I guess I run now

No, the answer is no. I haven’t lost in the longest time & I haven’t been upset about that for the longest time. I’ve pretty much settled into the weight I was 2 summers ago & I’m holding. But I don’t want to hold. No more! I want to break into the 160s again, I want to go beyond that, I want to lose 17 by Christmas & buy a new pair of much smaller jeans for my birthday.

So here we go again. Back to it. Today will be a long work day, but I’m mixing in a couple of walks, situps, pushups, and maybe some squats (depending on the knee). Tomorrow if the swelling is down, I’m doing the 5k. & snacks are fruit, nuts, & seeds for the next week. I want to see movement on that scale. It’s time to break into the 160s, enough coasting. Maybe I should try calorie counting again?

Breakfast: light orange juice (40) & protein shake mix (80) with 1/2 banana (50) TOTAL = 170

Lunch: pumpkin soup (with 1/8 cup pumpkin seeds on top) & salad with light dressing (soup=90, seeds=93, salad=100) TOTAL = 283

Dinner: pumpkin soup with 1/8 cup pumpkin seeds (183); 1/2 cup squash (33), green beans (34), chicken sausage (120), whole wheat bun (110) TOTAL= 480

Total for day=933 (okay, no good)

So it’s just a sprain, nothing huge that could explain my sucky runs, my suckiness. But I did notice that I lost range of motion last month on the leg lift machine (they’re computerized, so if I don’t hit my ideal range, it doesn’t count & I haven’t been able to hit it once in a long, long time). So maybe this has been coming on for a long time & boot camp just aggravated it?

Anywho, I love my doctor. First of all, I love saying “my doctor.” He’s only the second one I’ve had in 42 years: the first was my pediatrician. After Dr. Miller, my pediatrician, I had no insurance, so no doctors for me (or some 46 million other Americans). It’s so nice to go to my own doctor who knows my name & my medical history (not that it’s easy to piece together those scattered records) rather than to whichever nurse practitioner happens to be tending the free clinic or whichever doctor’s working one of those pay-as-you-go mediquick places or whichever intern’s on call in the emergency room. I have a doctor now. Wow!

So he’s calling my knee thing a sprain & has recommended exactly what I’ve been doing, ibuprophin, ice, & compression. Only he wants me taking 6 ibuprophin daily for 2 weeks to make sure the swelling is really gone. & I go back in two weeks…imagine that, a follow-up visit! He thinks I should sit out of the 5k on Sunday, but we negotiated & if I’m feeling up to it, I’m going to do it…slowly. He also spent like 5 minutes showing me (we did it together!) how to do a proper squat that won’t kill my knees. Not my trainer’s style of a full-on squat into a low sit & as many of these as you can do in 1 minute, but I’ll do a happy medium between what he says & what she wants.

So reason #2 why I love my doctor: he’s not big on putting you on meds. More of a holistic practitioner who talks about diet & exercise & vitamins. Maybe they’re all like this now? But no one I’ve ever seen before has ever taken more than 2 minutes to look me over, so it’s wonderfully weird to go to a doctor who explains causes & symptoms & cures & gives you options for dealing with this stuff & spends 5 minutes just showing you how to do a proper squat. I’m kinda embarassed talking about this cause I have friends who don’t have insurance & can’t afford to buy their own & it seems unfair that I do finally have it. & I know we’re not supposed to get political at 3FC, but I really think this is a health issue & a fairness issue, not a political issue: this doctor thing should be a right for all of us, not a privilege for a select few.

Okay, that’s my diatribe for the day & I see now that I’ve made myself late for open lab hours, which means that I’ll have a dozen students waiting for me…no one ever wants to see me when I get to the office on time.

Happy day chicks!

I’ve been hobbling around on a busted knee since Tuesday morning: much swelling, much pain, no range of motion, and it keeps giving out on me.

So I go to boot camp yesterday (which rocked, btw, I LOVE bootcamp!) & my trainer fixes me up with some kind of elastic thing under my knee to keep it from giving out & she tells me to take it easy. Now back in high school, I’d use any damn excuse to get out of gym class, but there was no way I was going to miss boot camp or take it very easy. The elastic really helped & while she made it clear she’s not a doctor, my trainer said I probably have water on the knee.

So I looked it up online & one of the cures is antibiotics. Now I’m thinking: was I on antibiotics back in the summer, the last time (and first time, I think) I was actually able to run 2 miles in a row? I think the antibiotics & good run occurred around the same time. So now I’m hoping that the reason I’m such a lame runner is cause my knees suck. I mean, they always ache and hurt, especially after outside runs, but it never occurred to me that they might be holding me back as well. Man, I really hope that’s the case! Weird. I’m sitting here hoping I have knee problems. But I’ll take those problems since they can be fixed, and then there’s a chance I could be a decent runner yet.

So I have an appointment with the doctor this afternoon after I drop hubby off at the airport. That’s weird too since I usually prefer to let things run their course rather than visit the doctor (one of the many horrible symptoms of not having any health insurance at all from age 21-40). But this is serious, apparently: this could affect my boot camp performance. Is it possible to be a new type of person after only 4 sessions in boot camp? Last night when I just burst out with “I love boot camp so much!” My husband literally took a step backwards & said, “I never expected to hear you say that!” That makes two of us!

So first it was the young women who didn’t want to postpone their group presentation one class period when their groupmate had been taken away in an ambulance right before class…a pretty good excuse for postponing, I thought.

Then I got an email from a student this morning complaining cause her group mate had a baby this weekend & the new mother “failed to contact me to let me know she wasn’t participating on the project anymore.” Did I miss something? An 18 or 19-year-old has a baby 2 months prematurely & she’s supposed to inform the people she’s working with on a group project, what, during labor? I guess she should’ve contacted her groupmate while she was taking a break from visiting her new baby boy in intensive care? OMG! Is this student insane? I let this student know the new mother wouldn’t be participating on Monday morning, how is that not sufficient notice? I let her know their group project requirements would be lessened since their group mate was taking a short leave from the class. How does it even enter your head to be offended cause someone didn’t notify you that they’d gone into labor unexpectedly over the weekend? UGH!

The email was of the type I really hate: a complaint where one student throws her groupmates under the bus. & coming from this student–who left class 40 minutes early yesterday cause, apparently, she’d scheduled herself to work at her job during our class period–I was having none of it. Apparently everyone has to make allowances for her schedule, but if anyone dares upset her expectations, WATCH OUT!

I haven’t sent a reply to the email cause I need to put some time between me and my anger with this young woman’s incredible insensitivity…maybe I’ll just talk to her in class tomorrow? I’m fighting my desire to crush her completely by letting her know how insensitive she was, but that’s no good…this girl has feelings too, she just can’t spare any of them for her classmates, apparently.

I figure I’ll let ya’ll in on what we do at boot camp should anyone here be curious enough to want to try it out. I did a little research to see how many calories are burned in these things (500-600 apparently) & it looks like they all have similar approaches, so my experiences (and tiny2b, see if this fits with yours) would be common.

First of all, yesterday was a terrible day of non-stop teaching, meeting, & running errands. On top of that, the dog did something to his eye (all bloodshot & painful looking) so into an already packed day, I had to fit in time to drop him off at the vet (thankfully they have a drop off service, so I didn’t have to wait for him to see the vet). So by the time I got to boot camp, I was really looking forward to it. Weird. Really weird for me.

We started off with a quick 1/2 mile run. Then 1 min jump rope, 1 min push ups, 1 min jump rope, 1 min push ups. I need to do some of this stuff over the weekend so I’m getting stronger.

Then we moved into some kind of round-robin dealy with multiple stations…I forget what they called this, but it’s all about pulling/pushing and endurance. So 1 min each of squats, sit ups, pull ups, weights pushed over head, jumping on a box (a la biggest loser, but I can’t do it, so I did steps), and in a plank position, kicking the crap out of a boxing bag (a mountain climber with an grudge sort of thing). So…6 minutes total. 6 minutes of total hell. The worst & longest 6 minutes of my life!

But when we finished the round, our trainer said something to us that I’ll remember for the rest of my life: she said, “okay, one minute rest & then we go again.”

Here’s the deal. I couldn’t possibly go again. No freakin’ way. I didn’t have it in me. I was done.

But we did it anyway. Boot camp is like a freight train: it just keeps coming and there’s no stopping it once it’s started.

So I kept pushing through each damn 1 minute exercise (and I swear she doesn’t use a stop watch, so she forgets the actual time).

And then she said it again, “okay, one minute rest & then we go again.” AaaaaaaaaaaaaRrrrrrrrrrGggggggggggHhhhhhhhh! I mean, never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d do two rounds, but three was totally out of the question!

But we did it anyway. Damn freight train. But as gawdawful as those 18 minutes were, I feel great for having done them. Great in the intellectual, not physical sense. Today my knees are screaming.

So that’s the latest from boot camp. They offer a 30-minute version at the Y, which I may sign up for after this month is over. Or, who knows, maybe I’ll sign up for another full boot camp. I hate, hate, hate it & I really like it a lot!

Okay, I’m off to buy veggies for dinner before my meeting. Happy day ya’ll. Keep fighting the good fight!

It was a great time & the food was wonderful. I kept my portions small, but given that one of the portions was cake with whipped cream & I washed everything down with 2 beers, I don’t think my portion control made much of a difference.

My friends brought their walking shoes, but by the time dinner was over, it was twilight going on night, which is the time of the bats. I’ve gotten used to the occasional bat flying about, but my friend wasn’t into it, at all. So we just played dominos all night & had a lovely time. I think the rest of us missed our post-dinner walk, so maybe we’ll extend it tonight.

Entertaining again is out for a while. Hubby spent the whole day cooking (which he loves doing) rather than writing his diss. So while it was a good time, I still need to make sure his weekends are free.

Okay, a lot of work to do & I want to get to the gym as well, so I’m off. Have a great day everyone!

We’re entertaining our first guests tonight: a friend from the department & her wife who’s a professional singer, opera, I think. They had me for dinner my first semester here & I never could return the favor because, well, my apartment was kinda depressing & not really equipt for guests.

Normally I’d use this dinner as an excuse to hang around the house all day cleaning & cooking. But I got up & read blogs first thing & by the time I’d made it through my blogroll heroes, ending with tylerdurden’s 10-mile run post, I was ready to get out of the house and into the gym.

So while hubby cooked (this is his meal, really) I ran/walked 3.25 miles. A lame time for them…46 minutes, but they were enjoyable miles. I kept my running speed between 4.6 & 5.0 for most of the time, but did 2 .1 mile sprints at 6.0. Not many runs…I planned to stop at 2 miles, so the last 1.25 was just me playing the OCD game with the distance, time, and calories. Walks at 3.8 except for the last .6 mile that I did at an incline of 3.0 & a speed of 3.4-3.6. Felt good to move after being sore all week. I don’t know, maybe runs between bootcamp would help me to rebound faster from bootcamp?

So thanks for the inspiration cause there was a time there this morning when I could’ve easily chucked my plan to run, but given everyone else’s amazing workouts, I was sorta shamed & inspired into going.

I’m journaling about my food on paper for bootcamp, so I’m taking a break from doing it here (not that I’ve been that consistent with it here anyway), but I wanted to share the dinner menu hubby has planned (mostly my plan, but he’s bringing it about): pork loin (was going to be chops, but these were on sale, so we stocked up), thai apple salad, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and pineapple upsidedown cake. He’s threatening to make popovers, but with luck he’ll talk himself out of that one…too much good food!

It’s a deadly meal, but not terrible diet wise if I keep portions small. I had a protein shake for breakfast & a salad for lunch, so I’ve got some SOME! calories to spare…not many, though.  & I called my friend this afternoon to tell them to wear walking shoes so we can have a nice after dinner walk before we chow down on cake. Oh well, this is the first time I’ve entertained since I moved here (aside from the inlaws & parties at hubby’s place), so I guess we’re doing it up big! Yay us!

Yup, that’s where I’ll be today. I really, really hope they have wireless at the courthouse so I can work & read blogs all day. I should’ve asked tiny2b if this was even a possibility. I really, really, really hope they don’t need me. My students, however, hope I get chosen & the trial runs all semester long.

Bootcamp Wednesday wasn’t terrible. There are some things I just can’t do with anything resembling coordination, like this combo squat to a jump to tossing a 15-pound medicine ball high at the wall to a catch on the way to a squat & repeat…40 times. Oh, and repeat 40 times while the other folks in the camp do sprints up & runs backwards back. They run until I’m done. That’s one thing I’m not going to like about boot camp. Yes, being accountible to everyone else means I can’t just decide to just relax during the plank or during a wall squat cause then everyone has to do another minute or two. But what if I can’t hold it? & OMG, this woman is obsessed with squats of every variety & thinks a good resting position is the plank.

Oh, but there’s another 40-year-old in the class. I just assumed she was younger cause I assume everyone is younger than me…one of the hazards (and joys, I guess) of working with college kids. & she was complaining mightily about being sore on Wednesday too. I didn’t see her try to walk down any stairs (the thing I couldn’t do without screaming), but maybe someone else is in the same boat. I didn’t pay attention to her on Monday cause we were always at opposite ends of the group, but on Wednesday she was having some trouble with stretches that made me think maybe we’d have been better partners.

Oh, so this is terrifying. We’re partnered up so that no one just decides not to show. But that means that if your partner decides not to show, you have to do extra. Shawn’s partner was 5 minutes late, so when class ended & we’d walked the medicine balls & other equipment up to the third floor, he had to do an additional 50 squats. CRAZY!

But boot camp is doable ya’ll. The pain for the next two days is insane, but most of the exercises are just ones that we all did in high school gym classes: sit ups, squats, push ups, squats, lunges across a field, jumping jacks, squats, running, legs up & bicycling, squats, the plank, squats, the plank with legs alternating in toward your stomac, some weight stuff, and squats. The only difference is you pretty much do every exercise until your muscles can’t possibly do any more; then you move on to the next one until those muscles are exhausted. Oh, & it’s outside, so lovely fall weather to enjoy & there’s this boot camp mentality that’s kinda fun.

Okay, that’s all from me. I’ve been doing 2 mile walks on non-bootcamp days & got in 1 1/2 on Wednesday. I’m planning for a run Saturday since it’s not long before my next 5k & maybe a swim on Sunday.

Cheers ya’ll!

Yes, there’s still pain. Tons of it. Pain to spare. But I should spare you the painfully dull & self-indulgent details.

Yesterday my mouth got the most workout what with my constant moans, groans, and complaints. I did manage 2 walks with hubby, but they were slower walks than normal. At least the walks kept me loose, right? The upside is that with all this bootcamp pain, I had no desire to snack away whatever good I may have done on Monday. So my only snack yesterday was 1/2 a peach. That’s progress since my nights have included things like nuts & pretzels or worse, some kind of fruit cobbler or fat free pudding for the last few weeks. Gee, my snacks alone are probably worth a 1/2 pound loss a week.

So the goal is to lose 10-12 pounds before Thanksgiving, nice and easy. I have a trip to San Antonio right before that, so the Thanksgiving goal will, hopefully, keep me honest on my trip. I think that will be enough of a loss for my family to notice. Then it’s another 5-7 pounds (at breakneck speed) before Christmas, which should be enough for the in-laws to notice. I’m all about getting noticed now, apparently. Then I’m buying a new pair of 2-sizes smaller jeans for my birthday on the 30th to celebrate a good year of getting in shape & I’ll be ready for another year.

Have a great day everyone!

So we ended up going a little past the deadline for our project, but a couple of days isn’t a big deal. I kept food sensible most of the time, although there is evidence of two trips to the vending machine in my office trash can…M & Ms. One bag on Sunday when I was in trying to catch up on grading and organizing for my classes…very frustrating cause the work keeps piling up no matter how my priorities may shift. Now there’s a statement everyone here can relate to. We ate sensibly…Thai one night, but otherwise we stuck to home cooked meals (baked chicken, bean soup, beef stew, and lots of salads). & we walked a couple of miles every night just to take a break, so I got a little exercise in there.

But not enough! I needed to take a pre-bootcamp to get in shape for bootcamp. I am the oldest, fattest, and most out of shape person in our 6-person group. I sucked at last night’s fitness test…8 situps, 9 pushups, a 12:10 mile (actually, I was proud of that, but I was still the last to finish…the one guy in the group joined me for the last two laps, just cause he had nothing else to do…actually, his being there pushed me to go a little faster, so I might like running with others). The only thing I kicked butt (pun intended) on was the squats. I managed 57 in whatever time she alloted for this (a minute?) while the next best number was 46. Of course, I’m short, so I have less distance to travel. & oh the pain, the pain. I can’t even really touch my thighs without screaming today.

She’s got us doing stuff I haven’t even thought about doing in years…jumping jacks, push ups (the real kind), sit ups (not just crunches), and some stuff that I clearly can’t manage cause I have neither strength nor coordination.

After the squats we moved upstairs to the track for the run, but my legs were so wobbly, I was afraid I’d fall on my face. Then around the second lap (it’s 12 laps to the mile at my gym), I figured I was destined to end up with my head in a trash can like all those folks on Biggest Loser during the first week. Hubby says I should endeavor to stop before vomiting becomes a possibility…good advice that.

& last night was the first and easiest night cause we had to get weighed and measured & do the test & talk nutrition. She kept us 20 minutes late, but I still think we haven’t seen the worst of it yet. The nutrition talk was…a nutrition talk. I’m always waiting for someone to tell me something I don’t know during these kinds of things…like “of course studies have shown that just one scoop of ice cream a day can help you cut your weight by 10% in just two weeks.” But it’s always the same: eat fruit, eat veggies, eat lean meats, cut down on the carbs. I follow this already, for the most part, my problem is portion control & wild snacking. But she did recommend more protein for breakfast, so for the duration of bootcamp, I’m going to do protein shakes (blueberry one today) instead of my usual Kashi & blueberries. Figure the extra protein may help my poor muscles to rebuild faster…right? Isn’t that the logic of protein?

Okay, tomorrow I’m reading blogs! I glanced through a few on Sunday & see that Eryn got the house, but I’m out of touch here & missing everyone! For today, well, one more day & I’ll be all caught up on grading and other work…just in time for the next batch!

Happy day ya’ll!