Exercise gal

I have been a terrible blogger this month. I have been so busy and consumed with everything in my real life that it’s been difficult for me to find the time to sit down and write as much. But I guess I’m still writing which is a sign that I have not fallen off the deep end or jumped ship. Actually, I don’t think jumping ship will ever again be a reality for me so that is somewhat comforting nonetheless.

Christmas is in two days. Well, actually I consider Christmas Eve every bit as much Christmas because my entire life Christmas Eve is spent with my mom’s extended family, a giant group of us hanging out and its always a good time. So basically I just have to get thru work today, approximately 8 hours and then I am in the clear for a couple days. I am terribly excited about this. I am also terribly excited about this because as much as I adore Christmas this month has been brutal on the food choices. I mean, downright cookie awful. Downright candy awful. Just plain awful. But my exercise has not slacked so at least there’s that. My exercise has been incredibly on point so I can’t feel entirely guilty about all the crappy food choices.

I see why Jan 1 people make this healthy resolution and hit it with avengeance. I don’t need to suddenly decide to become healthy Jan. 1, but I wouldn’t mind a clean slate, a regroup after the holiday season. I am pretty much looking forward to that. Purge my house of the bad things that have slowly crept their way back into my life this month. And by that I mean Hershey’s kisses, peanut butter cups, white chocolate and m&m’s. Yup, I bought bags of candy under the guise that I would be putting them in the Christmas stockings. The bags never made their way to my mom’s house. They were opened in mine and I’ve been eating them. It doesn’t help that I purchased all white chocolate options which are my hands down favorite.

People falter; they pick themselves back up and get back to the game. That is how this is supposed to work. Yes December has been exceedingly difficult in many aspects related to health and nutrition but I managed. I don’t think I actually managed to gain much weight if I did so once this season is over I can return to hardcore building of muscle and health. I have been giving much thought to what 2014 might look like for me. It is going to be an epic year of pushing beyond what I have ever known. When I gain weight and lose it I have a pretty good sense of how things are going to go down since I’ve done that scenario multiple times. I know what the results should look like, etc. I am now, for the first time in my life, in completely new territory. I have no idea exactly what is going to happen in another 6 months’ time or a year from now. What can I accomplish? What will my body look like? Complete unknowns and there is something so awesome about that. Exhilarating and awesome.

I think I will probably start to see better results when I quit eating like a fat girl but whatever. Just a few more days and then its clean and healthy. I have been trying to decide what I am going to do and I have decided that I really don’t want to do any sort of plan. I don’t want to follow some stupid thing that is not logical or reasonable for life. Instead I want to just eat better. I have been eyeballing lots of healthy chicken/veggie/rice dishes. I want to try and incorporate more rice meals and healthy beans and sweet potatoes and yams. I don’t know, healthy stuff. Good hearty stuff. I am really going to make a more concentrated effort to prepare some dishes over the weekends to eat all week. That is my biggest plan for 2014. I really feel like my exercise is amazing and dialed in but that I need some help in the food department. So much harder for almost everyone.

Friday night was my work Christmas party. It was really nice and fun. We went bowling and had pizza (and yes I had LOTS of pizza) and we had prizes and it was a lot of fun for sure! Saturday morning I got p and went to the gym and did an hour of turbokick and then an hour of boot camp and it was hard and awesome and ass kicking. I felt great afterwards. Then I just hung out with my family. So good.

Saturday night Amanda texted me and wanted to see if I wanted to work out on Sunday with her. I can’t really turn down workout time with her so of course I said yes. I met her there yesterday at Noon and we did legs. Holy Shit, we did legs. This is the thing, in the end it was only 7 different exercises, but it was insanely hard and insanely brutal and it took about 2 hours. That girl pushes me.

We started with 10 minutes of sprints on the treadmill. 10 mph sprints which actually seemed pretty easy to me. This was just to get our lets warmed up you see. For impending torture. Amanda set up a 135 pound barbell for her. We were going to do lunges. I rested the 135 pounds on my neck and just about fell over. I could squat it, but not lunge that amount. My balance told me I would fall flat on my face. So we got the 80 pound barbell for me. I did lunges across the gym with 80 pounds and I was dripping sweat. I would go, Amanda would go, etc., etc. We did 3 reps of it. Then we moved on to squats. I started with the 80 pound barbell but Amanda said if I could easily crank out 10 of those then I needed to go heavier. I got 15 no problem, so the next round I did in fact squat the 135 pound barbell. Crazy to see how strong I’ve gotten. I am squatting 135 pounds. Exhausting and terribly heavy that is. (I’ve been watching yoda and Star Wars The clone wars cartoon with the kiddos so this explains my Yoda speech there)

Then to give our legs a slight chance to recoup before we crushed them again Amanda decided we were doing pull ups. They are assisted in the sense that we stand on each other’s knees to get an extra boost up but that doesn’t make them easy at all. You still have to pull your shit up. I did 10 of them. Amanda did 10. I did 9. Amanda did 9. Then it was 8, and then 7… 6,5,4,3,2,1. So in the end it was 55 pull ups each. I was thinking this was quite crazy because that is an insane amount of pull ups. Difficult to say the least.

Then it was time to do deadlifts. 2 weeks ago when I worked out with her I did 90 pound deadlifts and I thought that was heavy. Amanda decided today I would be doing 110 pounds. And since I could do them pretty easily actually she told me that I had to try her 135 pound bar. And guess what, I could do them. It was not easy or perfect but I managed 6 deadlifts at 135 pounds.

We did 3 sets of 12 reps and that was brutal. I guess it doesn’t sound like a lot, but it truly is. We then alternated between leg kickbacks that work your ass and then leg extensions that fry out your quads. We’d do 30 of one, and then 25 of the other exercise, a total of 3 times.

We then went to the leg press. This is the one where you lie down and use your quad muscles to literally push massive amounts of weight up. The machine itself weighs 167 pounds without any added weight to it. Amanda seriously loads up the machine with 3 forty five pound weights on EACH side. This means its set at 437 pounds of weight. I wanted to laugh my ass off. You want to push 437 pounds. But shockingly I did. It was HARD and I struggled a little at times but holy shit I did it. I leg pressed 437 pounds. This is the part where someone else pushing you is amazing because I assure you there was not a single exercise that I did that I honestly would have done on my own. Or in those weight amounts. No freaking way. Partially because I never would have believed I could have.

It’s been a long time since I dripped that much sweat from lifting. I seriously was a soggy mess and yes my heart rate was spiking all over the place when I was lifting that heavy. So don’t ever think that cardio is straight up the only way to get a good workout. This shit proves it all wrong. I was exhausted and starving by the time we were done and boy oh boy did I feel amazing and great. I did it. I kept up and I killed it. Exercise is exhilarating. I am getting so much stronger than even I realize.

Today I am sore. My quads are on fire, my ass is tender, and my back is a little tight. Nothing that I haven’t ever felt before, nothing that I can’t live with. Nothing that will prevent me from working out again tonight, but just a little sore. I can tell that I worked them. Tonight is one 30 minute class, muscle conditioning. And then I have another hour of turbokick.

Tomorrow morning, before my family gets together, I will be heading to the gym because they are having a special extra boot camp class. 10 AM-11 AM, I will be kicking my own ass in a severe pre-xmas workout. Yup, this girl will exercise Christmas Eve morning. I love that. My food may end up being shitty but at least I will be activating my muscle and getting them fired up beforehand.

Christmas day will clearly be a reprieve from exercise. But Thursday I am back to the gym for Iron Power. So yes, this is exactly how the next couple days are going to go. I think it’s a great mix and/or balance of indulgence and fun and exercise and commitment to my lifestyle.

I am generally so excited to get back to being all about health and fitness and my goals and plans for myself. Soon. Just a little more of indulgence and fun around the holidays. Then it’s back to more consistent blogging, better eating, and new challenges.

Have a wonderful fabulous amazing and most importantly happy and fulfilling Christmas. My most favorite time of the year!