At the end of a particularly strenuous workout Shaun T says
something like, “sometimes I wonder why I do the things I do as a fitness
professional” then he answers himself… “cuz I wanna look gooood!”
As a young, single, childless adult I don’t see any reason
why I shouldn’t push myself every day to be the healthiest version of me
possible. Why shouldn’t I work out for an hour every day 6 days a week? Why
would it be so hard to cut out things like diet soda, and dessert, drink more
water and eat more fruit and vegetables? When else am I going to have the time
or opportunity to focus so much on just me? I was really afraid of working out
so hard on the days I worked and losing sleep to be able to fit in my workouts,
but I find I look forward to waking up and doing my insanity workouts and that
I’m not any more sleepy at work than before. It’s not impossible. There’s no
good reason for why not. I’m young and able, and I should take advantage of
that. And I wanna look goood!
I didn’t miss any workouts last week. My workout calendar
has happy purple check marks on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
and Saturday. I did them all. In fact, the only 2 workouts I missed since
starting were when I had a fever, and I hated missing them! Sunday is the day I don’t have to do an
insanity workout, but I still got some activity in this last Sunday walking up
and down San Francisco hills, stairs and some trails at Golden Gate Park for a
few hours with 2 of my best buddies. I feel just as tired with the insanity
workouts as I did in the beginning because I continue to push myself, but I’m
able to do more and the warm up isn’t nearly as daunting as it was at first.
I weighed in yesterday for my weekly weigh in and the scale
showed I was 0.4 pounds less than I was when I started about 3 weeks ago. At
least it’s something even though I feel like it might as well be nothing. I’m
not going to measure myself for another 2 weeks, but I can see myself getting
smaller and my clothes are getting bigger. I achieved one of my goals already of
being able to comfortably fit into the jeans I wore in nursing school. I now
don’t have anything in my closet I can’t easily zip, button, put on or feel comfortable
wearing because it’s too small.
Weighing myself has proved to be pointless since I can see
results that don’t show up on the scale. Despite this, I can’t help weighing
myself. And despite seeing results in other ways besides the number I can’t
help but be disappointed in the number. I don’t like measuring myself either
because it’s hard to tell if I pulled the measuring tape tighter the time
before or not or if I lined it up in the same spot as before- so I decided
weekly measuring is not a good idea. My favorite gauge is how my clothes fit.
Most of my shirts are much baggier now and the pants I’m used to wearing are
starting to fall off if I don’t have a belt. I went shopping the other day and
bought the next size shirt down than I usually buy. That was fun.
Another fun area of improvement I can easily gauge is checking
my heart rate. Before insanity, at rest I couldn’t get my heart rate much lower
than 58 beats a minute. I’ve lowered it by 10 beats a minute. When I have quiet
moments at work or when I’m just sitting chilling at home I’ve gotten my heart
rate down to 45 beats a minute. Before insanity my usual “just sitting relaxing”
heart rate was low 60’s. Now it’s upper 40’s to lower 50’s.
I hadn’t had any dessert for nearly two weeks (the Easter
fudge being the last dessert item I indulged in) until this last weekend. I was
home visiting my parents and my parents brought home a strawberry boston cream
cake thing after a grocery shopping trip Saturday night. I just can’t say no! I
can keep myself from buying it and not have it in my house, but if it’s there I
have the hardest time convincing myself that I’d be happier without it. I had
already done the Plyometric Cardio circuit workout in the morning, and when I
saw the dessert I went out to the treadmill and put a couple miles on it and
let myself eat cake. It was a tiny piece, but I had another on Sunday too.
After two weeks of no dessert I thought it would be too sad to not enjoy it.
And it was good. However, my piece on Sunday was a normal sized piece instead
of the size of the ½ inch slice I took on Saturday. I should have stuck with
the smaller size. Just before the last bite I became nauseated all at once and
couldn’t finish it. I felt gross. I didn’t regret eating the cake. I did regret
the amount- even though it wasn’t a disgustingly huge piece, it was too much
for my body and I should have been content with half of it (which I originally
planned on eating, and then changed my mind after eating the first half and
went ahead for the rest of it). I felt fine after the first half. My body
thanked me for the superfluous second half with a feeling of grossness.
I don’t see anything wrong with dessert. I think people
should enjoy yummy things every once in a while, we just have to not eat it
every day and be able to eat a smaller portion than we’re used to and be done.
There’s a family my parents go to church with who don’t keep sweets in the
house, but once a week they ride their bikes to go get an ice cream treat that
they eat there. I really like this idea. I think it would help knowing and
being able to count on that once a week you’re going to get a treat so it
wouldn’t be so hard to say no to other temptations that come along since you
know yours is coming, but it isn’t time now. I like the eating a single portion
out of the house and not keeping anything in the house…because I honestly have
no self-control if it’s accessible when my desire for dessert hits. I also like
that there’s a physical activity involved in going to get the treat. Life would
not be as enjoyable without dessert, but on the flip side how fun is it to be
fat? Kudos to that family. They have found a healthy, fun tradition that allows
them to enjoy life.
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