paulapop’s BodyBlog

The weekend is quickly approaching and with it the Arnold Classic.  I need to give a shout of support out to a local guy who’s been going to the gym with me for years now.  He’s Champion lifter, won more medals in comp than I can list here, but mostly he is an all around awesome guy!  If you’ve got a few minutes and want to check him out, his website can be found here http://www.angelfire.com/planet/ohalloran/ . 

To anyone on here that is going, have a great time.  A few people from my gym are going, including my trainer, but I unfortunately am working.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I am totally sick of winter.  I don’t mind the snow or the cold so much, its the early sunset and the grey skies that just get me down.

The past couple weeks I’ve felt really low on energy and have been struggling to keep the spring in my step even at the gym.  I needed to try something new to get myself out of this rut and maybe perk myself up a bit.  Our gym just got a couple new high intensity tanning booths, so I decided I would give one of them a try.  I know to most people that does not qualify as trying something new, but you see, I am absolutely PARANOID about tanning booths.  Its not clostrophobia or feeling like I am in a casket that I have a problem, its melanoma and wrinkles that keep me out of the sun and away from tanning booths.  In spite of my fear I gave it a try on friday morning.  I went for just 5 mins, and made sure I plastered my face in moisturizer and tanning booth version of sunscreen before I went in, and slathered more moisturizer on immediately after I was finished.

I have to admit, the whole experience was better than I anticipated.  I felt a little better when I was finished, my disposition was a bit sunnier, and I have to admit, the slight  bit of colour I attained does make me feel a bit better about myself.

I don’t know if I will do it again, it was more an experiment than anything else, but hey it was the highlight of my weekend!

Well, I have managed to give my wrist a week of relative rest.  Its been a tough week at the gym though.  I’ve found it very hard to get into it.  I did the workouts, but just kinda went through the moitions, didn’t feel the burn, and didn’t really care.

Yesterday morning I had a session with my trainer, that was my 1st decent workout of the week, my wrist is getting stronger.  I was able to do 2 sets of 12 curls with a body bar.  Yes this is it, I have turned into a paperdoll!  I am using a 12 lb body bar to do curls, what has become of me?  Ahhhh well at least I can some, which is better than last week.  I cranked out a decent upper body workout, focused on hammer  curls, which don’t bother my wrist, got in some seated rows, some underhand lat pulldowns.  My wrist bothered me "a bit" but it wasn’t bad.  It seems the motion of a preacher curl is the worst, so I will be using the body bar for that motion, and I will keep trying other uppper body excercises to see what works.

Today is interval training.  I totally slacked off on my abs all week.  On thursday I did some hanging knee tucks, and on friday of course I worked them out with my tainer, but that is it for the week, so today’s interval will be 5 mins intense cardio, then abs for the interval.

Just want to drop a note to let you all know that due to my hand injury typing is a very slow process (one handed), therefore my blogs are much shorter and my comments to others are kinda scarce right now.  I am still reading and following along with everyone and watching everyone’s progress.  An injured wrist hasn’t kept me from the gym, I am simply working around it, no preacher curls, skull crushers etc, but I am hanging in there.  My kickboxing class is on a three week hiatus which is perfect timing because that will give my hand a chance to heal.

I hope all is well with everyone and you all understand why I am not blogging and commenting as much as I usually do. 

I am totally ticked off…….at myself.  I was at work today, and my wrist was feeling better so I took the brace off it because it was difficult to get anything done.  The wrist felt ok when I went to the gym and it was fine, I was working out my chest, but being careful to keep the wrist strong and not let it flex.  Then came preacher curls.  I decided to give them a try since my wrist was feeling so good, I figured I would start out light, just a 25lb barbell.  Well I picked it up, sat down and leaned over the pad to start the curl when I felt a POP in the wrist, dropped the weight, and couldn’t even get the barbell back on the rack.

Just to prove that I really am stupid (or stubborn) I went on to do some flat bench lying tricep extentions.  I couldn’t even do one, dropped the weight, and at that point I decided I had better pack it in for the day before I seriously hurt myself.

I literally kicked butt today at the gym.  I am still nursing my wrist so I am going easy with the lifting.  I had the day off with nothing much to do so I took an A.M. kickboxing class, then found myself sitting around on my butt after dinner, so I figured I might as well go back and take my regular PM class.  I’ve been on kind of a plateau lately and I figured this will shock my body and hopefully knock me out of the plateau.

Well not broken, but I do have a pinched nerve so I am in a splint for a while and doing some stretching exercises to try and help it heal.  I had a killer leg workout today, but had to have someone help me get the weights on and off the machines..

UGH I hate that!  I hate being dependent on someone.  Going to the gym makes me feel strong and independent, but needing help with the weights kinda kicks the crap outta that.  On the upside, I am lucky to have found such wonderful friends at the gym that are willing to help me. 

My boss was being unusually nice to me today.  He asked me what happened to my arm, and after I told him, he went and got me a better splint than the one I had, and told me it was "on him"  I was stunned……….This is a man, that after 9yrs, its a good day when he can tell you my hair colour.  The joke among my work friends is……either he’s noticed the hours I put in and is actually appreciative or…………he is my pharmacist, maybe my doctor called him with some bad news……..

My day started out pretty good, I got in a full 40 mins of cardio before my session with the trainer, had a GREAT leg workout with her, then finished off with a run. I hadn’t been out in few days due to inclimate weather, so it felt great to get some fresh air with my cardio. Running on the hamster reel and breathing the recirculated gym air just doesn’t compare to running outside.

After my workout I went home, did my housework and took off to do the dreaded grocery shopping.  Once a week I make the trek into the city to buy staple groceries and the household products, everyday I buy my meat, fruit and veggies fresh locally.  Anyway as I was getting out of my truck I slipped, grabbed the door handle and ended up hyper-extending my wrist.  I felt a "pop" and then sharp pain.  I thought, "this can’t be good".  I went ahead and did my shopping, had trouble getting the heavier stuff into the cart, and even more trouble getting a case of water into the back of the truck, but I managed.  When I got home I put my wrist support brace on and it is feeling better, hopefully it just needs some rest, there is no swelling so I am not really worried.  Tomorrow will be a scheduled day off from the gym.

I did discover that it is nearly impossible to eat sushi, using chopsticks, with your right hand in a brace.  At one point I lost the rice and shrimp and ended up with just the wasabi paste on the stick when I shoved it in my mouth….OUCH!

I did make an interesting discovery today.  Since I’ve been eating clean, I’ve been into trying out new fruits and veggies.  The grocery store had Lychee fruits on sale today.  I’ve never tried them, but one of my friends goes crazy for them so I thought I’d give them a try.  My kids are also the adventurous types so they tried them as well.  The lychee’s were a big hit in my house, definitely something I will be buying again.

I had to put my poor kitty down today, he got ahold of an amyrillis and ate it.  He had to be Houdini to get it, but he did and he didn’t survive the poison

I went to the gym to take my mind off it, had a decent upper body workout and a good 30 mins on the elliptical.  Tomorrow is training day, I always look forward to that, so it should help keep my mind off the cat.

No matter how good you get, some people just have to put you down.  I think it is an attempt to make themselves feel better because they know they couldn’t do what you can do.  Actually its more than they can’t do it, they don’t want to put in the work it takes to be able to do it.

Let me explain what exactly I am ranting about.  Yesterday I read Bill’s blog and was pissed off at the comments he was getting about the magazine, then I went to work and was sitting in our lunch room setting out my lunch and I caught the person sitting across from me roll their eyes at my food.  Another person in the room said "Wow you eat healthy, no wonder you are in such great shape."  Now there was CW moment for me, except it was crashed down by the eye roller who made a comment that I was in good shape but my arms were flabby.  So of course I flexed and said "that isn’t flab, they are called triceps."  I was pissed off, sit across the table from me, roll your eyes at my lunch while you sit there eating ruffles with cream cheese dip and dare to try to criticize my arms!  Ohhhhh was I seeing red.  Then I remembered what happened to Bill and it occured to me that we are all victims of this kind of jealousy now and again.  That is where all of this stems from, I don’t think they are jealous of how we looks so much as they are jealous because we have what it takes to make ourselves look this way, and they simply don’t.  Getting in shape and building muscle is WORK.  Lots of WORK.   It is a full time job in itself as it involves every aspect of your life.  Most people can’t make that kind of commitment, and there are those that respect you for being able to make the commitment that they can’t, and there are those lash out at you as a way of making themselves feel better about their inablility to make the commitment.  The way to deal with both type of people is, Thank those that respect you for their kind words, and ignore the ones that don’t.