No Sweat… wait, actually a lot of sweat

I found my new favorite group exercise class!  It’s called “Accumulator” and it stacks exercises up one after the other so that it just grows and grows.

For example:

Burpees

Burpees + Jump Squats

Burpees + Jump Squats + Clean/Press

Burpees + Jump Squats + Clean/Press + Single Arm Lifts

They kept adding up until we were doing burpees, jump squats, clean/press, single arm lifts, reverse flies, high knees, and bent over rows.  THEN! They had an ab-specific portion where they started with plank and added one after the other until we were doing plank, overhead lift, flutter kicks, crunches, reverse crunches, donkey kicks, and Russian twists.

It was INTENSE and I worked up SUCH a good sweat.  The awesome thing, though, is that there were sufficient modifications that I could complete the class at my own level.  For burpees, I had a riser to add an incline. For the plank step-outs I just held a plank or used the riser. For high-knees, I marched when I got too fatigued.  I did 6″ leg raises instead of flutter kicks…. My shirt was soaked, my face was red, I was completely out of breath and I *LOVED* it.

I’m definitely going to carve time out of my schedule for that class.

When I’m not working out at class, I’m working out with Little Elfkin.  We go for walks and she leads me on a merry chase.  It’s probably good for my back if I remember to keep good form 🙂

I’m still working on getting my diet cleaned up.  I have a sugar fiend that keeps sabotaging my efforts.  Slowly but surely I’ll wean off of that.  Caffeine too.  Eventually.  It’s quite difficult to go from so much sugar and monster + daily to nothing–and I’m not great at quitting cold turkey.  Yesterday I had a doughnut for breakfast, today I had cookies for a snack…. The stuff is entirely too accessible either on my commute or at work.

Little Elfkin had her check up recently and she’s my little chunky monkey.  She’s proportionate, but she’s proportionately *big*.  The pediatrician basically said that genetically she’ll have a double chin and a little belly because she was shaped that way from the start.  She even had a little double chin when she was a hungry baby before we figured out how to breastfeed or use formula.  Still, though, I want her to have a healthy relationship to food and fitness, so we’re still having our meals together 🙂 she eats what I eat when we’re together and I won’t give her junk, so that cuts down on the junk I have! 🙂 It helps that we got rid of so much of the junk from the pantry.

She loves spinach, eggs, sweet potato, strawberries, cherries, peaches, pears, carrots, peas, beans, etc. 🙂 She’s an adventurous eater and not picky at all. As more veggies come into season, I’m excited to share more of the flavors with her.

Weigh in!

Measurements (non flexed, widest part,  as measured in inches with a cloth measuring tape pulled snug but not digging in)
Neck 14 5/8
Bicep 15 7/8
Ribs 40 3/8
Belly 44 1/4
Hips 49 1/4
Thigh 29 1/4
Calf 17 3/8
Weight: 239.2 lbs

Today’s fitness included reading more of the mindset module and taking some notes about the things that resonate with me. I checked in with two accountability buddies,  but I forgot to message Dana to go for a walk.  (Sorry, Dana!! Thursday for sure!)

Last night,  we had our healthiest D&D yet.  We’re all on a health kick right now (whether we want to be or not) so there was none of the usual fare to be found–which was great for my focus!

It was funny.. we’re playing 5E Curse of Strahd and we’re just getting to the main quest line.  The DM introduced an NPC and the dwarf in our party wanted to know if he was a trader. Dwarven sounds like a thick pirate accent and one of the dragon born is fluent…and wanted to know of he said trader or traitor and so they were saying traitor/trader back and forth while the rest of us tried to figure out if they’d gone mad because to us,  it all sounded completely foreign. (Aside from the or of character additions like ‘whappity whappity’ and ‘you are doing me a concern’ ‘bork!’)

Other than that,  I started taking a look at my bat cave and realized it needs some serious leveling up.

I got all of the chips and candy gathered up and I’ll be taking it to the office tomorrow.  I’m not usually that villain, but it’s left over from my brother’s wedding and if I don’t get it out of the house then we’re just going to keep eating it all.  No one needs Hershey kisses on their night stand unless it’s a steamy anniversary,  mmkay?

I also took my next set of progress pics,  but I’m not ready to show them here quite yet. I guess that’s a work in progress too.

MegsFitness on Nerd Fitness – Battle Logs!

I’ve blogged in the past about how much happier and more content I feel when I am following the core strengths of health and wellness – including eating well, sleeping well, exercising, and making time for personal goals.  So, it stands to reason that now, more than ever, I need to get back into the patterns of healthy eating, getting enough (and higher quality) rest, exercising, and making time for personal goals. 

This blog has become more of a personal journal for me, which will definitely incorporate health and wellness, but it’s always been about more than that.  For me, it’s been about recognizing the fact that my journey — whether it’s to weight loss, muscle gain, social changes, or family life — is going to be completely different from someone else’s journey, even if we share many of the same characteristics.  To that end, I still have every intention of maintaining this blog and getting back into writing about things that are fun, interesting, or relative to my personal narrative.  

My day-to-day fitness narrative is going to be captured at Nerd Fitness.  It’s a community of fitness-minded individuals and I really feel like that’s the sort of encouragement I could use at the moment.  What that means for the MegsFitness blog is that I’ll be cross-posting my weekly summaries here, so that at least part of this journal can resonate with the “-Fitness” part of the name 😀

I’m ready to get back to good.  I’m ready to lose weight, gain muscle, find my confidence, and conquer the world.  If you’re interested in joining The Rebellion, my “battle log” is found here: http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/52946-amis-last-first-post/

[Begin Crosspost]:

Name: Aminarra, aka “MegsFitness”

Occupation: Corporate Fleet Management Resolution

Previous Fitness Experience: 2 years on SparkPeople, 3 years with Weight Loss Warriors, 3 attempts at Weight Watchers, 1 attempt at Herbalife; 4 years high school strength training, 1 obstacle 5k, 10+ regular 5k Races, greatest weight loss 42lbs.

Current Level of Fitness: Sedentary.  It’s been 2 years since I’ve worked out consistently due to a severe back injury after the Warrior Dash.

“End Game” Goal: Working out 4+x/week, Settling at a healthy weight, ideally ~180, but more importantly having functional strength and physical health.

Short-term Goal: Begin working out 1-3x/week, at a beginner level to become re-acclimated to the fitness world. Begin reintegrating Paleo Lifestyle into eating plan  

Plan of Action:  Use Nerd Fitness to launch new fitness goals; integrate fitness guild with gamer guild for inspiration.  Generate weekly goals in the areas of nutrition, exercise, and personal.  Update status on goals at least weekly.

Outside of NF: 
https://megsfitness.wordpress.com/
http://www.vexxgaming.com/

Summer TV and Exercise

Per my previous post, I am taking a break from Facebook.  Did you also know that I’m taking a break from gaming?  The two are not related.  I sort of quit my guid took a hiatus from my guild when I decided to focus on fitness instead.  It’s been a couple months, now, and I’ve only logged in a time or two.

I *have* spent more time working out, but it’s not nearly the amount of time that I anticipated.  I’ve gotten a lot more walking in, some mild strength training, and a whole lot of excuse-making.  Oh what? Excuses??  Pssh.

I like to think of it less as excuses and more like some quality TV watching time.  I completely blitzed through Orange Is The New Black  and now I’m watching How I Met Your Mother, Bones, and Baby Daddy.

I would probably actually get more home-gym workouts done if Netflix had commercials, but as it stands, I try to do calisthenics while watching the episodes 🙂

The plan seems to be working, though, I’ve lost 8 pounds so far 🙂

The paleo plan is still at about 60% and going strong.  I crave more veggies these days and I don’t miss bread much at all.  Some days I just want a slice of buttery toast, but I think that might just be because I like butter 😉

So how are you spending your summer?  What are your favorite shows to watch?

 

 

Party Rock – on a rock – in game

This weekend was 100% enjoyable.  a majority of it was spent gaming, hanging out with the family (Jeff, and our two fur-balls, Taz and Toby).  A LOT of it was spent studying because I had two exams to post for.

Breakfast this morning was Quaker Real Medleys with blueberry and banana, with a side of research.  See, I’m still dealing with chronic back pain.  Turns out, I’m doing it wrong.  When my back hurts, I feel like I can’t  exercise because of the pain.  It’s like, I can’t twist or bend, so why try?

Well, I was reading some peer reviewed articles on www.spine-health.com and one of them said that for Chronic Intractable Benign Pain (CIBP) one of the best things you can do is to exercise.

 A typical response to experiencing back pain is to take it easy – either staying in bed or at least stopping any activity that is at all strenuous. While this approach is understandable and may even be recommended in the short term, when done for more than a day or two it can actually undermine healing. Instead, active forms of back exercises are almost always necessary to rehabilitate the spine and help alleviate back pain.

Guess who’s going to the gym after work?

 

Wipers up, snow down

I said this morning that wipers up means snow will be coming down.  It started early afternoon, and never really let up…

The roads were icy, visibility was reduced… And I had to go to school for class tonight.

Yeah. Good luck getting anywhere.

You know what, though? I got there, checked my voicemail, and heard a message saying class was canceled.

Some days are only good for building snowmen and going to bed early.

Tonight I’m wearing my warrior shirt to bed. Kind of need a reminder to eat better tomorrow and stop getting so frustrated with work.  I ranted at a friend* at work today about all of my frustrations and it just made me want to cry.  Then, I rushed off to school where I was scheduled for an exam…I was feeling crappy, so what did I have for dinner? A chicken taquito, a corndog, a bag of chips, a handful of dark chocolate, and about half a cup of gelato.  Did it feel good at the time? Absolutely. Does it feel good now? Nope. Can I take it back? Nope! Time to move on.

Tomorrow I’ll be well rested, and I’ll make sure to have healthy snacks with me.

Have a good night!

RE-BOOT! – MegsFitness Photo Tracker consolidating with MegsFitness (Blog)

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It’s time for a reboot 🙂  I’ve been blogging really heavily over at the MegsFitness Photo Tracker and I’ve got a lot of “followers” over there.  The problem?  I’m not writing here any more and I really miss writing about more than just food.

From day one, this blog has been about ME (thus, the tag line “and then there’s me…”) and it’s time to get back to that.

Branching off to a sub-blog was a good idea at the time, because I thought it’d be a good way to keep track of what I’m eating.  It’s been doing that, and I’ve developed the habit that if I’m going to photograph it, it should look good.  Generally, I’ve noticed that food doesn’t LOOK good if there aren’t freggies included.  That inspires me to include fruits and vegetables in my shots where possible, or to include the raw ingredients (as in the eggs pic in the gallery, above).

I don’t want to overload your inbox, so as we go along, if the posts are too frequent, feel free to adjust your delivery status.  WordPress allows you to get the posts immediately, once per day, or once per week.  All you have to do is go to your notifications and change your preferences.  If you’re a WordPress user, just go to https://wordpress.com/settings/subs-delivery/ to adjust your preferences.

The plan (in as much as I really follow plans) is to post exclusively here 🙂 You’ll get my sweets and sweats, things I’m studying/learning in school, and yes, even gaming updates… (If you play Hearthstone, add me!  Aminarra#1211)

P.S. My latest bit of news is that I upgraded my phone–and I shopped with this blog specifically in mind.  I bought an HTC One – it’s got a LOT of fancy camera features, and it takes much better photos than my previous phone (Droid Razr):

Live-Blogging while reading a blog: Gretchen Powell’s “Body Love vs. The Desire to be Thin”

As many of you might know, Gretchen Powell is one of my favorite bloggers. She’s down to earth, approachable, totally non-judgmental, and a great writer as well (true story: her first book was published last year and her next one is upcoming).  She writes about a variety of subjects, much like this blog, but she’s getting back to the basics about weight loss, gain, loss, and what she wants to gain.  I thought I’d try something different this time around and rather than leaving my commentary in a bubble where only a select few can see it, I wanted to “live blog” my reaction to her blog.  With the author’s permission, I present to you a reaction story to “Body Love vs. The Desire to be Thin.”

Guess who is almost 240 again? :(

I have a scale in my bathroom and, occasionally, I will weigh myself to make sure that things aren’t getting totally out of hand. Well, I’ve been hovering around 233 for the longest time.  I was STUNNED to step on the scale this morning and see 237.6.  I’m so distraught.  I don’t know of any solid reason for what feels like such a sudden gain.  Sure–I could cover it with a blanket statement about holidays, but I really didn’t feel that off the rails this season.   What’s more is that I’ve actually worked out 3x so far this week with a 4th planned for later today.

There’s nothing to it but to do it, though.. here’s to starting over.  Again. 😦

I’ve already got Iaido to keep me busy on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  I’m adding more workouts throughout the week, and I need to track again for a while.  Tracking is going to include measuring until I can actually fit into my jeans again.  This is a bit ridiculous.