working it out

I haven't been posting about my workouts/health/nutrition lately. There might be a reason. There's usually a reason I don't post about things. Most of the time it has to do with discouragement or crisis or frustration or something of that sort.

Yeah. I'm there.

I'm loving my workouts, really. I have to say that. I went here--On The Fly Fitness--and found this fantastic hybrid schedule for ChaLEAN Extreme and TurboFire and have been (nearly) 100% consistent with it over the past nine weeks. Nine Weeks. Wow. That's a long time. It's a 12-week program. If you don't know these programs, Chalene Johnson leads each one, and her style is fast, great music, super challenging--lots of martial arts and moving quick. ChaLEAN Extreme incorporates lifting heavy weights--yes, even for women--and lifting slow. She challenges you to get lean and to go heavy or go home. Sound crazy? It's not. Talk to me about it. I promise, I'm not turning into a muscle head. Instead of using the cardio segments from CLX, however, I have incorporated the crazy cardio from TurboFire, Chalene's high intensity choreographed "kickboxing" program. Some days I'm working through a shorter HIIT (high intensity interval training) workout from TF, then doing one of the resistance workouts from CLX. The day between resistance workouts, I use a longer TF workout and sometimes throw in a double on the resistance days. Not very often though. And I have to be honest...on heavy cake weeks, or weeks that I coordinate a wedding, the schedule has to be a little more flexible. Let's throw in there the fact that I've spent until 1:00 in the morning on the phone many nights over the past month or so and...well, I can say that doubles have been nearly nonexistent in that time. And that workouts have probably not been up to my normal standards.

And see...here enters my frustration/discouragement. Because if I don't have time to do the workouts like I want to do them...guess what my nutrition looks like?

Lazy. That's what. So, I'm less than thrilled with my current weight, dissatisfied with my tummy, and irritated with myself. It's like this vicious cycle. Rollercoasterish. But the thing is...I still feel pretty darn good.

That's the reality of being fit: even when you're a little discouraged, you still feel pretty darn good.

Three years ago, I lost 20 pounds (i know i've told you this story, but sometimes it bears repeating). I did it in a horribly unhealthy way--chopped out all carbs, basically, and dropped my consumption down to about 1000 calories a day. It still took me about 8 months to lose all of that, and with the craziness of moving and mild depression and eating virtually every meal out of the house, it makes sense as to why that happened. But I didn't work out basically at all in that process. It took me about six months to gain 8 pounds of that back...and I felt like garbage. Honestly, I felt like garbage the whole time I was losing and after I had lost. There was nothing healthy about eating almost nothing. I still couldn't run from the store to my car in a rainstorm without being seriously out of breath. Feeling that way as compared to how I feel right now...sucks. I love running from Friendly's to my car in tonight's rain and not feeling like I want to die when I collapse into the seat. Not huffing and puffing for the next 5 minutes as I try to catch my breath. Parking as far away from the door as possible in the rain storm so that someone with 3 toddlers can have that spot next to the door and knowing that I CAN run (and that the same run is good for my kids, who like getting wet anyway) without dying. I love feeling the muscles in my legs when I walk. Seeing them in my arms when I reach for things. And then there's waking up in the morning ready to get up, even if I didn't get as much sleep as I'm used to. Sleeping all night without waking up to stare at the ceiling. Falling immediately to sleep when I crawl into bed. Keeping up with my kids when they're running around the park. Keeping up with my dad and brother on my first ever long bike ride (yeah, I know they took it easy on me my first 15 miles, but whatever).

So I guess my point in all of this...yep, I'm irritated with myself. Yep, I'm discouraged with what should be a much better in-shape-ness than the place where I currently find myself. But...when the rubber meets the road, I still feel pretty good. The temptation would be to let myself just stay right here, unfortunately. The temptation, frankly, that has propelled me through the summer at this very. same. spot.

So, here's my action plan: I'm going to finish up the last 3 weeks of this hybrid with gusto. I'm going to kick it up with 3 doubles workouts a week (starting tonight with a two-mile treadmill run, as it's way too wet to go outside...holy it's-been-raining-for-two-solid-days, batman). Tomorrow I go back to Phase I P90X portion nutrition plan...complete with checklist in my to-do list and all. My goal is to drop these stubborn 3 or 4 pounds that always bother me, and maybe drop a couple more in those 3.5 or so weeks as well.

If I tell you, and know that you could ask me about it at any point, I have to do it, right?

And have I told you all about my bodybugg yet?