2 Challenges.

The resurrection of my Protect Ya Neck Ends Challenge from years ago, as well as a fitness challenge for the autumn.  Who’s coming with me?

DNF

This was an absolute shit show. This WOD was to be done pyramid style.  So, after you worked your way down the list to do the front squats, you’d move back up to the swings and work your way all the way back up to the double unders.  The good news was, we’d only have to front squat once.  The bad news was EVERYTHING ELSE.

Rx for women was 16kg and 95# (no rack, because of course not!).  I Rxed.  I didn’t even sub rowing for the 400m runs, which I pretty much always do because of my bum knee.  But, when you’ve just finished rowing 60 goddamned calories, the absolute last thing you want to do is row more.

There was a 25 minute cap.  I did not finish.

I made it as far as finishing the second/final 60 calorie row, and that was a wrap.  I’ve never DNFed on a WOD, since joining this gym.  And, I do not like it!

The September challenge has been very so-so for me.  My eating has been *almost* the way I outlined, with me getting looser than I really should be, on the weekends.  I did, however, order some meals from a paleo meal delivery service, which should be arriving tomorrow, and which should help me to reel things in.  More on that to come.

Workouts have NOT been where they need to be.  I’ve been averaging 2-3 a week, instead of the intended 4.

It’s a vicious cycle of being out late a few nights each week, because of evening screenings I have to go to for work– which also means I can’t work out after work.  But then, see, I’m too tired to get up to work out in the mornings, because I was out late!

I’ve got to figure this out, because this is going to be my reality for the foreseeable future.  I’m going to have late nights, and I’m going to have to learn to drag my ass out of bed to work out in the mornings, at least 3 times per week.  More, if I don’t want to make up workouts on Saturdays and Sundays.

Anyway, the struggle continues.  But, at least I don’t have to do any more fucking front squats today.

Things! All Sorts of Things!

Right! So!  I have, for sure, been kind of M.I.A. on here.  Less so on YT, as evidenced by the video I just put up today (above), and a couple of others, in the past few weeks.  I started yet another one of my backslides into a chaotic life of no routine/structure, mainly due to changes with my work situation.  I have a new job, even though it’s really my old job.  It’s a long story.

Thus, workouts have been in the 1-2x/week range, whilst I try to get a handle on a new work schedule/commute.  And, I’ve been indulging in all sorts of bread, sugar and alcohol, because of…reasons.  Basically, I took August off from living right.  Frustrations with my failure to lose weight were at an all-time high, and I had had it.

Fuck carb cycling.  Fuck macros.  Fuck everything and GIVE ME THAT CROSTINI.  That was/is my general attitude.

And I actually haven’t put on a ton of weight.  I might be up maybe 5 pounds, but it’s really not bad at all.  Not to toot my own horn, but I still look mad decent.  I just don’t look nearly as cut in my upper body as I tend to do in my “after” pictures, from my various challenges.

But, when I caught a cold last week (which is lingering, much to my chagrin), I knew that it was time to get back in the groove and/or zone, commit to eating cleanly MOST OF THE TIME and working out a minimum of 4 days per week.  I had sort of been planning to do a September challenge, here on the blog, anyway.  Getting sick just confirmed that it needed to happen.

I started on Tuesday, which was September 6th, and this’ll run until the end of the month, on September 30th.  Following that, I’ll be starting a challenge on my YT channel, which will be the Fuck Yeah Fall Fitness Challenge.

Here’s what I’m doing for this one, the September challenge (haven’t bothered to come up with a snazzy name, this time around):

• 4 workouts per week, minimum
• NO sugar, dairy, grains or soy Sunday through Thursday
• NO alcohol Monday through Thursday
• full glass of water with every meal

It’s pretty simple, which is by design.  With this setup, I can still relax at home and have mimosas on Sunday with the boyfriend, or go out for tacos on Friday night.  But, there’s no allowance for fuckery, throughout the week, which’ll keep me in line.

I need to have a doable set of goals, since I’m just getting back into the swing of things.  Then, in the FYFF Challenge next month, the car will be all tuned up and ready.  (Editor’s note: That is a metaphor.  The “car” = “my body.”)

I can tell you one thing.  My body is already sore as shit from getting back into the gym, this week.  One or two workouts a week is definitely not a way to maintain any modicum of fitness.

I’m also embarking on a long term protective style challenge, which I began this week– the beginnings of which I talk a bit about in the video I posted above.  I’ll talk about that more, soon.  Just not right now.  I have to go blow my fucking nose.

“Cardio”

Today was kind of brutal. I mean, it wouldn’t have been so bad, if they hadn’t made us do 50 burpees in the first of three workouts. But, yeah, that happened. And, in the very same workout, we had to do 50 wallballs.

I started out strong in the first workout…and finished in the bottom 3rd.  Then, I was in the top echelon on the second workout, and finished the 3rd workout before anyone else, which made me feel slightly less like a loser.  I mean, the WOD isn’t a competition, or anything.

Except, IT IS.

Anyway.  Even though I hated this, whilst doing it, this was a great WOD.  I’ve been going to the “cardio” classes at my gym, the past several weeks.  Thanks to my heart rate monitor, I’ve learned that my calorie burn is about the same in the 45 minute “cardio” classes, as it is when I go to an hour (or longer, if I’m suffering, that day…) CrossFit.

The metcon portion of CrossFit just doesn’t last very long.  And, since I’m still trying to drop some LBs, calorie burn is paramount.  So, why spend more time burning the same amount of calories?

Problem is, the cardio classes have gotten extremely monotonous and lame.  The programming at my gym has failed, in the imagination department.  But!  They brought on a new coach, recently, and he seems to have infused some new life into the cardio WODs.

On Thursday, we used ropes (which we have NEVER done in the entire time, since I joined the gym, in May), as well as the Assault Bike (also the same as the ropes situation, too, as well!).  So, just using new shit really helped to breathe new life into a tired workout format.

Today, the format itself was quite different.  And, the addition of bear crawls into the WOD (which I’ve only had to do in a warmup, once or twice, at this particular gym), was an insufferable and deceptively hard, but welcome, challenge.

Anyway, my #AWEgust Fitness Challenge has been going okay.  Oh?  You haven’t heard about that?  Because I have literally not mentioned it even once, here on the blog?  You are not incorrect.  (Read: You are correct.)

Long story short, #AWEgust is, more or less, a #JUICYINJULY victory lap.  I’m still working on getting in 5 workouts per week, consistently (so far, it’s been more like 4 per week, in a good week…).  That, plus not letting one weekly cheat turning into a cheat DAY– or, worse still, a cheat WEEK?  Yeah, I’m still a work in progress.

On top of allladat, I still have yet to dive into educating myself on carb cycling.  I’ve got some research waiting for me.  I just have some sort of fear-based mental block stopping me from diving in.  Good times!

#JuicyInJune Day 15

After today, I’ll officially be past the halfway point of #JuicyInJune!  Things are going pretty well, but I do have a double today to make up for a rest day that I took last week.

This is what this morning’s metcon looked like:

I most certainly did NOT Rx this one.  I’m still forcing caution upon myself– not to mention, I’m just not necessarily on the level of feeling like I really could Rx this wod without shit getting ugly.  You know, bad form, questionable reps, etc.

More than anything, I didn’t want to have to worry about snatching or cleaning/pressing a heavy-ish 95# from the floor for each set.  I can muscle clean 75# easily, so I figured that would be a good weight for me, and went with it.

Finished the wod in 8:30, which was a respectable time; and, I used a respectable weight, based on what I saw from others on the board.  Had a beautiful breakfast (still completely devoted to my blueberry coconut pancake + eggs with avocado combo), and now I can recharge a bit and get some work done before wod #2, which will be The Dreaded: spin.

The problem is, spinning really is great for torching calories.  I finally figured out how to get my heart rate monitor working (more on that to come, but spoiler: I’m LOVING it), and I discovered in a spin class earlier this week that I burned somewhere around 480 calories in 45 minutes.  And, that was on a day where I wasn’t even feeling juicy!  I imagine if I felt like I could’ve given my all, the burn would’ve been even more impressive.

In terms of my appearance, I’m at a point where I feel like I look the same, and have looked the same for a few weeks.  I’m trying not to stress about it, and just trust that living right will sort everything out.

I’m also considering doing a weigh-in tomorrow morning, just as a check-point for being halfway through #JuicyInJune.  I want to make sure that I’ve made progress, because if I haven’t, I’d rather know NOW, so that I don’t waste the final two weeks of the challenge repeating things that aren’t working.

Then again, the scale stresses me the fuck out.  So, yeah.  We’ll see.

#JuicyInJune Day 8

Coconut flour pancake + eggs and avocado = HOTSA HELLZ YEAH for under 500 calories!

This morning was a HIIT workout, which was fairly miserable.  It was very nice to come home and have a dope ass breakfast, afterward.  I’d planned to do a double today, but decided against it, since I already have a double lined up for tomorrow– and one of those will be 1RM testing for my deadlift, followed by metcon.  That’s going to be taxing.

My energy has been a lot better, the past week.  I’ve been sleeping more or less through the night, and I feel pretty good in the morning.  Throughout the day, my mood is also pretty good.  But, I’m still not quite where I want to be.  There’s just an overall haziness, a cloak of slight drowsiness that seems to plague me all day, even when I’m feeling “alert.”

My hunch is that it’s parasites/a parasite.  I know, I know, *shudder*.  But, the truth is, we ALL have parasites, pretty much all the time.  I’ve wanted to do a parasite cleanse, but I have an allergy to tree nuts.  Black walnut hull is one of the main things you need to do a parasite cleanse, so I’m not really sure how to go about this.

A year and a half ago, I was about 5 months into Nutrition Response Testing (I no longer do this; stopped sometime last fall because I’d failed to see progress in several months).  I won’t go too far into my experience and thoughts on that here, because it will completely derail what is meant to be a quick update.  But, maybe for another day, another post.

Anyway, one day around my 5 month mark, I woke up and I would’ve sworn I was CURED.  My energy and mood were incredible.  I had such clarity.  I even felt like my vision was sharper.  And, I’d lost weight, which I hadn’t been able to do on my own for a year, maybe longer.  I just felt like a completely new person– no, even better, I felt like my old self!

But then, after a week or less, it went away.  The energy and overall joie de vivre that I’d felt was gone, and I went back to just feeling “okay” at best, and “not great,” the rest of the time.  I’ve tried to reclaim the way I felt that week, ever since– indeed, it’s why I wasted my time in Nutrition Response Testing for over a year afterward.  The feeling never did come back.

In retrospect, I’ve come to believe that I may have passed a parasite, just before that Magical Week.  It’s really the only explanation I can come up with.  A major part of the first phase of Nutrition Response Testing is killing shit.  Fungus.  Bad bacteria.  Parasites.  So, I was on high doses of supplements, at the time– many of which were aimed at killing shit that was harming my body.

I think that the supplements successfully killed a parasite, or something, and that was why my body was able to thrive again.  I think the feeling didn’t last, though, because there was/is more work to be done.  Something else needs to be killed.

So, yeah, now, I want to figure out a parasite cleanse that won’t send me to the hospital in anaphylactic shock.  It’s on the “to do” list.  For someone who exercises, eats well and gets adequate sleep, I should have SO MUCH ENERGY.  But, I don’t.  And it fucking sucks.