Work with me, Feet!

It looked pretty nice out this morning, so I thought it might be fun to go out for a run. Figured I'd do a quick 5km, then I'd have workout 1 in the bag for the day. I also had this idea that I'd try and set a PR for 1km. I mean, why not? Gotta have a goal for each workout, right? So off I went, and I hadn't gone a block before it hit me that there would be no trying for PR's today; it was WAY too icy. New goal: survive 5km without falling and breaking my ass.

A series of realizations floated into my brain while I was out gingerly trotting over icy ruts:

1. I'm pretty good at seeing an obstacle, then carefully navigating over it. Nice bare patches of sidewalk are a hazard though, because I am very likely to get bored with whatever song is playing on my phone, or check my gps to see how far I've gone, or get lost in some kind of daydream...and trip over nothing and fall on my face. True story. No face plants today but there were some close calls!

 2. I have to get out running more if I'm going to go after that Spartan Trifecta medal. Haven't been doing much running lately, because...

3. My feet are not happy. I've been having fun experimenting with all the new minimalist shoe designs for the last year or so, and my conclusion is this: they are great to train in. I am a fairly big person though, and since I mostly work standing up, wearing them for work from day to day isn't doing my feet any favours. They are pissed at me. It's time to go back to more supportive shoes for standing around the gym.

4. Getting old is starting to suck a little bit! And no, at 35 years I do not consider myself old...as a general rule. In fact, I'm really digging this decade. But, my body is not responding to things the way it did ten years ago, and that's just how it is. The prime focus of every single workout is now to get to the next workout without injury. Does that mean it's time to slow down? Hell no! I still fully expect to keep getting better and better...but it does mean that it will take a bit more soft tissue work, a more thorough warm-up, more attention to pre-hab exercises, and generally a 'work smarter, not harder' kind of approach.

5. Working smarter, not harder is all good until you get dropped by a woman with grey hair and a yappy little rat-dog. Moving on.

Project Update!

100 workouts in 100 days:
Today is day 43 and I'm at 32 workouts. Definitely not where I wanted to be at this point, but what can I say? Life threw me some curve balls. Expecting to be caught up by day 60 - the plan is in place!

Buy Nothing Month:
Argh, this has sucked!! SO happy it'll be over soon. On the bright side though, I really learned some stuff, for example: I spend so much time in 'get it done' mode that I don't stop to think about whether some things are really necessary. Sometimes it's good to wait. Other times, it's not - like for instance, I really need new shoes.

No wait, I'm serious!

Building back up and the Numbers that DO Matter

Day: 35
Workouts: 24

Remember when I said I'd be patient and build my gimpy left arm back up slowly?

I lied. At the time, I really meant it and had full intentions of doing that, but after a few really good days of pounding my upper body, I've decided that I can go back to mostly full capacity. Honestly, it feels better lately! It helps that I haven't blocked any kicks with that arm in a couple of weeks... and it's true, there are some things that that arm just won't do. But it's official: I am done with avoiding upper body all together. Hooray!!

 I celebrated this morning with a fun shoulder workout, and I am dedicating it to Nia Shanks because not only is she straight-up awesome (she is the SPF Push-Pull world record holder for her body weight), but her website is a refreshing gold mine of common sense where training is concerned, especially if you have two 'X' chromosomes. She also has an unhealthy addiction to bacon, which I appreciate. Whenever I feel my interest lagging I head on over to her website, Lift Like a Girl, to see what she is up to. She is the one who inspired me to send out the challenge at the bottom of this post, so make sure you stick around to the bitter end!

Sweet-Ass Delt Workout
1. Military Press - start with a weight where you can do about 8 reps. Do as many as you can with good form, until you have one rep left. Pause for 45 seconds (no less, no more). Repeat 4 more times.
2. Front Dumbell Raises - 4-6 reps, S L O W L Y. 3 sets.
3. Seated Arnie Presses - same protocol as the Military Press.
4. Cable Lateral Raises - 10-12 reps, 3 sets
5. Reverse Cable Crossovers - 10-12 reps, 3 sets
6. 1-arm Rear Flye with stretch band, 15 reps, 3 sets
Finished with some high-intensity intervals on the rowing machine. Fun!

 I have another public service announcement to make quickly before we get to the important stuff: I have found a green tea that doesn't taste like the bulls' balls!

 Anyone who has ever made an effort to pursue a higher level of health and fitness has read over and over again about green tea's superpowers. And that's great. What none of that literature has the grace to mention, though, is that green tea tastes like pond water...only with less risk of E. coli poisoning. So I have tried for years to find a way to make green tea palatable, and the only way I have succeeded is to use cold green tea in smoothies with lots of other goodies so that you can't taste it at all. But today, my friends, I have found a variety that I can enjoy! Here's the story: I ordered Splash from David's Tea because it sounded interesting...and healthy (and if you know me you know that I am willing to gag down just about anything if there are health benefits attached) but when it arrived and I opened it up, the smell alone put me off so thoroughly that I sealed it up and pushed it to the back of my tea cupboard. (Yes, I have a separate cupboard for tea - it's a problem.) Anyway today, after a month of putting it off, I squared my shoulders, firmly gripped my gag reflex, and made some...and amazingly enough, it's really good! The ginger and cardamom are strong enough to kill the taste of the foul green tea and sea lettuce. And hey - it's really, really good for you!

 My last post was all about our unhealthy obsession with numbers - particularly the one that blinks out of the scale when you step on it. And I'd like to re-iterate that once again:

 WHAT YOU WEIGH DOESN'T MATTER! 

The scale is like that person at the party who doesn't know anything and think they know everything, so they talk more and at a higher volume than anyone else in the room without letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. The scale doesn't know what your fluid balance is that day, how sore you are from yesterday's workout, what your body composition is, or even if you're male or female. So why on earth would you bother with it? Unfortunately for most of us, the idiot at the party will usually say something stupid and offensive that we take home and stew over for days, and the scale seems to have that same niggly day-ruining power...but I have a solution for that problem. Ready?

 Forget about the scale. Stick it in, or under, the bathroom cupboard or somewhere the sun doesn't shine, and focus instead on the numbers that are much more fun and actually DO matter: your workout stats. How much can you deadlift right now? How many push ups can you do? How fast can you walk a mile? It doesn't matter which exercise you choose at all, but I challenge you to choose ONE of them and for the next six weeks, check THAT number once a week instead of getting on the scale. It'll be fun, I promise. And don't forget to work on that skill a few times during the week as well, because here it is again:
WHAT YOU WEIGH DOESNT MATTER. WHATS IMPORTANT IS WHAT YOU CAN DO.

Numbers, Schmumbers.

It's been that kind of week: super busy, kind of under the weather, and I'm beginning to worry that this falling behind on my 100 workouts in 100 days is a permanent state, because the coming week is no less busy.

 Let's see, where am I? This would be day 29...and I'm at 20 workouts. Meh, I can catch up- it's early.
All I need to do is kick out the germs that have been plaguing my system this week and then it's full speed ahead! Had a couple of workout fails this week, as well as some rather crappy news concerning my gimpy arm: the MRI was last Wednesday and I got a call from the doc the following Monday where they informed me that I need to come in and discuss the results...on March 5th. Did a bit of raging over this - another month? Really? Just to talk to the doctor? - then decided that enough is enough, I am NOT babying it anymore. I went straight out into the gym and started heaving around weights that would have been heavy before the injury...and wound up back in our staff room with the offending arm packed in ice. Bah.

Patience is not one of my virtues.

 I hereby pledge to take it easy while I build back up.

So. As usual, I have an axe to grind today. I almost feel like a traitor posting this, but here it is anyway...'cause who says everyone has to agree on everything?

 Today I feel the need to debunk the arguments of one of the most influential teachers in my fitness/nutrition/coaching career: Dr. John Berardi. Now, I have the utmost respect for the guy; my nutrition certification comes directly from his company, Precision Nutrition, and I spent two life-changing years in PN's coaching program, Lean Eating (which I'd recommend to just about anyone). But, Dr. Berardi keeps publishing these articles that just get under my skin and make me want jump up and down and yell and scream and punch him in the face. And if he's entitled to his opinion, then so am I!

 Dr. Berardi's latest offending article went up on PN's Facebook page today, and it's called "Top 10 Things Elite Coaches Do (and 6 Things They Read)". Check it out if you are so inclined. My biggest problem with the tone of the whole article is the obsession with numbers: tracking everything, before/after photos, logging changes in weight, measurements, appearance, pee color, etc. etc. I don't believe in getting obsessed with numbers; I think it's an unhealthy pursuit at the best of times and a dangerous hangup at the worst. I hate the 12-week weight-loss challenges that a lot of the big fitness companies put out there. HATE them. If you are looking to make a change, going into a gym and telling the trainer "I want to lose 20lbs in 12 weeks!" is just about the worst thing you can do. Why? It looks like a good goal. It's timely. It's specific. It's measurable. It's attainable (within the 1-2lbs/week that most weight-loss agencies advertise as healthy).

Blah, blah, blah. Baloney. Here's what I ask those people: what are you willing to change in order to see those results? What do you want to learn from this experience? How do you want the next 12 weeks (or whatever time frame has been set out) to affect your long term health? Are you interested in putting all that weight back on when you go back to "normal"?

'Cause here's the thing: lasting weight loss takes time. It takes work. It takes a willingness to ask yourself the hard questions about why you got to the point where you need help getting some weight off. And it might take some serious soul-searching. Can you dig deep into the archaeology of your psyche and figure out what those demons are and put them to rest, THEN worry about the weight loss, in 12 weeks? Hell no. Most of the time. Sure, any jackass can put you on a diet and tell you what to eat and when to eat it and how to work out. But what happens after it's done?

Dr. Berardi also advocates putting together a book of client testimonials and successes so that you can show it off to prospective clients, which on the surface seems like a good idea. But I don't like it, and here's why: I don't own any of my clients' successes. Any success my clients have is because THEY did the work. I can show them the path, I can guide along the way, and I can be an ear, or a shoulder to cry on when it gets hard or overwhelming. I can set out the plan, but I can't execute it. I also can't control what goes on outside the gym. And you know what else? If I own the success stories, then I own the failures too. And I don't want that.

 Here's the other side to that story: I want to introduce you to one of my clients (whose name has been changed). When 'Anna' first came to see me four years ago at 57 years old, she had recently gotten out of a long, emotionally abusive marriage. She had terrible posture, didn't like to look people in the eye, and carried a lot of extra weight around. She was in constant pain from a medical condition but afraid to deal with it. She would never speak up for herself.

Today, she is 14lbs lighter than she was then. If all I were concerned about were numbers, 14lbs is not much in 4 years. BUT today she walks tall. She isn't in pain. At 61, she's strong and fit and she knows it, and she enjoys life to the fullest. Yes, she is still carrying some extra weight around and she's still working on it. But the personal transformation through improved health and fitness that I've seen in her is much more rewarding than anything that could be summed up with a set of digits. And much more meaningful.

No fat kids!

Monday, Day 23 (19 Workouts, 23 Days)
Cardio Day: Treadmill @ 10% Grade: 10 min walk, 10 x 15sec sprints/45sec rest, 5 min walk, 10 x 15sec sprints/45sec rest, 10 min walk

Two things happened today that have spurred me to start a potential shitstorm online, to which I say bring it! More needs to be said on this topic, 'cause it's just about as taboo a subject as religion and invites way more 'expert' opinions...and WAY more judgement.

1. Daughter # 1 sat down to breakfast this morning and said, "hey Mom, do I have an eating disorder?"

2. The book The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet by Dara-Lynn Weiss hits the shelves today. I haven't read it yet, but I'm eager to check it out because this woman was possibly the most-hated mom out there for a few days last March when Vogue magazine published a personal essay she had written about putting her 7-year-old then-obese daughter Bea on a diet, then rewarded her progress with a glamourous fashion photo shoot. I find the whole idea of putting a 7-year-old on a strict diet abhorrent, but a photo shoot in Vogue magazine as a reward? Get me a barf bag and a baseball bat, quick!
Check out a more in-depth synopsis of the story here.

 

In spite of my raging about the idea of all this I am curious to read the book...from what I've heard it's quite moving. I'll review it for you here when I'm done!

We all know that childhood obesity is getting more and more common. We know that our kids are going to be the first generation that won't have a life expectancy that matches their parents'. And since diets and parenting are the two subjects where everyone has an opinion and everyone's an expert, the judgement and insensitivity and chararacter crucifixions run rampant.

So let me say this loud and clear:

Being overweight is not a character flaw!

Anyone want to argue with me on that one? Good, 'cause I really will readily exchange blows over that. Now that we have that out of the way, let's peel back the next layer of the onion, which is this: teaching a kid that how he or she looks has anything to do with who they are or how they deserve to be treated is horrific. Forget about the idea that it's a form of abuse to let a kid get to the point where the doctor has to tell them they're overweight or obese (which I will dig into later), teaching a kid to believe they're fat, tying guilt into their eating habits, and convincing them that they are somehow less worthy of respect is criminal. Want to know what will happen to a kid who believes they're fat while they're growing up? Whether or not they are actually fat, they WILL grow up into an overweight adult.

Don't get me wrong, I am definitively not one of the perpetrators of this bullshit "fat acceptance" movement. It is not okay to be obese. Not okay at all. And it's even less okay to let your kids get that way. Now, I am the first to concede that parenting is hard and tricky. We love our little stinkers so much and we have so much invested in making sure they grow up to be responsible, contributing members of society, that they're happy, that they have just the right balance of discipline and structure and freedom, that they have all the opportunities to learn and succeed, and that they have safe environments in which to fail. Well, lots of us do. For our purposes here, I'm talking about the parents who do actually care about their kids. (The ones who don't are the subject of a whole other post that may or may not appear here.)

Allow me to put this whole rant into context: I believed I was fat as a kid. Wholeheartedly. In fact, when I look at pictures of myself when I was young, there's a strange disconnect I feel between the slim little me in the picture and the me I remember, because I FELT huge. And when I moved out of my parents' house after high school, I immediately set about getting huge...which I had great success at. It took until I was thirty years old to get that turned around, and I still fight with the physical and emotional baggage from that journey on a daily basis. In fact, that's WHY I am who I am, and it's why I do what I do.

 I have two great little daughters who are mentioned here with some frequency. One has her mom's tendency to overeat and gain weight, the other does not. Daughter  # 2 enjoys natural athleticism, regulates what she eats easily, and never eats when she's not hungry. She can't be bothered with junk food and keeps herself active all the time. All I have to do for her is provide healthy food and the opportunity to stay active - easy peasy! Daughter # 1, on the other hand, needs a bit of a push...and by that I totally do not mean that she needs to be made aware of the fact that she tends to overeat; she will have plenty of time to figure that out on her own. As far as I'm concerned, my job for her is to be a good role model (which is the most important thing a parent can do as far as I'm concerned), provide regular, healthy meals, and the opportunity to participate in a sport that she not only loves, but that she's physically suited to and will enjoy some success at. This took a couple of tries, but we have found that fit in taekwondo. She loves that she is big and strong and can kick hard, but she also has a solid social environment there with wonderful friends, great instructors, and which is somewhat removed from school where her friends are starting to tell her she's fat.

School. Oh man, where to even start? How about this: I'm going to leave my bitching about physical education in schools, and about peer pressure and mean girls and all that stuff for another day.

Let me sum up by saying this: it is not for any of us - parents, teachers, or all other spectators - to pass judgement or foist our own discomfort with obesity onto our kids. It is not our job to try to make them conform to our aesthetic sense. We are not doing them any service by putting them on diets, or teaching them that they need to lose weight, or implying that they aren't good enough the way they are. Our ONLY jobs are to model healthy behaviour, provide wholesome, nutritious food at regular intervals, and to teach them to enjoy being healthy and fit, because it feels really good, no matter what you look like. In our current climate all that is easier said than done, but it's the ONLY thing we can do to truly help them.
Anyone care to disagree?

Warning: Contents under pressure!

Tuesday, Day 17

17 workouts in 17 days! Back on par - Yesss!!!

Days until MRI: 1!!

Days until Tournament: 5

Remember this? 

Well, it's totally true. 

Today I had planned to do one of my favorite cross-training workouts, and since my wrist has been feeling much better I figured I could jump right back into hard training. You know, all at once.

Which is retarded, I know, but after 4 months of taking it easy because of an injury it's easy to get myopic about these things...

Anyway, my body was out to teach me a lesson today, which was both good and bad. Check this out: 

Workout One: Xfit Fail

What I'd planned: 5 rounds for time:

20 x Bench Presses

20 x Back Squats

20 x Clean and Presses

800m run

What actually happened:

20 x Bench Presses

20 x Back Squats

2 x Clean and Presses (ouch, gimpy wrist did not like that one bit - no more clean and presses)

800m run (whoops, plantar fascia still burning from yesterday; better not run any more so as not to invite plantar fasciitis)

3 more rounds: 

20 x Bench Presses

20 x Back Squats

2mi Bike

So in spite of the nasty failure that this workout turned out to be, it actually ended up being pretty 

enjoyable AND a good ass-kicking. 

Workout Two: TKD Class

Somewhere in the back of my mind I know that whatever I work on during the day Tues and Thurs will be the very muscles I need for taekwondo in the evening. It's the rule. So since my body was still shaky and messed up from squats and benches this afternoon, I should have seen trouble coming when the warm-up for class consisted of walking lunges and push-ups. And I forgot my arm splint. 

To make a long story short, it was sparring day, and since I was using my unsplinted  left arm to block, it got kicked. A bunch of times. Hard enough to make my eyes tear up. Dammit.

 Wednesday, Day 18

No workout today (17 workouts in 18 days)

MRI Day

Actually had planned on working out today, but it didn't seem like a good idea after a night of no sleep thanks to a throbbing left arm and a boatload of anxiety over the impending MRI (I don't think I've mentioned it here before but I am very claustrophobic and the thought of getting tied up and crammed into a tube really makes my blood pressure go up. But I don't want to be a whiner so we shall not speak of this again!)

Anyway, the MRI happened, and it will be a week or so before I hear anything resembling a verdict. 

In other news, I tried roasting red cabbage tonight at dinner...

And holy atomic pile was it ever good! Even Shannon, chief hater of all cooked vegetables, stood at the counter and gobbled up cabbage right off the cookie sheet. Win!

Thursday, Day 19

18 workouts in 19 days

Workout: TKD class

Oh man. Left arm isn't any better after Tuesday's sparring and I fear fighting in the tournament this 

weekend is not in the cards. 

So. Bummed.

 But hey, check this out: the first of my kitchen toys is here already! Say hello to my new combination pressure cooker/crock pot! Tried out the pressure cooker tonight on some slightly freezer-burnt chicken (that I wouldn't be heartbroken about chucking if it didn't go well) and ended up with a very yummy chicken stew on the table in less than 30 minutes!