A New Goal

The main thing here is that I only gained .2 pounds over Christmas, even though I swear all I did was eat.  I loved seeing all my family, and many of my friends but I think next year we'll stay put or at least leave the dog-who-barks-at-every-noise-in-a-hotel home.

Yes, her.  I didn't have a good night's
sleep the entire week, grrrrr.

Today was my first day back at the gym in just over a week, and I think trainer Tom took it a little easy on me (this could be because I emailed him over Christmas saying that I believed my triceps were permanently damaged from that little reverse push up bar thingy).

So we talked a bit about our respective holiday weeks, and for some reason I blurted out that I've decided to train to compete.  You may recall when I started down this path, I figured I'd train for the body but pass on the competition.  Well, somehow I've decided that if I'm training for a competition with every intent of actually competing, I may stick with it better, especially nutrition-wise.  Because

Or, as Marc would say,

Tom the Trainer took it well (he's already training a younger woman in the gym for a competition in April - he calls it training for "the stage") but stressed that nutrition would be key, and I wouldn't be ready in time for the April show in Bend - no kidding.

There are age groupings and several different categories for competition.

I don't want to do the bikini competition because I would have to wear stripper heels and stick my ass out at the judges, thusly:

I find this sexist and bullshit, even though Tom the Trainer assures me the purpose is so the judges can see muscle definition.  Yeah, right.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the figure or fitness categories, because I don't want to be too built up, a la scary Liudmila

 and I'm not going to do a ridiculous tan that doesn't match my face, like

nor am I going to perform some "talent."

If my talent can't be sitting in a chair reading a book, we may have a problem, Houston.

Tom the Trainer set out some more rigid guidelines, although we were able to compromise downward on the daily cardio quotient - starting at ONE hour a day (the girl he's training for "the stage" is up to THREE hours a day.  Yikes).  On days I miss training, I've agreed to add another hour of cardio.  I have no excuse, no reason I can't do it.  There is nothing more important in my life right now so I need to DO IT.

I had already opened up my My Fitness Pal diary - something I had NEVER done before - so Tom the Trainer can check what I'm eating.  While I logged in many times last week, I didn't actually put anything down, so I need to DO IT to realize this goal.

Yes, I've over fifty, but so are each of these ladies:

I think this one is lying about her age.

The lady in the center is 60 something.  The lady
on the right needs a coach.  Or a mirror.

Clearly, I'll be looking into the rules, etc. more as I progress.  Tom has set a weight loss goal for me that I think is doable, though difficult.  I knocked off 60 pounds in 2012, and while about 30 has settled back on, I think I can manage 1-2 pounds a week.  No, I'll just DO IT.

And because Tom is taking Friday off, I'll be just DOING MORE TRAINING tomorrow and Wednesday.  Yay me!

Pre-Christmas Update

Two days in a row again, because I made a bunch of pre-Christmas appointments for tomorrow when I was just training Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Whew.

We did a lot of things today, as we usually do, including planks on a ball

five sets of one minute each as part of a superset which included kicks and crunches.

We also did something like this

only I had to tap my rear onto the ground and pull completely up into a more straight angled position.  Exhausting.

But I would really like to talk about Friday, especially since I still can't stretch out my triceps as a result.

I searched the internet for a photo  depicting the reverse-triceps-pushup-on-a-bar thing we did, but I came up with nothing.  This makes me think (a) Tom the Trainer made it up and/or (b) no one else in the world can do it.

Regardless, here's the closest thing I found:

First, Tom the Trainer demonstrated, as he usually does, by doing about five repetitions.  Easily.

Imagine instead of hanging on rings, this guy is me, with my feet on the ground, leaning forward on a bar with my hands together.  I then dip down so my head is below the bar and I feel as though I'm going to fall on my face, and then I push back up with my arms to the starting position.  Four sets of ten.  At first I would step forward to catch myself, but Tom the Trainer said I had to catch myself with my arms.  Then it was so hard to push back up, he had to help me by pulling on my shoulders.  I of course complained then, because I felt like I wasn't doing enough work (despite the fact I probably couldn't have made it back up without the help), but Tom said no, he was just keeping me steady.  I didn't believe it until the next day.  And  now, four days later I'm a real believer.  Owie.

I have one more day this week, and then I'll miss all of next week :-(  I'll do my best to at least keep up with my cardio until I can get back to the gym.

Merry Christmas to all.

My New Best Friends

Wow, I trained today instead of tomorrow because Tom the Trainer has a conflict tomorrow, so that's two days in a row.  It's a good thing I drink so much water and decaf green tea, because I don't think I had any fluids left.

We usually do kicks once or twice a week, and I did them yesterday - about 100 total in sets of twelve on each leg.

He holds, I kick.

Today, after some warm up, one of our supersets was kicking this SOB again, only FIFTY times per leg for FOUR rotations, alternating with modified burpees.  Again, I said to him something like, You've once again lost your mind, to which he replied something like, Carolyn - we have goals.  I need to do my part to help you achieve them.  I therefore cursed my goals and kicked the crap out of that bag for a total of FOUR HUNDRED TIMES.  And when my kicks got a little lower because I was so EXHAUSTED, Tom looked at my strikes and pointed out that I needed to be higher, hitting the laces of my shoe hard and pivoting more with my hip so I was working my core and not so much my legs.  Let me tell you, the last five on each leg were kicked with some POWER, so I'm proud of myself.  I pretended that bag was Nikki.  And after 100 kicks, the modified burpees were like a break.  Until the end of the 90 seconds, that is.

Then we did a lot of chest work, and while I didn't note the weight amount, it was a biiiiig plate.  I needed help almost from the get go.

Which leads me to my two new best friends:

I'm loving my foam roller so much I have to leave it in the living room.

I need stock in this company.

And look what I saw during my cardio yesterday:

Just looked down and there it was.  :-D

Measuring Up: A Month's Progress

I took measurements yesterday, as I will on the first of each month, with this very nifty (and cheap) tape measure, which allows me to measure myself far more accurately than with a regular tape.

Here are the numbers:  Down 1 inch in my waist, 2 inches in my hips, half an inch in my arm (not flexed) and a quarter of an inch in my thigh (at thickest part, also not flexed).  Great!

Weight pretty much stayed the same for the month, which bothers me much less than I thought it would, because my jeans are definitely more loose, and it was Thanksgiving with family here for the weekend, after all.

I also figured out how to use this thing

which puts me a little higher than my scale does for body fat percentage (down .3 for the month).  Tom the Trainer recommends taking more than one measurement in more than one body place, then averaging out the total because otherwise I'm just getting lumped into an average for my age and height, which is what my scale does.  I may or may not continue with this particular measurement, since the consensus seems to be I should only take it every eight weeks (!).

The three days a week of training is exhausting, but man, I'm making such great progress!

For example, yesterday one of my last sessions was rows, and when I picked up the dumbbell Tom the Trainer had chosen for me, it looked like this:

EXACTLY like this

I looked at Tom the Trainer and I believe my exact words were, "You must be out of your mind."  He looked back at me and said to do 10 reps each side.  And I did.  Three sets of them.  I.  Was.  Amazed.

My wonderful Megan trained with me on Friday, and she and I were both so sore on Saturday, we could barely get up the stairs to hang with the rest of the family.

Now, areas where I need to improve:  You guessed it, the hour and a half a day of cardio.  I did 45 minutes yesterday just after the training session, but alas, today all I could manage was my massage at 11:30.  We've had freezing fog all day and it didn't get above thirty.  Granted, that's not the case for the interior of my garage, where my treadmill and a space heater are, but nonetheless.  I'm open to ideas.  Maybe do some Zumba CDs or something other than treadmill....

Checking In

A quick update, sans pictures, because I'm getting ready for our company and I'm still very upset about the Ferguson grand jury non-decision.

1.  I increased my gym time to 3X a week.

2.  I got in an hour and a half of cardio yesterday, whoo hoo!  I think two 45s will be better for me, because I was beat!

3.  Down 3.0 and .3% body fat.  I'm getting there.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone I love and even those I don't. <3

A More AwesoME

Today was tough - ugh tough.

I had to take last Thursday as a snow day (because I couldn't get out of my driveway

and even had I been able to do so, the subdivision road hadn't been plowed enough for a Prius to get through).  I imagined I would do a workout in my home gym to make up for it, but that was just my imagination.

Running away with me.

I managed to do some cardio over the weekend (thanks to my trusty treadmill), but didn't get my 1.5 hours a day in.  That still seems like a lot to me - I need to start thinking of it like three thirties - I mean, it's not like I have anything else that absolutely has to be done!

Today was my first day back in the gym in a week, and I think Tom the Trainer took it personally because he kicked my butt.  He's a fan of interval training, or supersets.

We sometimes do incline push ups, then step ups (five sets of either twenty five or he times me for what seems like an eternity), then planks and real push ups and squats, then lat pull downs, then twists and kicks, then punching bag, then bicep curls and tricep dips, then... well you get the picture.  For 45 minutes straight.

And we don't do girly weights, either.  I don't think he has a dumbbell in that gym that is less than 12 pounds.  For the lat pulldowns we started at FIFTY.  POUNDS.  I told him this morning that his confidence in my ability to actually finish those sets (granted, he's helping on the fourth and fifth) inspires me to want to finish.  It makes me feel this strong:

After the 45 minutes of weight training, Tom will set me up either on a treadmill or elliptical or bike, with instructions on how to do intervals.  Today it was treadmill starting at 2 incline, then every minute increasing the incline up two more degrees, so at one minute going to 4, at two minutes to 6, and so on up to 12, then back down, then back up for thirty minutes.    I managed to get to 12 twice and felt my heart was pounding out of my chest and thought I was going to puke, so I worked up and town to 10 for the remaining 30 minutes.  Is that quitting?

I got into a bad habit toward the end of last year's racing days  - I told myself it was okay to walk more than I had either planned or trained to do, and as a result I ended up with some pretty lousy times, even on 5Ks.  I also ended up listening way too much to the quitter in my head (her name is Nikki), who disguises herself as a hedonist:  "Go ahead and slow down, you deserve it, you've worked hard.  Another hill?  Baloney, let's walk.  Life's short."  It's hard to stop quitting once you start.  That's not going to happen to me again.

Yes, I'm sore.  In a good way.  In a strong way.  I love this feeling.

Stats:  Down 2.0 pounds (notice a gain there from last week?) and up .3 in body fat percentage (wha?).  I figured out how to use the calipers, but I want to practice a few more times before I start relying on it.  Of course it's a higher number than my scale BF percentage which is a disincentive, but I shall persist.

Hm.  And when I sat down to write this, I didn't think I'd have anything to say.

Another Poem

B is for breasts, with which we're all born,

E is for entry wound, bruised and forlorn.

N 's for the needle that was stuck in my chest,

I is in biopsy, done on my left breast.

Here are both of Chelsea's, you pervs.

G is the good news I got on the phone,

N is for never skipping a mammogram.

I didn't say it was a GOOD poem.

Getting Bigger

This is going to be a weird journey for me - at my most recent training session, Tom told me I needed to take my measurements.  I assured him I had done so the week before I started with him.  He then asked me whether I was flexed at the time.

In this new world of muscle mass I have entered, I am apparently supposed to take my arm and leg measurements flexed.  And I'm not supposed to measure my thighs at their widest point, but at a few inches above the knee.  I'm also supposed to end my love affair with the scale, because I may end up gaining some weight.

Tom (and all the literature and research I've consulted) assures me that the shape of my body will be changing, and I could end up weighing the same (OR MORE!) but wearing several sizes smaller because my body fat percentage will be lower, and I'll have more lean muscle mass.

Well, okay then.

I don't know about ditching the scale - we're dear old friends and go way, way, way back.  Maybe I can cut back to just weighing myself once a week....(hey, I never claimed to have NO addictions)

So let's call Sunday the day.  Today I am down 3 pounds and .5% body fat from last Sunday.  I'll be redoing my measurements later - and I even got some calipers to double check the scale's call on my body fat percentage.  Since the Vikings have a bye this week, maybe I'll learn how to use those, too.

Why Not?

Yes, it's been a while, and there are many reasons for that, not the least of which is I had a very hard time getting motivated to do ANYTHING after finishing EMT school, my final, my NREMT exam and my practical exam.  Seriously, my husband will tell you how I spent weeks on the couch playing Dungeon Gems and my old favorite, Jet Pack Joy Ride.

That's right, Barry - I have all the enhanced jetpacks.

So I packed on a few pounds and let my fitness slide.  You'd think after working like a dog to get 40 pounds off two years ago I'd be more careful.  I certainly didn't want to blog about putting on some pounds and not running a race in a year.  I just couldn't get going.  Now part of this may have something to do with my generalized anxiety, which manifests as a desire to want to beat the living crap out of people I don't even know for the slightest transgression, but perhaps not.  I mean, I'm medicated for that.

When I finally pulled myself off the couch to walk with a neighbor, we chatted about her personal trainer, and I decided it was time for me to hit the gym with someone who knew what they were doing.  You may recall I attended barbell and aerobic classes at the Parks and Rec center for about a year, but I'm not wild about their fitness director or the generic nature of the classes, so I didn't want to go back there.

Instead, I signed up for personal training at this bare-bones gym in Redmond, with a super nice trainer who actually also won some fitness competitions so he knows what's what.

The LVAC it is not.  But it's clean and roomy and has modern
equipment - and the trainer, of course, is a great guy.

After a few sessions of training (and some serious post-exercise soreness), I started thinking about getting serious about my fitness - not just my weight but my actual fitness.  What good is getting back into a size 8 if I'm still jiggly?  I started doing some research on the issue, and came across some fantastic articles and images from fitness competitions.

This is Ernestine Shepherd. She's 74 in this photo.

These are the "Masters" competitors at a fitness model competition
That means at least over 35.

Ruby Carter-Pikes is 65 here.

An Over-50 bikini competition

Nuff said.  What's more important than my health and fitness?  I mean, if I'm going to outlive everyone I know without physically harming them in the process, I need to get on it (no, that's not really my goal, but why not?).  So I sat down with my trainer, we worked out a plan for lifting, cardio and nutrition, and I train with him twice a week now, once more a week on my own, and shoot for ten hours of cardio a week to start.

There's no reason I can't get the body I want.  I mean, I've never had a baby, I've never had any abdominal incisions of any kind, I don't smoke, don't do drugs and I'm pretty healthy overall.  Now it's just a matter of getting stronger.

I'm shooting for something like this:

Tosca Reno - Over 50

but with Ernestine's or Ruby's abs....

Why not?  I'm willing to do the work - I've got the time.  I don't need to can or garden all day every day.

So follow along as I use the blog to post my progress, at least before our New Zealand trip next year. I'm putting it out there not just for accountability, but to show I can do it.  I WILL do it.

But I won't do that :