Category Archives: Health

Some Holiday Workouts (or Back On The Treadmill This Week)

Posted on December 28, 2015 | 1 comment

For Christmas week, my workout schedule was a bit funky. This was due to my work schedule being weird (we unexpectedly got Christmas Eve off when we were told before we had to work) and Orangetheory not being open on Christmas (which I totally get). But even with the weird schedules, I still managed to get my 3 workouts in this week.

After being on the bike all week the week before, I decided to try to the treadmill and see how it felt. Fortunately for me Monday was an easy treadmill day. The treadmill time was very short and I think the warmup was actually the longest I spent on the treadmill without a break. That was a great way to ease back into the treadmill and I was so happy to not have the shin splint issues I was having before.

My Wednesday workout was a bit tough. The class did do the treadmill blocks back to back so I was on the treadmill for about 30 minutes straight. While between blocks we got to cool down a bit (3 miles an hour instead of 3.4), it was still a long time on the treadmill. I was terrified that the shin splints would come back then, but they never reappeared. I did take things a bit easy, but I was still pushing myself a bit because I’m so close to my pre-calf injury speed. I really want to be back to where I was, but I don’t want to hurt myself.

Since Orangetheory was going to be closed on Friday, I did a workout on Thursday. Originally I scheduled it to be after work, but since my work day was cancelled I got to go in the morning! Bruce was the coach for that class and he wore the Santa hat that I got for him last year.

OTF Christmas

It was a run/row day so the time on the treadmill wasn’t as bad as the day before. That was good because I was so tired from the workout on Wednesday. With the shorter treadmill blocks I didn’t have any issues with my shin splints or calf, but my hips were starting to bug me after a few rounds because of the incline we were using. So I lowered the incline and things felt much better.

With all the focus on the treadmill this past week, it would have been easy to ignore working on my floor work. But I tried really hard to focus on the floor when I was there and forget about the work I had done on the treadmill.

I was able to use the 20 pound weights for a lot of things this week. I was using them for squats (which I’m used to doing), triceps work, and hammer curls. The 20 pound weights are still a bit tough for me, but I’m starting to notice that a lot of the time the 15 pound weights don’t cut it for me anymore. They are feeling light at times and I know that if they are feeling easy it’s really time to push myself more and if I need to move down to the 15 pound weights partway through the block, I can do so then. But I’m working on starting higher on the weights and going down if needed.

I was originally planning on working out this past Saturday, but there were some things that were potentially going to be conflicts. So I just stuck with my 3 workouts for the week and was happy with that.

The end of the year is almost here and I’m almost to my workout goal for the year. My next workout blog post will be after I’ve hit my 2015 goal and after I’ve announced my 2016 goal (and have gotten a workout or 2 done with the new goal)!

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Default ThumbnailA 4 Workout Week (or Only A Few More Weeks Of 2015 Workouts) Default ThumbnailWorking Out Into The New Year (or The End of My 2015 Workouts And Beginning of My 2016 Workouts) Default ThumbnailMy Last Workouts of Being 31 (or 174 Workouts) Default ThumbnailBalancing My Workouts (or Doing Some Planning) Default ThumbnailPre-Burning Jewish Christmas Calories (or Holiday Workouts) Default ThumbnailBirthday Workouts (or Just Having A Good Week Of Workouts)

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health

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Moving Forward With Therapy (or Educating Myself)

Posted on December 24, 2015 | Comments Off on Moving Forward With Therapy (or Educating Myself)

I saw my therapist the other day. It had been a while since I had seen him and there were several things I wanted to discuss with him. First, I wanted to make sure that none of the pain that I’ve been dealing with lately have to do with my medication (they don’t). I also wanted to show off the happiness checklist that I had worked on since our last session. I think that he’s still shocked that I am keeping this up, but he’s encouraging me to keep going.

The main thing we discussed of course was my experience so far on Vyvanse. It’s a mixed feeling for me. I feel that it is making a little bit of difference, but it’s not as much difference as I would like or expected. And while I do have prescription coverage on my health insurance, it’s not cheap to be on daily medication. The main thing I told my therapist is that I don’t feel like I’m ready to give up on it yet, but I’m still torn on my feelings. He knows my hesitation with upping the dosage because there’s only so much you can take in a day, but his recommendation was to increase the dosage a little.

Before, I was taking 20mg twice a day (morning and lunchtime). Now, I’ll be taking 30mg in the morning and 20mg at lunchtime. So far, it’s going really well. But that’s how it is every time I start a new dose. My body loves the feeling of it because it’s an increase, but I can’t keep increasing it forever. I’m hoping that this dose will continue to work past those first few days, but I’ll have to wait and see what happens. I am having other positive side effects from the medicine, so that’s good. My panic/anxiety disorder has gotten much better and more manageable (the opposite of what usually happens on Vyvanse). I also have more focus and can concentrate on work without being distracted as easily.

The other thing I discussed with my therapist is that I’m really working on taking a more active approach to battling my eating disorder. I don’t think I’ve really been passive, but there is so much more that I can do and I’m going to make an effort at it. I’ve downloaded some apps that are designed for people with eating disorders to be able to focus on the disorder and keep things objective and not subjective. Part of these apps is a reminder to eat. While you’d think that I wouldn’t need a reminder to eat, forgetting to eat is a big part of my problem. It’s mainly lunch that I forget and by the time I remember I’m starving and want to eat everything in sight. So having a reminder to eat is helpful.

I’ve also started listening to a podcast about binge eating disorders. I’ve only listed to a few episodes so far, but I’m really enjoying it. While some of the stories aren’t exactly stories that I can relate to, it’s helpful to hear what other people have done that may or may not have worked. It gives me ideas of things to try to help myself.

I’ve also gotten a couple of books about binge eating disorder to read. I’ve had some of them for a while but never felt motivated to read them (I only felt motivated when I bought them). So I’m starting with “Brain Over Binge”. I’ve heard lots of good things about this book, so I’m hoping that it will help me a bit.

With all these new things that I’m doing to work on my eating disorder, my therapist has decided that unless I feel like I need to see him sooner I don’t need to be back for six months. This is definitely a big step and even though I know that I can see him sooner if I need to, I’m hoping that I can make it through six months on my own and feeling ok about things. I’ve already scheduled my appointment for six months from now so I don’t accidentally schedule something else that day. And I’m going to be continuing my with happiness checklist so I’ll have six months of tracking to bring to my next appointment.

I have no idea if after six months I’ll continue with the Vyvanse, but I have to say that I feel more positive and that getting my eating disorder under control is closer to me now than it ever has been.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff

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There’s No Problem With Orangetheory (or My Side Of The Article)

Posted on December 22, 2015 | 4 comments

A little over a month ago, I got an email from a writer from Refinery 29. They were doing a story on Orangetheory and wanted to hear about my experience! I was so excited that someone wanted to talk to me about my workouts and agreed to a phone call with them later that day. I actually got the email while at Orangetheory so I mentioned something to the studio owner about how I was being interviewed and he seemed excited for me as well.

As soon as my phone interview started, I knew that this writer really didn’t want to hear about my Orangetheory experience. She saw my post about when I tore my calf and was asking questions about how the workout caused my injury and how they wouldn’t help me or offer me modifications. I think that any of you who are regular readers on here know that is not the case at all. Orangetheory is the first place that took my hip issues seriously and was willing to work with me to figure out how to still get in a great workout. I wasn’t happy about the interview and told some friends how I felt like she was reaching for a story that didn’t exist. But I figured that after the writer spoke to me that she wouldn’t include me in the article anymore because I was not injured because of my workouts.

Well, yesterday the article went live.

Refinery29

The article now has the click-bait title of “This Gym Chain NEEDS To Address This Important Issue”. But there really isn’t an issue that I can tell in the article. The writer went to one class and wasn’t happy with the modification options she got (she told me during our phone interview that they showed modifications but they weren’t exactly what she needed and she didn’t ask for any more help). She got the impression that nobody gets modifications and interviewed me about my injury and another member about their involvement in the weight loss challenge (I won’t be discussing what the other member talked about since I don’t know them).

The author made is seem like I had a white out of pain, complained, and my coach did nothing. That’s not how it happened at all. I’ve had white out pain issues since 2005 with my hips. Pre-surgery, I was having them dozens of times a day on average and on my bad days I’d have them with almost every step. I’m still having them 2-3 times a day, but that’s such a huge improvement over what it’s been. So the white outs don’t worry me too much.

When I tore my calf, I took a single step on the treadmill, felt a pop in my leg, and had a white out. I immediately went over to the bike because I knew I didn’t want to be on the treadmill anymore. The coach came over to me and asked if I was ok. I said that it was hurting to walk and I showed her the bruise on my leg (we had no way of knowing that was a sign of a torn calf because it looked like a normal bruise). My coach gave me modifications so I wouldn’t have to use my legs a ton for that workout and encouraged me to go to a doctor to get checked out before working out again.

While I didn’t go to a doctor, consulting with my parents helped me realize that it was a torn calf. All the things I was reading online said that doing low or no impact workouts can help fix the muscle sooner because it will keep blood flow going. I knew this from after my hip surgery because my surgeon told me that if I could go back to the gym as soon as possible, I’d have an easier recovery. And I was in the gym with my dad on the recumbent bike about 24 hours after my hip surgery. I did low impact workouts while I healed and shocked my surgeon about how fast I recovered. So why would I do anything different with a torn calf?

All the coaches gave me modifications if I asked and encouraged me to take it easy or rest if I needed to. They helped me figure out good stretches to do to help and encouraged me to do more foam rolling. They also helped me realize that getting calf sleeves would help my recovery and my future workouts.

But they were not the ones pushing me to be back in class right away. They understood that I wanted to be there because I had a routine and momentum and didn’t want to fall back into my old habits of only sporadically working out. In the past, I’ve used injuries as excuses to sit on my couch and do nothing. I’m not going to do that now.

From the comments on the article so far, it seems like most other members agree with me. Orangetheory is for everyone at every level. Yes, you might have to ask for specific modifications (as I’m quoted in the article, you have to be your own advocate and can’t depend on others to know what you need). But they have been the most flexible workout program I’ve ever been a part of. They are not scared by the fact that I’m heavy, not in the best shape, and have lots of physical issues.

I’ve dealt with trainers who don’t want to push me because I’m having a tough time, but I need to be pushed to be better. I’ve been in classes where they are so scared by my hip issues that they don’t give me a modification in fear that their modification will hurt me. And I’ve been in group workouts where I’m talked down to because the teacher assumes that I don’t understand what’s going  on and need everything dumbed down for me.

At Orangetheory, they respect me for who I am and what my goals are. They will push me and if I say that I can’t do more because of a particular reason, they will back off then but push me in other parts of the workout. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We are all in the workout to be pushed because we don’t push ourselves on our own.

I know that my blog doesn’t get the attention that Refinery 29 gets. But I want to make sure that my side of the story is heard and not just the bits and pieces of the interview that the writer has decided to share. If she included my entire interview, it would have included much of what I said here. I praised Orangetheory for being for all levels and for not being scared to work with me. I said that it was a coincidence that my calf tore in class because it could have just as easily torn getting in or out of my car that day. And I said that I went back to class right away because I wanted to, not because I was pushed or tricked into it.

To my Orangetheory family, I hope you know that the article does not reflect how I feel about you at all. I love that you guys have become my workout family and that you all care about my well-being (as well as everyone else’s). You guys make sure that everyone working out has a great class and feels like they had the best workout ever. I don’t think that you caused my calf injury or didn’t give me all the help and support I could need. You guys really are the first people who make me feel like I’m an athlete and not just someone lumbering through a workout class. Thank you for being there for me, encouraging me, and making me realize how strong I truly am.

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Weird Health Issues (or I’m Just Falling Apart)

Posted on December 18, 2015 | 1 comment

I’ve been dealing with some odd and annoying health issues lately. I have no clue what happened to me or if these things are even related, but I’m getting really sick of all this.

Of course, I always have the issues with my hips. Those are never ending and while they are annoying, it’s expected. I’ve got my painkiller routine down to a science and I’m pretty good at managing my pain. And I’m still recovering from the calf tear, but again I’m getting good at managing that too. But those are health things that I plan will affect me pretty often.

Right after Thanksgiving, I started having the strangest pain in my right arm. It started as dull pain in my shoulder, elbow, and top of my hand. Then it turned into my arm and hand being numb each morning for a while before regaining the feeling in it (it’s similar to when your hand falls asleep but lasts longer). This has been affecting me quite a bit. My painkillers don’t really touch the pain and not having feeling in my arm in the morning isn’t good. I’ve learned how to put in my contacts with my left hand and I sometimes have to wait a bit after waking up before getting dressed for the day.

I’ve mentioned this pain to my parents, but they agree that if I went to the doctor right away, their response would be to wait and come back if the pain is still there in a month or so (very similar to what I was told originally with my hip). My mom recommended an anti-inflamatory supplement and to take fish oil or flax oil (I had a bad reaction to the fish oil so I’m taking flax oil). The pain is still pretty bad, but isn’t slowly feeling better and I’m numb a little less every morning.

I thought that would be it for now, but then a few days ago I started having problems with my right eye. It’s nothing too bad (just watering a lot and my contact lens feeling funny), but when you’ve had back to back health issues the littlest thing can annoy you.

I still haven’t been to the doctor yet because the arm pain has been less than a month, but I’m starting to think that I might need to go in to see if this is something I should worry about (when I google it nothing good comes up). I’m normally very on top of my health issues, but that seems to be more when I know what caused something. Right now, everything I’ve got going on is a big mystery and might not be related to each other. I’m trying to wait it out, but I’m impatient.

Of course, I’m betting now that I’m writing this post somehow all my weird things are going to disappear within a day or two. It’s like when you take your car to the mechanic to get it fixed because you hear a weird noise and when they look at it the noise is gone. I joked to my parents that I’m falling apart in my not-so-old age, but I’m really just hoping that these are very random and unrelated things and not something I need to worry about.

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff

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Learning About “Breaking Vegan” (or An Amazing Book Giveaway!)

Posted on December 17, 2015 | 3 comments

I’m so excited to share this amazing book and giveaway with you all! But before I get to that, I wanted to give you a little back story.

I first heard of Jordan Younger when her blog post about ending her vegan diet went viral. She used to blog under the name The Blonde Vegan and changed her name to The Balanced Blonde to reflect her new lifestyle. I heard of her because I know the blogger The Balanced Brunette and someone mentioned the name similarity.

I had read the post about Jordan ending her vegan diet and was very proud of her. She had discovered that from the restrictions of the vegan diet that her food choices became more and more restrictive and ended up turning into orthorexia. There was a lot of backlash from her post including vegans being angry for her eating animal products again and from other people who didn’t believe that orthorexia was a real thing.

I could relate to people not understanding an eating disorder. I had the same issue with my binge eating disorder. At first, it wasn’t recognized as an eating disorder. When I was first diagnosed, it was classified as a non-purging bulimic and there wasn’t any help for me. And people (including some in the medical field) thought that it wasn’t real and that it was just an issue of me liking food too much. So to have a name, a diagnosis, and a treatment plan was a huge relief for me.

Jordan was able to get help for her eating disorder as well. After her post went viral, I started following her on social media and realized that she also works out at Orangetheory! And one day, I noticed her name on the heart rate monitor screen and introduced myself.

Jordan is seriously such an amazing woman and so open about her story. And with all that she learned through the beginning of her journey with her eating disorder, she wrote a book called “Breaking Vegan”.

The Balanced Blonde

Since Jordan knew me through Orangetheory she offered to send me a copy so I could check it out! I got it and started reading it immediately.

Breaking Vegan

What struck me the most (and what has stuck me with so many eating disorder stories) is how similar her story is to mine. Our eating disorders are very different, but so much the same. They start with small choices (both of us started with disordered eating issues as children) and balloon out of control without really realizing it. Jordan’s book is very well written and beautifully laid out. Her story includes photos of her throughout her journey and in the back there are some great recipes for healthy meals (I’ll hopefully be making some of those soon!).

I understand that there is some controversy with the title because not everyone who goes vegan develops an eating disorder. But this story is a personal story of what happened to Jordan and how her discovering a vegan lifestyle helped to make her eating disorder come out. It would be the same as if I said that ice cream created my binge eating disorder (it didn’t, but that’s an example). Of course it’s not the fault of ice cream, but that ice cream led me down the path to the eating disorder that I believe I was genetically at risk for.

I highly recommend this book both to those who have an eating disorder as well as those who don’t. Those who have an eating disorder may find comfort in knowing that you aren’t alone, crazy, or weird. That’s how I felt reading this. And those without an eating disorder can see how easy it is to spiral an eating habit into an eating disorder and get an idea of the mindset of someone with an eating disorder and why it’s so difficult to overcome them.

Of course, I recommend everyone buying the book, but I’m also giving away a copy! You just need to enter through Rafflecopter below and you do as many of the entry options as you want (the tweet option is available every day!). The contest will end at 12am on Christmas Day so I will be playing Jewish Santa and emailing the winner on Christmas!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
I hope that you all enter this giveaway and even if you don’t win you read this book. We should all support Jordan for sharing her story because it is so difficult to do! If more people were open with their eating disorders, I believe that more people would reach out for help and would realize that they don’t have to be alone in this journey.

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A 4 Workout Week (or Only A Few More Weeks Of 2015 Workouts)

Posted on December 7, 2015 | 2 comments

With the end of the year approaching super quickly, I’m making sure that I do as many workouts as I can do to make sure that I hit my 2015 goal. It’s going to be close, but I think I can do it. I just have to up my workout game a bit for the next few weeks and do 4 workouts in a week more often.

It’s been tough getting back into 4 workout weeks. I was doing so great before I got hurt, and I’ve only done the rare 4 workout week since then. But this past week was a 4 workout week and I think it was pretty great.

My first workout of the week was on Sunday. I was still recovering from Thanksgiving, but it was great to have an early workout to get me back into a normal routine and out of vacation mode. The workout went ok. I was a bit too exhausted that morning and I know that my workout suffered for that. It’s tough when I’m tired, but I try my best and in the end I know that it’s better to be there doing not my greatest than to be still in bed sleeping.

Monday was another super early workout (only 1 more week of my class which means 1 more super early workout for a while). Again, being tired didn’t really help me and I know that if it was a later workout that I could have done better. But I’m trying to be easier on myself with those early mornings and not stressing out too much about it.

I wasn’t at the workout on Tuesday, but Tuesday marked the beginning of the 12 days of workouts at Orangetheory. But when I was there on Wednesday, because it was the second day it was a partner workout! I really love partner workouts because they motivate me so much. I don’t want to slack off because then my partner is stuck waiting on me to finish to they can move on to the next thing.

This partner workout was a bit different. The treadmill segment wasn’t partnered but the floor work was. On the floor, it was mainly leg work. Lots of lunges and then when my partner was on the floor I was on the rower. It was a pretty good combination of what we each had to do. And since my partner and I were pretty equally skilled in doing the floor work, we spent equal amounts of time between the floor and the rower.

The treadmill time was a lot of hills. While I do hills all the time on the treadmill because I’m a power walker, I’m still keeping things on the lower side to protect my calf. And when the runners have to do hills, I’m supposed to do even higher hills. I couldn’t do that, but I did my best with the hills that I could and I know that I got a really great workout in.

Friday was the 4th day of holiday workouts, and the theme for it was that there were 4 floor blocks and 4 treadmill blocks. And each block was about 4 minutes. So there was a lot of transitions and switching between the floor and treadmill (which I like) and the workout just flew by! After those 8 blocks, we also had a quick partner block on the floor (one person using the straps and one person using the weights).

After this 4 workout week, I feel much better about my future 4 workout weeks. I know that they should be doable and fine. I’m working on balancing things out and trying to not do 3 workouts in a row on 4 workout weeks (I think I’ll be ok avoiding that for these next few weeks). But it’s also getting me thinking about what I want to set for my 2016 workout goal. I don’t think that it is realistic for me right now to try to do 4 workouts every week. I like alternating 3 workouts and 4 workouts a week. But I think I might try to set a goal that would require me to do more 4 workout weeks than 3 workout weeks next year.

I’m still crunching the numbers (and I’ve got time before I have to declare my goals) but I think I’ll be upping my game again next year.

Next week may end up being another 4 workout week (there’s a potential scheduling issue that may prevent me from doing that). And now that I’ve got another successful 4 workout week under my belt, I’m not that worried about it anymore.

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Pre-Burning Thanksgiving Calories (or Working Out In LA and San Diego)

Posted on November 30, 2015 | 1 comment

Because of Thanksgiving this past week, I knew my workout schedule would be a bit tough to fit in. Not only did I have the schedule of when I’d be out-of-town to think about, but I had limited time when I was in LA because of work and class. And since I still want to make sure I hit my workout goal for the year, I planned my workouts carefully and managed to get 3 in for the week.

My workouts in LA were on Sunday and Monday morning. Both days ended up being days where the workouts were half treadmill and half floor work without switching between blocks. So that means about 30 minutes on the treadmill without a break. Those days are tough, but they aren’t horrible. I just have to be careful because I know that I can try to overdo it to get my mileage to be as high as possible (I’m super competitive with myself).

I’m still struggling to get my treadmill speed or incline up, so I’m just trying to be ok with where I am right now. I’m testing the speed increases but it’s not maintainable for me just yet. I’m working hard to be patient, but it’s tough when I know that I can do better.

My floor work on Sunday and Monday were a bit tough too. I’m so used to having shorter blocks with the treadmill blocks as a “break” from the floor work. When that happens, I push myself harder because I know I’ll have some recovery time on the treadmill before I have to lift heavy weights again. But as always, I’m trying my best and I feel like I can start using the heavier weights more often.

I left for San Diego on Tuesday as soon as I was done with work, so the next chance I had to work out was on Thanksgiving morning for the workout tradition that we started last year. My dad was totally ready to join me again this year and so was my Aunt Cindy. My brother couldn’t make it to Thanksgiving this year so he wasn’t there, but my Aunt Nancy decided to come for her first Orangetheory class ever. And we actually had the same coach that we had last year for the class!

We worked out in the morning and it was a 3G class (which means 3 groups instead of the usual 2). But it wasn’t “tornado style” so we spent about 15 minutes at each station (last year it was 5 or 6 minute blocks and we moved between every block). We didn’t know that at the La Jolla location you have to get a card to be on the treadmill first, so we started with our floor work.

My Aunt Cindy hated the burpees that we had to do last year, and we had to do them again this year (although without the BOSU so that made it a bit easier). There was also lots of arm work and pushups in the floor block.

Next we had our rowing block. And our first row was a 2,000 meter row! As much as I wanted to beat my recent PR on the 2,000 meter row, I knew that since I had just done my floor work that I’d be a bit tired. So I just wanted to do the row without stopping.

I didn’t PR on the row, or even really come close (I was about a minute slower than my PR), but my dad totally kicked my butt on the rower! He did his row so incredibly fast and he never uses the rower at his gym! I said that I’d possibly be able to kick his butt on the row (I knew I couldn’t on the treadmill), but clearly I was wrong.

Our final block was on the treadmill. The treadmills in La Jolla are different from the ones in LA, but I found one treadmill on the end of a row that was the same one that I’m used to. That made things easier on me because I knew where to press to change my speed and incline and could just focus on my walking. It was a couple of inclines, but mainly just a lot of push paces (and my dad would like you all to know that he was going 10mph during the push paces).

As we did last year, we had to get a post-workout photo with the coach.

OTF La Jolla

When I compared it to last year’s photo, it was kind of funny how similar it was. Same coach, my Aunt Cindy and I were in the same spot, and my dad had the same shirt on.

Last Year and This Year

It wasn’t my highest calorie burn class, but It felt really good to get a workout in before eating a big dinner. I have a feeling that this tradition is here to stay and more family members want to join in next year. I’m pretty sure that there is a Orangetheory near any location we might have Thanksgiving at, so we are pretty set for the future.

Now that I’m back from Thanksgiving, I’m back on to a more normal workout schedule for me. Only a few more weeks before the end of the year and I’ve got a bunch of workouts still to do in order to reach my goal!

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Default ThumbnailThanksgiving Workouts (or Getting My Family Involved) Default ThumbnailThanksgiving Workouts (or Continuing A Tradition) Default ThumbnailPre-Burning Jewish Christmas Calories (or Holiday Workouts) Default ThumbnailFull Thanksgiving Trip (or Being With My Family In San Diego) Default ThumbnailGetting My Rowing In (or Burning Lots Of Calories) Default ThumbnailFamily Thanksgiving (or Relaxing In San Diego)

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Posted in Family, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Travel

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Peak Performance Week (or Pushing Myself To The Max)

Posted on November 16, 2015 | 1 comment

It’s been a crazy few weeks at Orangetheory lately! First there was Hell Week. Then there was Recovery Week (which didn’t feel like a recovery but more like a normal week). And this past week was Peak Performance Week.

We had a Peak Performance Week back at the beginning of the summer, and I had a pretty great time with it. I got some PRs, challenged myself, and felt like I had set some good benchmarks to try to beat. Not all of the challenges were the same as the beginning of the summer, but it’s nice to have something to compare to. Especially when that last time it was right before I tore my calf muscle. I was able to see how close to fully recovered I am.

Monday’s challenge was a 10 minute run/walk for distance. The goal for all the runners was to get at least a mile done in 10 minutes. So technically the goal for me as a power walker was to get half a mile done. I know I can do half a mile in 10 minutes, so I set my own goal of trying to get to .6 miles in 10 minutes.

I did most of the work at 6% incline and as much as I wanted to increase my speed, my hips and calf weren’t having it. So while I didn’t get to my personal goal, I think I did pretty great.

10 minute distance

Wednesday’s challenge was something that I was really looking forward to. It was the 1 mile challenge. When I did this over the summer, I had a PR with my mile. While that was amazing, it was very disappointing for me how I wasn’t able to translate that mile time into my 5K (and yes, I know that the PR was pre-injury and the race was post-injury). I knew that my mile time wasn’t going to be a PR. But I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do better than I did at my race.

I spent most of my mile alternating between 3.4 and 3.5 miles and hour. In the last minute, I bumped up the speed as much as I could. And when I was done, I was so happy with myself.

1 mile time

This is about 30 seconds slower than my mile PR (which isn’t that much) and about 50 seconds faster than my mile time from race day. I needed this boost because I had still been feeling a bit low from my race. I know that somehow I could have done better, but I’m not sure what I would have had to do. So showing myself on the treadmill that I’m not as far back from fully recovered as I thought really made me feel great.

Friday was a pretty exciting day for me. First of all, it was my 150th workout of 2015! That’s amazing to me! Also, Friday’s challenge was the 2000 meter row. I’ve had so much rowing lately that I knew I could do some great work on this challenge. My PR for my 1000 meter row is 4:58.9, so my goal for my 2000 meter row was anything under 10 minutes.

Since I knew the row would totally take it out of me, I chose to do that first instead of the treadmill like I usually do. I set my rower to count down from 2000 meters (it would also stop the clock once I reached that distance) and tried to not look at the screen. I counted the strokes in my head as a distraction and once people next to me were finishing I knew I must be getting close. I rowed as hard and fast as I ever had for those last 100 meters and when the clock stopped, I almost couldn’t believe my time.

2000 meter row

I was a little more than 16 seconds faster than my goal time! And since distance rows are a weakness of mine, to be able to do this was amazing! The only downside was that after the row we had to go on the treadmill and my hip gave me one of the electric shocks I get from time to time and my calf muscle was feeling like it was pulling and tearing. So I got off the treadmill and did the rest of my cardio on the bike. I wasn’t happy to be on the bike, but I needed to do that to keep my body from being in pain and damaging itself.

Overall, I would consider this Peak Performance Week a huge victory for me. While not everything was a PR, I proved to myself that while I’m still recovering I’m getting closer and closer to where I was pre-injury.

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Default ThumbnailTruly My Peak Performance (or Exceeding My Expectations) Default ThumbnailPeak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs) Default ThumbnailAnother Peak Performance Week (or Working Extra Hard) Default ThumbnailGoing Big During Peak Performance Week (or A Week Of PRs) Default ThumbnailAnother Peak Performance Week (or Some PRs and Some Not-So-PRs) Default ThumbnailDaily PRs (or I Did Reach My Peak Performance)

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Baby Steps Back To Cooking (or My Check In Kicked My Butt Into Gear)

Posted on November 6, 2015 | Comments Off on Baby Steps Back To Cooking (or My Check In Kicked My Butt Into Gear)

I recently did a check in with myself on how I’m doing for my goals for the year. I’m actually pretty proud of myself on how well I’m doing on my goals and that I may get pretty much all of them checked off by the end of the year.

But the one goal where I would have to give myself a failing grade would be cooking more often for myself. I got into the groove of cooking for a while, but the novelty of it wore off (yes, it felt like a novelty and not a requirement) and I got lazy again. I haven’t been eating take out or at a restaurant all the time, but I’ve definitely been taking advantage of frozen meals and easy things.

I feel like cooking for myself on a regular basis is going to be a battle for the long run. Part of the problem is my eating disorder. I can forget to eat and then when I get hungry I’m starving and want something to eat now. I don’t want to have to spend time cooking something.

I really should be on an eating schedule and set alarms to remember to eat at the right times. But my schedule can be a bit crazy so sometimes it’s not possible to eat when I want to. There are days at my day job where I’m on back to back customer calls and chats for a couple of hours. Sometimes, I don’t get a real break the entire shift. I can usually run and grab a protein bar or banana to eat, but microwaving food sometimes takes too long and my food might sit in the microwave for an hour after cooking before I can eat it.

The one meal that is easiest for me to control is breakfast. With the exceptions of Mondays (when I’m doing a workout at 7:30am because of my class), I always have at least an hour after waking up before I have to work. That’s more than enough time for me to make some sort of breakfast for myself. I’m still usually preparing something that requires minimum effort (avocado toast, peanut butter on toast, fruit, or ricotta cheese and honey), but it’s still better than other options that are out there.

With lunch on workdays always being something tough for me, I’m moving my focus on to dinner. While it’s not easy to cook after getting home from an afternoon workout (when I’m starving when I get home and need to eat pretty quickly), there are still plenty of evenings or afternoons that I can bulk cook or just make something that will have leftovers for a day or two.

I need to get back into the habit of doing that. Every time I say that, something is weird in my schedule that makes me say that I’ll start next week. Next week then has issues in it too. And it’s an endless cycle. I’m taking the baby steps into cooking dinner at home. I’m trying to get things at the store that make things easy to prepare. It’s not the cheapest option, but it’s still cheaper than eating outside of my house. And if the leap from where I’ve been to cooking is too big, these smaller steps can help bridge the gap.

I’m still working through this and like I said that it’s an ongoing battle. I hate that this is something that comes so easily to so many people and it’s so tough with me. But hopefully I can start transitioning back into cooking so that next year I can be closer to the goal that I set for myself this year.

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Default ThumbnailLack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week) Default ThumbnailBaby Steps With Cooking (or I’m Cautiously Optimistic) Default ThumbnailDoing More Cooking (or Maybe It Does Save Time) Default ThumbnailHome Cooking (or Getting Used To Making What I Eat) Default ThumbnailStill Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?) Default ThumbnailGetting My Butt In Gear (or Missing Out On Fun Stuff To Work)

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Surviving Hell Week (or I’m A Liar)

Posted on November 2, 2015 | 2 comments

Remember how last week I said that I knew I’d only get 3 workouts in for the week because of my schedule?

I totally lied.

I went into Hell Week with the intention of only doing 3 workouts until on Monday I found out that it was 4 Hell Week Workouts to earn the shirt (I thought it was 4). So I decided to suck it up and do 4 workouts to get my shirt.

Death Row

Monday’s workout was Dead Man’s Row. I knew this would be the 23 minute row day, and I was terrified. I made sure that my rowing segment was first so I could get it done with, and then I’ll do my best with the floor work.

I’m still getting used to the 7:30am workouts so I was pretty exhausted going in. And doing that long row didn’t perk me up. But there was a plan with push rows and recovery rows, and I did my best to follow along with that.

I didn’t have much of a goal for my row. I just wanted to beat my row of about 3300 meters from last year. And when my 23 minutes were up, I was pretty darn excited to see that I did 4142 meters!

Rowing Record

I don’t remember much about the floor workout after that except that one of the floor moves was a low row on the straps and I felt that that was extremely mean to do when we had a 23 minute row.

The Hills Run Red

Tuesday (the extra day I added) was The Hills Run Red. I thought it was be a really tough hill day for me, but it ended up not being too bad. All the treadmill segments were on inclines, but they were all sprints that were about a minute or less. Between sprints we had to go on the rower (I wasn’t happy about 2 rowing days in a row), and I managed to do 3000 meters on the rower then! While I was happy that I’m getting better and better at the rower, I was ready for a few rower-free days.

Silence Of The Lambs (Legs)

Wednesday was The Silence of the Lambs (or Legs depending on where you read it). Yes, this was a leg day and there were a bunch of squats and lunges to do. And yes, there was more rowing!

Final Destination

After 3 workouts in a row, I was ready for a rest day so I was happy taking Thursday off. But I was back on Friday for day 4 (my first 4 workout week since my calf injury!). That day was The Final Destination and again it involved the rower! There were 2 rowing segments (400 and 800 meters) so those felt almost like sprints. And the treadmill had 4 segments at either .13 miles or .25 miles so that wasn’t too bad.

The floor that day was crazy. It was a single 23 minute floor block and it was so tough! There were lunges, squats, burpees, full body pull ups, and speed skaters. I had to take several breaks in those 23 minutes, but I got the entire routine done so that was good enough for me.

Doing 4 days of Hell Week exhausted me, but I proved to myself that while my calf might not be totally healed, I can get back to 4 workouts in a week if I have the time. I won’t be doing that this week because of my race, but I’m going to try to do that again soon so I can get as many workouts in this year as possible!

I seriously had the best time with Hell Week this year. Last year it terrified me for a couple of reasons. First, I was still pretty new to Orangetheory so I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the workouts. I proved that I can totally do it. And last year Hell Week was the first time I did 3 workouts in a row. Again, I can totally do it. While I was worried about how I would do in the workouts this year, I got to have more fun than stress. I loved pushing myself to new limits and seeing the awesome costumes that the coaches wore.

JZ Bruce

Yes, in that second picture I’m standing on top of a rower to be almost as tall as Coach Bruce.

I’m actually excited for Hell Week for next year. I know that there will be more challenges before next Hell Week, but I like having that as a standard thing to hold myself to. If there is another 23 minute row, I know what distance I want to beat. I know how I felt in the workouts this year and I want to push myself more next year. I’ve got a year to train for Hell Week 2016, and I’m already starting to get ready!

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Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Normal (or Finishing Hell Week and Race Prep) Default ThumbnailFinishing Hell Week (or I Need To Get Back To Running) Default ThumbnailWelcome To Hell (or Pushing Myself Even More) Default Thumbnail12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week) Default ThumbnailJust Surviving The Workouts (or Hoping Next Week Will Be Better) Default ThumbnailFeeling More Back To Normal (or A Good Week Of Hell Week Prep)

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