Category Archives: Tough Stuff

Not Being So Hard On Myself (or Missing A Workout Goal This Month)

Posted on April 27, 2015 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts weren’t my best, but I tried. Last week wasn’t my best week either, and I don’t like that these bad weeks are becoming a trend.

I’m pretty sure that a lot of this pain is coming from the fact that I cannot take my strong painkillers right now. I don’t take them that often, but I probably take them a couple of times a month when I have really bad hip pain. But now, I just have to make my mild painkillers and push through the pain.

I’m also continuing to make sure that I’m getting 10,000 steps in every day, and when I’m having a bad hip day (and not able to take my usual painkillers), that makes my bad hip days last longer.

Even with the bad days, I still managed to get in my 3 workouts (what I consider to be my minimum number of workouts in a week) and I managed to still make progress.

I’m now always at 3.4 miles an hour on the treadmill (except for when we have walking recoveries which are supposed to be at 3.0 miles an hour). I’m doing that same speed even if I’m at 15% incline. Considering that when I started less than a year ago I was at 3.0 miles an hour, I’m pretty darn happy with myself. I’m still hoping to be .2 or .3 miles an hour faster by my next 5K (which will be in November), so I’m trying to figure out when I should bump up my speed another .1.

I’m also pushing myself with my weights more. I don’t always get to use the 15 pound weights, but that’s usually because I can’t find them (those aren’t at all the weight stations so sometimes all the 15 pound sets are being used). But I have noticed that the 12 pound weights are feeling too light now. Just a month or two ago, I was struggling with those weights!

And I’m continuing to improve on my wattage on my rowing. I can sometimes get it up to where we are supposed to be, but my hips have a tough time maintaining that for more that 100 meters. For the longer rows, I just try to stay above 100 watts and most of the time I’m getting that done.

While I am making progress even during my bad days, this past weekend I did realize that I am going to miss a workout goal for the month of April. I had a goal at the beginning of the year that I would do 175 workouts for the year. I have an app on my phone that helps me track my progress and to let me know when I’m getting what I need done each month.

This month (after I work out on Monday and Wednesday) I will have gotten 96% of what I needed to do this month done. I can’t add an extra workout in this week, so I’ll have to be ok with 96%. There were weeks when I wanted to add a 4th workout in, but it just wasn’t possible.

But I know that I’ve got plenty of months left this year to make up for what I didn’t do this month. I can do more than 100% in May to make up for it and I feel confident in being able to reach my goal by the end of this year.

So here’s to hoping that while I might have another bad hip week this week, I still can make progress and continue to kick butt in my workouts.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged fitness, goals, hip issues, Orangetheory, progress, workout

Over A Month On Vyvanse (or A Meeting With My Therapist)

Posted on April 23, 2015 | 3 comments

I had an appointment with my therapist this week to discuss how I’ve been doing on Vyvanse. Honestly, I went into the appointment thinking that I would probably be stopping the medication.

While almost all the side effects I experienced the first few days have ended (racing heart rate, shaking, intestinal issues), I started to experience some new side effects in the past few weeks. Mainly, losing more hair that usual.

Now, I have no clue if this is due to the medication. I was diagnosed with alopecia when I was 14. Then, I had two pretty large bald spots behind my ears. I did injections and my hair grew back. But every so often I get new bald spots (and usually they grow back on their own). But now, I’m losing my hair on my head all over and there aren’t any visible bald spots. And when I looked up side effects of Vyvanse, hair loss is one. There’s no real way to prove what causes my hair loss (even with it being caused by the alopecia), but if there is something that I am doing in my life that is causing it, I don’t want to keep doing that.

So when I went into the appointment I figured it was the end of my journey with Vyvanse. It hasn’t really been helping with my binge eating episodes. I do experience reduced hunger at times, but it’s not what I was expecting or hoping. I had felt such a great lack of hunger and disinterest in food for the first few days, and now that that feeling is gone I’m a little sad. I wished that that would be how I feel every day.

I went over all of my side effects and concerns with the therapist. We both agreed that increasing the dosage would not be a smart idea. If it did help with the hunger/binge issues it might also make any side effects worse. And it’s really an unknown right now if the Vyvanse is causing the hair loss or if it is the alopecia/stress.

So right now, the plan is to continue the dosage that I’m on right now. As far as not feeling like the medication is effective, my therapist explained that everyone feels that instant “cure” when they start the medication. The receptors in your brain aren’t expecting what the medication does, so it goes into overdrive. But once your brain gets used to it, it feels like it isn’t as effective. But that’s where things can get scary.

Some people will tell their doctors how great they felt right away and then the feeling went away. So some doctors will increase the dosage. The patient will have those few days of awesomeness again and then that will go away. So the dosage is increased again. There is a limit to how much of this medication you can take each day, and you don’t want to get to the maximum dosage if you don’t have to. So the plan is for me to stay on my current dosage for 3 more months and then we will reevaluate. If my doctor feels then that I should have a higher dosage, we will increase it. But for now, he wants to see what happens over the next 90 days. And he and I will meet again after those 90 days to discuss things again.

My therapist also wants me to track how often I’m doing the things that make me happy every day. He feels (and I agree) that the best way to stay on top of my eating disorder is to not try to get rid of the binge episodes but to make sure that I’m doing things that make me happy every day. Eventually, my time will be focused on those happy things and not on bingeing.

I’m going to work on making a chart of my happy things (he wants me to come up with 10) this week and start tracking them either on Sunday or Monday (I’m going to make my chart a calendar so I can look back at each day easily). I’m hoping that if I make an effort every day to include these happy things that I will almost “forget” to binge.

I’m not sure if that will work, but it’s worth a try. And hopefully the next 3 months on Vyvanse will go smoothly and anything that I think might be a side effect will go away soon. But as always, I’m trying to stay positive and hope for the best.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged binge eating, doctor, eating disorder, help, medication

A Day Of Allergies (or Book Nerd Fail)

Posted on April 21, 2015 | Comments Off

This past weekend was the LA Times Festival Of Books. I was so happy to find out that I was going to be getting a media pass again.

I knew that because of my work schedule I couldn’t go for the first few things on Saturday, but I was all set to spend as much time at the event as possible.

Then I got invited to something fun on Saturday evening (more on that tomorrow) so I figured that I would go all day Sunday and maximize my time there with the media pass.

Then Sunday came and I was hit with one of the worst allergy attacks I’ve ever had.

I have no clue what caused this allergy attack (I’m severely allergic to olive trees but I’m not aware of any in my neighborhood) and it didn’t seem like it would be going away on its own. I know that this sounds gross, but I wasn’t able to breathe through my nose and it was running like a non-stop faucet. At times it was hard to catch my breath and I felt like I might throw up. I wanted this feeling go away as soon as possible so I took my allergy meds and hoped that they would kick in quickly so I could still spend the afternoon at the event.

Sadly, I wasn’t feeling better until the afternoon so I ended up missing the entire weekend.

I’m trying not to be too upset by this. None of my friends could go so I wasn’t missing any hang out time. And while there were authors and panels that I was excited to see, there wasn’t an event with one of my favorite authors like last year. And of course, there should be another event next year and hopefully I will be able to make it then. And maybe next year there will be an author that I love speaking there.

But while I was sad about missing the event, I figured that the most fitting way to try to wait out the allergy attack would be by reading. So I got to spend a nice morning and afternoon reading in bed (even though I wasn’t able to breathe through my nose and was sneezing every 2 seconds). And while I haven’t necessarily been tired lately, having a day of doing nothing really did revitalize me.

So maybe this allergy attack was just my body saying that I needed to slow down for a couple of hours and relax. And I did just that and didn’t feel guilty about it at all.

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Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged book nerd, books, event, sick

Tough Workout Week (or I Made It Through My 4 Workouts)

Posted on April 20, 2015 | 1 comment

Even though I was on a high from my PR from my 5K, that didn’t help me get through one of the toughest workout weeks I’ve had in a while.

I’m pretty sure I narrowed down my workout problems to 2 different things.

First of all, ever since I started on Vyvanse, I haven’t been allowed to take my stronger painkillers. Vyvanse is a stimulant and my painkillers are depressants. So taking both would cancel each other out (or so I was told by my doctor). I don’t usually take my strong painkillers that often, but I have taken them prior to or right after a 5K many times in the past. So while I did take a mild painkiller before the 5K, I didn’t take the stronger one that I’m used to. So that’s making me have a bit more pain after the race.

The other thing that was making my workouts tough this week is how competitive I’m getting with my Fitbit. This is a good thing. In the past, I probably didn’t hit 10,000 steps most days. But now, I’m making sure that I do that every day. Even if that means marching in place in my house a lot. But since I’m not used to getting in all those steps each day, my legs are more sore than I’m used to. But on the positive side, on days where I do a Orangetheory workout plus get extra walking in, my Fitbit chart looks like this.

With the Fitbit soreness, I know that I’ll get used to that eventually. I have to remind myself that my first Orangetheory workout made me so sore that it hurt to walk for a few days. Now I’m doing 3-4 workouts a week without many issues.

I’m finally starting to get used to having my Monday workout be in the mornings instead of the afternoons. I still have some issues getting my heart rate as high as it does in the afternoon, but it’s more where it should be now.

To be honest, I don’t remember a ton of specifics from my workouts this week since I found each workout to be difficult.

More specifically, I was having a lot of pain and other issues on the treadmill this week. It seemed like every workout this week was all hills on the treadmill. And while I’m doing a lot better than I used to, those hills were killing me! I had to take so many breaks to let the pain decrease a little before continuing. I’m not used to so much pain. And it frustrates me because this isn’t “I’m tired” pain but “my hips bones are grinding against my leg bones” pain. So if I wasn’t having that problem, I know that I could push more because the rest of my body and my mind is in it. My hips just aren’t agreeing with me.

But I was pretty darn proud of myself with my rowing. Rowing has always been tough for me because of my hips. I have a hard time getting the wattage up to where the coaches want it to be.

But in my rowing this week I was getting higher wattage than I’m used to (I’m used to being around 80 and I was staying around the 100 mark). There were even a few moments where I got my wattage to be at my body weight, which is something that we are constantly told to push for.

Just because I had a bad week of workouts doesn’t mean that it was for nothing. 4 workouts in a week is still pretty awesome! And I know that even if my cardio was suffering a bit that my strength work was getting better. I’m continuing to use the heavier weights that I recently moved to, even for my arms now! Before, my arms and shoulders weren’t strong enough all the time and I had to keep downgrading my weights partway through the sets. But I’m sticking with it now and I feel like in no time I’ll be increasing the weights again!

I have no idea if my workouts this week will be much better. The pain that I’m in is still much more than normal and it doesn’t seem to be going away. But I’m going to focus on doing what I can and not stressing out about what I’m struggling with.

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged 5K, hip issues, Orangetheory, strength, struggle, treadmill, workout

Job Hunt Time Again (or I Guess I Was Slacking On This)

Posted on April 17, 2015 | 1 comment

With so much going on in my life lately (workouts, eating right, family stuff, the 5K), my life has almost felt like it was on autopilot lately. I know when I need to do things and when I have to get in my car to drive to something. And of course I know when I need to focus on work.

For a long time, between customers at my day job I was applying for another part-time job. I know that this job isn’t enough to support myself on and I need to find something else to do either around my work hours or between customers at work.

The past two weeks, my between customers or before/after work time have been filled with other things. I kind of forgot about my job search. It just wasn’t the focus of my day and whenever I thought about it, it was when I was already in bed or while I was working and then I got a customer that needed a lot of help. It’s not that I was avoiding it, it’s just that life took over.

But I need to get back into that ASAP. While I’m doing ok for now with bills and things, my savings are getting smaller and smaller. And I am still collecting a little unemployment now (I’m technically underemployed and make less with my job than my unemployment claim is worth so I get the difference), but that is going to end in the next few weeks.

It’s not easy job hunting. Not only do I need something flexible, I want something to work around my current job because I don’t want to leave this job. Something like writing, editing text, data entry, or virtual assistant work would be perfect because most of those things can be done around my own hours.

So I’m back to searching online and trying to search through all the “work-from-home” scams out there (and there are a ton!). I’m also back to asking friends if they know anything that would work for me (just like how I’m asking on here if you all know something). I know that I will find something eventually, but this in-between time of waiting to find that perfect second job is tough and making me nervous.

So if any of you know of any good and flexible jobs (either based in LA or work from home), please share them with me. I really need to expand my searching and asking for help is one way to get more eyes out there on the job search for me. Thanks in advance for any of you who comment or contact me with any job ideas!

1 Comment

Posted in Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged job, unemployment, work

Fitting In My Workouts No Matter What (or Last Workouts Before The 5K)

Posted on April 13, 2015 | 3 comments

It was not easy to get my 3 workouts in this week, but I did it.

I knew that it was going to be an odd week of workouts even before having to go down to San Diego. I had the Hollywood Half 5K on Saturday and knew that I would not be working out on Friday. And there was a chance that I was going to be at Disneyland on Monday with a family friend.

So the original plan was to work out Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons.

Then my grandpa passed away and my schedule got crazy.

I cancelled my Disneyland plans right away. Then I started to wonder how I could get 3 workouts in during the week.

It’s probably stupid that I was worried about my workouts when there was a death in the family, but I guess that is how I was coping.

I started to think about what time I would have and how late I would be getting back from San Diego on Tuesday to see if I could do a Tuesday evening workout. But after debating it all for a few minutes, I figured out a schedule.

I would do my Wednesday and Thursday workouts as planned and add an early Sunday workout before driving to be with my family.

Sunday morning was not a great workout for me. Again, I had issues with getting my heart rate high enough (I guess the side effect of a speedy heart rate with my new medication went away). I was also pretty stressed out about going to San Diego. It didn’t feel real that my grandpa died, so I was worried that as soon as I got to San Diego it would all hit me (it did, but not in the way I was expecting it to). I tried my best to get through the workout, but I know that I wasn’t doing my best.

Wednesday was a pretty good one for me. I was worried that I would feel a bit out of shape from the lack of exercise and the good food from the past few days, but it didn’t affect me nearly as much as I thought. The biggest challenge I had in my workout on Wednesday was the 800 meter row.

We had to do this 2 different times in the workout. We had to write down our first time and then try to beat it the second time. And for every second longer our second time took, we had to do a burpee. I pushed myself like crazy on that rower. My goal was to be under 4 minutes, and I did it!

My name is toward the bottom of the board. And you can see that my second time was exactly 1 second slower than the first. So I owed 1 burpee. But considering that my goal was to be under 4 minutes, both my rows were pretty amazing!

After that exhausting workout, I was feeling a bit sore for my Thursday workout. But since it was my final workout before the 5K, I wanted to push myself as much as I could on the treadmill. I wanted to see if I could get a new PR on the 5K, and treadmill training is what will get me there.

The treadmill workout was all hills. I usually hate the hills, but I was grateful for them on Thursday. A majority of the 5K is on a flat road (there are a few hills), so since I’m used to training at an incline the 5K should almost feel like a downhill race.

Besides going hard on the treadmill, I’m still working on upping my weights when I’m doing the floor work. I’m finally starting to see (and feel) the results of the heavier weights. Even though the scale isn’t going down that much, I feel much lighter. And I have some pretty decent sized muscles now (they are just covered up by fat). Hopefully when the scale starts dropping again, the visually results will be seen more because I have more muscle to show off.

I’m so glad I got my 3 workouts in even though I was dealing with so much. I know I say this again and again, but it just proves to me how much of a priority working out is for me now. I never felt like that prior to Orangetheory and it makes me so proud that I’m dedicated to my workouts now.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll be recapping the Hollywood Half 5K!

3 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged 5K, fitness, Orangetheory, rowing, training, treadmill, workout

Splurging In San Diego (or Back To My Boring Food)

Posted on April 10, 2015 | 1 comment

While I was in San Diego, I didn’t really worry about what I was eating.

The hotel that we stayed at had a full breakfast. So I ate eggs and a banana both mornings I was there (I also had a muffin one morning). Most of the other options at breakfast were carbs, and I’ve learned from experience that I do best when I have some protein at breakfast.

We didn’t really do lunch any day. I got something to eat, but it was more of a “grab what you want” sort of situation. I pretty much had leftovers from dinner or some of the banana bread that I brought down.

And for dinner, the first two nights my mom cooked. They were super delicious meals and she also made dessert. My family’s favorite dessert is her triple layer brownies (the bottom layer is the gluten-free brownie that I make). I had a brownie each night.

We also went out to dinner at the restaurant in the building that my grandma lives in for the last night. That dinner is usually 3 courses, but I had to leave before dessert.

With all that eating, there was pretty much no exercise. Most of the day each day was spent in my grandma’s apartment. I really didn’t get out for a walk or anything each day. I didn’t think about the lack of exercise since I was so focused on family stuff.

That’s not the routine that I’m used to. But fortunately, I didn’t gain too much weight over the few days I was in San Diego. And as soon as I got home, I got back to my regular food.

I’m really eating pretty boring these days. But I’m ok with that. I like having a routine and a plan of what I will be eating throughout the day. I’m still working on what I want as a regular breakfast (right now it’s a multi-grain waffle with peanut butter and a banana), but I’ve got my lunch down.

At least on work days, I’m eating almost the same thing every day for lunch.

A turkey burger on top of some veggies (usually peas, corn, or broccoli). It’s a good meal to eat and I’m fortunate enough to work from home so I can make a nice lunch each day.

My dinner tends to be a rice bowl. Whether I add beans and veggies to the rice or a veggie burger, it’s usually brown rice based. I do want to work on adding more fruits and veggies to my meals, but I don’t want to force it either.

I’m sure that eventually I will get sick of this for lunch and dinner, but for now it’s working for me. And by making a majority of my days “good days”, those splurges I have occasionally don’t hurt my weight loss efforts too much.

But I am still thinking about those triple layer brownies. I wish I had one to eat today.

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged cheat meal, food, health issues, meal planning, meals, San Diego, weight loss

A Couple Of Days In San Diego (or Trying To Focus On The Good And Not The Sad)

Posted on April 9, 2015 | 2 comments

I just spent the past few days in San Diego with my family. My parents, aunt, and uncle got down there on Thursday. But they wanted to have a few days with my grandma on their own first. So I came down on Sunday (my brother flew down that day too). And I was there through Tuesday.

I wanted to bring some food down with me for the family, but my mom was cooking a ton. So I mentioned a few things that I could make that would be good for any meal, and my mom thought that my blueberry banana bread would be perfect (plus, my grandpa loved it).

I’ve made that recipe so many times but this had to be my best batch ever.

Obviously it was a very sad time for my family. We had to do some of the not so fun tasks you have to do when someone passes away. I tried to help out as much as I could, but most of it was being done by my mom and uncle (my aunt who is their sibling wasn’t able to get back to San Diego until Tuesday).

We spent some time remembering some of the funny stories about my grandpa. But we didn’t do a ton of that because it always seemed to make someone sad.

My brother got my grandma to play him in several games of backgammon.

My grandma kicks butt at backgammon. Ever since I was little my grandpa would say that grandma must be a witch because she can get double sixes every time that she needs them.

My brother played as tough as he could. But my grandma won 6 games and Ross only won 3.

We also tried to enjoy spending time with the dog. Since my parents had to get down to San Diego quickly, they couldn’t arrange for a dog sitter. So Tucker spent a lot of time with us being his usual goofy self. I think he especially loved having my brother and I in the same hotel room as my parents (it was a two bedroom hotel room). And he loved my bedding.

We also heard some amazing stories from other residents and some employees of the building that my grandparents live in. Everyone had such nice things to say about my grandpa. Everyone seemed so shocked about him passing away because even just the day before he was his usual feisty self.

In the mailroom of the building they live in, they posted a wonderful photo of my grandpa. Nobody in my family had ever seen that photo before, so I asked the concierge of their building where the photo came from. It turns out that they took it when my grandparents moved in a few years ago. They asked if we wanted the photo and I said yes. And my uncle scanned it in so we could all have it.

I wish that I could have stayed down there longer, but my aunts, uncle, and parents will be there for the rest of the week. And my parents will probably be down again in another week or two. I’ll probably go down there again then.

For now, it’s time for me to get back to my normal life. That’s what my grandpa would want me to do. He probably would have hated that I wrote the post on Tuesday about him. He didn’t like having a fuss made for him.

So it’s back to my day job, my workouts, and hopefully some auditions.

2 Comments

Posted in Family, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged death, dog, family, grandparents, San Diego

Goodbye Grandpa (or Remembering A Full Life)

Posted on April 7, 2015 | 7 comments

Early on Thursday morning, my grandpa passed away.

As you are reading this, I’m in San Diego spending time with my family. Our focus is on my grandma and making sure that she is ok and that everything that needs to be taken care of is done.

But I wanted to share with you all how badass my grandpa was. He and I had a complicated relationship, but he loved me and I loved him. And he really did live so much in his 92 years (he would have turned 93 next month).

I don’t know a ton about my grandpa’s childhood. I know that he wrote down his history and his family history on his computer somewhere, and I hope that we are able to locate that document. I really want to have that myself so I can remember where he came from and what happened when he was young.

My grandpa was not someone who talked about the past a lot. In fact, I had no idea that he was in Germany in WWII fighting the Nazis until he was talking about it maybe 5 years ago.

When he and my grandma got married they first lived in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

They lived there for a while (my mom, aunt, and uncle were all born there) before moving to LA.

I’ve been to their houses in LA before, but sadly I don’t have any photos of that on my computer. But they lived in the valley and had some really cool houses.

While they lived in LA, they lived it up! My grandpa got a boat and he, my grandma, my mom, my aunt, and my uncle sailed on it a lot. I’ve heard so many stories from their time on the boat, especially when they were in Catalina. My favorite story is actually one about my mom when she was hit in the face with a flying fish one evening in Catalina. But I think my entire family thinks that story is pretty awesome.

He also loved to fly. He flew a small plane that was just big enough for the family.

They flew all over the US on lots of different trips. They would fly to Louisiana to go back to visit family and my mom, aunt, and uncle got to travel the US by plane quite a bit. I think that if he could have flown that plane for the rest of his life, he would have.

Once my grandpa retired, they moved down to San Diego. But even in retirement, my grandpa never slowed down. He designed the backyard and swimming pool at their house, and I don’t think that anyone could have done it better. And they had the best orange trees and the orange juice was freshly squeezed every visit.

I think if I had to pick one of his favorite things to do, it would be to travel. My grandparents always seemed to go on these epic trips, both within the US and internationally. My grandpa traveled to all 7 continents (even Antarctica!) and inspired me to hope to do the same in my lifetime.

Sometimes my parents, my brother, and I was lucky enough to get to join my grandparents on the trips they did. One of the most epic trips that we did as a big extended family was to go to Africa together.

This trip was for my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. All 3 generations (this was way before my cousin had her kids) of the family were there to experience the safari together. Besides my grandparents’ anniversary we also celebrated my parents’ 15th anniversary, my cousin’s 15th birthday, and my 14th birthday while we were in Africa. That was definitely one of the best birthdays that I ever had. My grandpa really wanted all of us to go to Africa together because he had loved it there when he and my grandma went before and he wanted to make sure that we could all experience it as well.

But more than traveling, he loved my grandma.

Last September they celebrated their 67th anniversary and they seemed in as much love as ever.

Last Thanksgiving, almost everyone in my family was able to be together (only one cousin wasn’t able to make it). We took a family photo after dinner and I’m so glad that we were able to get one more (almost) full family photo.

While I am sad that my grandpa passed away, I can only admire how full of a life he lived. He really maximized every day that he had and I don’t think that he had any regrets of things that he wasn’t able to do (except maybe to keep flying a plane later in life).

I will always remember my grandpa as the one who got me to drink martinis (and I got him hooked on blue cheese stuffed olives), who loved to email dirty jokes to the entire family, and the one who gave me my love of traveling.

Thank you Grandpa for everything that you did for our family and for loving us all as much as you did. I know that there will be a hole in our family now that can’t be filled. But we will all try to live life to the fullest to honor how you lived your life.

Robert Joseph Fry (May 29, 1922-April 2, 2015)

7 Comments

Posted in Family, Tough Stuff

Tagged death, grandparents, obituary, travel

Lots Of Morning Workouts (or Maybe I Can Be A Morning Person)

Posted on April 6, 2015 | Comments Off

This past week, I had 3 workouts. And 2 of those 3 were in the morning.

I haven’t been a huge fan of morning workouts. Sometimes I have trouble pushing myself or getting my heart rate up high enough.

But I’m definitely getting better at them.

I’m pretty much doing my Monday workouts at 9:30am instead of 4pm now. Like I’ve said before, there’s no reason for me to have an afternoon workout on a day that I don’t have to work. So that 9:30am class is starting to feel more normal to me.

This past Monday my focus was on continuing my speed and heavier weight training. I’m getting more comfortable with both and that’s making me happy. I’m seeing a transformation in how I feel during and after my workouts. And since I’m not seeing a lot of transformation on how I’m looking physically, having some transformation makes me feel like all my hard work isn’t for nothing. And I can’t help but smile at that.

On Wednesday, since I had the podcast dinner in the evening, I had to do a before work workout. Before work workouts are always early for me (7:30am). It also requires me to wake up an hour earlier than I’m used to. I think that those are going to continue to be tough for me since I’m working out when I’m used to waking up. And I have no desire to wake up an hour earlier every day (I wake up the same time every day because that’s supposed to be better for you).

That workout wasn’t that great for me, but I was there and I did it. I was having a lot of trouble on the treadmill because it was almost all hills, but I took breaks when I had to and got through it.

Friday’s workout was a bit weird for me. I found out bad news on Thursday (more about that tomorrow) and I was just feeling off. It was a run/row day and I’m very grateful for that. It made me have to focus on the workout (since the coach wasn’t telling us during cardio when to transition) and not think about things outside of the workout.

But during the strength section, I had to do down in how heavy the weights were. I think part of that was because I was exhausted. I didn’t get a ton of sleep the night before and I know that being tired affects my workouts a lot.

This week, I’ll do another 3 Orangetheory workouts and then I have my 5K on Saturday. I’m starting to get really nervous about the 5K, but I guess I’ll see how it goes this weekend. And as long as I finish (and don’t finish in last place), I’ll be happy.

Comments Off on Lots Of Morning Workouts (or Maybe I Can Be A Morning Person)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, strength, struggle, treadmill, workout

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