filmchick’s BodyBlog

I wish that I could blame my absence from the gym and from usual activities on being too busy or being lazy, but I can’t. I’m very sick again and all that I can is that I’m frustrated. I haven’t been to the gym since December and only made it to two yoga classes in January. People think that I get sick with colds or the flu a lot and most of the time, it’s not a cold or the flu but rather a flare-up with the autoimmune disease. Generally, I can and choose to work from home when I’m ill with a flare-up. My immune system is pretty compromised, however. I’m sick with pneumonia right now and on hospital-grade antibiotics that seem to be kicking the crap out of my system. I left work early on Thursday and haven’t been back since.

This situation is aggravating and depressing for me. It goes in waves. I had lots of flare-ups last summer, but didn’t feel too bad until autumn. I was horrendously sick for most of autumn and then things improved in December. I’m sicker now than I was in October and November, though. What’s ironic is that I don’t usually catch colds or the flu because of the autoimmune disease. I will have flare-ups with symptoms, but because of the hyperactivity of the immune system I do not generally catch colds or the flu. However, when the autoimmune disease is in "remission", I am at risk of catching everything and anything in the worst way because my immune system then runs at 25% instead of 110%. Damned if you and damned if you don’t.

I will say this, I’d rather deal with the flare-ups and symptoms of the autoimmune disease than deal with the infections, colds, flu, and whatever else normal people catch. As awful as the fibromyalgia and lupus can get sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) I’ve learned to deal with that a lot better than dealing with crap like pneumonia.

That’s my rant for today. 

The fourth week back in the gym is winding down and 2009 has rolled around. I’ve actually managed to gain back a little muscle, made HUGE strides increasing my strength, and managed to lose the tiniest bit of bodyfat over the last month. Granted, the last week has not been exceptionally great, as I missed quite a few sessions at the gym and in the yoga studio due to stomach flu, but I’m feeling better.

 A couple new developments: I’m changing up the workout splits on Sunday. I’ve been doing a three-day split on the weights with 30 minutes moderate cardio before/after lifting, plus yoga at least twice a week for 60-90 minutes. As of Sunday, I’m moving to a four-day split on lifting with 30 minutes cardio afterwards and squeezing in at least two sessions at the studio. I’m tweaking the diet a bit with some juggling of the carbs and what not.

Biggest development: I’ve been invited to train to with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for at least one marathon or triathlon this summer, which is great. The invite is an honour and I’m stoked to start training. However, I’m wondering how exactly my training is going to change and how it’s going to affect the current endeavor of building more muscle (and keeping it!). Haven’t quite figured that out yet, but I have time… Training doesn’t start for another two weeks.

And just for fun, my new lifting stats (yes, these are kind of piddly, but I’ve been quite ill and have to rebuild):

Assisted Pull-ups: Started with 90-pound deficit and now I’m at 70… Dumbbell rows: Started at 5lb and now I’m at 15lbs. Deadlifts were started at 20lbs and are now at 40lbs. Benching is kind of low right now: 35lbs. Give it time, give it time. 

I’m so glad that the holidays have come and gone. Yes, I realize NYE is still upon us, but that doesn’t require getting together with the family. It wasn’t the fact that I packed and carried around food for myself for three days. It wasn’t the fact that there was hardly a morsel that I could eat at the holiday dinner (being a pesco-vegetarian that eats clean 90% of the time doesn’t mesh well with a meat and potatoes family). It was the fact that I forgot to pack a dinner for Christmas night and as a result, I spent the better part of the weekend getting sick in the bathroom.

Lesson learned: Pack more food than you think you’ll possibly need -even if you think a meal will be served.

Onward to today… I’ve been back at the gym for nearly a month now. It’s a three-day split for weights with thirty minutes cardio and I’ve even been making it to yoga at least twice a week. I know that I’ve built some muscle and lost a little body fat. The body is coming along and I know this simply by the fit of my clothing. It’s that simple. However, trying to tell that to my head when I see something different in the mirror today is a different story. There is a perfectly good reason  for the water retention and not looking best today -nothing stayed down most of the weekend, save for some crackers last night that I never eat. Salt, dehydration, and starch= less than optimal reflection. It’s retarded, but it killed my evening tonight.

 So I’m being the stupid, neurotic chick. I still put in my workout. I still drank my two litres of water today. I know that I’ll feel better in a day or two.

 It doesn’t help how I feel tonight, though…

That’s what I did last week… Kicked my own arse at the gym and I certainly paid for it over the weekend. Great to be back in the gym and back on the plan. Not even below zero temperatures will keep me from my workout at the gym. It was -15 degrees F when I left for the studio this morning at 6:30a. Ouch. It’s supposed to be cold and snowy all week and next weekend, too. Colorado has it better off than the Northeast, I suppose. As such, Bikram yoga looks really appealing this week -105 degrees and 40% humidity for 90 minutes! YUM.

I’ve been away from here for a few months and I’m sort of back… A lot has been going on over the last several weeks where my health is concerned and compliments to the manner in which the healthcare system is organized in the States, I’m am out of luck. (Mini-rant…) Not only can I not afford the health insurance through my day job, but I make too much money to qualify for Medicaid or health benefits offered through the city/state. To boot, because I am not knocked up or have fifty zillion kids at home, I’m considered even more ineligible. I’m penalized for being an independent woman that has chosen not to be a housewife and stay at home mum. People wonder why so many Americans are upset over the healthcare system -this is why. I don’t make much money each year to begin with and I’m paying off the little bit of debt that I have, plus my horrendous student loans, like a good responsible adult. I pay my bills on time and do my absolute best to live within my means. Healthcare should not be so darn inaccessible. It bewilders me that I can travel to a third world country entrenched in poverty and get a life-saving emergency operation for free because I do not have health insurance and cannot do the same in the much wealthier country where I live (even if it is in the middle of an economic crisis).

 That’s my rant about the healthcare system, as it has been a very frustrating aspect of the last few months. I am the sickest that I have been in the three years since my diagnosis and cannot even go in to see a proper doctor due to the ridiculous out of pocket expenses that I would endure in order to do so. My weight has been up and down the last couple of months and the fact that treatment measures that worked previously in the recent past are no longer having any measurable effect is frightening. I’ve been going through yoga teacher training the last six weeks and it is a struggle to go depending on how I’m feeling on any given day. I’ve not been to the gym or been running in a good two months. I don’t feel well most of the time -between the fact that I get heart palpitations constantly or my body feeling like it’s been hit by a truck often or my digestive system deciding that it won’t work properly at any given moment.

I keep thinking how ridiculous it is that I’m feeling this way in my mid-twenties. The decline in my health is making me wonder if I’m going to be around in a year. I have absoluting no F-ing idea and as much as I can say that I’ve accepted the fact that I’m not going to live to be 80, I can’t say that I like it. I cannot say that I’m okay with the idea that I might not be around in a year. WTF?

An absolute load of bollocks… I don’t quite know what to think or say -except that my body has rebelled off and on over the last couple of months. It’s been extremely difficult to keep the weight on, especially my hard-earned muscle development. My trainer and I have made some changes to the workouts, which now include two to three Bikram yoga sessions each week to change things up. The full-body workout three to five days a week has now been changed to a different workout each of the three days that I’m lifting now. Let me tell, it kicks me in the arse. I have been sore for two days now. A good workout, but definitely l more intense than what I’m used to.

Between the weights and cardio, yoga a couple times a week is awesome. There’s nothing quite like being in a room that’s 105 degrees F with 40% humidity for ninety minutes at a time. Plus, we’re bulking up my carbs a bit and adding more protein. Homemade protein muffins and homemade protein bars, anyone?

Additionally, more projects are under way again. It feels so good to be back working on set again!

My busy schedule doesn’t always allow me to do everything that I’d like to do when I want to do it and the same could be said for the autoimmune obstacles. My training has been minimal over the last few weeks, if only because I’ve been so sick… The fact that certain diseases have the ability to mimic other disorders is a source of constant fascination for me. Needless to say, I’m on a new supplement regimen and a new diet. I can only hope that sooner than later I’ll be feeling well enough to get back to training five or six days a week. As the saying goes, only you know your body best. No caffeine, no starches or grains, minimal fruit and dairy, and no nuts. Bollocks. I guess that I’d rather eat a very boring menu and feel better than eat what I prefer (and a more normal menu) and feel like crap all the time.

Training is as it is… I have to get back to the gym and soon. I’ve been getting out running when I don’t feel like I’m going to break into a thousand pieces, so it’s getting better!

On a more positive note, our film was picked as an official selection at two more film festivals and on Wednesday, my partner and I found out that our film was picked up for national DVD distribution in North America. We’re moving forward with several more projects over the next three to five months and I was just tapped to be the producer for a 30-minute short that is set to shoot later this summer. On a related note, check out www.skillslikethis.com. A rock star of friend of mine shot his first feature film a couple of years ago and it’s been doing the film festival circuit for the last year. He just got national distribution for the film, so it’ll be out in theaters in late 2008 or early 2009. That’s my plug… Have to do it sometimes.

Gah… I try to update. I really do… Life always has a way of being very busy for me -no matter what attempts I’ve made at clearing it out. I am, by default, a workaholic. Always have been. Generally, this applies to my workouts, too. However, too many twelve-hour days have been getting to me. Needless to say, I’m switching it up. I have upped my cardio to sixty minutes, five days a week and have replaced two of my lifting days with an hour of yoga at the studio. I just need the quiet, I suppose. Too many days filled with conferences calls, meetings, and the unending beep, beep, beep of my Crackberry. The last thing I want to do is be trapped inside the office building for another couple of hours to put in a good lifting set -especially when I just want to play hooky because it’s absolutely beautiful outside.

And I must add that travelling for film festivals and screenings does NOT make it easy to eat clean all the time. However, I’m persevering. I must. I’m FINALLY seeing some results. For a small person like me, it’s awesome to see the definition in my arms! I just have to stick with eating clean and REGULARLY. When there are fifty million tasks and calls smashed into ten or twelve hours and you’re running from one meeting to another, sometimes you forget to eat. I completely forgot to eat yesterday afternoon after lunch (seven hours between meals is VERY BAD and equated to not going to the gym because I about keeled over) because it’s so mad at the office. I have to fix that… Plus, my symptoms have shifted with the autoimmune stuff, so I’m almost back at square one where my diet is concerned. It is one of the most frustrating parts of having an autoimmune disease -so many different things can throw it all out of whack. Surgery messed with it, so now I’m having to get rid of things in my diet that I’ve been eating and now cannot tolerate. No more nuts, nothing with chocolate, out with almost ALL dairy, no coffee, or caffeine. The changes in the weather have been affecting me, too. Anytime it gets cool (we had a few days of frigid rain), I get arthritic. Heck, just the shift in seasons makes me ill. Sometimes I wish it didn’t matter and I’d love to do whatever I want with the diet and what not…. but I don’t. I stick with what makes me feel better. No weekly glass of wine anymore. My friends tell me that I’ve become very boring in that department and all I do is shrug.

Also… I’m going to start posting my playlists. I’m sure that someone could use a new mix every now and then and I’m a nutter about having a good playlist.

1. "Falling Away With You" ~ Muse

2. "Something To Believe In" ~ Aqualung

3. "Because I Want You" ~ Placebo

4. "Velvet Snow" ~ Kings of Leon

5. "Nobody Loved You" ~ Manic Street Preachers

6. "Crazy Bitch" ~ Buckcherry

7. "Good Life" ~ Kanye West

8. "Capital G" ~ Nine Inch Nails

9. "Invasion" ~ UNKLE

10. "Fantasy" ~ Mariah Carey (yes, it’s that old and I don’t generally like pop)

11. "Tao of Now" ~ Saul Williams

12. "All At Once" ~ Secret Machines

13. "Breathe Me (Mylo Mix)" ~ Sia

14. "Naive" ~ The Kooks

15. "Stay With You" ~ Lemon Jelly

So that’s my latest adventure. I’m off to more film screenings and more projects. Planning the next trip… Hola Buenos Aires! Me gusta!

I’ve been working to be more productive in all areas of my life as of late, whether it’s at the gym, in the office, or in my personal life. However, it seems that some of the efforts and changes I’ve taken up are making my life less productive, but not in a time-wasting sense. For example, changing your passwords to everything is not only a good safety precaution, but it forces you to remember new things and you waste less time on sites like Facebook. Well, I thought this was a good idea. I spend too much time checking email and having a ridiculously long passcode has kept me from checking it too much. Well, now, because everything has a passcode that ISN’T EASY TO RECALL I’m oft away from home -working remotely- and I cannot get anything done. Why? Because I don’t know the passcodes to get into most of my accounts without that stupid little piece of paper that’s currently buried underneath the heaps of paperwork and projects in my office. It’s like technology -something that’s meant to help the situation often hampers it. Anyone recall the recent twelve-hour outage for the Crackberry (that’s Blackberry for all of you addicts in denial)? Even I am guilty of getting anxious when I haven’t gotten an email in a day or so and even more so, I get a little stressed out from not checking email on the weekends now. It’s really retarded,  methinks.

Also worthy of blimey, crickey, and bollocks is a certain someone in my life that I’d like to hit over the head with a frying pan right now. I can do my own thing -hit the gym, be a nutter with a new book, or spend an hour making stellar food for dinner. I’m perfectly fine with doing my own thing. I’m not looking to get married or jump right into seriousness. However, it’s really nice to share this with someone and The Climber is trying too hard to be the nice guy. Who knows the nice guys that work too hard to be the nice guy and end up being the ******* as a result of it? All I’m asking for is some good, straightforward honesty. It’s like a band-aid… If you pull it off quickly and all at once, you’re only going to be an ass in my eyes for a moment. It’s going to sting and be a little pink for a bit, but then it goes away and all is well. If you pull the band-aid off gradually and slowly, it hurts like hell and leaves everything super red for a long time. It makes you a bigger ******* for a very long time. It makes me not want to talk to you until the redness and pain are gone and even then, I might still view you as a big jerk.

I know, I know. No one wants to hurt someone else intentionally. It sucks. It makes you feel bad knowing that you’re hurting the other person. Is it so hard to understand that your efforts to spare my feelings, when you’re going to hurt my feelings anyway, only hurt me more? Is it difficult to comprehend that your attempts at being the nice guy end up making you a piece of sh*t in my book right now?

We all want the nice guys. We want straightforward honesty, though, too. It’s a nice idea to want to avoid hurting me, but you hurt me more in the long run when you drag this out.

***

It’s funny to me how what goes on in our hearts often spawns great physical efforts. All of this has motivated really intense workouts and has also entered some great music into my playlists.

You have to love the road to recovery, even if it only makes you swear that you’ll walk through the waters of hell to make sure you never have to deal with again. I’m so happy with myself and the progress that I’m seeing at the gym -as afraid as it makes me sometimes. I made it through a yoga class and two big sessions at the gym this week, plus I’m going to head out for a run at some point Saturday. The gains I’m seeing with my strength -especially with my legs- serve to plaster a smile on my face as I head to the showers. The abdominal area is going to take a bit longer, though. A single, 12-rep set of v-ups was all I could muster today and obviously, my insides in that area aren’t quite ready for such stress yet: post-workout bleeding just plain stinks.

I have to wonder, as well, how long it’s going to take for my body to purge all of the pharmaceutical residue. I’m still dealing with side effects from the six weeks of antibiotics and everything else. The whole ordeal certainly has thrown the symptoms of my autoimmune disease out of whack. Give me my supplements, please! I’d kill to actually sleep a full eight hours or not feel like my joints are encrusted with rust… (I should mention that I don’t practice traditional medicine, so outside of getting pneumonia back in December of 2006 I can’t remember the last time I had pharmaceutical drugs of ANY KIND.)

At least things are progressing… I can’t wait for the weather to clear up a bit so that I can take my cardio outdoors, instead of braving the boredom of the treadmill or elliptical. Gah…