Tag Archives: 2019

Some New Year Workouts (or Finishing Out 2019 and Kicking Off 2020)

Posted on January 6, 2020 | Comments Off on Some New Year Workouts (or Finishing Out 2019 and Kicking Off 2020)

The past week of workouts included my last few workouts of 2019 and my first few workouts of 2020. It was a good way to end and start a year and it was exactly what I wanted to do. Because I wanted to keep my regular workout schedule as much as possible but I also wanted to work out on New Year’s Eve, I ended up having a 5 workout week. But somehow that seemed really fitting for me.

Monday’s workout had a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it had a lot of switching around. It was a good workout to start off a week with 3 workouts in a row and a total of 5 workouts (which I rarely do). The first part of class switched between the floor and the rower and the second part of class had one longer cardio block and one longer floor block.

For the first part of class, everything was 3 minutes long. On the rower, we had 2 different 3-minute rows for distance. The goal was to be able to go further on the second row than we did on the first, but I didn’t realize we were going to have 2 rounds of it and I probably went a little too hard on the first attempt. I still did better than I expected with both rows, but I wish I had been able to do better on the second row. And on the floor, the first time we were there we had plank rotations and bicycle crunches. And the second time we had bench hop overs and seated knee tucks.

For the long floor block, we had squats to calf raises, lateral lunges, plank low rows, plank side toe taps, and sit-ups to squats. It was a long floor block with a lot of work, and I was already a bit tired after the other work we did. But I was grateful that the switches were different from how they normally are and I had the long floor block before my cardio block. So I had a bit more energy even though I was tired. For all the exercises we had with weights, I didn’t go too heavy with them, but I did try to switch them up when I felt like they might be too easy.

And for cardio, we had 4 rounds of a 2-minute run/bike for distance. Each time we finished the distance challenge, we got a bit more recovery. After the first one, we only had 60 seconds and before the last one, we had 2 minutes. I kept my resistance level on the bike the same the entire time and just focused on speed work. 2 minutes is a good amount of time for a challenge because it’s a bit harder than most of the all outs we have to do, but it’s not too long that I can’t recover after. Plus, since all we had were the distance challenges, I didn’t have to worry about going back to my base speed after it. It did feel a bit weird to end on the bike since I rarely do that, but I felt like I had done the entire workout even if in my head I felt like I still had to do some more floor work.

I also worked out on Tuesday for my traditional New Year’s Eve workout. This class had a countdown theme and it was a 2 group class so there wasn’t a lot of switching around.

For cardio, we had a very long hill workout. We had 10 rounds of 1 minute at an incline (going down 1% each round) and between each round, we had 75-seconds to recover. Because I can’t do too high with the resistance levels on the bike, I decided to double up each level. So I did level 16 for the first 2 rounds, level 15 for the next 2, and so on. For reference, level 10 is my regular level and what I set it at for the recovery time. It was a lot of hill work, but fortunately, the minute went by quickly and we had a good amount of recovery time before having to get back to hill work.

On the floor, we started with a 700-meter row. Then we had countdown work with push-ups and pop jacks. We started with 10 push-ups and 9 pop jacks. Then 8 push-ups and 7 pop jacks. We worked all the way down to 1 and then it was back on the rower for a 500-meter row. Then countdown reps with lunges for the even number rep counts and lateral flys with weights for the odd number rep counts. Then back to the rower for a 300-meter row and squats for the even number rep counts and low rows on the straps for the odd number rep counts. And finally, on the rower for a 100-meter row and leg lifts for the even number rep counts and toe reaches for the odd number rep counts. It was a lot of work and a lot of reps for each exercise, but I think it didn’t feel as bad as it could have because we were constantly changing what exercise we were doing.

My goal for 2019 was to be able to do at least 200 workouts, and after my New Year’s Eve class, the total for the year was 207. That was pretty amazing to see.

Even though it meant I worked out 3 days in a row, I was also in class for Wednesday to kick off the new year. I didn’t go as early as I usually do, so it was a 2 group class instead of a 3 group class. But it was a good workout to start off my 2020 workouts.

For cardio, we had rounds of push to all outs. We started with a 1-minute push pace with a 1-minute all out. After a recovery, we had a 2-minute push pace to a 1-minute all out. Then it was a 3-minute push pace to a 1-minute all out. And we ended with a 4-minute progressive push to a 1-minute all out. I kept the bike resistance level the same the entire time and I really had to focus on my wattage and speed during the progressive push to make sure I was increasing them every minute. It’s not as easy to do that as it is to increase the resistance, but I really like keeping the resistance steady unless we are doing hill work.

On the floor, we had exercises plus a little bit of rowing. The first block had lunges to upright rows, regular lunges, and side planks with leg lifts. After doing one round of all the exercises, we had a 400-meter row. Then we just worked on the exercises for the rest of the block. The second block had step-ups (which I modified to be squats) and planks with leg lifts. Just like with the first block, we did one round of the exercises and then a 400-meter row. And after the row, it was only the exercises until the class was done. I did have some hip issues during the floor work, but that could have been because it was my 3rd workout in a row.

I was back to my normal class schedule by Friday. And it was an extra special class because my friend Jesse was in town (she lives back east now) and she took class with our group of friends. We were missing one person from the group, but it was still so much fun to have her back for one class.

This class was made up of 4-minute blocks and the cardio and rower switched every 4 minutes. Since I started on the bike, my workout went bike, rower, bike, rower, bike, rower (my bike time had 2 blocks on the bike and 1 on the rower and the rower time had 2 rower blocks and 1 bike one). Every time we were doing cardio or rowing, we had the same thing. For cardio, it was doing .25 miles (1 mile for the bike) and then we had a 30-second recovery before doing 30-second intervals of all outs and recovery. And on the row, it was a 500-meter row and then after that it was lunges until the 4 minutes were done. I did the lunges for most of the rowing blocks, but I switched to squats toward the end.

And on the floor, we also had 4-minute blocks. Each block had 2 exercises and most of them were Bosu exercises. The first block had pullovers with weights and side to side push-ups, both using the Bosu. The second block had kneeling lateral raises with weights and plank spiderman. They were both supposed to be on the Bosu but I didn’t use it for the plank work and put my hands on the floor instead. And the last block had hip hinge low rows with weights and plank jacks. The plank jacks were supposed to be on the Bosu, but I skipped that because I knew I couldn’t guarantee my feet would be stable enough on it (which is the point, but it’s a risk with my hips).

And since it was a special class with Jesse there, we had to take a group photo when we were done!

Saturday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. It was also supposed to be a workout where we added to our base pace. While I do want to work on increasing my base resistance on the bike this year, I also knew that this wasn’t going to be the workout for me to do it. Doing 5 workouts in a week is tough for me and I was feeling sore. So I had to take this workout as a bit of a recovery day.

For cardio, it was a mix of push and base paces to start. Then it was a mix of base paces with incline and base paces at no incline. This was to test if the new base pace was the right one. For me, I just kept the bike resistance level at my normal level for most of the work and increased it for the incline work. I didn’t go as fast as I normally do, but that’s to be expected with a recovery day. Most of the intervals were 1-minute, but in the end we started to have 30-second push paces instead which made it easier for me.

On the rower, we started with a 400-meter row. Then we had medicine ball squats after the row before doing another 400-meter row. After that row, it was a different medicine ball squat exercise. Then we repeated that pattern with a 300-meter row twice and 200-meter rows twice. I didn’t get past the 200-meter rows because my squats took a bit longer than normal, but at least my rowing was still good.

And on the floor, we had 3 blocks of work. The first block had suitcase squats with holding a weight in one hand, sumo squats, and step-ups (which I did as lunges). The second block had goblet squats and bench tap squats. And the last block had seated shoulder presses to stands (which I had to split into 2 exercises) and single-leg v-ups. It was a lot of lower body work and a lot of work that involved my hips, so I was feeling a bit sore after class was done. But it was my normal soreness and nothing too extreme which was good.

I’m so happy that I was able to end 2019 with awesome workouts and beating my goal number of workouts for the year. And I started 2020 off with 3 workouts even though it was only half the week, so that’s a good start for my goal for this year. It’s crazy to me that it’s only been a few years that I’ve been ending and starting years with workouts because it feels so perfect and routine to me now. And now I’ve got an entire year that will be filled with workouts before I get to end and start a year this way again.

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Looking Back At My 2019 Goals (or I Might Have Forgotten To Work On Some Of These)

Posted on December 31, 2019 | Comments Off on Looking Back At My 2019 Goals (or I Might Have Forgotten To Work On Some Of These)

I can’t believe that it’s the last day of 2019! I know I’ve been saying this for a few weeks already, but it’s true. Every year seems to be flying by faster than the year before and I still am in shock that this year is over. And part of that shock is the fact that I might have forgotten to work on my goals as much as I usually do. But I did try my best with many of these goals and it’s time to look back at what I set out to do and what I actually accomplished.

I had 2 categories for my goals this year. My normal goals and my Orangetheory goals. Even though I had separate posts for each category, I’m going to do my end of the year wrap up in just one post.

For my normal goals, I wanted to do 200 Orangetheory classes, find a new job, reduce and eliminate recurring spending, work toward living a more minimalistic life, spend my free time in a better way, and take my blog and social media to the next level. I feel like I was 50/50 on these goals.

I will have done 207 Orangetheory classes this year (my last class will be after this post goes up). This was the easiest goal for me and I didn’t question that I would be able to get it done. I also was able to eliminate some of my recurring spending and looked more carefully at what recurring charges I had in my life. There weren’t a lot of things I eliminated, but there were a few things like magazine subscriptions that I wasn’t aware was charging me that I was able to cancel. And I didn’t exactly get into a more minimalistic lifestyle, but I took a lot of steps toward it and I feel so much better about my home and how things are organized here.

While I did do some job hunting, I wasn’t successful in finding a new job. And over the past few months, I haven’t really been working on it the way that I know I need to. My contract for my data entry job did get extended for a few more months, so I do still have a bit of a buffer. But I know that I can’t keep putting this off and I need to get more serious about my job hunting. As far as spending my free time in a better way, I don’t think I really accomplished this. I did end up having less free time this year due to new responsibilities in my life, but I don’t feel like that counts as doing better with my free time. But I have been figuring out better things to do with my time and I hope I can start implementing those soon. And as far as taking my blog and social media to the next level, I took some tiny steps toward this and I know the next big steps I need to do for my social media. But those big steps require some more prep time and I just haven’t been able to do them. But I have found that I might not want to take my blog to the next level the way I used to. It’s something I’m still looking into, but for now, I think taking this year to try to do that made me realize how I don’t necessarily want to.

And for my Orangetheory goals, I wanted to do 200 workouts, use the bike more than the treadmill, get a new PR on the rower, track my work on the floor like I do for cardio and rowing, and bring more friends to class with me. These goals are not quite 50/50, but I actually feel like I was more successful with them.

As I wrote above, I did over 200 classes and it wasn’t that hard for me to do that. I’m still impressed that I have been able to maintain the schedule that I have set for myself. And I can’t believe that a few months ago I did my 1,000th class! And I only used the bike for my cardio work this year. I never stepped on a treadmill and I’m so happy about that. I honestly don’t think I will use the treadmill anymore because I have found I can do much better work on the bike. It’s no longer something I do because I’m nauseous. It’s something that I put energy into doing better with and that is exactly the mindset I wanted to get to when I set this goal.

But for the rest of my Orangetheory goals, I really didn’t accomplish them. I didn’t get any new PRs on the rower, although I did come close. And I only tracked a few of my floor workouts, but I discovered that it just wasn’t easy for me to do it since there is so much variation with what we do on the floor. And while I have talked to so many friends about coming with me to a class, I haven’t quite gotten them to join me. But I know they will soon. But one of the things I wanted to get out of having more friends come to class is to have more friends in a workout with me. While I didn’t get friends into class, I have made more friends in my class. I have more friends in all of my classes so I am working out with more of my friends. But they are friends I made at Orangetheory and not friends I brought into Orangetheory. Technically I didn’t accomplish the goal, but I did accomplish the result I wanted.

Even though I wasn’t really successful in accomplishing about half my goals, I feel like I did way better than that. I think I had set new goals for myself that weren’t ones I set in January, so I’ve been thinking about revamping my annual goals more often. But I’m still debating on that. I’m so proud of what I was able to get done and what I learned when I wasn’t able to get other goals done. And I think all of that will be helping me with my goals I will be setting for myself in 2020!

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Reflecting On My 2019 Word (or Did I Trust Enough Or Too Much?)

Posted on December 27, 2019 | Comments Off on Reflecting On My 2019 Word (or Did I Trust Enough Or Too Much?)

With the year wrapping up, it’s time to look back at what goals and ideas I had at the beginning of the year. My next few posts will be covering different aspects of this and I was debating about what I wanted to start with for the past few days. But I decided that I wanted to start with my word for 2019.

As a reminder, my word for the year was “Trust“. This was an important word for me to choose for so many reasons. My main focus was that I wanted to be able to put more trust in others because I knew I had closed myself off. I also knew that I wasn’t always thinking the best of people and I hated that I didn’t have that as a mindset anymore. But I also wanted to work on trusting myself and what will come. So much of that needed trust was about what others thought of me or saw in me. I wanted to trust that I was worth it, even if I struggled with that thought.

This ended up being the perfect word for me for this past year because I had to put a lot of trust into many different people and situations. And for the most part, I would say this was a positive experience for me. I was able to have belief in friends that I might not have given them before. If someone said they would confirm something with me later, I didn’t stress too much about it wondering if they forgot about me. Of course, I wasn’t perfect with this and I did sometimes worry that I was forgotten, but I decided that I could wait the situation out before automatically thinking that I couldn’t trust or believe them to do it.

I also had some trust in my job situation and while it hasn’t gotten to a place I want it to be, it’s much better. I feel much more secure in my main day job and I think I’m in an ok place with the other job. I will be refocusing my job hunt again starting next month, but I don’t stress as much as I did before with all the issues I’ve encountered with work. Even with my customers making complaints about things that are out of my control, I am able to trust that my bosses know what is really happening and that my job isn’t at risk.

But the biggest place that I knew I wanted to put more trust in my life is with dating. I wanted to believe that I could trust someone with my feelings and that I didn’t have to always be on guard. And there were several times that I was able to be open and comfortable when I don’t think I would have been that way before. It never worked out the way that I wanted it to, but it wasn’t always bad. When I was open and honest with someone and they tell me that they don’t want to see me again, it hurts but I also don’t have regrets because I know that I was my real self. And putting that little bit of trust in others was necessary for me to be fully in my date and not putting on an act or hiding too much of myself.

But as I expected it might happen, putting this trust in my dating life did also backfire at times. I gave people trust who didn’t deserve it. Or I gave them more trust than I should have and I needed to be a bit more protective of myself. I allowed a few guys to take that trust and use it against me. And it hurt a lot when that happened. I wish I hadn’t allowed myself to trust that way and it made me question if I was being too naive or letting someone take advantage of me. But I have realized that these guys were going to betray me no matter how much or how little trust I gave them. I had blinders to who they really were and that wasn’t necessarily my fault. They only showed me one part of themselves and I gave them that trust based on that. And while I do regret giving them that trust and faith, I also know that if I hadn’t done so that they still would have done the same things that hurt me and I probably would feel the same.

Looking back at the past year, I do think I put more trust out in my life and that it was a worthwhile thing to do. I think I needed to do this to find new boundaries and ideas with myself and how I think of others. Even with the few regrets I had, I know they have made me a better and stronger person and has allowed me to see how I can put trust out there without putting my emotions at risk. This was something I needed and I think that it made the year better for me. And I know these lessons are ones that I will continue to do in 2020.

I won’t be revealing my word for 2020 for about another week, but I have to say that having “Trust” as my word this year helped guide me to my word next year. I love it when these words of the year connect and help continue my journey. It just feels so perfect and meant to be.

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I Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020)

Posted on December 3, 2019 | Comments Off on I Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020)

Last month, I did a repeat monthly challenge. I’ve attempted to write my book about online dating for several years now and I’ve never been able to complete that challenge. I knew going into it this past month that even if I complete the challenge it doesn’t necessarily mean that I finish a book. But I wanted to see what I could get done and I was hoping it would be better than my past attempts.

I had changed what my book was going to be about when I thought about it earlier this year. Instead of just telling stories about dates I went on and guys I met, I wanted to organize it into lessons I’ve learned through dating. This allowed me to work on the book without figuring out where things were going or needing to have an ending to it. This book has the potential to be a work in progress with new chapters for a while, so I didn’t want to have to feel like I needed a way to wrap things up. And by making it more about life lessons got me into that mindset.

I was following the NaNoWriMo plan again this year as I had in the past. I knew that I might have some days where I wrote more words than I needed to and other days would be fewer words. My goal was to work on one lesson (or one chapter) a day. And while I had done a lot of research and planning, I knew I would need to plan more lessons during the month because I wasn’t going to have enough. It wasn’t always easy, but I figured out how to split things up differently and new lessons to add so I had enough to work on one a day. And on Saturday, the last day of the month, I made it to the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words!

Writing this book ended up being very therapeutic for me. I had to work through some things that I didn’t realize I wasn’t completely over. I had to revisit some moments that are not positive or that I am ashamed or embarrassed about. I had to be brutally honest with myself as I wrote things because I’m not always the hero of the story. Every day that I worked on the book, new emotions came up but at the same time, I found new peace with some things as well. I didn’t realize how much I needed to write this book for me.

Since I know this is still a work in progress, I don’t want to say that I finished a book. There are still things that may change about it, but I have a full draft of the book as of right now. And I want to start working on the editing process on the chapters I have completed so far. I have several friends who have offered to read it, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that just yet. I can do some editing on my own first and that’s what I plan on doing. Hopefully, soon I will feel ready to share it with some friends for some feedback and editing. And then after that, I can do some more research on what it would take to get my book published in the future.

For this month, I wanted to do another reflective monthly challenge. Not only is this the last month of the year, but it’s also the last month of the decade. That seems monumental and made me think about how I started this decade. I was in the middle of a lot of change and it was a very chaotic time for me. This decade hasn’t always been the best, but I think that I’m in the best place I’ve ever been in with my life so far. And I want to continue doing that into the next decade (and beyond).

So my plan for this month is to spend the time preparing to kick off the new year and new decade as my best self. I want to work on being in the best place I can mentally and working toward the best place physically. And some of the mental work includes working on my physical space, which is something I have been working on lately. I’ve been cleaning up my house and getting it more organized. I’ve been working on finding new ways to store things so my space doesn’t feel as cluttered. It’s been a process, but I’m feeling much better about how my house looks now.

I need to do some serious organizing work with my kitchen and it feels right to do that before the new year. I want to find ways to use my kitchen more and more efficiently. I also have a plan to do some food reaction testing soon and I need to have my kitchen in a good place to do that the best I can. I’m also looking at other things around my house that I want to change because I have lived here for almost 10 years now and some things are things I got when I moved here. I think updating my space after 10 years seems right.

I’m so excited that I’ve finished my first draft of my book (so far) and that I’m in such a good headspace for the new year. Now, I just want to make sure I’m continuing to work on those things so I can kick of 2020 with a bang!

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Under 90 Days Left In The Year (or Doing A Bit Of Reflecting)

Posted on October 9, 2019 | Comments Off on Under 90 Days Left In The Year (or Doing A Bit Of Reflecting)

Life has been crazy for me lately, but I’ve had a bit of a break over the past few days. I spent a lot of the time when things were calmer getting stuff done that I had been putting off. I also spent some time catching up on social media. While I do run some social media accounts, I haven’t really done a lot on social media for myself. And when I was catching up on seeing what other people have been up to, I saw a lot of posts from a few days ago talking about how there are only 90 days left in 2019.

I have said this a million times, but I have no clue where the time went. I was just thinking about how I should figure out if I was going to do something for my birthday, and my birthday was 2 months ago! I think I missed the chance to do that, but there’s always my half birthday. I know that time flew by because I have been very busy and my life is quite repetitive. From week to week, things do tend to stay the same for me. I have a similar schedule every day and even the things I do outside of work tend to be similar. And things have been crazy with trying to fit a lot of stuff in when I’m not working and things tend to chunk up together so I have a cycle of being extremely busy followed by a time where I don’t have much planned.

But I started to think more about what I have done this year and what I still want to do. I took another look at the various goals I set for this year and I’m glad that I have been making some progress on them. I don’t think I’ll be successful with all of the goals I set this year, but it would be a miracle if that happened. The goals I set are a mix of those that I know I can do and some that are more difficult. My priority is to get the ones accomplished that I know I can do plus a few of the harder ones. I think I’ll be able to do that this year, but I also want to make sure that I’m not being complacent and just doing the goals that I can do without much thought.

But I also can add some more goals for the last 90ish days of the year. I don’t exactly know what I want to get done, but I want there to be a change in my life. I have been living a life that doesn’t seem like a lot gets done or changes. And I need a change in my life. I am tired of living the same day over and over again. There are so many things that I want to change about my life that I’m not in control of, and I need to think beyond those. If I just focus on the changes that require someone else, I won’t make the changes that I can do on my own. And I think my focus has not been on the ones I’m in control of. I don’t quite know what those changes are just yet, but I know there are things I can do. And I’d love to work on them (or at least figure out what they are) during these last 90ish days of the year.

This is all still such an abstract idea for me because I have just been doing some thinking about it and not planning or doing any action steps. And I know I have been aware of this before and I haven’t been able or willing to make changes. I don’t know how many attempts it will take in order to finally make the change, but hopefully, it will happen one day. I don’t want to have 10 years go by and realize I’m still living the same life. I’m shocked when I realized how many years I’ve been working at this job because I don’t know how time went by without a lot of changes. I want to make sure that my life is as awesome as I want it to be, but it’s not there yet.

I don’t always love using the calendar to set goals and plans. I do set goals at the beginning of each year, but sometimes those goals are already things I’ve been working on. I don’t believe in waiting until the first of the month or a Monday to start a new plan. But for some reason, knowing there were only 90 days left in the year connected to me and got me to think about how I want to end out this year. I want to have some things to think about as accomplishments for 2019 and it’s not too late to start working on them.

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A Mid-Point Check In (or Some Slacking and Some Progress)

Posted on July 3, 2019 | Comments Off on A Mid-Point Check In (or Some Slacking and Some Progress)

Since it is halfway through the year, I wanted to do a check in with my goals for 2019. I’ll be doing a separate check in with the goals I have for Orangetheory, this post is just about the personal goals I set for myself this year.

The first goal I have for the year technically is an Orangetheory goal. And that is to do 200 workouts this year. This goal is the one that I was worried the least about. I felt very confident when I set this goal for myself and I still feel confident. I have already done over 100 workouts so I’m making great progress toward this goal. It almost felt like a bit of a cheat goal because I don’t feel like it’s that hard for me to do it. But I am going to 4 workouts a week which I guess can count as hard work. But because that is almost a routine for me, I don’t have to work hard to get my workouts in. I shouldn’t be discounting this goal and making it seem like I’m not trying, but that’s how I feel especially when compared to my other goals.

The next goal I have for this year is to find a new job. When I wrote my goals post, I didn’t have my temporary job that just ended. And that temporary job did pay better than my past few contracts that ran for a full year. So hopefully with some smart budgeting, I should be ok this year. But I want to be better than just ok. I want to feel secure with my money and not have this feeling that I constantly need to find my next job. I know I’ve been slacking on the job hunt because of the hours I put in with the temporary job, but I still would love to have a new job situation before the year is over.

The next goal I have is to reduce recurring spending. This is one I feel like I am making a little progress on. I have canceled all my magazine subscriptions which helped. I was almost done with all the magazines I was getting, but some of them still showed up and I discovered that I had auto-pay set for them. So I made sure to cancel them all and that was one of the specific things I wanted to work on. The other recurring spending has been a bit tough to get rid of, but I’ve been working on finding products that are either reusable or that work for more than one thing so I don’t have to shop as often. And I’m still looking at what I throw out regularly so I can see if there is an alternative to what I’ve been using.

Next, I said I want to work on living a more minimalistic life. This one I’m a bit unsure if I’ve made progress or not on. Some of the things that have helped have been the reusable things I have been buying to help with my spending. And I haven’t done much clothing shopping even though I do plan on doing that and working through the clothes I have. But as far as random clutter, I do think I have gotten better at not buying things and that has helped. But I know that I need to do more work on getting rid of things.

I also want to work on spending my free time in a better way. And this one is still one that I need to really start working on. I have been doing some more productive things between customers like working, but there’s still a lot of time that I spend doing mindless things and I need to work on making this better. I don’t know what I should be doing, but I have been looking into finding some hobbies to help fill my free time. I don’t have a lot of hobbies outside of reading and I’d love to find something that feels a bit creative or leads me to create something physical so I see the end result of my work. But I don’t know what that is yet and I don’t want to do a lot of things that cost money just to figure out what I like.

And the last goal I have for this year is to bring my blog and social media to the next level. This one I don’t feel like I’ve made any progress toward. The only thing that can count a bit is the work I’ve been doing on social media for my union slate because that has helped me learn some new tricks. But I haven’t been applying them to my personal social media much and I do need to work on that. And the blog is still in the same place it has always been and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be ok with that. My motivation to step things up isn’t where it was before and I have other things I’d prefer to put my time and energy toward right now. So I might just give up on this goal until I feel the push to do it again.

Overall, I really wish I was in a better place with the goals I have for this year. I have made progress with some of them, but I feel like I should be further along with most of them. I know that I’ve had a bit of a rough beginning to the year with a lot of things on my plate, but I can’t use that as an excuse for not working toward things that I want to do. I just need to step it up more for this second half of the year so my recap at the end of the year is a bit better.

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New Year’s Eve In PJs (or I Think This Is Finally My Last NYE Post)

Posted on January 8, 2019 | Comments Off on New Year’s Eve In PJs (or I Think This Is Finally My Last NYE Post)

I’ve been writing about the new year for forever now! I’ve had a lot that I wanted to cover and I didn’t want to cram things into a single post. I like having the time to allow myself to reflect on the past year and be excited about the year to come. But I think I’m finally at my last post about the new year.

For the past few years, I’ve spent New Year’s Eve with my friends at a party. It was driving home from that party 2 years ago that my car died and I ended up getting a new (used) car. I love going to that party for so many reasons. Of course, I love getting to spend time with my friends. Any opportunities I get to hang out with amazing people is something I want to do. I also love the party because it’s very low-key and casual. I don’t have to dress up or be super social. I just get to hang out with my friends and it’s perfect.

This year, that party wasn’t going to happen. My friends do so many parties all the time, so we all understood they couldn’t host one. Plus, they have a puppy and the dog isn’t really used to be crowds yet. So if they had a party they would have had to board their dog at a dog hotel and they wanted to ring in the new year with their puppy. All completely understandable things.

I had been invited to a few other parties, but I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to go out. I had been feeling a bit lazy and I knew any of the other parties I was invited to would be much less casual than what I was hoping to do. I did message a couple of friends to see if anyone wanted to come over and watch movies and order pizza, but I think everyone was feeling the same as I was. Nobody was really the motivated to leave their house and be social. It was kind of funny that we all felt the same, but it also made it easier when we all decided not to really do much.

So I spent my New Year’s Eve alone at my house. I ordered some food and watched movies on tv. I had been dressed in workout clothes earlier that day for my workout, but after I showered and got dressed I spent the rest of the day in my pjs. I did stay up until midnight, but I was in bed ready to go to sleep when the clock stuck midnight. And pretty soon after that I was asleep.

I know that in the past I probably would have been upset about spending the night alone, especially after asking friends if they wanted to come over. But I was actually very happy and excited about how I spent my night. I could have made an effort and gone to a party, but I really didn’t want to and I wasn’t going to force myself to do that. And I didn’t feel bad that my friends didn’t want to come over because I was doing the same thing to them. This wasn’t anything against me or a reason to think my friends are against me. It was just what it was and there are no feelings about it.

I feel like that is a huge sign of growth. I didn’t overthink things or stress out about why it happened. I knew what I wanted to do with my evening and I didn’t let anyone make me feel like I should do any different. And I didn’t make my friends feel like they should do something different from what they wanted to do.  Of course I would have loved to have been with my friends to celebrate 2019, but that’s not what was meant to be.

Of course, just because I enjoyed spending my New Year’s Eve alone doesn’t mean that I won’t be planning a lot of adventures with my friends this year. I hope that the year will be filled with so much fun with as many friends as possible and I can’t wait to see what the year brings!

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Ringing In The New Year With Workouts (or A Rare 5 Workout Week)

Posted on January 7, 2019 | Comments Off on Ringing In The New Year With Workouts (or A Rare 5 Workout Week)

I had a pretty amazing end to my 2018 workouts and start to my 2019 workouts. Because of the days that the holidays fell on, it also had me doing 5 workouts in a week which I rarely do. But I didn’t want to change up my regular schedule nor did I want to miss a New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day workout.

Monday’s workout was my last workout of 2018 and I think I ended the year with a pretty good class! It was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was a 3 group class so we switched sections of the room every 15 minutes. And it had a theme of counting down with squats so it was a very fitting class for New Year’s Eve!

On cardio we had hill work. I was on the bike so it was resistance level work. Each block we had decreasing inclines/resistances levels using base pace and all out pace. There were 3 blocks in the cardio work and after each block we had to do squats. We started at 12 and went down 1 squat each block.

Next I was on the rower which had sprint rows with medicine ball squat rotations and continuing the countdown of squats. We started with 1 minute rows and went down 10 seconds each round. I wasn’t pushing myself the way I know I can on the rower, but I was more focused on my form because I could feel it getting sloppy after doing all the squats.

And finally I was on the floor where we had sumo squats, frogger squats, bicep curls, pull ups on the straps, and double crunches. And of course we continued the countdown of squats that we had done for cardio and the rower. I don’t know if I was just going really slow or if it was just really tough to make it down to 1 squat because I only got down to the round of 4.

This workout was my 206th and final workout of the year and I had to do a little bit of reflection when I was done with class. It might not have been the year where I had the biggest accomplishments, but it was the year that I was most consistent with going 4 days a week. That counts for a lot and I love that I got to end on such a high note after having so many classes where I was feeling down on myself.

I usually don’t workout on Tuesdays, but I felt like I had to this time since it was New Year’s Day and I always work out then. It was a power workout and also a 3 group class so all of the blocks were only 4 minutes long. It was a class that before I would have wished I could be on the treadmill, but I consciously made the choice to think about it as an amazing class to work on my bike speed.

All of the blocks for cardio were the same pattern: push pace, base pace, push pace, base pace, and all out pace. The difference was we increased the time on the first push pace and decreased the time on the all out pace each block.

I was using my new base, push, and all out resistance levels on the bike and I really focused on trying to go as fast as I could for the push and all out paces. It was a bit tough with the resistance levels being the new levels, but I’m working on getting used to them and this class really helped. And my work paid off because the distance I got on the bike was very close to what I can usually do in a 2 group class (when we have more time on cardio).

On the rower, each block was the same format with rounds of a timed row and squats between each round. We started with 30 second rows, the second block was 45 second rows, and the last block was 1 minute rows. I tried to push myself harder than I have in a long time for the first 30 second row and was shocked at how well I did! I haven’t tracked 30 second rows before, but it was over half the distance of my 1 minute row PR so I knew it had to be good! I went easy on the rest of the rows that block and during the next block because I really wanted to go all out on my first 1 minute row. This row has been one that I’ve struggled with because I know that I can get 300 meters for a 1 minute row when I really push myself. But it’s been a long time since I could do that and I wanted to see if I could. I really thought it was possible and I was flying with all my power on the rower, but unfortunately I was 8 meters short when the clock stopped. It’s not easy to get over that disappointment, but I also know I will have many more opportunities to try for it. And this was one of the closest rows I’ve gotten to doing 300 meters in a minute so that is something to be proud of.

On the floor, we had one long block but it was split into 3 mini-blocks. The first mini-block was single arm squat swings and upright rows. The second was speed skater lunges and arm raises. And the last was plank pull throughs and sit-ups. Each mini-block was supposed to be done 3 times before moving on to the next one, and if we finished it we were supposed to do all the exercises as one long block. I made it through to the end and was just starting on doing them as one long block when the class was over.

Wednesday was a strength day and I was so glad to be on the bike. First, I’ve learned that I do my best cardio for strength days on the bike since I can do much more with resistance levels than I can with incline. But also it was my third workout in a row and I rarely have 3 days in a row. I knew I’d be tired and want to go easy on myself, but I had no idea how badly I’d need that until I started class.

There were 3 blocks for cardio and to be honest I didn’t exactly do what we were supposed to do. During the warmup I was starting to feel nauseous and light-headed and couldn’t figure out why. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be nauseous yet and was worried I was getting sick or something. But after the warmup, I realized that I had forgotten to eat dinner the night before. I don’t eat before a workout, but I also don’t usually skip dinner the night before the workout. So I had to take it easy and I did close to what we were supposed to do which was alternate between base and push paces. It was not a good day on the bike for me, but I did what I could and that was better than doing nothing.

On the floor we had 3 blocks and they all had a type of lunge, a type of ab exercise, and single leg sit to stands using the bench. For the lunges, I had to modify things because they all included a type of step up which I can’t do. So I did regular lunges and lateral lunges. The ab work was straight leg raises, leg raises to crunches, and plank work. And the single leg sit to stand started at 1 rep and we kept going up every round. I wasn’t sure I could do these because I can’t really do single leg stuff, but I was able to do it with keeping my opposite heel on the ground. I was so happy that I could do them and felt proud of myself, which made up for feeling so gross during cardio.

Friday was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and a 3 group workout. And it was also when my hormonal nausea started so I was grateful that all of our blocks during the workout were under 4 minutes and we switched areas of the room after each block.

On cardio, every time we were supposed to have a .25 mile push pace (1 mile on the bike) and then a walking recovery for 45 seconds before doing a push pace until the block ended. I did the first block that way, but then I realized that I was taking enough random breaks to wait for my nausea to pass so I really didn’t need the 45 second recovery. So I did the remaining blocks as a push pace the entire time and stopped whenever I needed to wait out the wave of nausea.

On the rower we had the same thing every time as well. We started with a 400 meter row and then had squats. Then the row went down to 250 meters and more squats. We were supposed to end with a 100 meter row and squats, but I never made it to even the second round of squats. I always finished out the block in the middle of my 250 meter row. I was slow, I wasn’t able to work that hard, and I had to take a lot of breaks. But I did it.

The floor is where we had a bit more variety, but we had double sets so we worked the same muscles twice in a row. The first block was focused on doing chest presses so we had them first with dumbbells and then on the straps. The second block was tricep focused so we did overhead triceps with weights and then triceps on the straps. The last block we had chest flys and tricep extensions using weights on the bench so it wasn’t exactly a double set. But my arms were feeling it after this class!

Saturday I was still nauseous but feeling a bit better than I had on Friday. So with the power workout we had I really tried to work hard on the bike. We had 6 little blocks for cardio and they were all a push, base, all out pattern. For 3 of the blocks the push was 90 seconds and for 3 of them the push was 60 seconds. And the base and all out varied each block too. They were really good power blocks and I was proud of myself for not even having a glimmer of a thought that I wish I had been able to do the workout on the treadmill. I was happy on the bike and proud of what I did.

On the floor we had 1 long block. There was a row and 6 exercises that added on each round. We started with a 100 meter row and 1 exercise. Then a 150 meter row and 2 exercises. It went up to a 350 meter row and all the exercises. The exercises were single arm hip hinge swings, high rows on the straps, squats using the straps, roll outs on the straps, squats, and plank work. I couldn’t do the plank work because of my nausea so I did side twists instead. We were supposed to get through all the exercises and then there was a plan to work back down, but I just finished the last of the 6 exercises when time was called. But I was glad I was able to get through everything at least once.

Even though I dealt with unexpected and expected nausea, I’m still happy with how I did this past week. Not only did I work hard, but I did a 5 workout week which is always a challenge for me. I know this week will likely be all bad nausea days, but I’m feeling more hopeful about what I can do during those days after this past week.

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Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

Posted on January 4, 2019 | Comments Off on Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

I am so excited for this post! For the past few years, I’ve written about my personal goals at the beginning of the year. And ever since I started going to Orangetheory, one of my goals has been how many classes I wanted to make it to that year. And while I’ve had other personal goals I wanted to accomplish that related to my fitness, I’ve never really shared a list of Orangetheory specific goals. But that changes this year!

I’ve made a list of some goals I have for 2019 at Orangetheory, but I didn’t want to do  this alone. So I reached out to Andrew Coleman Smith, who has a vlog channel with the amazing Fat Tuesday series where he talks about his fitness and health journey including Orangetheory, and he’s joining me with making 2019 our best OTF year yet! We are going to be holding each other accountable for our goals throughout the year and we will be checking in with each other at different times. When we have our check-ins he will be making an appearance (at least in writing) on here and I’ll be making an appearance on his YouTube channel! The vlog about us working together will be going up next week as his Fat Tuesday video, but this blog is a preview of our goals.

First, here are mine.

My first one is one that I mentioned in my main goals post. I want to do 200 workouts this year. This goal is the one that I look at as my easy goal, but I still need to make sure that I don’t slack off in getting in all my workouts each week.

Next is another one I’ve mentioned before in my workout recaps. I want to use the bike more than the treadmill for my cardio. I need to do this so I stop looking at the bike as not as good as the treadmill. I know I can work just as hard if not harder on the bike than I can on the treadmill and I need to remember that. I’m not exactly sure how I will decide what will be bike days versus treadmill days other than biking when I’m nauseous. But I’m going to be tracking what I use to make sure I stay on the bike more.

I also want to get a new PR of some sort on the rower. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a PR on the rower. When I started at Orangetheory, I was getting a PR almost every time I rowed because I started with so little rowing skills. It’s easy to make progress when you are starting at the bottom. When you get better, progress comes in smaller increments and that’s where I’ve been getting stuck. But I’m going to make more of an effort to be aware of where my current PRs are and use them to help me try to beat it in class.

Along with tracking my rowing better, I have another tracking goal. I want to track my work I do on the floor. I have been tracking things on the treadmill, bike, and rower for so long and it seems so easy for me to do that.  But I don’t really track my weights on the floor so it is harder for me to know if I’m making progress. I know I have made some progress over 4 1/2 years because I never used anything higher than 15lbs in the past. But now, I can’t remember if 20lb or 25lb is my record for different types of lunges or things like that. And I want to know and be aware of what I am doing and when I move to using heavier weights instead of guessing when that happens.

And my final goal for 2019 at Orangetheory is one that I need help with. I want to bring more friends with me to a class. I love the friends that I’ve made at OTF, but it’s so special when I get to take a class with a friend. I want to do that more often so more people in my life can know why these workouts are so special to me.

And now it’s Andrew’s turn!

My name is Andrew! Every week I document my journey to become #NotFat on my weekly YouTube series, Fat Tuesdays! I’ve recently fallen in love with Orangetheory and it’s changed my entire life! Every Tuesday I share about that journey and more. I’d love to have you stop by and check it out!

My first goal this year is to go to a minimum of 3 times a week to Orangetheory. My attendance the last few months of the year were spotty and we all know consistency is key, so I feel like this goal will ensure a lot more progress in my journey. Plus Orangetheory says themselves that 3 to 4 times a week is what you should shoot for, so it’s right on track with “crushing it”.

Next, I want to level up on my push pace. It’s crazy to think that when I first started at Orangetheory, my push pace was a brisk walking speed and now it’s a 6.5! That being said, after crossing over the one year mark in my journey, I think it’s now time to up my push to a 7 (while still keeping my true base of 5.5) It’s a small change that I feel will really make a difference over the course of a year.

For my third goal, I want to FULLY prepare for my classes. My typical morning workout usually looks like this: I’m late to arrive, I can’t find any of my heart rate monitors (yes, I have multiple and yes I sometimes lose them all), I have to buy a water bottle, didn’t get proper sleep the night before… a MESS. (All things I feel a #FitnessPerson shouldn’t do)

And finally, be a better tracker. I’m all about documenting my progress with my health journey on my YouTube channel, but I don’t have the right stats. I don’t know really any of my markers for benchmarks in Orangetheory nor do I have proper measurements of my body. I want to measure every few months or so and keep a detailed journal of what’s changing (since the bathroom scale doesn’t really tell the full story) I also recently took some professional before pictures as a way to get an accurate look at where I’m at in my journey at the top of the year.

So those are our goals for this year at Orangetheory! If you have any fitness goals (Orangetheory or otherwise), I know we’d both love to know more about them! And please hold us both accountable as well. Andrew and I will be making sure that we hit our goals, but having more people checking in on us will be helpful too!

Here’s to us all having our best fitness year ever!

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My First Challenge Of 2019 (or Planning And Education)

Posted on January 3, 2019 | Comments Off on My First Challenge Of 2019 (or Planning And Education)

Another post about the beginning of the year! This time, it’s about my monthly challenge for January so technically it’s not just about the beginning of the year. I’m in my 4th year of using the Volt Planner and the monthly challenges and I’m really excited to see what I’m able to get done this year!

My challenge for December was to plan for my challenges this year. I had some very abstract challenges in 2018 and it became easy to slack off on doing them because of that. Maybe I needed a bit of a break from my monthly challenges, but I wanted to get back at it in 2019. So I went easy on myself again in December and used that month to plan for the future. I have seen so many lists of ideas for monthly challenges and my plan was to check out a bunch of lists and pick out the ones that seemed good for the coming year.

While I did look at a ton of lists and see some amazing ideas, I wasn’t able to plan the way I hoped to. I think part of the monthly challenges is to see what inspires you and what you want to work on at that time. To plan out what I want my challenge to be several months from now just doesn’t work for me the way I was hoping it would. I found lots of challenges that I liked, but I didn’t decide what months they are going to be for. But I’m hopeful that by having a list of options available to me that it will be easier for me to pick challenges each month.

And for this month’s challenge, it was inspired by my circumstances and not exactly by the list I found. I mentioned this briefly in my 2019 goals post, but my challenge for this month is to take different free online classes. There are a bunch of different websites I have access to for free through the LA Public Library system, but I have decided to start with the classes I can find on lynda.com. I’ve heard good things about that site through other people who have used it and it seemed to have a good variety of classes I could take.

I spent a few days last week going through the site and seeing what options I have and I picked out a bunch of different ones. Some of them are related to making this blog better, some of them are job skills that I’d like to brush up on, and others are jobs skills that I don’t have but think could be good for me to know with my current jobs search. The plan is to work on a lesson for a bit every day and to get through whatever I can. I might be able to finish some in a day if they are fast, but I don’t want to have to set a rule for how quickly I need to get something done. If I’m learning a new skill, I want to allow myself time to figure it out and understand it before I move on.

I do feel like this goal has a couple of benefits for me. First, like I mentioned above, is that adding new skills to my job resume might help me in my job search. Things were slow with job hunting during the holidays but they are picking up again and I want to find a new job as soon as I can. I’m not happy being this stressed out about money and what will happen. I have had some interviews and second phases of applications, but I’m hoping now that the holidays are done that I will get more and maybe a job offer soon. And the second benefit I see this having for me is that it will help me be more productive during the downtime at my current job. I don’t want to waste my days doing things that won’t help me in the long run, and taking classes online is a great way to stay productive!

I’m pretty excited about this challenge and seeing what other classes I might want to add to my list as I go through them. It seems like there are a ton of options in so many subjects, plus I also have a few other online class sites I can use for free through the library that I can move to if I don’t find more through lynda.com. I’m also happy that I found something that is free since a few different educational things that I do are apps that have an annual cost. Anything I can find for free is good and I want to take advantage of them!

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