The Big 5-0

This morning, I got up a half hour late and was going to skip my mid-week weigh in.  I figured it would take 2 seconds so what the heck.  Well, it took longer.  Why?  Because I didn't believe the scale and I kept stepping off and then back on, resetting it, etc.  This morning I finally hit my -50lb mark! 

Now I usually don't really trust my mid-week weigh ins because they are usually much higher than my weekend weigh ins.  This all seems silly.  I harp on people to not weigh themselves too often because it's normal for your body weight to fluctuate 2 pounds daily.  My mid-week weigh in is basically a check-in for myself.  It gives me a chance to reflect on the choices I have been making over the past few days.

Because of this mind set, I kind of passed this off as just water weight or whatever else goes on in my body throughout the week.  However, yesterday I went to pick up a dress that I was having altered and the alterations lady actually yelled at me because I lost 1.5-2" in my waist in the 2 weeks since I last saw her.

When I started to reflect on the weigh in and being yelled at by an alterations lady, I realized that, you know what?  I worked my butt off for this!  I have worked really hard the past 1.25 years and extremely hard these past two weeks because I was so close to the 50-pound mark.  

I deserve to celebrate this!  So, while I don't usually report my weekly weigh in results because I don't think it's necessary, I'll report this one because I'm so proud of the work I've done and how healthy I have become.  With this 50 pound loss, I am officially below my lowest grad school weight (the lowest I remember being in years).

So I came home, made a large iced coffee, took a 1/2 hour nap, treated myself to a Zumba class (thanks Amelia!), and now I am sitting here blogging my good news to you instead of getting ready for class tomorrow.   This seems like an appropriate celebration - treating myself to a fitness class (as opposed to a gluten free cupcake).

I wish you health and happiness!

Lack of sleep + no break from work = decline in mental health

Well, I'm on day 24ish of teaching/prepping for my summer class.  This means that I have worked a minimum of 5 hours every day for the past 24, with most weekdays topping 10-15.  This also means that my brain is hitting a wall! 

My new apartment is also a current source of drama for me.  It faces a parking lot and I am woken up every morning at 1:30am, 2, 3, 4, 4:30, 5, 5:15, 5:30, 6, 6:15, 6:25...basically every time someone decides to lock their car via keyless entry, gets dropped off by a car with extremely loud music, or yells from the parking lot to someone's open window.  Keep in mind that I am a very heavy sleeper and it takes a lot to wake me up!  Let's just say the novelty of this apartment is wearing off and my patience is wearing thin!  Usually I just grumble and end up getting up and being crabby the rest of the day.  This is not helping my current work/brain situation.  Oh and look!  Someone is moving in now, meaning I have to shut all of my blinds or have 10 people stare through the windows at me working at my kitchen table all day.

I cannot be mentally happy when I can't have sunshine and fresh air in my house when it's gorgeous outside and I'm stuck inside working all weekend! 

Okay, so enough complaining about my current living situation.  Hopefully, I'll only be in this apartment a year, even if I can just move to a different apartment in the same complex.  So - high point for me right now is knowing that I only have 7 more days of class!  Yep, that's right, folks.  Hopefully, one week from Thursday evening, I'll be free as a bird and can finally start enjoying summer and all the stuff that comes with it.  I must admit, I see and hear about everyone's summer plans all the time and I'm very jealous.  Jealously is also not good for my mental health! 

I believe a lot of times we think of our health as only diet and exercise.  Mental health is such a big thing though!  If we are physically healthy but not mentally healthy, what's the point?  So, I'm working on the mental health thing.  I've become a much more positive person in the last year and I hope it shows.  I'm happy with who I am, I'm much healthier (physically), I've accepted that I still have no clue what I want to do professionally, I have great opportunities coming my way, my family is great, and, let's face it, I've got it pretty good.  Yes, I'm working my butt off right now, but it will pay off when I get the rest of July and part of August off to calm my brain down a bit and do all the stuff I feel like I'm missing out on right now.

I'm still committed to working out and was able to get up 3/4 teaching days last week at 5am to do a quick workout and I also worked out a little harder another day.  This really helps me with mental clarity, energy levels, and overall happiness while I am at work.  It also really makes me crash at the end of the week!

I've also really been focusing on what I have been eating.  I'll admit that at the end of a very long day, I just want pasta or something very carby like that.  I have been working towards a more moderate carb diet (NOT low-carb!).  My body just does better when I don't eat a ton of rice pasta, rice, potatoes, rice/seed crackers, etc. every day.  I also feel better.  So, I am aiming for lots of protein to support my muscles that I work hard, lots of veggies, fruit, nuts, water, and a few sources of calcium. 

I've also been trying to continue using a food journal.  It's helpful to see exactly what I am eating everyday and where I may have strayed a bit.  And, yes, eating this way and journaling makes me mentally healthy (not just because I'm feeding my brain well).  I know that I have control over what I am eating and I am making good choices.

I promised myself that I would get up at 5am every morning this week to work out again and an hour off in the evening every night this week, just to relax and get my mind back on track.  I'll let you know how it goes! 

Pike Push Ups!

Because I have been so short on time to work out lately, I have been relying on Jillian Michael's workout DVDs.  For the past month or so, I have been doing Ripped in 30.  I loved Level 1, it isn't super hard but I worked up a good sweat, my heart was pumping, and I saw results.  I did not love Level 2.  It was a lot of alternating standing moves and floor work.  For some reason, I get very bad, long lasting headaches after workouts like that.  I did Level 2 ~5-6 times and then decided to move on.

Yesterday, I moved up to Level 3.  This level kicked my butt!  Now, when I say that this kicked my butt, I mean that I sweated through an entire shirt (even the sleeves) and was dripping sweat off of my face, arms, and legs.  Yes, gross.  Also awesome!  The warmup was NOT a warm up but a way to fit in some hard core exercises veiled as a warm up.  To my surprise, I could do most everything in this workout even though a lot of the stuff involved was new to me. 

At one point, Jillian said, "Get into your best downward dog and do push ups!"  I kind of scoffed (upper body strength is not a strength of mine, no pun intended) and then shrugged my shoulders and figured that I might as well try it.  Guess what?  I could do them!  For the entire time required!  Woot!  These are technically called Pike Push ups. 

I found a blog that gives a pretty good photo of what this should look like.  Check it out here.  I'm sure that I did not look like that!  I had my feet in closer to my hands, which makes this harder and probably looks more spastic.

I could do the majority of this level without much problem (just a lot of effort!).  It's funny what you can do when you put your mind to it and just give it a shot.  It was also funny to be working my butt off and sweating like crazy and then to look through your legs while doing pike push ups and see this going on right behind you:

This is Bella, my 5-year old cat.  She was loungin' out, watching me, and sleeping.  I'm only a little jealous of her life.  In her defense, she has an upper respiratory infection right now so she wasn't feeling the greatest and that's why her eyes look a little sore.

I'm planning on going through Level 3 again today and am excited to move on to Level 4.  Although I have worked out quite a bit in the past, I have been consistently working out (4-7 days a week) for 7 months now.  The only break I took during that time is when I had a sinus infection and bronchitis.  It is amazing how much endurance and muscle strength you can build in that amount of time!