www.size10chronicles.com

Hey there. I’ve been thinking of late, with all the SHITE going on in my life that fitness is my centering thing. But I wonder am I too dependent on it? I do spend hours in the gym, but I’m working out 90% of the time and socializing 10%. I don’t stay after I’m done working out. I get a great feeling from working out and being around other people who are also into the same positive thing as me. By making the changes I have made over the past year and the moves I am making now, I am no longer the downtrodden girl I once was. I’m stronger. That’s good right? Other people want me to be weak so they can have their way, but I’m not going for it anymore. It is hard on them and they (would like to) make it hard on me. But working out and changing my body feel like good things, that I’m doing for me. For me! Not for others, not because of others, but because I want to. I love the post-workout high I get after giving a workout my all. It’s satisfying pushing heavy weights. I like it. There’s nothing wrong with that. There isn’t. I would tell the same to any friend who asked me, so I guess I’ll be my own friend and say keep going. I like it, love it, want more of it! Love, Alissa

So last week and yesterday and today have had some seriously SUCKY things happen. I’m leaving my husband, got a bad review at work, and then another one, and my dad might only life another 7 to 8 months because the chemo isn’t working and my grandmother has decided to leave her nursing home to go home to die (ill advised since no one is there to care for her and her cancer). Seriously sucky. This is hardcore LAMENESS! But the bright spot to me is it hasn’t negatively affected my workouts or eating. These things happening around me are not derailing me from my goals.

The day I announced I was leaving my husband and taking our son with me and he tried to kill himself (husband, not son), I still got in my meals and water in (between talking to the cops and his family) and worked out. The day I found out about my dad’s chemo not working anymore I did the same, and lifted heavy and stayed focused while in the gym. The bad reviews at work didn’t make me go eat a cookie, I drank my water and ate my chicken and kept it moving.

I am at a stage where I’m figuring out what makes me happy. Lifting heavy ass weights makes me happy. Blogging to you all makes me happy. Being with my son and dad makes me happy. Going for my freedom makes me happy. I insist on living my life as I want to…NOW, not in a month or year or when it is convenient for other people, but NOW!

Blessings and love.

Alissa

Today I went to my friend’s baby naming ceremony at their synagogue. It was lovely and touching to see the family together up there. I have to say not being religious myself, I don’t get involved in such things, but it is nice to see these rituals and family participation things when I do visit someone elses religious tradition. My husband was dropping me off for this before going on an errand in our car. I packed my gym clothes to go with me as they synagogue was on the same street as my gym, just a few blocks (like 10 blocks) down. I figured I would walk after the ceremony and that is what I did. They were having food after, but i figured there would be little there that would fall into my eating regimen so I skipped that part. On the way to the ceremony I ate a chicken breast and some green beans and peppers. I shared with my son and husband so I had less than one breast, but was happy enough to feed them a bit. I ate most of it. I chewed gum during the ceremony because I was still kinda hungry, but needed to make it through. There were danish outside of the hall, but I skipped those too. Not on plan.

So after saying farewell to my friends I walked down the street to Diamond Gym. It was warm and I was wearing heels and a little sweater wrap thingy so I was totally warmed up by the time I arrived. I got changed (I had put my gym stuff in my mother’s day gift…a huge handbag from my dad and son…perfect size and didn’t look like a gym bag in the synagogue!) and dropped my stuff off at the front desk since I don’t have a locker at the gym. I put in my earbuds (thank you noise cancelling) and got going.

I didn’t have any idea of what I would do, but I knew I wanted to lift something. I did a fully body workout with Dwayne two days before so anything was on tap for today. I decided to work on my two weakest areas (of all of the weak areas), my back and calves. I want to add width and definition to my back. It looks good to me plus it makes your waist look smaller which I think may be an issue for me on the stage. I’m pretty straight up and down so creating an optical illusion of Vtaper will be important. Plus my bottom half is much bigger than my top half which is pretty common in women so I want to work on that. I also chose calves becasue I NEVER work them. Not with Dwayne. Not on my own. And I read that they can be difficult to get to grow depending on your genetics. I fortunately seem to have long calves which are the kind that can grow. I’d like them to look like little diamonds on the back of my legs so I decided to work them too.

I did wide grip pull downs behind my back, a variety of rows (incline, seated, and bent over dumbell). I got a compliment while doing the bent over rows 4×15–25, 30, 35, 25. This guy who was ripped said to me, "That was a good set! You got a good stretch. I could see your triceps through your (baggy ass) shirt."  I also did deadlifts and flyes. It was cool. I did bodyweight calf raises 4×20. And machine calf raises (standing) 3×12 15 pounds (light weight). I went easy on the calves as I don’t ever work them and didn’t want to get hurt, but they were burning after just that much so I think I was starting in the right place.

I did like 20 minutes of cardio. I don’t know what was up with that but my mind was not in it, so I stopped. I went downstairs and had a Lean Body shake and finished my water and talked to my mom on the phone as I waited for my husband to come and pick me up.

I came home and grilled chicken breasts, an irish potato a sweet potato and some red and yellow peppers, and 4 turkey and spinach burgers. YUM. I will be eating that today and tomorrow. Attempting to eat every 3 hours or less. It’s hard because of the carbs because I don’t feel hungry so I’m making the meals even smaller than usual to get them in. I also had some nuts and bread when I came in and a glass of milk. I have added oil to my chicken and turkey breasts to help them go down a bit easier. On my water and supplements too. ( I put a picture of the grilling on the pictures page..check it)!

Took a nap. Feel good.

Well I’ve been thinking for a while about getting a tattoo or piercing (nipples, navel, privates) but haven’t done so. In part because doing any of these things will interfere with my working out which is unacceptable, even a little bit, but other than that I’m not sure what I would want to look at for the rest of my life. Tattoos seem sexy as does piercing, but…I’m not convinced they’re not just mid-life crises issues. I know that the time I went to the tattoo parlor I was very angry, and it’s not a good idea to tattoo when mad…at least I didn’t go thru with that.

I think the body modification I will do is bodybuilding, naturally, through diet and exercise. Just as I have been doing, but I have ideas of how I want my body to look and I want to sculpt it into that shape. Lean thighs, flat belly and stand out ab sections (chunky obliques please!), poping calves and hollows at the ankles, vascular up the legs and arms and even belly (if you can see veins in your abs you are LEAN!), biceps with peaks, capped off delts and a wide and sculpted back, 3 pointed triceps, ribs and cut serratus. I want it. I love lifting those heavy ass weights! Shaping and sculpting this thing is my kink. Happy middle age!

I get frustrated on these boards and in my life with folks who won’t stick with a plan for more than a minute. I see so many people who are constantly switching up diets, workouts (sometimes a good thing within a plan, but not this approach and then this completely different one), cardio, water, supplements without IMO giving them enough time to do anything.

I think this is especially true with diets. People are always trying this or that one, "That last one I tried for 3 weeks didn’t work. Help! I’m going to try this one now!" Jumping all over the place. It’s not good, and works against what is most important, figuring out what works for you. A diet will take longer than a week to show results! What sort of results are you expecting anyway? Most any diet will work if you do it, but I suspect that many people working this or that diet are not really doing the diets anyway. I know for me the only time my diet doesn’t work is when I’m not doing it.

There is so much talk about cheating on here (and don’t let me lead you to believe that I don’t cheat on my diet, because I do!)…almost more than on diets themselves…it makes me think that folks are giving up on perfectly workable diets before they even REALLY give them a chance. If you don’t do the diet, don’t blame the diet for not working. I cheat, but I don’t dwell on it or blame carb cycling (my diet of choice) for not working. It works…if you do it.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and mentioned a conversation I had with another friend from work who was talking to me about her weight problem. She noted that she really loves rice and has a hard time not eating it as she prepares it each evening for her son. We talked about alternative carb sources and strategies. Later in the day I walked past her in the lunchroom and she was eating a slice of chocolate cream pie!  Hmmm. Could that have anything to do with the weight problem? Nothing wrong with chocolate cream pie or rice, if you want to eat them, but don’t act surprised if your bodyfat doesn’t come flying off when you do.

I find that a lot. Since I have lost a chunk of weight people regularly ask me how I did it. I tell them it’s 80 to 90% diet. And although I am regular with my cardio and do lift weights, that only accounts for a fraction of the progress I have made, I think. Since I only lift weights with my trainer (a few times by myself, but very few) I figure in the last 14 months or so I have only weight trained about 75 to 80 times in 427 days. I am not pumping iron every day! I probably have done cardio about 70% of those days, about 300 days. That’s a lot of cardio, but again it is still only a fraction of what it takes to keep my metabolism going. It’s been said here a million times it’s what happens in the kitchen that matters. For myself, I can sweat in the gym til the cows come home, but if I’m BSing in the eating department it will all be for naught!

Those are my two cents!

Alissa

Today someone at work said, "Man, you’re getting skinny!" And this person is skinny himself so he knows! It’s funny to me to think of myself as thin. Weird really. Honestly I’m not able to fully accept it. Last week when I was wearing the size 8s I was thinking "Is this label right? Maybe these are a size 18 and the 1 dropped off." Crazy right? That’s just crazy. The problem I have is the low number sizing, like I can wear a 12 jeans (I’m wearing them now), tried on the 10s this morning and they were too tight, and last week was wearing 8s with no problem. WTF? I don’t get it and it doesn’t help me accept that I am small-ish. The other problem is I still have (lots of??) bodyfat. I figure I have ~30 pounds of excess bodyfat on me at this point. Which is a lot…especially in light of what I’ve lost already. When I started with Dwayne I was like 243 and my highest weight was 251, I now weigh 184 and have put on muscle too in that year, maybe 10 pounds so my net fat loss total from my top weight is 251-174=77 pounds and to think I have 30 more pounds to lose (maybe 20 more pounds…we’ll see), which means I was over 100 pounds overweight, which actually makes sense, because when I was planning on getting the Lapband surgery I had a test done that said I was (at 243) carrying 113 pounds of bodyfat (which I suppose included essential bodyfat, so some of that I still needed). It is scary to think of. 100 pounds overweight! 100 pounds overweight! WTHH? I walked around like that for most of my adult life. Like nothing was wrong with that. And even lost 50 pounds a few times and was thinking I was in pretty good shape with that loss. WRONG! I’m proud of what I’ve done thus far, but it trips out my mind to make it all fit together and make sense. OY! Have a great day! Alissa Gardenhire-Crooks