No caffeine? for a month!?
A quick update after a relaxing weekend.
Friday night I was doing my head in. I was a tightly coiled spring, so I decided Saturday, I would try to think about something other than competing. I stuck to my meals and did a quick bit of cardio (jumped rope for 15 minutes) and that was it. No crazy sprints, hours of planning diet on CalorieKing I was just a normal civilian eating a lot of green vegetables. By the evening I was tired but feeling so much more recovered. It was lovely. I really get worked up sometimes on account of having to work all my diet and exercise out myself and then not being so sure of my plan. As if by magic (or maybe a drop in anxiety levels) my weight nicely dropped Sunday morning and I was given a double booster as I could already see great progress in the mirror.
Sunday, hound and I had a lovely 45 minute walk through the hilly parts of our neighbourhood. We took a new route and found a nice walking trail in need of further investigating. I then stocked up on my vegies and eggs at the farmers market. I love that while I have to eat so much crazy food for my lifestyle I can be responsible for where it comes from. I tried my best to do my quads and biceps workout that afternoon, but I just couldn’t get my left arm to co-operate with front squats and moved on to angled leg press instead. I slaughtered it. I’d knock out 15+ reps put on another plate, and easily another 15. I think I wound up doing almost double what I normally would. Weird. Mentally I really wasn’t there and this wasn’t getting me fired up. There were also these 2 (weedy) guys absolutely screaming at each other ‘****in pull mate’ etc. etc. jerking weights about and throwing them to the ground at the end of every set, it was driving me and everyone else in the gym crazy. Halfway through my leg extensions I cracked and turned into gym bitch from hell. Apparently they work out like that every day and no one had ever complained before. The guy look like he wanted to hit me. Gawd I love being a chick!
This morning I went back to the same gym to train chest (my gym has multiple locations and I prefer different ones for different days), luckily they weren’t there, but the heating was cranked up to maximum, making for a very off-puting workout. I really struggled to bring my mind to the game and couldn’t channel a huge amount of strength. I played around with a combo of DB work, hammer strength and cables and eventually decided I’m due a refeed. Good thing I’ve got one scheduled for tomorrow. Bring on the carbs! I’d totally not left myself enough time to do cardio and had to knock out 15 minutes of inclined sprint intervals. Running felt really good and I would have loved to have gone for longer but I had an appointment with a new member of team Michelle, Dr Frank. Dr Frank is an osteopath/chiropractor/accupuncturist/kineisiologist/natropath and general body guru and I’d read and heard good things about him. He gave me a thorough quizzing about my entire medical history and then very matter of factly dictated my defects to his assistant. It seemed like I have a lot of defects, but he really seems like the guy to fix them Again, we was worried about the atrophy of my left delt. He treats lots of BB’s and want to work really hard with me to get it sorted. I so want my shoulders back!
I was poked and prodded inside and out (he poked around in my mouth and now my sinuses are clear). He did that horrible thing that chiropractors do to your neck, which makes you vow never to see one again, but it wasn’t so jerky so I’ll forgive him. In general I left wishing I’d got onto the whole thing sooner. His whole body approach made so much sense and is so much better than the patch-up work I’ve been getting done. I’ve got 2 more sessions this week and then have to visit him regularly for a total of 12 sessions at least. By the end of today’s session he’d made my neck and shoulder feel a fair bit better, cleared my sinuses and made my hips feel like I actually have control of them (I’m very flexible and they cause no end of problems to me). I really do feel as light as air.
Dr Frank also furnished me with a little guide book of tips and how tos and asks all his clients to go wheat, caffeine, orange, pork, chocolate, peanut, dairy and spicy food free for 1 month. I was doing fine until this point, but no coffee and no chilli make Michelle go something, something (go crazy? don’t mind if I do). Also no artificial sweetners. At this point I wasn’t really sure which of my supps I have left. No Xtend, no whey, no fat-burners; oh my! I promised him I’ll do my best. I also have to find out my blood type so that he can fine tune my diet. A-types don’t do so well on red meat apparently; and blood type might help explain my rice issues too.
Looking forward I’ve got a huge week, tomorrow, operation monster shoulder begins with Joe. Wednesday and Friday I’m back to Dr. Frank, Thursday posing classes and tomorrow lunch fish and healthfood shopping on my lunch hour. Good thing I don’t have too much on at work!
