Back from the dead

I guess it's time to resurrect this biatch. And by biatch, I mean me.

 I realized the other day how far off the path to fitness I've strayed since I stopped blogging. I never really thought of blogging as key to my success, but somehow I was more on track when I felt I was accountable to all 2 of my readers.

 So, whether or not anybody reads this, I'm going to start it up again -- because I need to answer to somebody/something apparently. I think it also helps that I have some place besides inside my head to process how I'm doing.

But first, updates:
1. I have essentially gained back all the weight I lost when I first started working out with Mike. :( I only have 2 pairs of pants that still fit (I disposed of all my fat pants in a rash moment of celebration about a year ago). We won't dwell on this. It is what it is.
2. I am about to have another surgery on my right foot to correct the overcorrection of the first surgery. I am really hoping that this one is it, because I lack the mental toughness to go through rehab again only to find out I still CAN'T run.

Having gotten the above 2 statements off my chest, I can move on/forward:
1. I am stronger than I was before I started, despite weighing the same. I'm not going to delude myself into thinking all the weight gained was muscle, but at least some of it is.
2. I am going at things again this round with more knowledge. That has to mean something, right? I've been following Dallas and Melissa Hartwig of Whole9, Robb Wolf, and NomNom Paleo on twitter to help "indoctrinate" myself with their focus on health and fitness throughout my day. It is very educational and entertaining.

I've been seeing an acupuncturist after a brief scare about a blood clot after my 1st surgery to see if I can stay off birth control pills to regulate my hormones. She is awesome. It's such a novel idea to look at my body and life as a whole, instead of just bunch of symptoms. We have been doing blood tests and labs to figure out where the hormone imbalances are, and tackling the overall picture with acupuncture and diet modification. You'd think I would be uber confused about what to eat because my acupuncturist comes from a different school of thought (ie, not paleo). Interestingly enough, what she's telling me pretty well lines up with the paleo doctrine. The fact that everything points in the same direction tells me I'm doing something right.

Thus far, we have established (I'm enjoying listing things today, if you haven't guessed already):
1. I am overstressed, and my body is tired (my cortisol and stress hormones are out of whack, keeping me up at night/disturbing my sleep, making me more tired and HUNGRY the next day... it's a vicious cycle).
2. My female hormones are off. Not sure if I really have PCOS.
3. I am allergic to eggs, almonds, yeast, wheat, oat, lettuce, citrus, ginger, beans, and some other obscure foods I rarely eat.

Now what?

Well, friends, I begin again. I have tried and failed at this fitness thing over and over again (but each time, I make small gains). Yet here I sit, ready to embark all over again. Why? Because I refuse to let this be my life. When I die and look back on my life, I do not want it to be a story that reads "she was a nice girl who was fat her whole life and gave up." I'm following this blog I stumbled across when I was googling for motivation. I'm not really sure where this gal is, but she has some very motivational images. I've saved a few for myself that I'll post here once in a while when I need a swift kick in the pants. Here's today's:

30 day challenge is ON!

Greetings to my 5 readers. :) I am starting a 30 day challenge today with my good friend and critic-who-gives-it-to-me-straight, Paul. We will be posting progress, wins, fails, etc here

awesomeness was so last season

So I know I haven't updated in a while, and I really have very little positive to say... but I thought I should update anyway, because this blog is about the journey, not the destination.

Since my last post (FOREVER ago), I have gained some weight (again) and what feels like a lot of fat. :T I am getting sick of making excuses for myself, because ultimately it comes down to calories in vs. calories out, but here's what happened:

Work started getting really stressful. And I mean really stressful. It still hasn't let up yet.

I ran the Long Beach 5k and somehow injured my toe, which literally took me out of the running for an indefinite amount of time. I am now the loser at the crossfit gym that stays behind when everybody else goes to run a couple laps. It's been almost 3 months, and still every time I run, the pain in my foot flares up. It is uber frustrating. No cardio/low cardio = fat ed. What can I say? Without some form of cardio, my body is extra efficient at packing on the pounds.

stress and feeling like a loser/frustrated about not being able to go out for a run made me eat more fat bastards than I'd like to admit.

what does this all mean? I gained weight. :( To the point that my pants are pretty embarassingly tight, and I might need to go back to my fat pants. :( :(

I am trying to take a more realistic view of my body, my life, my psyche (my reactions to stress, life, and situations I prefer to put in my "special place") and accept the setbacks with the victories. Yes, I have gained weight, but it doesn't mean I have given up.

I lost a lot of weight with Mike, but I made so many sacrifices while doing it, I can't say with complete confidence that I was happy. Now, I am enjoying life more via food, but I'm fatter. I'm not technically happy now either, though, because I feel fat. It's a delicate balance. I'm learning ever-so-slowly to just accept that I feel depressed/stressed/unhappy/unappreciated/etc instead of burying my feelings in a baked goodie. I am tired of punishing myself for being me... or maybe avoiding being me by eating? Still lots to sort out.

The next step will be what to do about being depressed/stressed/unhappy/unappreciated/etc so that I don't feel that way anymore. At the gym, my mantra is "just try." When faced with food, my new deal is to pause and ask, "will it really make you feel better?"

With the holidays looming on the horizon, I'm hoping to maintain the weight I'm at and then start losing again when my mom isn't around with her cooking. I've made it my goal for the rest of the year to eat no more than 1 non-paleo meal a day. I've been doing it for about two weeks, and I'm feeling much better in my workouts -- which, by the way, I've had to switch to 6:15 AM twice a week... I'm so freaking tired by Friday that I fall asleep by 9 pm and sleep straight until the next morning at 9 (and STILL feel exhausted). My workouts with Mike used to be at 7 AM, three times a week, and I don't remember feeling this awful. I'm beginning to wonder if there is something seriously wrong with me.

on a more positive note, I did manage to complete my first Rx workout last week (fight gone bad, woohoo!). Up next on my list for 2011? kipping pull ups and another Rx workout!

You're kind of strong like the ox

the title of this blog is a quote from Bryce, and I'm thinking of making it my mantra for this weekend's swim.

Bryce went to a crossfit workout with me during "friends and family" week a couple months back. He watched me do some of the moves for the workout that day, and he said I looked really strong. Strong like the ox.

At first, my feminine sensibility was offended at being compared to a hulking, smelly, hoofed animal used for hard manual labor. The word "ox," as it pertains to a description of women, evokes the image of a stout, broad-shouldered, Eastern European woman with man-hands that could crush a small child's skull with one squeeze. After he repeated it a couple times, though, I'm kind of proud to have acheived that name. Especially because I have always looked up to him as my strong older brother (to whom everything that requires any sort of strength, coordination or physicality comes relatively easily).

Last night at crossfit, we started a series wherein we are doing lifts to find our 1 rep max's. I topped off backsquats at 155, strict presses at 65, and deadlifts at 205. It was really an awesome feeling to break into the "200 club" on deadlifting.

The more I go to crossfit, the more I am in love with it. I see now why it is compared to a cult. Once the bug bites, there's no going back!

I'm working out like I used to (maybe even a little less intensely) with Mike, but it's an entirely different feeling. I loved working out with Mike. Honestly, I wouldn't have had the confidence to go to crossfit if I hadn't started with Mike. What's different about crossfit is that I'm not just there busting my ass to lose weight -- weight loss is a side benefit. I'm there busting my ass to improve myself, cheer on others, make friends, and do things I never thought I'd ever be able to do (run a 5k, deadlift more than my body weight, swim in a triathlon... what?!).

I have a lot of moments of self-doubt. My mind tends towards the negative naturally. I'm not sure if it's because I'm embarassed, afraid to fail, or my humble Asian upbringing, but my kneejerk reaction to most new/challenging things is "I can't." At crossfit, saying the word "can't" results in a $5 penalty. It's silly, really, but ever so slowly, that small change is changing my mentality. Suddenly, "I can't" has become "just try. No worries if you fail. There's always next time."

The shadows of doubt still seize me late at night -- they did earlier this week when I had a small nightmare about my swim, which turned into big doubts about my abilities to complete the swim when I was awake. The swim clinic coaches recommend having a mantra to repeat when out on the open water to get through the rough patches. They also warned about how quickly a mantra can fall apart when you're out in the open water, and it feels like forever until the next landmark. I witnessed it firsthand when my weak mantra of "i can do it" quickly fell apart into "I hate the ocean" as soon as the water hit my chest.

I've been searching for just the right phrase to repeat to myself this weekend when I'm out on the swells, pulling as hard as I can, but not feeling like i'm moving at all. "Just try" has gotten me so many personal records this year so far, but I need something a bit more convincing when I'm mentally ready to give up. So...strong like the ox? Yes I am.

scariness and new heights!

Since my last update, I have signed up to do the swimming leg of a triathlon relay!

I really didn't know what i had gotten myself into until last weekend, when I went for an open water swim clinic at Crystal Cove state beach in Newport.

Let me preface this all with a brief recap of my one and only other experience swimming in the ocean:
I followed my college roommie (who grew up in socal, and was on the swim team in high school) into the ocean, not thinking much of the waves, or how to swim in them. I'm a mountain girl... we know nothing of this thing called the ocean. The first time I saw the ocean when I was in elementary school (before I knew how to swim -- so i just hung out on the beach and built sand castles), I thought it was just a big lake. I kid you not. It wasn't until about a month later, when my oldest bro wrote home how he could still see us standing in the PACIFIC OCEAN that i dawned on me: "I've been to the ocean??? I don't remember this... wait, THAT WAS THE OCEAN?!? I'VE BEEN TO THE OCEAN?!? WHAT?!"

back to college: my roommie dove head first into a wave, and i followed. Not pleasant, but ok, I made it. Second wave came (did you know they come in sets???), and I didn't make it out so well. It tumbled me, ground me into the floor of the ocean so that I didn't exactly know which way was up and which was down. I remember having a noseful of water, starting to panic. I barely had enough time to get back up to the surface for a breath of air before the next wave came crashing down on me. Repeat tumbling, water up the nose, and panic; only this time, i remember thinking "dear god, i might actually die if i don't come up for air soon."

back up on the surface: roommie is panicking because I haven't surfaced for more than 15 seconds. I finally resurface, scared shitless. I somehow made it back to solid ground, vowing never to swim in the ocean again.

fast forward about 10 years, and people at crossfit want to do a triathlon. I know I am not ready for all three events, but I am a pretty good swimmer. IN A POOL. There are people who want to do a relay, and they need a swimmer. Sure! Sign me up! Why not?! I crossfit. I'm awesome.

So I trained for the past month or so in my community pool (which is a 50 yard pool) every Sunday and a few Wednesdays in between my 3x/week crossfit workouts. I'm up to a half mile nonstop (albeit some of that swimming is breast stroke). Then I remember that Crystal Cove is the very place where I had that traumatic experience in the ocean. Holy shit. How can I make it past the waves? I can't. I'll die. But i can't flake... the biker and runner can't go unless i finish the swim. oh shit. shit. SHIT.

*****************

I manage to finagle a wait list spot for me and my bro to go to an open water swim clinic last weekend. And good thing. They teach us how to put on a wetsuit (also a new and unpleasant experience), which they assure us will keep us so buoyant that it will be impossible to drown. They teach us, in theory, how to enter and exit the ocean. Then, they divide us into groups: scaredy, not so scaredy, and just need to refine my technique. I run for the scaredy group. Bryce (my bro) heads for the not so scaredy group, but i know because he surfs, he should be in the advanced group -- my suspicion is that he wants to keep an eye on me.

They take us out once, and after the first wave, panic grips me. I survived, and I dove underneath it, but the water is so salty, and I'm remembering how scary it was 10 yrs ago. I can't breath -- or at least, my breaths are coming short and fast. My arms and legs are flailing around with a mind of their own, because I am freaking out. Second wave comes, and I survive again, but this time i am deeper out into the ocean, and there's nowhere to stand. Still am having a hard time breathing, but I don't have the option to wait for calm breaths because another wave is coming. Oh shit. Third wave comes and passes, and I survive, but am still not a very happy camper. I just really want to go back in where my feet can touch, and I can freak out in peace.

wait, i have to go back in. oh. my. god. i can't. i'll die. i won't time it right, and i'll die. The group is about to head back in, and i yell out "help! i need help!"

the lifeguard grabs me, and helps me in. Once on solid ground, I start to fall apart. I'm not going back out there. that feeling of panic is so unpleasant that i never want to feel it again. I'm going to have to flake on my team. there's just no way i'll be ready for this. The rest of the group goes back out, and I am still standing, petrified, on the shore. The group is already past the first wave, and I want to run in the other direction, peel off this wetsuit, and cry. One of the lifeguards grabs me, and promises that she will stay by me the entire time. She holds my hands, and takes me through another set, and back in. I still feel like i want to cry (but i won't let myself, because I don't cry in front of strangers if i can help it).

3rd time in and out, a pushier lifeguard/coach ushers me in and basically forces me to do it. Hm, not as bad. Maybe i just need somebody with a harder line? he talks me through it all, telling me when to duck under a wave. Much better, but I still hate the ocean.

Now it's time for the 1/2 mile swim. I tell Bryce i hate the ocean and i want to go home. He tells me I should try the swim. "just go as far as you can, and come in when you're tired. I'll be right next to you the entire time. You won't drown. The wetsuit is like a life vest! let's go."

me, in my weakened mental state (meekly): "ok."

We wade in, and i start to freeze up again, just staring blankly at the waves. Pushy coach comes up and says "here comes a wave, what are you gonna do?" I continue to stand there, staring, and he pulls me under, just in time.

"here comes another one! what are you gonna do? Dive! dive!" i dive, and grab sand. Phew. wave 2 done.

one more wave, and i'm past the breaks, just on the swell, and I'm swimming! Five strokes, though, and I'm exhausted.

Pushy coach: keep going! gotta keep moving!

Bryce: don't listen to him. If you need a break, take a break. I'm right here.

I push, and swim out to the first lifeguard, acting as marker.

the rest of the half mile swim is a blur to me, but I'll summarize:

me: I want to go in. i'm really really really tired

bryce: just swim to me.

me: but you're so far away!

coach robert (my crossfit coach): you're looking good, ed! just a little bit further!"

me: i'm really really tired. i want to go in. (but i push and swim a few strokes, ie, i flail my arms around and huff and puff -- breaths are still coming short and fast)

random swim clinic coach: madeline, you're doing really good! just keep going!

bryce, seeing me starting to panic, grabs me: stop moving. just relax. STOP MOVING YOUR ARMS AND LEGS! JUST RELAX!

me: I can't!!!! I wanna go in. (my arms and legs are still moving frantically, without any control from my brain, burning off more energy than i have left)

bryce: look, you're halfway there already! grab onto the lifeguard's board and rest. You can finish this.

me: i wanna go in. i wanna go in. I'm tired.

bryce: now is your chance. if you wanna go in, he'll take you in. I think you should finish. You made it halfway already!

me: ok. i'll go a little more.

bryce: ok. swim to me...

repeat me freaking out and the intermittent coach here and there cheering me on for the last half.

By the time I reach the last lifeguard marker, I am begging somebody to bring me in. I don't have the energy to make it back in on my own.

bryce: you finished the half mile. you're going to finish the whole thing on your own. nobody is going to help you. you can do this.

me: no, i can't. i need help. please.

nice lifeguard from before: i got you. i'll take you in, but we're gonna do this together. ready? here we go.

before i know it, i can touch the ground, and am walking up to the beach, with the rest of the swim clinic there watching and clapping for me. I am the second to last person to finish.

i am a little embarassed, but mostly just relieved and tired as all hell. I want to cry, but there are too many people watching.

I manage to hold it together long enough to get to the car, and while we are recapping the day, tears just start coming out of my eyes. I'm not sobbing or anything, but my eyes won't stop tearing up.

******************

I've never been reduced to tears by any swim or workout. It is amazing what a little panic will do to you, and how quickly I break down mentally when I am that worn out!

I went out again yesterday morning with a fellow crossfitter who is doing the full triathlon and a private swim coach. We went to calmer waters in Corona Del Mar, and managed to swim for about 40 minutes! I am feeling much better about the swim, but am still worried about ins and outs.

I'm gonna go back to crystal cove and hopefully swim the course at least one more time before the race. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I still don't like ocean swimming, and I may very likely be the last one in from the swim. If I can just finish, I will count my fear of the ocean conquered. Wish me luck!

finally, better news! and less whining...

so, after two week-long vacations back home to my parents' house in Utah, a weekend stint to Bryce Canyon and Zion, I can officially say I am hiked out. Not really, cuz I still love to hike. It is so much better than the stairs of death.

Fitness, I am finding, is 80% eating, and 20% training. Too bad I am so good about training, and so bad about eating. Since my last post, I have still continued to struggle with my eating, but am finally starting to clean it up. It is a daily fight for me, and I've come to realize it might be a fight like this for the rest of my life.

I managed to hike enough during my last trip home to counterbalance some of the fat bastards my mom loves to cook for us (yes, i ate the fat bastards... i just couldn't stop myself). I made it up to a set of waterfalls in the mountains near my house that i have never been able to hike to! I am loving the fact that I am older now, and yet I am in better physical shape than I was when I was a teenager.

Crossfit has been doing a 100 day burpee challenge, wherein you do one more burpee (crossfit burpees include a pushup, touching your chest/stomach to the floor at the bottom of each burpee) each day (ie, 1 burpee on day 1, 2 burpees on day 2, etc, etc, etc). I managed to keep up with my burpees through my vacation to Bryce and Zion, but slipped up on my last trip home on day 32. :( Dangit.

Yesterday was my first Crossfit workout after my trip home, and I killed it:

20 min AMRAP of:
A1: dumbell clean & presses: 1-10 ladder (start with 1 clean and press on 1st round, then 2 the second round, etc)
A2: Cindy:
5 pull-ups
10 push-ups
15 air squats

I did the dumbell clean & presses with 25 lb dumbells, and made it through 7 rounds plus 7 of the next round's clean & presses.
I think my clean & presses may have turned a little into clean & jerks, because dammit, i was tired! 25 lbs in each hand got to be pretty heavy by about round 3. :P

I achieved my July goal of moving up from the green band (the widest band) to the blue band (next widest band) in assisted pull-ups! I can only do 2 pull-ups with the blue band (whereas I can do about 10 with the green band), but I'm getting stronger! This means I might actually be able to do a full-on, unassisted pull-up one of these days!

Before I left on my trip, I swear I was fatigued after 7 pullups with the green band. Coach Robert says if you can do 10 pull ups with a certain band, it's time to move up. I was really beginning to doubt my ability to move up a band by the end of this month. I think the burpees really did A LOT to train upper body strength, because I did absolutely nothing besides burpees, hike, eat, and play in the pool at my parents' house.

I am going to continue with the burpee challenge on my own, even though I am technically out of the competition at crossfit. I can almost do a set of 10 full body pushups (touching chest to floor at the bottom has reduced me to knee/girly pushups)! Gotta keep that strength!

In other news, before I left on my trip, I was able to push to a maxeffort weight for deadlifts of 195 for 2 reps! All I can say is, whoa. Never thought I'd be lifting that kind of weight. I'm excited to see how much more I can left next time.

it's a constant battle

so i'm back, after a brief blogging hiatus. I am up 10+ lbs since stopping training with Mike.

why? because I have been eating delicious things and not working out as much.

crossfit has been great. I love the community. I love learning new moves (push presses, snatches, handstands, running 5k's and cutting a minute off my overall run time... awesome). It's just not quite the same ass-kicking workout that I had with Mike. Part of it is schedule, part of it is me not being consistent with anything.

I'm finding I have to be really vigilant about everything (everything = diet, exercise, mental toughness) in order for me to maintain the weight loss. It's a very tiring, time-and-energy-consuming process. My body is just too good at putting on fat, and I am just too addicted to bad foods. I thought that after almost a year of training and eating clean with Mike that I would be in the habit of working out and eating the right foods. I was wrong. Life got the best of me, and I slipped back into my old ways.

I was too ashamed of myself to post this earlier (and that's why I've been avoiding blogging), but I realized that this is going to be a lifelong battle for me. It's healthier for me to 'fess up, come clean, and learn from my mistakes. Guilt (as I've said before) only makes me want to eat more. The sooner I turn it around, the better.

Barriers to my success:

1. Schedule: I succeeded with Mike because I was going consistently at 7 am three times a week. With Crossfit, I have been going in the evenings because I just cannot drag my ass out of bed an hour earlier to get to class at 6:15. I also feel really guilty for going to work out when my dogs needed a run. What has happened instead is that I wake up just barely in time to give my dogs a brief run (15 mins each... and no, I can't run them together... it always ends in disaster -- we've made other people fall over... eep), which is barely enough to give any of us any exercise. I come home from work and go to crossfit twice a week. My summer schedule has let up a bit, so I'm more able to attend classes, so I've signed on to go three times a week starting this week.

2. eating: My body has had carbs for too long now (again, my bad for thinking the eating thing would continue automatically... i know now it has to be a continual conscious effort), and I am addicted again. Every time I try to eat clean, I cave in to the cravings (stress and worry doesn't help the situation -- I am such a heavy emotional eater), and have to reset again. I've had a couple weeks here and there of really good eating, and have lost 2 lbs here and there, only to gain it back the next week when I am out with friends or give in the goodies that I crave. I think to really kick the cravings I have to eat super clean (no cheats at all) for 2 weeks in a row. Every time i start again, it is such a struggle to detox my body. It has been much better being held accountable with my friend Gus. We record what we eat and report it to each other every week.

3. motivation: my tightly-fitting pants should be enough motivation for me to stop eating bad things and go out for a run, but I have seriously lacked motivation lately. All I want to do is sit on my butt in front of the tv and waste away my time. I think it's because I am burned out from being overworked, and I just want to take a break. From EVERYTHING. Sometimes I feel like things are so challenging (work, friends, dogs, family), that I just want to give up and not try anymore. I know I'm supposed to be motivational and positive (positive thinking is what gets things done... and i HATE being Debbie Downer), but there are times where EVERYTHING seems daunting.

I took a week-long vacation last week to Vegas and home to Utah in hopes of refreshing myself. I am taking another week-long vacation at the end of July with family in hopes of keeping it up. I just got back from the first vacation yesterday, but because of the timing of everything, had to leave the dogs with my parents in Utah until I go back for the second vacation. My house is so empty without them. :( I've had even less motivation to go out and do things, although ironically enough, now i have the freedom to do them without feeling guilty about leaving the dogs at home. My mind is such a booby trap for me. I will come up with any excuse not to be active... it's pathetic.

I'm hoping... no. Make that I'm going to clean things up this week. I feel so disappointed in myself, and i can't stand this feeling. The trick is to use this as positive motivation, and not get so depressed that i wallow and give up.

I'll close with a motivational quote from the wall of "the box" aka, the crossfit irvine gym: "When I can run, I run, when I have to walk, I walk, when I am forced to crawl, I crawl, rest and live to fight another day”