Okay, I’ve been MIA way too long for my own comfort. And here we are, final Thursday of 2017, final session of 2017 with fab trainer J.

It’s been 2.5 years of working hard at getting fitter, and it is a long war I am winning. I am so much better off than when I started and continue to maintain this buzzy excitement about the training and the practice and the overall results. No matter how long it seems to take, I have made a lot of inroads toward reshaping my shape. The results are not what I expected, but as I have learned throughout this journey, my initial expectations were based on faulty data and needed to be discarded before real work could begin.

In my fat loss group on Facebook, I made a really stark comment today in response to a friend complimenting me on my discipline and dedication:

I feel it came down to a choice of modifying my lifestyle or accept that I was sitting around waiting to die. When I look at it like that, another BAS (big-ass salad) with chicken seems very, very palatable.

I made the right choice. It’s been a long slog, and sometimes it felt like I was pulling several big weights along with me on the uphill battle. But to feel this good about myself and in my own skin: worth it.

I have ambitious plans for 2018, because frankly, I need to blog to truly feel the weights and measures of my progress. Plus I have missed it.

For right now, though, it has been a busy and somewhat sad time since last I was here. Unless something freakish happens in practices over the next few days, I close out another year completely injury free. Not just for this year, but the entirety of the 2.5 years since I began this adventure from couch potato to gym hamster.

I have also realized some deeper mindset gains, in that I have been able to take days off – as many as 3 consecutive days off – without a mental meltdown of any major proportion. The world as I knew it did not end. I returned to the gym and the equipment was still there (although I did immediately notice the gym sweat smell) and I had not completely forgotten how to wield my beloved dumbbells.

As for today, it was primarily a technical review. We updated my warm-up with new ideas and order of exercises I already do and know well. We reviewed some landmine movements and layered in some new, more technical cues into the mix. I occasionally still wonder what happens when I run out of new skill building. In my head that’s when we add more weight and I start relearning all over again under the new load.

I still love review days. I have learned to embrace rather than fear the trainer eye, which is no small cakes when I look back at the landscape of my journey thus far. Even my own eccentricities about what I think about while lifting or self-examination of where I am going wrong (this time) are positive pursuits, not occasions for crippling negativity and feeling like the village idiot’s dumber sister.

Those days are still prominent in my thoughts, even though I have moved so far away from them. I was telling a friend today that it is easy to unconsciously fall into the trap of thinking we are weak or less worthy or horrible people when faced with new obstacles and challenges that cause us pain or anxiety or fear. From very personal experience, I know how difficult the habit of a negative mindset is to replace with a more positive countenance. My awareness of my negative girl in her cage is important to maintain lest I become lazy and inadvertently free her to overwhelm me and undo all my hard work at the first opportunity.

As the year winds down and I look back at all we have done this past year, I find I have a lot more respect for my own ability. There were 106 training sessions in 2017, and I am very proud of not having had to cancel a single session or, to the best of my recollection, having had to request a reschedule. While I have not always been 110% into the session – I had occasions of not enough sleep, low energy, generally undefined malaise – I have shown up with enough time to warm-up appropriately. I have paid attention and I have learned. I practiced consistently on my own, enough to show definite improvement and advance to new and different challenges and move weightier weights to and fro. I have overcome so many big and little hurdles.

My forward progress with the better health quest continues.

I have also grown so much as a better, more well-rounded person. While I may be stronger, fitter, and overall healthier, I have also gained wisdom, insight, and strived to improve my standing as tribe in all the realms of my life.

With regard to 2017, it was a successful and satisfying year. I am looking forward to and eagerly anticipating all that comes to me in 2018.

The very BEST outcome of today? Another trainer’s genuine compliment on my emerging deltoid muscles. While not a fisher of positive reinforcement, I am also not immune to happy glow of spontaneous compliments. My method of just blindly working at trying to practice, trying to learn, trying to stick with it does not leave me a lot of room to stand around admiring my work in the mirrors. My style is more about when I randomly notice that something has changed. Maybe it’s the way my clothes fit or a new crease between muscles. Maybe it’s just the scale finally giving up and grudgingly dropping to a new lower amount.

I am really happy and content to feel good in my own skin. But to have someone say something nice about the work I am doing, it’s the BEST feeling.

If I don’t make it back here, I wish you all before 2018 dawns, I wish you all a safe and happy new year. I am tying up some loose ends with blog housekeeping and fully anticipate being back in business next year.

I’m still working out issues with my blog. It’s a long slog, and so insanely frustrating. But a consequence of that is that I am learning an awful lot about the under-the-hood technicalities of owning and maintaining a blog.

Because of this inability to feel “heard” in the world at large, my writing has trickled down to a minimal few sentences that are laced with a “woe is me” tone to them. Or I send out massive texts with an edge of whining desperation. It does not help that my anticipated quiet Thanksgiving week for work-work was like exploding popcorn kernels left and right. It is a good problem to have, but I would like everything to just be neat, tidy, and work the way it is supposed to be working

Training continues, even if recaps have slowed to nonexistence. It has provided some opportunities for me to contemplate how to set myself up for writing in the new year.

The format I’ve been using works pretty well, but I need to tweak it a bit. I think.

But I’m still thinking about it.

There is a big, giant part of my brain that likes consistency and streamlined organization. I like things that are reliable and work the way I expect them to work. Same is true of this kind of blogging about training. I do this twice a week, with the same trainer. I always want to talk about the List of the day. If I have some big, little, or no breakthroughs I want my enthusiasm and excitement to bleed over and onto these pages. There is always a bunch of mish-mash thinking that may have little to do with what we did that day but everything to do with memory and remembering for the future.

My practice feels as if it has suffered in my blogging absence. While it may sound like blah, blah, and more blah to you to read, to me its notes on the experience that cements the instruction and brings back a broad range of little details that would be lost in translation.

Not blogging about it – I’m experiencing the “lost in translation” feeling of it.

While my inner negative girl might want to whisper that my lack of focus and memory is putting me into a position of losing my good standing in the training tribe, I know she’s full of shit. I still go to the gym. I still practice. I still work f**king hard and am putting forth the effort to improve.

And I am the only one this level of frustrated that I cannot recall all the interesting details I learn in session.

So yeah, my posts run longer than many blogs I read and follow, now or in the past. Perhaps I need to remind myself that comparison is the thief of joy in all aspects of life, even blogging. Having more or less to report and talk about is not a bad thing.

In that vein, I began a training recap on Friday and did not get it finished. But it was a good start.

From Friday, November 24, 2017 (PT-83)

While blog tinkering continues, so does the writing. I have some time today to write a recap, so I am taking advantage of it.

It is the Friday after Thanksgiving, and as seems to be a evolving tradition I was training with J. In my recap absence we have continued our quest to teach/learn new training techniques, and we are venturing forth into a new phase of increasing strength by focusing on intensity. Or so it seems, anyway. Honestly, November has been a bit of a mess with regarding to training and schedules. There is no fault in that statement either. J was away for a week on vacation for 2 sessions (Thursday one week, Monday the next), and I am the person who needs more structure and predictability. This week was Thanksgiving, so rather than getting back to normal Monday and Thursday, we were Monday and Friday. For whatever reason, it does not work as well inside my own head. Thankfully regularly scheduled programming resumes next week for a few weeks, until the Christmas holidays interrupt again for vacation and such.

I sort of hate the holidays. The weight of expectations associated with them would suffocate me if I allow it, and I do cling to my routines to help me get through the effusive and feels-fake happy-happy-joy-joy that seems to be pumped into the air around me. My plan is to keep my head down and to view the season as a bit of an endurance test with an abundance of flashing, blinking, twinkling lights that light up the nights. I am an enthusiastic consumer of holiday light displays and all the bright and shiney bling that accompanies it.

Sometime in November, we began this new phase of training where J is working with me on focus and intensity. It came up on Monday with upper body, where I really focus on pretensioning and feeling the weight move with the tension in the muscles working versus just whatever limb happens to make the process most expedient. I am doing a poor job of explaining it, but trust me, when you are in the moment with weight in hand, it becomes a lot more a self-explanatory and illustrative. It’s not a zoom-zoom-zoom, peppy-peppy pacing type thing either, much more slow, deliberate, and contemplative.

We started this newest training wrinkle last Thursday, emphasized and enhanced it on Monday, where it has caught fire in my imagination and daily practice thinking. To be sure, for me, this type of focus and intensity does not come naturally, and it feels like I may need a lobotomy (to cut away more natural inclinations) and a transplant (to input the new behaviors). Of course, that type of thinking and feeling is not new either; after 2+ years of training and learning with J, I am accustomed to feeling both inadequately prepared and completely empowered simultaneously.

It takes practice. At the end of every session, I realize that there is no natural talent involved here to learn and acquire new skills. I have the teaching, I can and will gain mastery. I just have to practice.

And as I am typing along, I realize this is not really a typical training recap. With the blog being kinda/sorta out of commission, too, it seems a good time to launch somewhere new. Yet I am still thinking about it. The framework is ready and posts could begin, yet I am not quite ready to completely abandon the very frustrating migration effort.

And now it’s Monday

Another training day with J. It was fun. It was exhilarating. It had more wrinkles. But mostly, it deserves it’s own post.

Monday morning, training with J. After dramatically shortened Saturday practice and a whole day rest day on Sunday, I was well rested and 100% healthy this morning. It was a good session, back to working at building strength.

Key Takeaways

No major breakthroughs with exercise today, but some internal realizations from external observations. Occurred to while J interacted with other members while we were working – how much do I trust my trainer? In my case, absolutely. I can tell him something hurts or is bothering me, and he adjusts the List to suit the situation. When left to pick what I might want to do, I’m nearly always going to revert back to a something where I have a lesser degree of confidence in my own ability. Part of this is simply my personality; trainer-trainee partnership says he is operating from a much wider, more diverse library of exercise that I possess and can on-the-fly pick and choose what we’re doing without the laborious thinking and research would be required for me to do this for myself.

My concern about weighty weights and backsliding with progress is less about weights I may be using or the competency I may surrender by not practicing them than it is about the habit of being in the gym doing something on a regular, consistent basis. If I did more or were habituated to cardio, I would probably not be as addictively obsessive about my various Lists. But I don’t do steady state cardio, and I do think about my core work and have dreams of various exercises where I have a strong desire to practice and improve. Last we did this particular push List, I was using more weight. But oh well. I’ll get back there soon enough.

Good health comes in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and forms. I love my emerging self-confidence outside of my professional pursuits and endeavors. There is a real sense of the long-term benefits of all my present-day pursuits in my getting regular exercise and making better food choices. The scale is still not my friend – it’s a data point-generating device that inspires a lot less feeling of anxiety and dread.

Online sources of support and shared objectives with regard to fat loss and improved fitness are not working for me, and only partly because I am a bit of an awkward weirdo with social media. Going forward, other than the few friends I have made outside of the groups, I’m likely to step even further away from participating in either. Either that or risk irking trainer J with my questions of obscure concepts I come across in my reading. I learn few things of any value, and I can live a very long and happy life without ever exploring further.

What We Did

Today was the push version of our push-pull Lists:

A1  Heavy DB Goblet Squat (45 lb. KB)
A2  Incline DB Chest Press (30 lb. DBs)
A3  DB Biceps Curls (15 lb. DBs)

B1  DB Bulgarian Split Squat (15 lb. DBs)
B2  1-arm DB Overhead Press (20 lb. DB)
B3  Bent Over DB Rear Fly (5 lb. DBs)

C1  DB Sumo Squat (35 lb. KBs)
C2  Seated DB “hang and bang” Lateral Raises (5 lb. DBs)
C3  Lying 2-DB Triceps Extensions (15 lb. DBs)

How It Felt

We are back to the weightier weight version of goblet squats. Last we visited this List, it was with a 55 lb. dumbbell. Today, the 45 lb. kettlebell felt like this ginormous chunk of vinyl-coated metal that was never meant for me to elevate off the ground without help. I did okay, but I continue to be amazed how a 45 lb. kettlebell feels so much heavier than a dumbbell equivalent. I already know that I have to work hard at staying upright – I think of it as “tippy-tippy-break” when form goes all wrong – and pressing down through heels. It also seems like after this much time it should be easier, or more routine. But nope, not for me. Every day, every time I do squats of any stripe, I am thinking and wondering if my butt back is back enough or if my knees are breaking first enroute to the bottom of the squat. At the bottom of the squat, what are my heels doing? So many times I catch myself with heels elevating and the tippy-tippy-break in progress before I can catch myself and make it stop. Consoling factor? How boring an hour it would be for fab trainer J if I form were more perfected more of the time.

On to the incline bench press, starting with a pair of 25 lb. dumbbells and stepping up to the 30 lb. dumbbells. Okay, I admit to being a lot proud of myself with these, if only because the rest of the day contained so much conversation about form, technique, correcting my arms and hands flailing around in a mostly uncontrolled manner. I am particularly liking chest presses lately because I can really feel the muscles working the weight and I have trained myself to not lock my arms out at the top. It’s so tempting to just press up until my elbows lock, and I seem to be into the habit groove of stopping with elbow bend remaining. Big win.

I am still not quite given over to being a full-blown curl monkey, but I have a strong preference for the alternating version of dumbbell bicep curls versus the 2-arm version with a pair of 15 lb. dumbbells. We did start with a few 2-arms, for compare and contrast, and while I flunked the pop quiz (the 2-arm can include more shoulder involvement), I truly thought it was all about personal preference and how it felt easier and not so heavy to do an arm at a time. There has been issue with my right forearm in the last several weeks, but it seems to be coming along nicely. Hammer curls with a 15 lb. dumbbell – probably not this month, but forearm is improved and my babying it is now an afterthought than an ongoing issue that I am considering every single day. As for the bicep curls, they went well and I can still feel that I was working them this morning. My biceps getting stronger, but I’m far from bulky or sporting the biggest guns in the gym. All cool with me. I’m happy to be capable of doing the exercise no matter how boring I find it.

I don’t think I know anyone who looks forward to Bulgarian split squats, and these are not my favorites either. However, I’m improving. Last week I did bodyweight on at least 2 occasions, so I felt more ready today with 15 lb. dumbbells in hand. J reminded me of the learning curve with these – overcoming the balance with a single foot on the floor – and look at me now. My competency with everything in the lunge family is a huge point of pride for me, because I had genuine lunge anxiety when we began and it took quite a long time for me to come to learn and gain baseline proficiency. Today we used 15 lb. dumbbells, but I looking through my notes I see that I have used a pair of 20 lb. dumbbells in the past. Either way, I’m glad I have no lost any significant ground with basic shape and ability.

The 1-arm dumbbell overhead press – we switched from a split stance to a squared stance today, a new progression in stability. Other than retraining my habit from split stance to squared stance, I was surprisingly ready for the transition and handled it well, even with hoisting a 20 lb. dumbbell overhead. Maybe it’s the relative simplicity, or maybe it’s just that I like the feels and impacts on my shoulders, maybe it’s that I have a good understanding of the scapular plane positioning, but I like when the standing version appears on Lists.

First troubling exercise of the day was the bent over rear fly. Even with 5 lb. dumbbells, this is the most corrected exercise in quite awhile. For whatever reason, my arms and hands do not want to cooperate and instead wish to flail around like some sort of crazed windmill. Or so goes my thinking as I am trying so hard to keep them in line. Problem first arises with hands wanting to turn sideways and flash the whites of my lower forearm. No, no, no. Hands are supposed to stay level, with pinky fingers above the thumbs gripping the dumbbells, elbows flare. In my case the hands want to flip upside down and who knows where the heck elbows are in the process? Have to work on keeping upper body parallel to the floor, knees slightly bent. And pulling from the shoulders, not flailing with the arms. Ugh. These look so easy. I watch J demonstrate; carefully observe exactly what his hands, arms, elbows, and shoulders are doing. Can I replicate it? Not easily. I am oh-so-slowly getting the hang of it, but crap – talk about thick-headed slow learner. Overriding the separate impulses of hands and arms is going to take some concentrated practice.

It’s been awhile since I have done dumbbell sumo squats, today with a pair of 35 lb. kettlebells rather than just a weightier weight dumbbell. First thing I noticed: how heavy those kettlebells are to lift, much less do squats with. But going along through the exercise, no way was I going to reach the 12 to 15 rep range J tossed out there. I did make 12, but after that – I was so done with those. One of my knees made a poppish sound, loud enough for super-hearing J to take note of and give a closer look at my foot placement (turn outward more). For the record, knee was and remains fine; no idea what the poppish sound was and doubt it anything serious. BUT, there was another member working out near us, resulting in a well-deserved spontaneous compliment for trainer J’s abilities. And it’s a small, small world: she’s also a runner and knows and “loves” my son G. That made a pretty awesome training even that much better.

On to the second troubling exercise of the day – the seated dumbbell “hang and bang” lateral raises. Like their close cousin, the bent over rear fly, arms and hands have independent ingrained habits that are going to be some work to break. I’m going to be going in slo-mo on these while I am trying to get hands and arms and shoulders doing the lifting all in line and working together. Another deceptively simple exercise. But something closer to perfect practice is required in this, because I am not hitting the right muscle groups if I am losing track of what all my limbs are doing while we are focused on the lateral raise. At least my wild misstep exercises are in the same general family and can be worked at and worked on together.

And finally, an established favorite, the lying down 2-dumbbell triceps extensions. These remain a constant on the favorites list, and only marginally because I feel like I have well and truly learned the shape and the way they are supposed to work to be most effective. I love them because they are effective, and after doing them faithfully for the last 2 years, I can actually see and feel the triceps muscle. Before, I only saw or felt the batwings. Now, I see the sleek little muscle there and greatly diminished batwing. That’s huge for me: actually being able to see the new muscle emerging.

Kitchen Sink Thoughts

An interesting thing to me about training days is this section of the recaps. Frankly, I’m never sure what I might be thinking about before, during, and afterwards. Usually I am all a-glow with happy-happy-joy-joy for new things I learned, exercises I am improving upon, weightier weights I have used. Plus I just feel very good, as if this were a grade-worthy event and I came out with a better that expected score. But I don’t know what will stand out as most relevant to talk about here.

I have had a lot of thoughts lately about why I continue to train with J, quite probably because we are in the fourth quarter of 2017 and my plan is to renew and purchase my next chunk of sessions using 2017 dollars (money geek; I divide my planned spending into buckets and like to clear it out as much as possible before the end of the year). I have certainly learned a lot in the last 2+ years. Days like today, when we are working at and breaking down my form and technique on specific movements, I remember why I have not quite with a defeatist attitude, choose to train with him, and plan to continue for the foreseeable future. Chatting with another member about her needs for her session and what she wants to do in it based on how she feels, I have a better sense of who I am in trusting J’s judgment, knowledge, and experience to get me wherever we go next. I speak frequently of exercising safely and sanely, and other than talking about it in passing conversation, I never say to him “remember I have this, that, the other thing ….” as far as aches and pains. If something hurts, I tell him and we work around it.

Why I choose to continue training with J: he makes me better.

Strong word, “makes.” Like he’s standing there with the bullwhip primed and ready and forcing me to do this stuff. Sometimes I think this is the vision most people have when they think of personal trainers. Or that they are standing beside you with encouraging and inspiring platitudes and happy dance celebrating every single squat or curl. Or giving you the frowny face when you confess eating tons of crap and sugar all weekend and not being in the gym since your prior training session.

It’s been a long, long while since no practice between sessions has been an issue for me. Confessions of eating crap and sugar are no longer an issue either, and even if they were, there are worse things in life. Whatever visions I once had of what training is like, reality is our sessions are all about teaching, modifying, correcting, improving, and enhancing form and technique. In my experience with J, it is all about the teaching than it is about motivation and accountability and all those cool marketing words and terms used in gym advertising that trainers are available for hire to assist members in reaching their exercise objectives.

Motivation? That comes from me, and in truth, most days I don’t even think about it. I chose to avoid thinking motivation and went straight for creating exercise as a habit, so I didn’t have to seek another external force that I could use as an excuse to prevent me from getting up and to the gym and busy working at something. Motivation is like candy to me; something really enjoyable yet absolutely unnecessary for a healthy life.

Accountability? J and I are both pretty well-grounded in reality and its reflected in our training partnership. He’s not going to chastise me for falling off the healthy eating and regular practice wagons when it happens. Worst case scenario he will point out the consequences of my actions and choices, but most of the time – honestly, he does not care. Or more accurately, he does not manifest the caring emotion in the ways expectations of mainstream populations seem to anticipate and project. I’m a client; of course he has high hopes that I will practice what he’s trying to teach me, that I will improve and move closer to achieving my current objectives. That said, he’s not my babysitter or my conscience. If I’m struggling with something, I have to speak up, tell him that I just don’t get it (although he can usually read that clearly from my expressions) and we figure out where I’m going wrong (this time) and break it down and keep breaking it down until something sticks and I can gain some traction. I’ve learned there is no shame in not knowing, making mistakes, having to break bad habits. I know now that I am not the village idiot, and the exercise impacts and changes different bodies different ways.

Perhaps it is just time and maturity that comes with regular practice, achieving some success, and building on what I know, but I have written extensively about how my mindset has healed and improved as I continue my odyssey in the gym. When we first started, I took correction extremely personally and with an intense sense of shame for all I could not grasp and replicate in the first couple or few tries. The basic methodology of a lot of practice to mastery of the same basic things works well for me and improved my overall sense of confidence. Corrections to form are just corrections to form, not being called out for real or imagined character flaws that should be addressed. Big difference.

I don’t precisely feel weaker returning to this series than I did last we visited, but I do feel rechallenged by it. J did forewarn me that with the months of huffy-puffy focus that I may not be quite as strong woman in the same sense, so I was anticipating that the potential issue existed. But I was not disappointed; I did okay, probably could have pushed hard, but I think that every training day. Maybe I need to change my attitude, become the trainee seeking to impress the boss in session and go light the rest of the days on my own. But … doubtful; so not my style. Session days are learning days for me, my opportunities to ask the questions in the moment, to try out the cues, to find the best practices. I have 5 other days every week to do more sets and more reps, to up my intensity and practice what I am learning.

I am somewhat of a one-off weirdo in how seriously I try to learn and adapt to the exercise, but from firsthand experience I know what an impact is has had on my overall health. Today feels a bit like a crossroads. Finally over a bug, weather turning colder, going to yoga with a client on Tuesday – I’m thinking about what I want to do next with my fitness pursuits. Someday soon I will strike a balance with practice that includes a push day, a pull day, a couple of huffy puffy days, and then of course, training sessions. And one day per week, probably Sunday, a get outside day. Ultimately I think that’s my bigger picture and still quite tentative plan for routine weeks.

But I’ll see. I love the challenges being in the gym every day brings, love trying to improve and to get better. In my living room sits a Cybex arc trainer, for all that dedicated (and boring) cardio I’m not doing. I am going to a yoga class with a client, because he invited me and it will be fun seeing his self-professed non-bendy self in action. I think about more stretching, but to be perfectly candid, it holds about as much appeal as going on the 20 mile death march (for me) that M calls daily workout.

I have a lot of options, and no burning need or rush to make a decision or try something new immediately. As always, I’m thinking about it. Improvement is an infinite cycle available for me, and the only thing stopping me is me. I feel confident I am in the strongest place of my life to keep moving forward.

And speaking of improvement, having another brand of push-pull with diet. Healthy food choices – the bane of my existence. Well, not really – that would be or at least could be still be reserved for the single-legged everything and push-ups in the gym. But still; I don’t know why I continue to torture myself with trying to make food work better for me. Stick with what you know, Janelle; new things are less likely to work for me than they are for other folks.

Yep, starting to think my fickle-picky eater habits are having a somewhat adverse effect on my better health quest. Since I seem to only like/consume certain foods, I eat them over and over and over again. Day after day, week after week, month after month. Just writing that down – no wonder I find my eating so tiresome.

I am, however, learning. M and I ate out both days of the weekend, which is kind of rare for us anymore, and burger joints – extremely rare for us. Saturday was my favorite casual burgers (The Habit Burger) and Sunday was his (Islands). Saturday I did indeed have my cheeseburger quota, and it was divine. Sunday I went with the chicken caesar salad, my usual choice for this location, but the waiter either didn’t hear me or forgot to input my request to hold the parmesan cheese. Rather than send it back, I figured it would be fine and ate it anyway.

Or tried to eat it. A few bites into the salad, and it was far too salty for me to finish. So I ate the plain grilled chicken and some of the drier lettuce leaves and called it a day. I have always been more sensitive to salty foods, but rarely has anything overwhelmed to the point of abandonment. Fab trainer says this is a symptom of clean(er) eating, that I will become more sensitive to flavors. Boy howdy – I had no idea. Next time I’ll not be so agreeable and send the not right dish back to the kitchen.

I suppose it worries me (the tiniest bit!) because I am already such a fuss-bucket when it comes to food, as in there is so much I don’t really care for and will avoid if at all possible. Unfortunately stuff I love tends to be heavy in fat and carbs, so I am practicing moderation, most of the time (anymore) successfully. But I don’t let myself get to fixated on favorite things (pizza comes to mind immediately) and have a reasonable portion a couple of times per month. In the case of pizza, I will order a tiny personal size and a side salad. If I’m lucky, I’ll be eating with a friend willing to split it with me, otherwise I eat half and take half home for M. Pasta was once a weekly staple in our diet, but now it’s maybe once every 2 or 3 months and always in a restaurant. Once I discovered how high it spiked my blood sugar, pasta was moved to the treat column. Same with most chinese food, with all its sugar and carb-laden goodness.

My nutritionist friend suggests this could also be a good thing, perhaps I will find new foods or preparation methods for vegetables that make me enjoy them more. Perhaps. But I feel like such an old dog at this point; I’m not sure teaching my tastebuds new tricks is in the cards.

But maybe. Hope is eternal, after all. At least in my world.

Monday, October 16, 2017

Monday late morning, training with J. I have been sidelined for a couple of days due to illness (fever and severe sore throat/tonsillitis), so I have been quite literally on the couch for the past few days. By yesterday I was feeling significantly better, yet still in a weakened state, and yet I did not want to cancel my session or try to reschedule to what is typically a back-to-back busy Tuesday on J’s schedule. Instead J offered a compromise – a later (11 a.m.) training appointment so I could get some extra sleep if needed.

Key Takeaways

In the last 2 years, I have learned how to do a lot of different exercises in the gym and gained strength from it. I have come a long way in cleaning up my eating habits and lost weight in the process. And I am very proud of those accomplishments. But what I am most proud of is how much stronger, more powerful I have become with my thinking and my mindset. Inside my own head, negative girl still dwells and screeches out messages that can stress me out and lead me down the path of destructive self-doubt if I listen to them. I have grown a much thicker, stronger skin. In my opinion, my self-possession is the most attractive attribute to emerge from this process thus far.

This is my second 2-day streak of not going to the gym this year. First was kind of a mini-vacation, when I resolved to take 4 days off and could not stand it after 2. This time the situation was different – there’s no way I could have practiced even if I was not concerned about spreading my illness germs. But what I found curious this year, both times of skipping practices were essentially non events. This is poignant for me because as focused to the point of obsessed as I am with my exercise habits, I was not worried or upset on either occasion. Maybe I gain a couple of pounds from literally lying on the couch for a couple/few days. Maybe I get weaker from the time away. But so what? I’m in this for the long game, which means I will lose weight I gain and regain strength that may fade.

I appreciate the small differences of doing huffy-puffy on slowed way down pacing to match my ability and energy today. On my very best day, I am the client least likely to push herself too hard to impress the boss (trainer J). Training, exercise is probably 2/3 doing and 1/3 thinking about what I’m doing. It’s part of my process and possibly, probably what will restrain me from making me the poster person for amazing success story in shortest span of time.

What We Did

Because this is a former version of a huffy-puffy List, the descriptions and names may not be typical or how J might label them. But I tried to be descriptive where I lack a formal name for the exercise. Our List today:

Mini band warm-up – kickback, side kick, forward walk, lateral walk, kickback.

Goblet squat
1-arm row
Box elevated plank with kick-out/up/in

KB hip hinge
Pushup
Crunch / leg lift

Landmine 1-arm overhead press
Band facepulls
Band horizontal chops

How It Felt

On the mini band warm-up series: I still love, Love, LOVE my mini bands. And seeing so many others in the gym using them for zombie walks (it is October, after all) and lateral walks and using them for glute bridges and goblet squats, apparently J has been working with other trainers and building the mini band fan base. They are effective and add value to other exercises in the List rotations. Plus it’s absorbing and FUN to be forward, backward, sideways up and down the blue grass with rubber bands around the ankles.

The oldie but perennial goodie – goblet squats with the 25 lb. kettlebell. I do this often yet less frequently than days gone by, but I note how different my reactions to lighter than typical weights and rep ranges is in the present day. Still on antibiotics and recovering from random sickness, I was not in top form for training. Once upon a time, I would mentally beat myself up over my weakness and slacking. Today, I was simply happy to be back in the gym doing something, even shorter sets, lighter weights, significantly slower pacing. Plus squats – I always seem to make room for new improvements and enhancements in my form. Lately, it’s about the feet – always the damn feet! I have to watch my upright-ness and ensure my feet stay flat on the floor and pressing upward through the heels. Slow, slower, slowest-ing the squat points out all sorts of simple corrections too easily overlooked when pursuing the huffy-puffy pacing.

Next up is the 1-arm row with the lighter 18 lb. kettlebell. Since we started doing these with the landmine, things I know about foot placement and form had gotten misplaced. Rear foot turns sideways 90 degrees and knee is bent, stance is wider. Once I got there, everything worked the way it is supposed to work, pulling upward with the shoulder. I do love the row, and with the lighter weight, felt really dreamy pleasant. We did step up with the 25 lb. KB in the second set, and while more challenging than usual, it was not uncomfortable in my recovering state. That was encouraging. I will live to row another day starting with my typical 25 lb. weight.

We used the foam plyo box instead of the bench for the plank with kick-out/back/knee in. Glutes tight, rib tuck, rib tuck, rib tuck, and keep those glutes tight! I am pretty simple with planks – all of them – and staying straight with abs (rib tuck!) and glutes tight has my full attention. With the kick out, go as wide as possible without twisting the body. With the kick-back, rib tuck even more and kick back only until the glute tightens. With pulling the knee in, only about half way, before the tailbone tilts and tucks under. I know how it’s supposed to look and feel, but it is still not easy. Today on the plyo box and from the elbows, it was far easier on my shoulders and upper body, which is as much a point of fatigue as the abs waving the white flag and pleading for relief.

We returned to the kettlebell hip hinge, from the very first of my Lists back in 2015, only now I was using the 35 lb. kettlebell, which is fairly light for me anymore. But no matter; I made it work, and it was certainly more than enough challenge. I do love these, because it took me a long time to get the shape and technique of how they are supposed to work. Now, I am strong enough to hold the kettlebell in a stable position for the hinge and can feel my muscles all working together. It’s gratifying to revisit exercise I struggled so mightily to get some competence with and feel how far I have progressed.

The former arch nemesis and bane of my existence, the pushup returns today. This exercise hops in and out of my nemesis stable, but lately it spends more time on the outside. Progress, right? Today we did them on the foam plyo box, and I do think my habit of doing a set of at least 8 on the TRX or the bench most mornings as part of my warm-up has helped me progress. But I felt really, really good about my effort today. I actually feel them across my chest muscles now. While sweating profusely and breathing hard (even while going in the slowest of slo-mo pacing), I got them done. Glutes tight, ribs tucked, lower down to the point of chest stretch – done, done, and done. I’m improving.

On the latest ab/core template, we have done the crunch/leg lift combination. These are hard. Really hard. But I have been doing at least a set of floor chops most days and core is stronger. Not bullet-proof stronger, but definitely more capable than even 3 months ago. With this version of the crunch, knees are bent and feet closer to the bum, and elevating shoulders and reaching up as far as possible. Maybe there are people in the world whose shoulders actually lift up off the mat while pressing abs into the floor, but mine are not presently in that group. I tried and could definitely feel it in my core, but I don’t think there was any air flow between my shoulders and the mat while I was crunching. But oh well; this is where I dwell right now. On the leg lift portion, this version has elevated to 90 degree angle with knees bent at 90 degrees as well. Press core into the floor while slowly lowering the legs with knees bent. Low, lower, lower just until my abs let go and my back wants to bend, then pull those knees back up and start over again. OMG – these are so awful! Yet for some perverse reason, they appeal to me on so many levels. I like the challenge. I like the feels. As I said, I can actually feel the building strength in my abs, and it’s very exciting. I have never felt very capable in this regard, and I am finally feeling some changes occurring and progress being made.

The landmine 1-arm overhead press without a weight plate remains hugely satisfying for me. I cannot quite articulate how satisfying it is to use the big bar with or without additional weight, but I love that it’s now part of my Lists and rotations. My feeling in this moment is that this is an upgrade in personal responsibility over the dumbbells or machines, if only because I think there is a wider margin for errors that could result in an injury of some sort. Plus they are effective and build better shoulders in lots of ways.

Of all the facepulls I have learned, I like these with the big giant rubber band the most. It is not just the pulling backward against the band but the resistance of the band between my hands and the resistance pulling sideways as well. The feeling is are broader range across the back and through the shoulders.

The band horizontal chops continue, and I will keep plugging away at trying to improve my form and technique. Lean forward, side rib tuck into these, and try not to get so enthusiastic in the chopping motion that I lose my footing and have to reposition and adjust. As in everything, I will keep working at it, keep practicing, keep striving for improvement. But I gotta say – as part of my core template, I am starting to see some carving into the fat around my waistline and the faintest shadow of obliques emerging. Success is always very motivating.

Kitchen Sink Thoughts

Honestly, this is the shortest section of any training recap in well … forever. My primary thoughts today were that I’m glad to be well enough to be in the gym, period. No longer worried about spreading illness germs, fever had been gone without medication for more than 36 hours, and day 3 of the 7 day series of antibiotics had me feeling so much better. Still low energy, still not my usual levels of strength and endurance, but I did okay and felt good that I was at least in the gym and back to something akin to normal. Big win.

I am such a creature of habit, though, and I do not really enjoy being outside my routine, especially because I’m recovering or something else. The gym has a different vibe and feel at other times of day, and I am not familiar enough with it to feel completely at ease. Far from the end of anything or worthy of comment for anyone else, but I’m more sensitive to such things and like my routine and familiar sights and sounds.

But I was there. I didn’t spend my whole session whining or making excuses. I did what I could, and while I am never going to be voted most likely to push myself too hard in training, I was very conscious of the consequences of over doing it. I’d much rather go light on effort and return tomorrow than go big and have to stay home because I’ve relapsed.

A Tuesday Footnote

I was back in the gym today and going through this List again this morning. While on Monday we went lighter and did only 2 sets of everything, today I was feeling better and wanted to try for my the regular 3 sets of each block.

How I know I am not yet 100% over being sick: what normally would take maybe 40 minutes at even semi-leisurely pacing took me almost 2 hours. I had to stop many time. I have had to pause, wipe the sweat from my face and take a drink of water, and then finish the set. While I do care, I allowed myself plenty of time to spend 2+ hours to do everything I wanted to get done today. My energy is not back to normal obviously, but I remain very pleased with my effort.

I did make a mistake setting up my landmine overhead press, in that the bar got away from me and very nearly wrenched my shoulder. Fortunately I caught it and myself with a very minor pain tweak to my arm and elbow. The distraction as much as my faltering energy is a wake-up call, and I got very focused while I had the bar in my hands.

Experience for me is a great teacher, and the way I am handling my recovery from illness is a good measure of me listening to body and its reasonable requests. I’m not doing anything crazy. I’m not pushing and trying to use my normal weights if the lighter versions feel taxing to my system. But I’m also not giving up or giving in to my lazy side that whispers that I could go back to sleep or consume more calories because I’m getting over being sick.

Weighing myself on Monday – I had managed to gain 3.6 pounds over the weekend not exercising and eating whatever sounded good in the moment (primarily watermelon and Lipton noodle soup). But oh well; I don’t care. Or rather, I do care, but I am not particularly worried about it. I refuse to let the scale dictate the value of my efforts or my better health quest. Back on my feet, in the gym, getting caught up on work, and essentially up and moving around more – the scale will take care of itself. My eating is fine, not doing anything weird or crazy or stalking the nearest donut shop.

Life, and weight fluctuations, happen. So does getting sick and getting better. My freaking out about it is a waste of energy.

And that, my friends, is huge progress for me.

In my head, I should be writing my training recap. But I’m not. Because I’m juggling multiple projects, priorities, and thoughts. Plus I’d really like to eat at some point before I become cranky and hungry. That’s ugly stuff people; we don’t want to go there.

Reality is there is so much to talk about, in addition to the small, fine details and adjustments with training. Nothing big, no major weighty-weight goals to report or crow about, no new digit drop on the scale to be ridiculously excited about either. Nope, all about form, technique, the laser-focus trainer eye picking up small details that require adjustment and could derail progress now or into the future. These are not optional ways to do things; this is not hammer curl versus bicep curl kind of differences. It is small things about shoulders, core, foot placement. And it’s with basic exercises like squats.

But a typical recap takes a little time to write, time I presently don’t have to devote. Instead, in my head and other venues of communications I’m having discussions with people about ridiculous things that practical, pragmatic me does not understand. While I have disconnected and shut down the negative noise, it has the effect of stimulating my thinking and energizing my emotional volume. I’m kind of pointlessly indignant and outraged for not good reason. There are avenues in my life I need to just read the topic, unequivocally and unemotionally state my position (absolutely transparently: frequently the politically incorrect side of the equation), and let the rabble rousing continue without me. I gots other stuff to do.

The important thing I want to talk about, though, is the evolution of training as a component of the better health quest and its overall rippling effect. I can tell you until the cows and sheep and every other barnyard creature that wanders come home about the exercises and how each feels to me. I can tell you about my thoughts. I can tell you the lightbulb moments. And I love doing that. I love downloading all that happened in my mind, transcribing my notes from my notebook and sharing it with all of you.

I just lack the chunk of time to do so. And I’m utilizing the precious little I have right now explaining myself, primarily to myself.

Reading back through many hundreds of posts and emails and things I have written in the last 2+ years, I see the zig and zag of my journey and progress. I see myself with single legged Romanian deadlifts – once upon a time my arch nemesis exercise – and know how far I have come with that even though I continue to struggle with balance, only a far heavier weight or bar in my hand(s). My lunge anxiety and weeble-wobbles with bodyweight lunges of any stripe has given way to this fascination with the rear foot placement, body alignment, whether I am bobbing and weaving with the dumbbells in my hands. The weights I once thought so far out of reach for me are now just another datapoint in my day-to-day exercise experience.

I love that. I love ALL of that. The world’s best vocabularian lacks words to describe my deep sense of joy and satisfaction with all I can do now, how far I have come since I began training with J, and how infinite and exciting the learning curve in front of me with this process. (And who knew that “vocabularian” was actually a thing? Learning is forever.)

But my learning style – it has evolved and adapted, as has the way J and I interact in the trainer/trainee partnership. My capacity has not just grown in less fat, more muscle, increased stamina, it is also more discipline and an increase in my understanding. My body remains a bit of mystery to me, but I know that basic care and maintenance involve eating healthy foods and getting regular amounts of exercise. Even with that, there are quirks and adjustments. Despite my best efforts to maintain and be at a calorie deficit most days, for the first time in my entire life I found it’s possible to be a too much of a calorie deficit and how its impacts can and do take me in the wrong direction. Where I once felt stronger and more engaged while going through my List, I have felt weaker and more fatigued as I tried to press forward. Looking at my sleep and my stress levels, both seemed to be in order, particularly the sleep. I had not changed my diet, but it did seem more huffy-puffy effort was draining my reserves. I started watching my nutrient intake and that helped some, but increasing my overall calories put me back in normal energy range. And guess what? The scale went from plateau and creeping upward to on the march back down.

Yep, eating a little more and restarting my weight loss. Who knew?

As far as the exercise, I’m not always never the perfect client with pacing on huffy-puffy Lists, particularly technical review days where lots of little issue cropping up and creeping in from the List. (I know there probably isn’t a perfect training client; it’s another urban legend along with the rainbow-farting unicorns.) Maybe it’s less routine stuff – my forays into TRX exercises look and feel completely different than in the beginning – or just bad habits taking hold when I’m on my own. No matter. I’m still embryonic enough of trainee to take correction and adjustment and incorporate them into my form and technique. I also do not take it personally, as if I am the tribe idiot who does not or cannot understand. Comporting myself to getting the gazillion small nuances of exercise is not for the faint of heart, but I’m proud of myself for rising to the occasion. Big girl capris holding steady in this regard.

While it appears we’re socializing and having fun in training, I am very serious about learning and absorbing every single detail. Unfortunately there is so much about exercise that is miniscule little details that do not feel different (until it all goes bad) it’s difficult for me to remember everything without pen and paper in hand. In the time I have spent typing this post, I have had my arms stretched out trying to replicate the stance for the TRX tricep exercise and rib tucking while sitting upright thinking of the motion for glute bridges. Long live my exercise geekiness! This also leads me to the conclusion that tomorrow is too late to run through this List again, that I will have lost something while sleeping tonight. So I am will be back in the gym sometime tonight to run through it again to try and cement the nagging little things we went through.

It was that kind of small details-heavy session.

The whole point of this rambling brain dump: to describe that I am upgrading. For lack of a better, more accurate, more precise term, I will use one that sounds like a big and tangible Very Good Thing.

Yep, I am upgrading myself. My habits. My thoughts. My discipline. My cohorts. My work.

This is not me expressing belief that the work I do to improve my health deserves recognition or reward or status boost more frequently or even at all. Nope, this is me acknowledging that I have worked very, very hard and am seeing the natural consequence of those efforts in all aspects of my life. Who knew that developing a new sense of discipline in one aspect of my life would bleed over and color everything else more positively?

I marvel at this process. I was a pretty happy person before I began working on my improving my health, but I am in a superior frame of mind and reference since embarking. Better health – what to do, what to do. I hire a coach, I learn a lot, but there are 2 hours per week jam-packed full of exercise stuff so studying on my own is absolutely imperative. From there I meet others and getting to know them piques my interest in all sorts of things, so my natural curiosity makes me want to know and understand more.

Diving down the rabbit hole of new knowledge so I can reassure myself that I’m an equally interesting and interested conversation partner. Because at my core, I feel pretty damn boring in today’s world. I feel as if I read the same stuff everyone else reads, think along the same biased lines that I think, and when I meet others with different experiences, I like exploring their experiences and what has shaped their own biases so we can share and learn from each other. And rediscovering that I love, Love, LOVE the whole learning-new-things process.

But there is the militant asshole factor. I try to avoid it, and in most of my real-life interactions, my friends, associates, clients, general associations are fine. We are all grown-ups and have genuine give-and-take conversations. It’s online social media – something I pursue extremely sparingly – where the asshole factor comes into play. And I lack the patience and the stomach for arguing with might-is-right sort of mindsets.

The darker down side is my interest in and patience with others stuck and unwilling to try to up their game is waning. It’s a fine line where I am either a knowledge junkie unwilling to repeatedly pour my gathered treasure down some black hole without any return or I grow stagnant in the presence of others.

I know I am quite capable of patience and interest. J gave this spectacular illustration this morning, with potted plants. Get a pot, added the best soil possible, bury some seeds, water it, expose it to sunlight, talk/sing/dance for it. And watch it. Every day, do these good and nurturing things for the seeds. And be patient, while watching it. At some point, something is going to happen. Some little tendril will sprout from the soil, and over the course of days and weeks and months and years you care for this plant and provide all it needs, it grows and thrives.

Such is the case with diet and exercise. I was chatting with my daughter on Tuesday evening about the process, and I told her, truthfully, that it has only been in the last few months that I can truly discern the changes in my body and the scale. After 2+ years of at least 6 or 7 days of resistance training every single week, I have just now tipped the scale of 30 lb. weight loss. I’m physically smaller, have pretty new muscle peeking out on various body parts. There is less fat all over. Yet my BMI calculation says I am still obese.

Oh well.

The thing is, I stopped thinking that I should see results after a set amount of time and an awful lot of effort. My focus is just putting in the effort, doing the work. Everything counts. Every step on my Fitbit, every calorie I burn doing resistance training or weight lifting, every calorie I consume. I get tired, frustrated, distracted routinely and do not push the huffy-puffy pacing on huffy-puffy Lists, or my confidence feels tentative I utilize a lighter weight range. But my effort is not in vain. It may not be as efficient or as effective as if I put forth the all-out effort, but I still do a lot. And I’m satisfied with that effort no matter how reduced it may seem in my own mind.

As my base level of strength and endurance has built, so has my desire to understand the process more. I still come home from the gym after every session and write down in my own shorthand what I learned, what I want to retain, what I know and feel inside is most important. I frequently do the same after practices on my own. Who has the time? I hear this constantly on the rare occasions that I mention it. I make the time. Because what I value, I prioritize and protect. I value my health. I value my time, and J’s, and others in my village. I take notes and write down what I want to remember, including names mentioned in passing that I want to look up later. Because if I don’t write it down, I’ll forget. I am unlikely to even remember to ask for the name later and the potential avenue for learning new things is lost to me.

It’s part of my upgrading process. I make notes for later research from conversations with clients and with friends as well. My memory appears to be good because I have a habit of writing things down, and if I make the effort to write it down, my recall of details is so much better.

So, if I’m a good training client (and I am), I put forth the effort. I do my homework. I possibly have taken the concept of training extra credit to some unforeseen level. And I’m okay with that. This is my process, what works for me, what keeps me focused and interested in my own progress without using the typical, tangible measures.

If I let go of the reins on my discipline in this area, it would not be long before I’d be back on medication to control my blood sugar and those 30 lbs. would be restored. And I have given away all my larger sized clothing.

While I might idly wonder how letting go of my discipline with exercise and diet might impact the rest of my life – in work, in relationships, in interests – I have zero interest or intention in indulging that avenue of curiosity.

I have earned my progress because I do work at it, every single day. And I’m proud of my effort. The success I have enjoyed and the rewards of developing this discipline are far broader than I ever imagined. And as I type this and think about anyone telling me this 2+ years ago, I would have been very skeptical and feeling as if someone were trying to manipulate me. I can write about it until blogs are outlawed and am unlikely to sway anyone who hates exercise or any sort of restriction on their eating habits. It is something we each have to discover on our own.

Still, the effort and developing the discipline is so worth it and worthy of writing endless amounts of words about it.