When we last left our heroine (me), she was tapping in to her I don't give a fuck side. After "Freaky Friday" at the compound, that side took over with a vengeance.
Y'all, we flipped 200lb tires. By ourselves. It was crazy. I only was able to do it 5 times, but trust that was 5 more times than I thought I was going to be able to do it. We also then smashed the tire with a sledgehammer, and if you think that wasn't fun you got another think coming. GOOD times.
We started the night out with our usual fun run around the building. My team swears I'm keeping up, but I still don't really feel like I am. Then we played tug o' war and our team never lost! It was awesome! After that was when we learned the maneuver to flip the tire and the sledgehammer pounding thing. Then we worked as a team to flip the tire 200 times and pound the sledgehammer 250 times. I stayed on the sledgehammer the whole time because I don't think I could have done that many reps flipping the tire and then do the post-workout run around the building.
We turned in our food journals and they were very insistent that names would be named for not sticking to the food plan. I have an issue with that and not just because I wasn't always 100% with the food plan. This is a new thing for everyone, and we're all doing the best we can. Do we need to make everyone do burpees for every pat of butter we eat or glass of wine? That just seems a bit extreme.
As for the food, which I keep saying I'm going to talk about. It's been a challenge because you always have to plan. You can't just wing it. There is a definite need to cook and prep. I can't just throw a frozen dinner in my lunch and be done with it for the day. Consequently, I am eating a lot of salads for lunch. I don't necessarily mind, but in order for it to be good there's a fair amount of prep that has to go into that too. If I were a smarter person, I'd spend today chopping and prepping for the week this afternoon... But that would require unwrapping from my cozy blankie and getting away from the tv on a rainy Sunday.
But the thing is that I can't believe how far I've come mentally since Tuesday, food whining aside. I think it was the tires or maybe that Friday was more fun or maybe the PMS finally broke -- all I know is that by Friday night I was feeling freaking sassy! Like, this is really hard, but I'm doing it. I can do this. And if I can do this, then I can do whatever I want!
That's probably a dangerous thought pattern, huh?
Happy Sunday friends!
Heather
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Boot camp - 2 down
Y'all, we did so many different things tonight there is no way I'm going to be able to remember to do a recap. There was a crap ton of running. We did the first lap around the building which is a quarter mile. Then we did something they called the Indian run. The last person sprints to the front of the formation and so on. We did this for two laps around the building. I couldn't keep up with the sprinting, but I managed to keep a very slow jog/walk/cry behind the group so at least I wasn't a total loser. After that we did several minutes of planking. Trainer mercy gave me a couple of those minutes on my knees, but I still tried to mostly do it on my toes.
The in-gym portion consisted of a whole bunch of torture. We learned the kettle ball maneuver. You hold the kettle ball at about a quarter squat position and then you thrust it forward to swing it over your head. Then there was a super fun thing where you squat on to a medicine ball and then as you come up from the squat you throw another medicine ball up a wall and as you're catching it you are squatting back down. Good times!
The relays today were bear walking, broad jumping and then just sprinting. In between there was push-ups and sit-ups. At the end we did this crazy thing... It's somebody's plan, but I couldn't hear the name. Trust me I'd be cursing their name if I knew it. You do 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, and this cycle continued for 4 minutes for each thing we did. It was sit-ups, the kettle ball thing and the infamous burpees. (Which I still can't do properly.)
Here's the thing. I did not rock this. I know that I was universally pitied or worse.
I am tapping into the I don't give a fuck side of me. I did it. I did it as well as I could do it. Maybe I could have done it better, harder, faster -- it feels like that when you're the Monday morning quarterback against yourself. But I am what I am.
Maybe I am always going to finish last, but you know what? At least I finished.
I will try to talk about the food soon because it really has been quite the adventure!
hugs,
Heather
The in-gym portion consisted of a whole bunch of torture. We learned the kettle ball maneuver. You hold the kettle ball at about a quarter squat position and then you thrust it forward to swing it over your head. Then there was a super fun thing where you squat on to a medicine ball and then as you come up from the squat you throw another medicine ball up a wall and as you're catching it you are squatting back down. Good times!
The relays today were bear walking, broad jumping and then just sprinting. In between there was push-ups and sit-ups. At the end we did this crazy thing... It's somebody's plan, but I couldn't hear the name. Trust me I'd be cursing their name if I knew it. You do 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, and this cycle continued for 4 minutes for each thing we did. It was sit-ups, the kettle ball thing and the infamous burpees. (Which I still can't do properly.)
Here's the thing. I did not rock this. I know that I was universally pitied or worse.
I am tapping into the I don't give a fuck side of me. I did it. I did it as well as I could do it. Maybe I could have done it better, harder, faster -- it feels like that when you're the Monday morning quarterback against yourself. But I am what I am.
Maybe I am always going to finish last, but you know what? At least I finished.
I will try to talk about the food soon because it really has been quite the adventure!
hugs,
Heather
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
This one's kind of brutal and wordy
So, I didn't sleep well last night. This led to a little bit of a nervous breakdown today.
I mean, it's not normal to cry when you're getting your bangs trimmed because your nice hairdresser asked how you were doing, right?
Well, first off. I didn't sleep well last night. And the reason I didn't sleep was because I was reliving all of my mistakes and failures from the boot camp. Feeling like crap because I couldn't finish things or couldn't do them well. Feeling intimidated by the next few weeks and the workouts getting harder and harder. Just reliving my failures over and over and over.
It was a long night.
I tried to spend most of today suppressing those feelings. But they were lurking. I talked to BFF Tina on the way to my bang trimming and tried to verbalize why I felt this way, but couldn't. She admitted that she didn't know if I wanted her to kick me in the ass or be supportive and listen. Trouble is, I didn't really know either. Which made me cry a little bit more. By the time I got to the chair for my hair love, needless to say I was pretty much at the edge...
This experience is really tapping into my inner fat kid. The inner fat kid inside my outer fat girl. My inner fat kid was never an athlete. Even when the inner fat kid got skinny and was in high school. I was in softball for five minutes and sucked and quit. Took tennis lessons for about 10 minutes and sucked and quit. There weren't many more attempts. I tried to get out of gym as much as possible, and I'm relatively certain that one of my few C's in high school may actually have been in PE.
I'm not telling you these things because I'm proud of them. I'm dealing with a lifetime build-up of what it feels like to be picked last in kickball.
It's depressing to be in this social pressure situation again and not feel any different than I did at 13. And while I felt some of this during the body challenge days, it was different because my failure didn't result in punishment for my teammates. It's the ultimate shame to be one of the reasons that my team now has to do burpees instead of getting a minute to breathe. And I dig way down to the bottom of my soul, and (as that song says) I feel nothing. Even with that shame and desire to flee embarrassment, I do not feel like an athlete. I do not feel an athlete in there. I just feel like someone who sometimes tries to do athletic things and then quits them.
"If I try and I fail, there's no more one day." - Laurie on Cougar Town
Because this is the other truth. I can think one day I'm going to be able to run or one day I'm going to be bad ass or whatever, but the truth is that once I start trying if I can't do it -- then I can't pretend that one day it's going to happen.
I guess I'm afraid of the failure. I'm afraid I'm going to try and quit again. I'm afraid I'm never going to have the inner stuff to push myself and keep pushing myself. I'm afraid I'm going to look this way and feel this way for the rest of my life.
I guess I'm just afraid.
Maybe I've always been afraid? I want to find that place that takes this fear and uses it to empower myself, but folks I hope you're sitting down -- life is not a Nike commercial. It doesn't always work that way. For people like me, these types of spirals don't always end in triumph.
I'm being this honest on the world wide web because I want my hand full of readers to know how much I appreciate your support on Facebook and when you see me at work. It means so much. It means way more than I'm going to be able to express to you directly because that would involve letting down a couple of my giant brick defense walls. So, this level of depressing honesty is for you.
Love,
the inner fat kid picked last for kickball
Monday, April 16, 2012
Boot Camp - 1 down
40 people divided into teams of 10. The instructors asked for volunteers to be team leaders from military and rescue personnel. One of the only non-depressing parts of this was that I was not the last person picked. ::phew:: It was really like kickball all over again.
Here's the workout of the day (WOD in Crossfit speak)... We warmed up by running (or in my case run/walk/jog/cry) 800 meters. Then we did relays of walking like a bear for a distance I couldn't tell you and sprinting back; broad jump the same distance and sprinting back and then lunge walks the distance and then sprint back. Each of these we did two times each. The losing teams then had to do burpees as punishment. In between sessions. I pretty much sucked at all of this, but the lunging was far and away the worst. I have always sucked, sucked, sucked at lunges. And then to have to do them while walking? And to have to touch the knee to the ground? I mean, they had minimal work-around -- one girl had to go back because her lunges were improper. I almost cried at the thought of that. Luckily, praise the Gods, they had some pity on the fat girl and for my second round my team leader Leah came and helped me through it. SO awesome!
Then we went into the gym. Because all of that was on the asphalt. Photos of knee to follow, but I can't complain because we had some bleeders. I think they're a lot more bad ass than my princess self and didn't mind the blood. Good for them.
So, in the gym, we were told that the box jump is the most basic Crossfit move. And in all of the Crossfit stuff you see on the web, this is one of the most common things done. I literally could not do this. It was mortifying. Finally, one of our awesome trainers took pity on me and told me to just step on it. I wanted to jump on that box so bad I could taste it. I could literally feel the box under my feet in my head. But trying to tell that to my ass and gravity was just not working out... Maybe Wednesday?
We partner up. Of course Tina and I partnered up. The routine is box jump for a minute, squats for a minute, then push-ups for a minute. You do 3 rounds of that then switch off.
And when you see written down what we did, it doesn't seem like much. Yet, by the faces of the people in the room, it was a lot. I know that when I almost puked, I (to steal Tina's line) realized I had never worked out a day in my life. Not even in the body challenge. Or at least, my body forgot the body challenge.
I'm not going to quit. I have 11 more sessions plus the challenge day and I am going to get through this.
And then I may never work out again. :) Just kidding -- I hope!
I'll talk about my diet next time I write, because that has been quite the adventure.
I'd hug you but I can't lift my arms,
Heather
Here's the workout of the day (WOD in Crossfit speak)... We warmed up by running (or in my case run/walk/jog/cry) 800 meters. Then we did relays of walking like a bear for a distance I couldn't tell you and sprinting back; broad jump the same distance and sprinting back and then lunge walks the distance and then sprint back. Each of these we did two times each. The losing teams then had to do burpees as punishment. In between sessions. I pretty much sucked at all of this, but the lunging was far and away the worst. I have always sucked, sucked, sucked at lunges. And then to have to do them while walking? And to have to touch the knee to the ground? I mean, they had minimal work-around -- one girl had to go back because her lunges were improper. I almost cried at the thought of that. Luckily, praise the Gods, they had some pity on the fat girl and for my second round my team leader Leah came and helped me through it. SO awesome!
Then we went into the gym. Because all of that was on the asphalt. Photos of knee to follow, but I can't complain because we had some bleeders. I think they're a lot more bad ass than my princess self and didn't mind the blood. Good for them.
So, in the gym, we were told that the box jump is the most basic Crossfit move. And in all of the Crossfit stuff you see on the web, this is one of the most common things done. I literally could not do this. It was mortifying. Finally, one of our awesome trainers took pity on me and told me to just step on it. I wanted to jump on that box so bad I could taste it. I could literally feel the box under my feet in my head. But trying to tell that to my ass and gravity was just not working out... Maybe Wednesday?
We partner up. Of course Tina and I partnered up. The routine is box jump for a minute, squats for a minute, then push-ups for a minute. You do 3 rounds of that then switch off.
And when you see written down what we did, it doesn't seem like much. Yet, by the faces of the people in the room, it was a lot. I know that when I almost puked, I (to steal Tina's line) realized I had never worked out a day in my life. Not even in the body challenge. Or at least, my body forgot the body challenge.
I'm not going to quit. I have 11 more sessions plus the challenge day and I am going to get through this.
And then I may never work out again. :) Just kidding -- I hope!
I'll talk about my diet next time I write, because that has been quite the adventure.
I'd hug you but I can't lift my arms,
Heather
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Post Boot Camp post
Sooo, yesterday was the orientation for my Crossfit Boot Camp experience. I don't think fear begins to describe the emotion that I am having. Because yesterday was just the orientation. There wasn't even a "real" work-out, just the fitness test. Which, by the way, if they were grading, I probably failed. (Nothing like falling over during squats to really shine, huh?) But this is why I'm so scared -- that was just the initial test and today I can hardly walk. I'm actively mentally fighting my inner hater voice that says there's no freaking way I can do this. The warm-up is a quarter mile run, I could barely do that when I was going to the gym every day. And they repeatedly said that the fitness test was NOTHING compared to the real work-outs.
What was the fitness test? All the squats you can do in a minute, all the push-ups you can do in a minute, all the sit-ups in one minute, a broad jump and a timed 800 meter run. The run almost killed me, especially after the squats. (At least now I know that's equivalent to half a mile, so I feel pretty good that I at least didn't actually die while doing it. But then I think -- it's only half a mile and I'm proud I didn't die??)
Their blog mentions a fireman's carry. Is it even legal to ask someone to carry someone as big as me when there is no actual fire??
And then there is the diet... They have a really strict caveman diet they expect you to follow, and they're borderline religious about it. Luckily, BFF Tina has agreed to go on this journey with me and she'll be staying here for the next few weeks so that may make it easier. Or harder. It will make it something. We'll find out on May 11 when it's all over.
I am going to do the best I can to follow the food program, but giving up milk and dairy products is going to be the hardest part. Mostly because I'm in total denial about the giving up alcohol part. There's already one known fall of the wagon because I'm going to Sertoma next weekend and I would honestly rather stay fat forever then not have fun at that. Sad, but so true.
Anyways, there's no whining allowed at CrossFit. But no one ever said I couldn't go on the internet machine and do it here in the privacy of my blog! :)
If I can lift my arms, I will continue to keep you posted...
Heather
Monday, April 2, 2012
If only changing my mind burned calories
So, our neighbors/friends/partners in bad behavior are joining a Crossfit Boot Camp starting this month. And when they told me this, I am not making this up -- I actually felt a little jealous. Maybe even more than a little. And then I realized that there was no reason that I could not join along.
Other than my total complete terror.
So I just decided to pretend that didn't exist and I have just given them my credit card number and signed up.
Yeah, the terror is still there. Here is a link to their website. It's burpees and push-ups and all of the things I'm not great at and mortified of being mocked about being bad about.
Plus I have this biggest loser fear of puking.
But, I did the body challenge at our gym and never completely died of shame. [Sidenote: that particular post is very bittersweet to me, since I had such aspirations of being under 200 and this is still a goal I have not met. Not that I'm super-actively trying or anything, but I digress into beating myself up.] This seems like it is going to be much, much harder. But if I was looking for a kickstart, this should be it, right?
So, consequently I won't be swimming yet. The boot camp is :::gulp::: three nights a week from 7:30 to 8:45 (extra 15 minutes puking time thrown in, apparently) and that's the timeframe I was planning on swimming and lessons, et cetera. The orientation is Saturday the 14th and then the classes start that Monday.
And they end the night of my 39th birthday. Exercise til you puke instead of party til you puke, huh? I'm so freaking mature! :)
Have a great Monday -- I'm off work and trying to figure out how to waste my day since I just got up...
hugs,
Heather
Other than my total complete terror.
So I just decided to pretend that didn't exist and I have just given them my credit card number and signed up.
Yeah, the terror is still there. Here is a link to their website. It's burpees and push-ups and all of the things I'm not great at and mortified of being mocked about being bad about.
Plus I have this biggest loser fear of puking.
But, I did the body challenge at our gym and never completely died of shame. [Sidenote: that particular post is very bittersweet to me, since I had such aspirations of being under 200 and this is still a goal I have not met. Not that I'm super-actively trying or anything, but I digress into beating myself up.] This seems like it is going to be much, much harder. But if I was looking for a kickstart, this should be it, right?
So, consequently I won't be swimming yet. The boot camp is :::gulp::: three nights a week from 7:30 to 8:45 (extra 15 minutes puking time thrown in, apparently) and that's the timeframe I was planning on swimming and lessons, et cetera. The orientation is Saturday the 14th and then the classes start that Monday.
And they end the night of my 39th birthday. Exercise til you puke instead of party til you puke, huh? I'm so freaking mature! :)
Have a great Monday -- I'm off work and trying to figure out how to waste my day since I just got up...
hugs,
Heather
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