’ll do cardio for about 45 minutes. Sometimes it helps with the soreness by warming me up and allowing me to get a good stretch. My butt and hamstrings are killing me–but it’s all good. That’s progress. I am finding the the rainy days and having to substitute or fill in I am missing a meal or two during the day, or really pushing to the point where I am famished. I don’t like to wait until that point, so I am going to really have to keep up with that. Other than that, all is well.

I currently have two safety pins holding up my pants, right now. This is new to me. I am used to having things be too small, but never too big.  It’s fun, but a little annoying in that I just upgraded the wardrobe and now I am going to have to either get things altered or replace it, I guess. I am not complaining, but I just didn’t plan on spending anymore money on clothes until next year. I really need to go grocery shopping. I am out of chicken. Today’s lunch is a hodge podge of any protein that I could find. Luckily, I keep protein powder at work so that can be a meal or two.