One week 'FIT'

Hey, just about one week late.  Not bad?  No?  It's bad, isn't it.  I thought so.  

My attendance last week was... well, spotty.  I went Monday... I don't remember if Sarah worked Sunday night or not, she might have.  I think she went, though.  We may have gone together, I don't remember.  I didn't go Tuesday... my buddy Mark was taking the day off of work so it was our 'hang out' day... got caught up at his house, watched a couple of movies in his home theater, etc.  Wednesday I went at 9:30, had a good workout... then in the afternoon Sarah was planning on going to 5:30.  Well, around 4 or so I was feeling pretty good and thinking that Emma was home anyway... Alex and Joshua were going to be napping so... hey, I might as well go in with Sarah, right?  So I did.  Justin's wife had run the 9:30 class and she was there when we walked in the door at 5:20, too... as I feared, she thought it meant that she was too easy on us at 9:30.  I told her I was just so energized, I had to do more.  As Justin feared, she didn't buy it.  Turns out though that I kind of tweaked my left shoulder that morning, apparently, because it hurt worse and worse through the 5:30 class (with Randy).  But I just love the left-right-left-right combos doing jab-cross-hook-uppercut.  Fun stuff, man.  I was WIPED Wed night, though.  But that was a good day.

Thursday I got in for bands. John had his whole family there (wife Alyssa is a member too, and kids walking around... cute, even though they're John's kids).  I did my usual 'barely get through one set of abs and then be worthless the rest of the time'... did my terrible-form lunges thanks to my turf toe, etc.  Afterward, I turned in my signed 'thanks for firing me' documentation over at Trane... yay.  

Friday was a busy day... Sarah was working that night and we were having Mark and his family over for dinner, so I let Sarah sleep in and then all the stuff to get done in the afternoon meant I didn't make it to Friday Funday.  Similarly, I didn't go Sat morning so Sarah could get to sleep when she got home from work, since she was also working Sat night and we were going to my parents' for Christmas on Sunday so we wanted her to get as much sleep as she could Saturday.  So... I haven't worked out since Thursday.  I FEEL very inflexible, weak and fat.  The scale (which I shouldn't ever look at, of course) says 314 this morning, so... it's almost like I didn't gain last week at all.  Which is weird since it was like... cheat week.  Cookie's at Mark's house... cookies Friday night... Cookies Saturday... cookies at Mom and Dad's yesterday.  I think the cookies are all gone, but we're driving to Iowa tomorrow for Sarah's family Christmas.  I need to do some shopping today and should pick up some protein bars while I'm at it.  I got more bottled water so I can get back to hydrating. I had dreams about boxing last night, though, I really really am looking forward to kicking this afternoon again.  Just hope I don't hurt my back!!!  yay for Ibuprofen.  

10 week conclusion

You could probably take the regularity of my blog posts as an indicator of how good my own self-discipline is.  I SHOULD post after every class and event... the memory is fresh, it gives a nice flow when you read it (generally), etc.  Similarly, I SHOULD be writing down what I'm eating and staying on track.  But I don't and I'm not and there you go.

I'll start with the final Friday Funday...

I went to 9:30 and it was pretty busy.  I've seen it more crowded before... the 9:30 on black friday, for example... and the 8AM Saturday FIT that I went to.  But it was pretty crowded.  We warmed up with laps back and forth... I was just hoping we wouldn't do the crap-walks across the studio.  I can't do those things.  Like... I'm afraid that I'm going to hyper-extend my elbow and seriously hurt myself.  It's related to why I hate dips and can't hardly do them.  But we didn't have that for warm-ups... jabs across, jab-cross across, squats, lunges, front-kicks... good times.  We did the usual 'wheel of death' stuff with the outside of the wheel rotating, which I was in.  I felt great, like better than I think I ever have at a class.  When we were warming up, I kicked my knees up to get loosened up and I felt like I almost kicked my shoulder with my knee.  Obviously, that's not what actually happened, but being able to lift my knee that high... and hold it there... says so much for how far I've come in strength and flexibility in the past ten weeks.

Some fun stuff in the wheel of death:

Randy and Jill were working out on the inside of the wheel (Justin ran the class) so I got to partner with each of them.  Randy and I traded right roundhouses for power which was fun... because Randy is ridiculous.  When I rotated over to Jill, the second or third thing we did was trading off left jabs and she didn't jump right into it... so I gave her a look like 'c'mon, what're you doing???' I don't know if I said 'let's go!' to her or not, but I thought it was funny.  Karma's a bitch, though... at my next station, I was holding a six-inch (lie on your back, legs straight, hold your feet six inches off of the ground... just hold that...) and had my eyes shut, arms crossed... trying to focus on keeping my core and back tight... and I was thinking that it was a nice break. Justin was walking around and threatening to get out a tape measure if he thinks people aren't holding at six inches.  Shortly after that, I felt someone futzing with my feet... and figured it was Justin... well, it wasn't, it was Jill.  She had a medicine ball and an evil smile.  She put the ball on my feet... so I had to hold up the medicine ball along with my legs.  To be fair, it WAS too easy for me and I was not pushing anything.  So I held it the rest of the time with the medicine ball.  When done, I kicked it into the air, caught it and tossed it back to the middle of the studio.

Right around that station, Randy said we were going to do a 'mini-pyramid'... of pushups and jump-squats, just up to four.  Well, we started doing them and it felt... a little too familiar.  Then I realized... it was like doing burpees.  Almost exactly.  Justin can call what he wants, it was nearly a burpee pyramid.  Which... actually, now that I think about it, the thought of doing a pyramid of roundhouses and burpees sounds like a particularly nasty torture.  I don't want to give anyone ideas, so  Randy, Justin and Jill, if you are reading this, please don't take that as a request from me to add that.  ;-)

After class one of the women I partnered with told me that I almost hit her in the face with the bag with my cross at one point.  I apologized and told her that I wanted to make sure that she knew that I had done my combo.

So... that was the last session of my 10-wk challenge.

Testing yesterday was okay.  Inches-wise, I did okay, I think.  Pushups and situps I progressed, same with stretching... but my weight and body fat were disappointing.  I mean, I knew my weight wasn't great, but the body fat deal said I only decreased my body fat by 0.7%... which translates to me losing 4 pounds of MUSCLE along with like 4.8 pounds of fat.  I don't understand how that is possible when I've lost the inches that I lost.  <shrug>

So here's my final numbers:

Starting weight:  326.6 lbs
Final weight:  318.0

Starting fat percentage:  27.5%
Final fat percentage:  26.8%

Measurements (starting/final - inches)
Chest:  54.25 - 51.0
Waist:  54.0 -  50.0
Arm: 16.5 - 15.0
Thigh: 28.5 - 26.0
Hips: 51.0 - 49.0

Pushups in one minute!
Start:  27
5wk:  33
Final:  42

Situps in one minute!
Start:  29
5wk:  42
Final:  51

And finally, the sit and stretch/reach was okay.  At initial testing I did 7.25 inches and at my final testing I did 10.25.

I did the mile run in 9:27 at the start... we didn't test it yesterday... snow and cold... not safe.  You don't get a very good time running across a tundra, either.

So anyway... obviously I made progress with the numbers, but nothing spectacular.  I blame my diet and hunger.  I don't really have much more to day that that.  I wasn't eating a pizza and a quart of ice cream every night or anything, but I did have some of Emma's cake, I did have pie on Thanksgiving, etc.  I have a real hard time not being really hard on myself given how I've lost weight in the past by NOT indulging in that kind of food... and here I feel like I kind of screwed this up bad.

But... on the plus side, I did lose weight... I'm in MUCH better physical shape... and I'm not starving myself.  I'm really looking forward to the FIT stuff starting up tomorrow.  It's going to be hard, of course, but I kind of feel like there isn't a judgement hanging over me anymore.  Needless to say, I didn't win the $1000 prize at the awards deal last night... I wasn't even in the top five.  Guys up there tripled their number of pushups or lost 20% of their body fat.  They deserved it, I didn't.  But like I told John the other day, we're all winners.  Which I know sounds trite and everything, but it's true.  It didn't FEEL true yesterday, but... well, a decent night sleep and some quality time with your kids can shift some perspective.

I'm still planning on doing the 10K challenge.  John's doing it so we can push each other.  He was trying to break 100 pushups yesterday... crazy.  He didn't make it... and he wanted to break 50 situps... so we're on par there.  It's funny how we're all doing the same things but we're all at different competency levels... but the point is to push YOUR limits, not to compare yourself with someone else's.  But it's human nature to do that, so of course we do.  (at least, those of us unenlightened neanderthals do...)

So... I have my goals.  Long-term is the Twin Cities marathon next year (Sunday, October 5th, 2014... exactly one year after my initial testing for my 10wk challenge... is that kismet?  Serendipity?  Irony?  I dunno... but it works out well.)  I want to finish in under 4 hours.  Properly training for that will include some increasingly long runs... primarily on Wednesdays, working up to a 20 mile run a month before the marathon.  That will be interesting... kickboxing in the morning, run 10, 15 miles in the evening... then do bands workout the next morning.  ;-)

Short term my goal is to get under 300 pounds again... and well under, like to 290... so I don't relax and go back over.  If I keep my diet reasonably correct and keep with the workouts, I should be able to lose 1-2 pounds a week regularly... which is actually a pretty good pace of healthy weight loss, I think.  If I keep that up and work down to around 280 by the time I do the marathon, that'll help a lot to be running without that extra weight.  I don't really even want to talk body fat percentages because I still think something's screwed up there... but if I lose 35 pounds of fat in the next 40 weeks, I would theoretically be  at about 21% body fat... right about where I was in college when I was at my 'most' fit.  Of course I weighed 215 pounds then...

My Farrell's story continues in FIT starting tomorrow.  :-)  I enjoy the workouts, I think the people are great.  Very supportive and just HAPPY.  I've never seen so many smiling faces in a workout facility, it's pretty awesome to be one of them.

Resistance is futile.

lol... just kidding.  My inner Trekkie coming out there...

Today was tough, it was a lot of abs stuff that my back wouldn't let me do.  Especially my right leg... leg lifts, shin-taps, etc.  I'm not sure what to do... I really should do the core exercises that I learned in therapy a couple of years ago when I knocked my back out... that would probably help.  Also, it might be good to stretch more... I wind up showing up just in time for class to start and don't have much time for loosening up.

Did a lot of lunges today, too, which is still very difficult with my turf toe.  :-(  And then squats with resistance.  I did them with two medicine balls at first but it's so easy... so I did two purple bands and just like I figured it's not hard for my quads but it hurts the bottom of my feet... ditto for hen pecks (which we did also).  I wish I had shoes.

I was kind of surprised we didn't do donkey kicks or hip raisers today.  And since I was in the 'well, this is probably the last resistance class I'll have until February' mindset, I was waxing a little nostalgic... but Sarah is going to get me a month of FIT membership for my Christmas present, so I'll get signed up tomorrow so we can keep going through the next two weeks.  That'll be nice... with the kids home from school to watch Alex and Josh (well... with Emma home to watch the boys... Nathan isn't our babysitter), Sarah and I can work out together.  That'll be fun... she's missed the last two weeks thanks to her kidney infection, she's looking forward to getting back into it on Monday.  She hasn't even used her new girly pink boxing gloves yet.

Last resistance class today...

On the one hand, I want to go... but on the other hand, I don't want to leave the house today.  Meh.

It's been a good week so far, as far as classes are concerned.  Kicking yesterday was weird, though... we were finishing up and Justin said 'one more exercise and you're done!' and the guy I was partnered with smiled at me and said 'pyramid'... I smiled and nodded... but all I could think about was the fire hydrants that Jillian put us through on Saturday.  But then... it wasn't a pyramid.  I don't remember what it was, I think I was in too much shock to register what we were doing but... no pyramids.  Of course we did like 120 pushups and 40 or so dips so that kind of made up for it.  Or I should say the class did 40 or so dips... because I can't.  I wound up reverse planking as best I could.

So anyway, it's the home stretch here.  One more resistance class (I have to leave in ten minutes)... which Justin yesterday promised we'd enjoy... so I'm sure there's some extra creative torture planned there... and one more Friday Funday.  I'm not going to be able to start FIT right away.  I don't know when I'm getting my severance and if it isn't until the end of January, I can't afford two FIT payments before then.  It sucks... I mean it's been 10 weeks since I wasn't doing this... and it'll probably be at least two weeks before I get in again.  I love getting started up kickboxing... throw a right roundhouse and a jab-cross into the bag, waiting to get started.  WHAM.  Ugh, it feels good.  My turf toe is getting better, but not great.  I can't believe I've gotten this far without hurting a knee or blowing my back out.  (not to jinx myself).  I really hope we can do the run on Saturday testing, but it's been pretty damn cold (single digit high temps).

One more week to go

Well, Friday was 'fun'... ;-)   I'd never had a class with Tiffany running it before.  I'd seen her as a class participant before and could tell that she really knew what she was doing.  I think she's probably the 'worst' as far as not letting you slack off.. which means she's the best, I suppose.  ;-)  Three things stick out in my memory...

1.  Pointing out to us "You just wasted five seconds!!!" when we didn't start the next exercise right away.
b.  While I was squatting, she came over, made me stick my chest up and get my thighs parallel so I wasn't resting on my calves... and then said "I know what you're doing!!!"   Like... 'I see what you're doing there, it looks like you're squatting but you're really resting... quit slacking'.   Nice.
3.  I don't remember if it was jab-cross combos or burnout jabs... I think burnout jabs... but she yelled at me that she knows I can hit harder than that.  Yeah, it was the burnout jabs.

So that was a good workout.  I don't remember what we finished with but I do remember being on my knees, staring at the mat and panting.

We were told to bring our gloves and wraps in on Saturday... interesting, huh?  So here was the deal...

Saturday's workout was apparently supposed to be a 'taste of FIT'... but I think not really because we only went 45 minutes.  It was like the 8AM FIT class I went to though because there were fast transitions.  We did three 'sets'... each about 14 minutes long.  Each set had four different exercises that we were doing which corresponded to a card suit.  For example... in set 1, hearts were wide-grip curls.  Jill had a deck of cards... and whatever she pulled, that was what we did.  So if she pulled a 6 of hearts, we did six wide-grip curls.  If she pulled a face card, it was 10.  Aces were 11.  And if she pulled a joker, it meant 10 of all four exercises.
I'm going to try to remember them all...

Set 1:  Wide-grip curls, pushups (with figure-8 band), jump-squats and... ugh, can't remember.

Set 2:  Jab-cross combos, alternating right-left roundhouses, situp/jab bag combos and effin' burpees.

Set 3:  Plank dips (you plank, then dip your right side hip, then left... that's one)... and I don't remember what else right now except for fire hydrant pyramids.

Okay... to refresh, fire hydrants are as follows:  On your hands and knees next to the bag... you lift your knee sideways like a roundhouse and then kick the bag... then you let your knee down and then lift it again without kicking the bag (like you're a dog peeing on a hydrant)... that's one. The pyramids are working up to say five.  So starting on the right, do one right kick, one right lift, then two right kicks, two right lifts... up to five of each... then you work 'down' on the left, starting with five left kicks and then five left lifts.  Well, Jill never pulled a number that low for them in our final set... What I can remember is a nine, an ace and then a 10-spot to finish it up.  I will admit that I cheated on all of them... because I started getting twingy pains in my back and hips... felt like there were balls of hot iron in there also.

To be fair, it was a great workout.

So I'm staring down my final week.  As of this morning, I've lost 13 pounds total since my start.  Since I don't have to worry about going to work this week, maybe I'll hit multiple kickboxing classes in a day.  ;-)   Sarah picked up donuts after her shift yesterday morning so yesterday turned into my cheat day... keeping the fitness plan today.

Time flying

Friday of week 9 already.

Well, I gained about four pounds over Thanksgiving weekend. Sarah and I did head in for black Friday 'Funday' which was good, but crowded.  I didn't get in on Saturday, though... Sarah had worked that night and it didn't count against our attendance anyway.  <shrug>

Sarah's been sick pretty much all this week so she hasn't been in.  I made it to kickin' at 7AM on Monday, then had to stay home to take care of Sarah and the boys Tuesday and Wednesday, but I got in for the afternoons.  Tuesday was called 'density'??  Never heard of it... we did three sets of exercises, the first being chest and shoulder stuff.  The second was all abs... the last was curls and triceps.  I'm obviously seeing results because I banded up to a purple and a red for wide-grip curls and the same for the figure-8 bands for behind the head tricep extensions (goal posts).  Feels great!

Kickboxing yesterday was good.... Lauretta always works us hard.  We did two pyramids.... kinda.  The first one was a 'see how many you can do in a certain amount of time' thing with roundies and lunges.  Started on the right side which kind of guarantees that I won't get far because I can't do right lunges decent at all with my bad left toe.  Then we did something else and then came back to doing left side roundies and lunges, counting down from whatever we got up to on the right.   The second pyramid was fire hydrants... up to 8.  It was brutal.  I mean,  I did better than I did the first time we did them... and the second... but going up to 8 is hard, especially when you start burning out at 4.  The Farrell's WBL Facebook page had done a poll on Wednesday asking what people's favorite kickboxing moves were... I voted jab-cross-low kick.  A fair number of people voted hooks, too...  we did both in the workout also which may or may not have been influenced by the poll... but it was fun.  Our last exercise was freestyle burnouts which are fun... I did alternating hooks, alternating jab-cross-kick combos... and some burnout uppers.

 I didn't make it in yesterday... partly because Sarah was still sick and Emma had a band concert last night... and also partly because I got laid off from work yesterday.  It's the first time I've been laid off/fired/downsized/force reductioned/had position eliminated... whatever you want to call it.  I worked at Trane for 15 years.  I'm having kind of a hard time dealing with it... couldn't get to sleep last night, mind racing.  I can't financially go back to school to be an astronomer or anything, but I don't know that I want to just find something doing what I was doing before.  It wasn't especially fulfilling before I got laid off and to be honest, I'm feeling pretty bitter and betrayed so I want to see what other options I have.  I wasn't 'fired', it was a position elimination so apparently I can apply for a different open position at Trane if I want to... so that's some consolation but it still really feels like a shitty 'fuck you'.  I've heard of people being offered new positions after a re-org eliminates their previous jobs... but they didn't do that for me.  Oh, well.

I'm going in to kick either at 9:30 this morning or later this afternoon... kind of depends on how Sarah's feeling.  (fever and aches all week)