Perfection.

Today has been perfect. Like. I could relive today over and over and be THRILLED to do it.

I got up later than usual (it was planned), went to starbucks, worked from like 8-2 and Kristy (our new girl) and I had a fabulous time annnd we got caught up! also, the whole "working weekends" thing is over :) then we left at 2, I hung out with Jer, worked out with Darin, and now I'm going to Nathan and Jen's for dinner.

The workout (which is the main purpose of this blog) was actually great. I wasn't expecting ridiculousness, I mean Darin is by no means out of line with what he asks me to do, though I might act like it sometimes. We did some incline presses with 10s/12s, then straight arm pulls, and the lat pull down. The only thing I wasn't THRILLED with today was the bike -_- there's that face. We did like 5 sprint intervals...and I don't know why I'm complaining because we only did 10 seconds of sprints, and when I do it on my own in the gym I usually do 25/35 on a higher resistance. I feel like I can confess that now because I'm not ON the bike haha. Oddly enough though, I can almost predict when things like that are gonna come up. I told Rebecca the other day that it had been a coons age since I'd actually been on the bike at O3. But after that we stretched. My quads were kinda on fire. I feel like sometimes he thinks some of this isn't work/hard for me because I don't make faces (generally) or complain (to his face). I have this weird mentality that's like, um I've had my back cut open at the age of 12, and I have 2 steel rods in my back. This isn't going to kill me so do it and don't be a baby. But I kinda hate stretching. I have some complaints there because it's kinda uncomfortable. I think it's actually my hips that have the problems but I don't know haha. 4 a week for the next 3 weeks. I'm hopeful I'll survive at this point, but that could be the post workout good mood talking.

Also. Today I wore a tank top for the first time in years (no lie) and I don't know how I feel about it. I got it from old navy for like 5 dollars. It was a nice idea in theory but I'm weird about my clothes.

Speaking of. I got some new jeans at target on Thursday....annnnnnd they were 2 sizes smaller than I bought at the start of the summer. Rebecca says they fit really well but I'm afraid they're too tight. I have buyers remorse and I'm thinking about taking them back. I keep waiting for them to be too small haha. I'm a pessimist if you couldn't tell by now.

Anyways, I have 2 whole days off from working and working out, and I'm excited about it. I've lost almost 1.5 pounds, which means I'm out of the 40lb purgatory. Thanks to Darin and his ass kicking workouts.

I'm off to never never land (is that from Peter Pan? or is that Michael Jackson's amusement park? I don't know what I'm saying) aka Nathan and Jennifer's!

=]

Survival of the fittest.

Well, so far I've lived to exercise another day, but I can't make any promises for getting out of bed tomorrow. That whole "survival of the fittest" thing seems legit at this point and I mayyy become a casualty of natural selection. Stay tuned. If the posts stop coming in on a regular basis, assume I'm dead and my body can be found at O3 or Mission's gym on the top floor of Asheville imaging. I feel like someone has taken a pillow case full of ivory soap and beat me with it in my sleep, and Darin continued that proverbial beating from 4:45-5:30 today. My arms hurt so bad, I got a little creative and hooked 3 straws together so I didn't have to pick up my water bottle to drink out of it. You do 2 days worth of arm work with Darin and tell me you feel like picking up your arms to brush your teeth. That's right. You won't.

Moving on, my everything was sore today, my quads, hamstrings, abs, biceps, triceps, everything. So of course doing squats will cure all. We "only" did 10, but there were some incognito squat like motions during the session. Oh, I noticed. Jennifer's dream came true and we started out with deadlifts. She has been asking me for like 2 weeks to show her at Mission's gym and when there is anyone else in the gym, I get a little shy and didn't want to look like a jackwagon, so lucky for her, she got an expert to teach her. and by expert I mean Darin. I have no idea what weight we started out but it didn't feel like a ton, however, my legs hurt still, so when he asked on the 1-10 scale, I said a 7. But apparently my scale needed calibrating. I was just hoping that we would stick with basically the bar and move on. I think we went up to like 125. Then we did some seated rows (any "seated" exercise is my jam) and then we did these weird offset Romanian dead lifts that required me standing on one leg and touching a 5 lb weight to the opposite foot. It was real weird, but apparently I did good. I just felt my legs burning haha. Then we did some straight leg raises, and oddly enough my hip kinda hurt. I don't know what's going on with it but it didn't hurt enough to warrant mentioning. Though I'm talking about it now. Then he was like, okay, roll over, and I KNEW what was about to happen. Planks. If I had a rusty spoon................. whatever, it was only 30 seconds, and I say "only 30 seconds" like that's easy for me. Clearly the only thing that is easy for me is whining. Best news of all, no working out tomorrow and I'm pretty excited about doing nothing after work. I wish I was off from work but that can't happen right now. uuughhhhhh. I have a solo workout with Darin on Friday. Hopefully he'll take pity on me and we can just stretch again :) I'm not even being sly about it at this point.

Oh, and get this. My hands are getting calluses from the weights! or I have some really weird bilateral rash in the exact same place on both my hands, which I'm not a doctor but I'm pretttttty sure it's calluses.

Know what I could drink a gallon of right now? not water. mountain dew. What would be even better? a mountain dew slushy. Like coke slushies you can get at the movies. I'm gonna need to figure out how to make those. well. maybe not.

So while my iPhone and I are in a very serious committed relationship, I'm still not sure what some of the features are. Like the "do not disturb" thing? also, having unlimited access to iTunes is a terrible thing for me and my bank account. Ke$ha has a new song out "die young" and it's my everything. Anyways. I guess I need to get in the shower if I plan on being in bed by 8pm. I have 400 pages left in "My sisters's keeper" and I plan to finish it tonight before bed.

At the bottom is a picture of my water bottle (thanks to Jennifer) and my straw. patent pending :)

=]

A few of my not so favorite things.

You know those things in life that are unnecessary? like red lights, blackberry smart phones, and Mitt Romney? well. full use of your upper extremities is not one of them. I find use of my arms to be a pretty necessary situation, but "full use" is pushing it after today. God in heaven. I'm putting off getting in the shower as long as possible because in the shower is where I generally find out exactly how sore I am.

Today was the first partner session. It was arm hell all over again, but not before we did some squats. I'm literally about to just cut my legs off and move on with my life. They cause me nothing be trouble and heartache. Squats, surrenders, planks, these are a few of my favorite things. Oh wait, those are the things that make me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon. Can you tell I'm in a mood? I peaced out of the gym at warp speed again because I, yet again, felt like I was about to toss cookies all over God's creation. Focus. We started out doing bird dogs and "dirty dogs", which just made me feel like a complete ruhtard. then an overhead toss with a 12lb medicine ball, which I hadn't done with that heavy of a ball, and I kinda was like um what is this ball made of? the souls of everyone who hasn't survived boot camp?! then we did this ab thing we did at boot camp, except when were passing a medicine ball between us, and I kept falling over because I have the balance and core strength of an infant. I can't do anything right. Then we did these 2 circuits of arm stuff. I realllllllllllly wish I didn't look like the south end of a north bound donkey right now, or I'd take a picture of my face. just so you all could see the disgust. Anyways, the first one was slams, cleans and presses, chest passes and this thing where you lay on the ground and put the ball above your head and then pull it up. We did that twice through, then we did push and presses (at this point those go in the list of things I'd rather cut my right arm off 127 hours style than do), pistons, Romanian dead lifts and fronts and sides. twice through. My everything hurts a lot right now. I just want to lay down and stay in bed for a few days, read, and eat chips (shameless toddlers and tiaras quote). 4 a week may be biting off more than I can chew. We'll see though.

Darin mentioned this lady named Erma Bombeck, and that my writing style was similar to hers. So I googled her, and read a few wikipedia articles and I kinda love her. "my second favorite household chore is ironing. my first one being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint". Haha, me too Erma. Me. too. I hope my blog is half that entertaining to at least offset the bitching factor, because that's what I'm doing. But tough. what I'm doing is hard work and right now, I'm in a not so fabulous mood (just ask Rebecca) so it is what it is. Tomorrow is a new day.

The best news of all, other than I still need to get my massive self in the shower, is that tomorrow is partner sesh #2. 3rd day in a row. It's like I'm taunting death. I feel like if the grim reeper had a house, I'm playing ding dong ditch on Halloween.

Anyways. Pending my survival tomorrow, there will be another post. If not, well, I think we covered this last post. My bed is calling my name, and I'm off to answer.

=]

Winter workouts.

Today confirmed one thing I've known for a while.

I'm crazy as can be for this whole 4 a week thing. Sweet baby Jesus and his teen mom Mary. I feel like death.

Weirdly enough, the only thing that hurt after boot camp was my right shin bone muscle. I DONT KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENED. Whatever though, I think tomorrow morning will make up for feeling okay on Sunday haha.

Anywho, my schedule changed this week since I'm doing the 4/week and Jennifer is joining me tomorrow and Wednesday for our first partner sessions. It felt weird being at the gym about the time I generally leave. Also, you know what? It's SO STINKIN COLD outside. I hate winter. With my whole heart. I know it's not technically winter but it's not summer so it might as well be. I walked on the treadmill with my arms crossed today not because I was angry, but because I was going to freeze to death in a matter of minutes. That's why I titled this "winter workouts" haha. Anyways, so we started out with 10 squats, but apparently these were like the best ones ever. Know why? this entire time, my feet were too close together. I thought that's how you did them. But the wider my stance, the deeper I can go and apparently they were good. I still hate them with everything inside of me. Then we did this 5 exercise sequence. Seated rows, these weird things that made me feel like I was training to be the incredible hulk, these pull downs, shoulder presses and inverted rows. 10 of each. 3 times through. For those of you like me who suck at math, that's 150 reps of arm exercises. That wasn't even the best part of the day haha. During the second round, it was like 20 pounds less on the seated rows, I honestly didn't notice, but he did haha. Then we did this circuit of squats (seriously. I really, really try not to complain but I'd almost rather do anything else), a 30 second plank and then total body extensions. So after 2 times through of that, I got a break and I thought I heard him putting that step together and I thought, if there's a God, that's Travis and his client. Nope. Sadly it was for me. I do mean sadly, because if there's one thing I hate more than planks, it's anything on that stupid ugly step. We did step ups holding like 10 pounds, for 45 seconds on each leg, then some stinkin cleans and presses on each arm. I felt like I'd been thrown inside a huge blender and someone had pressed "puree" haha. Seriously. not a joke. I was feeling kinda not so good at the end. Like nauseated. And I mean about to blow groceries at any moment, so I kinda wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. With my anxiety, that would have done me in. I probably would have to quit going to O3 if I had thrown up. Thankfully, I didn't. My sweet sister, for an early birthday gift, surprised me and renewed with Darin for me! One week from Thursday I will be 23! Which. what?! My birthday is my FAVORITE day of the year. Seriously. I dont think 5 year olds get as excited as me about their birthday.

I decided to get it together and declare this week a "no eating out" week. So far so good, but it's day one. I feel like all I did today was eat, drink water and go to the bathroom. I tried to eat like every 3 hours ish, but I never really ate ALL of whatever I was snacking on. But that's fine. Progress is progress. I had 1059 calories today and it wasn't of complete crap like mcdonalds chicken nuggets. I tried a sandwich on the wheat bread....it wasn't terrible, it wasn't my everything, but I guess I'll eventually get used to it. I heard "the whiter the bread, the quicker you're dead" so I decided I should get it together. Mom made this baked chicken and these potatoes...my favorite meal. There are some brownies she also made......... we'll see how tonight goes haha.

Anyways, tomorrow starts the partner sessions. My schedule for all of the stalkers and murderers out there is basically Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday this week. I hope I survive. If not. Rebecca gets all my wordly possessions which include my new iPhone, and that's about all I've got. hahah. Seriously. I need to get in the shower and in the bed before too long. I started reading my sisters keeper, which, I'm actually reading 4 books right now at the same time, but that's fine with me because I love reading and if I could get paid to read all day every day, I'd be in heaven. Like I said, this blog is pretty therapeutic for me in that I just start typing and it's like word vomit, and I actually feel a little better after I write all this out. So I'm gonna try to do it after every workout, but they may not be as detailed haha. So. That's all I've got. Oh, no it's not. I found this quote on pinterest I love that I'll leave you with. "those who move forward with a happy spirit will find things always work out". I love that.

Ok. Tootles.

=]

All aboard the hot mess express.

So, boot camp. There isn't much I can say other than that's the most I've laughed in that gym, EVER. Rebecca and I ran what we called "the hot mess express" and picked up natalie,jen-jen and Matt before we made our way to sweeten creek. Which, there were a ton of people at boot camp today. Like, I'd guess 10-12. The first one I went to,there were 4 of us. I mean, I brought Becky, Matt, Jen and Natalie, and Alyssa came too so we had a pretty fun group. To start things off, we went outside in to the Arctic air,and stretched,then we did what I'm now referring to as "the dumpster run" or TDR for short. Not only was it colder than all get out, I hate running/in the cold. We did it twice -________- that's my unhappy face. Running downhill is 100x harder for me than uphill and I. don't. know. why. Alyssa called me out for "flipping" but you do what you gotta do. I didn't need to die in the first 3 minutes of boot camp. Then we went inside where the real fun began.

There were 5 stations I think, body weight rows, goblet squats (picture me with the finger gun to my head), push ups, bridges and push and presses. I partnered up with Matt and we started with the push and press, which, big mistake. My shoulders still hurt from Thursdays ridiculousness. I made Matt take the 12s the first time, because I'm a terrible friend. Matt looked at me during the first 30 seconds and said "this isn't so bad" and I said, HA. just you wait. He didn't realize it was only like 15 seconds between sets. The second round of push and presses I took the 12s. 2lbs doesn't sound like that much, but it feels like 20 pounds after 5 or 6 reps. After the first round, I was feeling kind of okay. I wasn't like READY for round 2 but I guess I didn't get a choice. The second round was dicey. I think I did maybe 15 squats between 2 sets, because Matt beat me to the smallest kettlebell and we won't talk about my pushups. I'm OVER that whole "i want to do a real pushup" goal. over. it. Anyways, so after the 2nd round, I noticed it was only 9am and I was like uh SURELY not again. So, Darin being the kind soul that he is, actually took a vote on doing one more round of all that or ab exercises. No one voted to do a 3rd round. So we did CPRs, straight leg raises,flutter kicks, some kind of transverse crunches and these things where you sit up and hold your legs up and twist side to side. The flutter kicks almost did me in. 30 seconds is a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time. Natalie was cracking me up though. Especially at the end when we were streching and Darin turned on this crazy like, yoga-ish music and Natalie just looks up and goes "guys look! we made it to heaven!". I don't know why I thought that was so funny. I still kinda laugh.

Boot camp is much more fun when you have people like that with you. I think that was the most I've laughed in the gym, ever. I'm feeling kinda iffy about everything right now because I'm SO TIRED. I just need boot camp to be offered at like noon. Then I could get a lot more people to go with me haha. I feel like it should literally be like 7pm but it's not even noon at the time I'm writing this. I could lay down and go to sleep right here, right now. Hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow feeling fine, but I doubt that will happen.

A girl can dream though. At the bottom are pictures I find amusing, and a picture of one of the protein bars Darin gave me that I have yet to try because I'm a baby. Let's not judge. Also. I need water. I'm dying of thirst.

I'm gonna be feelin' it tomorrow.

I feel like a dog that has been hit by a 18 wheeler then resuscitated and made to run a marathon.

seriously. I absolutely must be crazy as can be. I've decided to partner up with my good friend Jennifer Champion to work out twice a week at O3 with Darin, and continue my own 2 a week schedule. However, I did decide to hold off on the lap band/gastric bypass situation. I had decided to throw in the towel that particular day because I was mad I was still gaining/losing the same 4/10ths of a pound. I do need to give this more time and if I don't change the way I do things, the lap band won't really be of use and I read online about the bad side effects of gastric bypass...and I doubt any doctor would willingly do one on a (semi) able bodied 22 year old who has already lost 40 pounds. So, we'll see if 4 a week can shake things up enough to get me unstuck. Hopefully.

I've also made another decision. I'm just going to stop talking during my sessions with Darin. It seemed like every time I opened my mouth today, he was adding weight to whatever I was doing. We started out with a circuit of cleans and presses, bounce passes, push and presses and a stinkin' plank. that's just like a regular plank but with a lot more disgust in my voice. 30/15 timing, and I felt like I was going to die at the end of the second go around. Oh, also, doing a plank AFTER you do all the above, is enough to make your lunch reappear. I don't suggest trying it. There is no way on God's precious green earth I would have, had I not been forced. I seriously don't know who/how those came about. Like. Who just decided, hey, I'm gonna act like I'm a gonna do a push up, but I'll just stay with my arms locked instead. It's much more fun that way. Um no. Anyways, then we did these other things that I have no idea what they were but it was a shoulder thing. Which at this point I'm pretty sure he's out to destroy my shoulders forever. I did like 3 with no weight and he was like uh huh, too easy (too easy doesn't exist in my world...things are only pleasantly doable) so there was more weight added,then he put more on and I got about 5 out before my shoulders were like uh no ma'am! Then we did some straight arm pulls and these other things that were supposed to work my biceps, but I didn't feel anything. He asked me if I felt it, and then proceeded to tell me not to tell him what I think he wanted to hear, which, it's like he can read my mind sometimes. So,unfortunately I was honest and ended up with a different bar/more weight. He was standing there thinking aloud, and said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results, so what activity we could do to remedy the situation? I suggested taking a nap. That was shot down within a matter of seconds. Another case in which I should have taken a vow of silence. We then changed the bar to a rope thing and repeated the exercise and I felt it then. A lot. Then we moved over to the mats, and did this thing where I passed a big red stability ball from my legs to my hands, using my legs. First of all, I felt like a beached whale trying to make it's way back to the ocean. Secondly,it made my stomach hurt real bad. It basically felt like that ball had 50 pounds of concrete or one of the Duggar children in it by the end of the second set. Then we did some seated rows, which my favorite part of that exercise is the "seated" part. That was "all" we did in the way of exercise, then we stretched. Which, I'm not sure if it's really supposed to hurt but my hamstrings were feeling it. Speaking of feeling it, I was washing my Hagrid like hair tonight, and I had to wash sections at a time because my shoulders would start burning/shaking when I would try to wash my hair for more than 10 seconds at a time. I know Darin reads this, so, read this. you suck. Not really, but just until my shoulders stop hurting. Sadly, I think the worst is yet to come. Anyways, he gave me these two protein bars that I'm feeling pretty suspicious of. I know one of them has a picture of cake on the front which, I may have been born at night but it wasn't last night. I HIGHLY doubt it tastes like the cake on the front. I'm telling myself to shut up and have an open mind, but we'll see. we'll seeeeeeeee. I'm not one to try new things so easily. A small part of me says just to say there were gross and save myself the gagging/heartache to come. Open mind. Open mind. Open mind.

I doubt I'll be able to blog after every single workout when I start 4/week...but I'll try. This is kind of therapeutic for me. I say way more here than I ever would in the gym, and I love making people laugh. Speaking of. Driving home from my workout, I was getting down with my bad self to an oldddd lil john song (snap ya fingers, if anyone is interested) and for some reason I basically forgot that people could you know, see me, and I was stopped at the red light on Ashland ave,right at the ABCCM when I looked over and saw a group of people waiting to go in laughing at me. At this point, I probably should have been embarrassed, but for some reason I just laughed. I'm sure those people needed a laugh more than I needed my dignity. My post workout good mood was in full swing, so I was loving life.

Anywho, it's way past my bed time. It's 7:53 at the time of this writing. Hopefully I'll get to be off all weekend again and maybeeee go to boot camp but I don't know. It kind of kicks my social anxiety up a few or 8 notches. We'll see though. Open mind. that's what I need.

the end.
:)

Shoulder pains and decisions.

My shoulders are basically destroyed. That's code for they hurt already so I can't wait to feel the pain, uh, pleasant feeling headed my way tomorrow morning. We started off with squats, again. I wish you all could see my face right now. oooooovvvveeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr them. Not only did we start out with squats, we started out with a circuit with 30/15 timing. 15 seconds is nothing. I mean, I would say I'm "used to it" from previous stuff/boot camp, but it just never gets any better. We did squats, cleans and presses, slams and this other thing I'm gonna call ins and outs just because there really isn't a name for it that I'm aware of. Then we did dead lifts which are becoming as tedious as squats. This is the part where I mention he lied, because on the first rep of the first set (I may have those words backwards, stranger things have happened), I felt like the right side was heavier than the left, and stopped for a second, then I had to do five more. I was only doing 5 per set with like 135 pounds. Which is good, apparently. I'm not a gym rat, a hood rat, or any kind of rat really, I'm just a small town girl living in a lonely world. That's the only Journey song I know. Anyways, I know I'm weird but you're still reading, so I win. I just do whatever he says and move on with my life. I trust him enough that I don't think he's gonna put like 650 pounds on the bar and be like, GO! He's good at what he does, so I just go with the flow. Today's flow sucked, but it is what it is. After the dead lifts, we did fronts and sides, which produce a nice burn and by nice I mean it felt like someone dumped gasoline on my shoulders and tossed a match on them. I guess that's the point but it's still not my jam. Then I did these weird things on the floor that I don't really care to explain. I guess that sounds rude but I don't know how to describe them without it sounding like a hot mess. which it was. He said when he was explaining them to me, it was a coordination thing, which at that point I was like, uh fabulous. Funny story,today when I was getting ready to leave work, I reached up to push my glasses up on my face like the nerd I am, and I literally busted my own mouth and made myself bleed. So, anything requiring coordination isn't really my cup of tea. However, that wasn't too bad. Then we did these 3 point rows, and I really have got to step up my drama. I have no idea how much weight I did the first set with but it "looked easy" so I got a new kettle bell (what a nice reward) that was approximately "one pood" in like Russian weight. I laughed for at least the first 4 reps on that set. Then I stopped because I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish the 8 it was so heavy. I don't know why, but just say it "pood" and tell me you don't even laugh a little. If you don't,you're not doing it right. Then we stretched and it was my favorite time of the day. going home time. haha. Not that I don't love working with Darin, but going home means going to lay down. Which is my favorite activity, other than reading. Overall today didn't suck, but I did make a few faces when he had his back turned during the first circuit and the dead lifts. I can't help myself. I'm a sneaky snake at times.

Shockingly enough, I was literally starving to death by the time I got home today. I don't know what flipped that switch but I ate basically like I'd never seen food before for dinner. I had chicken and corn. Now all I want to do is go lay down and go to sleep which I'm sure is fabulous for my metabolism. I slept literally like 16 hours Friday night. I completely slept through boot camp, like, didn't even roll over any time close to 8:30. I think I woke up the first time at like 11:30 and then fell back asleep till 2 or so. Lets take our judging faces off. I worked like 958205 hours in a pay period and I needed to rest. It was REAL nice. I wish I could repeat this weekend every weekend but that would make me lazy. Which. Lazy doesn't = results.

It's confession time. I actually had/have an appointment to talk to a bariatric surgeon about lapband/gastric bypass. I don't think I'm going to go....yet.  I made the appointment when I was in a mood and being impulsive. I know this sounds dramatic but it really does suck working as hard as I do to basically have no progress on the scale. I know,the scale isn't everything. I really know that, but it's hard to process. I'm trying to convince myself to give this more time. I just have a hard time believing that this time will be different, and I know everyone is like "oh 40 pounds, I wish I lost that much" and all that, well that's cute but I've said it before and I'll say it again. This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life and I didn't just wake up one day 40 pounds lighter. I've worked my ass off. This is the most I've ever lost a once and the longest I've ever stuck with anything like this. I just hate disappointing people/myself. Idk. It's way easier for me to write this stuff out than actually talk about it. We'll see what happens though. I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

Anyways, that's all for now. I'm going to combine my two favorite activities, and go lay down in my bed and read.

=]

Giant sets of nausea.

Well friends. This is the end of my journey here. Just kidding. I wish I was 120lbs of muscle and hotness. Instead of the equivalent of a small baby rhinosaurus with the face to match. tough luck for me.

I decided to write/ post tonight since I'm getting ready to go out to dinner and I'm still in a mood haha. Not a bad one per se,but just my post workout crash.

So we didn't boxthis session, which was fine. Instead we started out with squats,which was not fine. I asked him if I started being obnoxious and complaining if that would change anything, but alas, it wouldn't. So I sucked it up and did some squats. They weren't bad, but mix them with shoulder presses and dead lifts, with no break between sets, until you finished one round of all three, it was kinda ridiculous and by kinda I mean a lot ridiculous. Then repeat 2 more times. wash. rinse. repeat. vomit. that's kinda what it felt like. Apparently doing stuff like that is called "giant sets" or something. I can't think clearly when I'm trying to avoid meeting Jesus between sets. Though I will say this, I'm not really one to brag,but if you had told me 2 months ago I would be dead lifting 145lbs, drinking egg white protein drinks and voluntarily going to boot camp at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, I would have laughed in your face. I'm kinda impressed with myself a small bit. Anywho, we did that, then we went into body weight rows which sucked. Mostly because my arms were already tired. After that, we went to the mats, had a nice chat and then did this set of 4 exercises. Bird dogs, this thing where you kick your leg back, CPRs and this other ab thing where you touch opposite hand to opposite foot. It doesn't really sound like all that much when I'm typing this out but believe me,it was plennnnnnnnty. plenty. Also, when I was fixing my hair when I laid down on the mat to do the ab stuff, my ponytail was hurting my head, so i fixed it and left it like that the rest of my workout and when I get out to my car, what do I look like? a hot tranny mess.

No boot camp Saturday. Why, some of you might ask? well, I have the weekend off work and I plan on doing absolutley as little as possible.....or the direct opposite,and doing whatever I want to do, when I want to do it. I haven't decided. But being up at 7am and going to work out like there is literally no tomorrow is not on my list of things to do this weekend. I NEEEEEEED a haircut and to get my eyebrows done. My eyebrows are in a state of emergency. Like. I'm sure it basically looks like two wolly worms making out on my forehead. Anyways. Work has taken over my entire life for the past 3 weeks. Like, I think part of my lack of hunger comes from being so stressed out all the time. I feel like this whole lifestyle change has completely taken over my life. which, I'm sure it's designed to, to a point. My fitness pal is stressing me out. Mostly because it's all the time screaming at me "YOU'RE EATING TOO FEW CALORIES". I don't think it's ever not said that when I hit "complete entry". I'm exhausted. But it actually looks like a fairly decent weekend ahead. I just have to make it through work and then I'm home free for 2 days.

I guess that's all I have to say for now. I would throw in a quote from the hangover, but I know some people don't like it when I say bad words or call people even worse things. So use your imaginations.
:)

Jane Fonda and an acceptable loss.

so lets go ahead and get this out of the way. Professional boxer will never be an acceptable career choice for me. Which is an acceptable loss. More on that in a minute.

Let me also say this, my boot camp wound isn't as insignificant as I had lead you all to believe. I mean, my wounds generally heal slow (I guess I should mention that to Dr. Moore at some point) but it looks like I've scraped it. It also just shows what a spaz I am, but it is what it is. I've never claimed my middle name was grace. It's Kaitlin, for all of you who are interested, which by my guess is approximately zero.

So, anyways, I had to park on the hill today because all the dance moms had taken over the parking lot, which meant I had to walk UP the hill after the workout. Yeah, I'm lazy, don't act surprised that was an annoyance to me and warranted mentioning in this post. I walked on the treadmill which was a feat in and of itself because my right leg is still sore. I think what had happened is that during boot camp when I was doing the surrenders/step ups/etc, I was leading with my right leg,the entire time. It hurt to breathe on Sunday morning after boot camp. Seriously. Everything hurt. Moving on, we did a nice little warm up and squats for "therapeutic purposes" (there is never an acceptable time or reason for squats in my book) because my hamstrings are so ridiculously tight. Apparently my knees (involuntarily) buckle/come in, which is a sign of weakness in some muscles. Good thing he knows all this stuff. But we did dead lifts per our usual and then this set of 3 exercises for some hip muscles that were kinda weird. I put these things on my ankles and he connected them to this pulley thing and I don't even know. I didn't really feel much. Then we did this "Jane Fonda" thing which I had to google who she was and she is a creeeeep. Seriously. I'm not a fan. Anyways, these things on the floor, then hip tilts which were weird/not my jam. I had a coordination issue with those too. Anyways. then we moved on to boxing. Which in my humble opinion was a massive fail. all aboard the fail boat. toooooooooooooooot tooooooooooooooooooot.

First of all, I legit am not one to get angry easily, so throwing punches doesn't come naturally to me. It seems like nothing comes naturally to me. I'd be an easy target if any of my blog followers ever want to throw down. He starts telling me this scenario like I'm out drinking and get belligerent and all this craziness that will never happen, and then said you're supposed to turn yourself sideways to reduce the amount of important organs that someone can hit and you hold your right arm like this and it was just a mess for me. I apparently looked nervous/like a deer in the headlights because he asked me if I was nervous. Kind of, but I mostly just felt like a jackass. My hands were shaking a little because that's what happens when my social anxiety kicks in. I also drop my arms a lot, making me an easy target for a shot straight to the money maker (my massive face, which by the way looks like I have meth sores because I have zits every where). Then we did this thing where I basically followed him around hitting his hands. I stilllllllllllllllllllllllllllll felt like a giant retard. I'm not quick, by any means, and I'm not really all that strong. It also took me like 5 minutes to get a drink of water because those gloves were ridiculous and I'm less coordinated than a mentally retarded 3 legged donkey. Let's just say outside of O3, boxing is really out for me....it really wasn't IN for me at O3 haha. I didn't hate it, which is probably what this sounds like. Muhammad Ali, I am not. As my friend Matt says, I'm more of a show pony than a work horse.

Also, I don't know what in the world is going on with me and my metabolism but I'm real tired of it. I'm basically never hungry or thirsty. I've read enough articles on the internet/in school to know that you have to eat to lose weight, I really do, but I legit am not hungry and eating when you aren't hungry doesn't work for me. Today I had some apple jacks which, actually have 20 calories less for 1/4 of a cup MORE cereal than special K, and there's only like 2 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar difference. I loooooooooove apple jacks too. Anyways, and I had a handful of chips and salsa from moes for lunch, and then for dinner I had some eggs and turkey sasuage. Darin said if he could follow me around and force feed me 2500 calories a day, he would. As, uh, pleasant as that sounds, I guess that means I need to eat more. Which is harder than it sounds because I doubt he wants me to eat more calories of chicken nuggets from mcdonalds, which, if that's the case, consider it done. He gave me another kind of powder to mixup and drink. It's "vanilla slam" flavored....here's to hoping it doesn't taste like vanilla road kill on a 110 degree day. I feel like I'm gonna be stuck at this 40lb mark forever and ever amen.

Anyways, that's really all I have to say. Other than I have a dentist appointment in like a month that I was just reminded of. Ughhh. I'd rather let the real Muhammad Ali give me a right hook to the jaw and knock my teeth out than have to go have mine cleaned haha. Ok. I need to get myself ready for bed. I haven't been sleeping a whole ton lately. I'll go to bed at like 9 then end up tossing and turning at 3am. Hopefully I can get back on a regular schedule soon. ENOUGH. I'm done rambling.
:)

cheating death.

an overly dramatic title? perhaps. Am I gonna go with it? you bet. I seriously am at a loss for words right now as far as boot camp goes. I know I think I say this every post, but that was legit the closest I've came to blowing groceries all over that gym. I told myself everyone would judge me if I did, so I held it in. I went to subway after boot camp, and the girl there probably thought I had been swimming in my clothes and doing lines of cocaine. I was so disoriented and I looked a HOT MESS. I think she asked me like 4 times what kind of egg I wanted on my sandwich. I was also kind of stuttering, which happens sometimes when I get really excited or absolutley exhausted. Which the combonation of working 100 hours in a pay period and working out like there's no tomorrow, can also produce the same results. I don't suggest it, however.

because this is my blog and my place to say whatever I want. Here goes. I hate the outdoors, I hate the hill in the parking lot, so obviously, I hate jogging up the hill in the parking lot for a "warm up". Clearly I hate jogging as evidenced by my physique, or lack thereof. I also hate squats of any kind and surrenders. I hate working out when I don't feel like it (but if I waited until I did feel like it, it wouldn't ever happen) and I hate the leather seats in my car when they burn me. I also hate that pop tarts are bad for you because I would slug a small orphan for a pack of the strawberry kind.

 

anyways, boot camp with different than the last two. There were 5 stations (I believe) and each had 2 exercises, and the way it went this time was 30 seconds of the first exercise, 30 of the second, then 20 seconds of the first again, then 20 seconds of the second, THEN you got a 'break' which was like 25 seconds I think. The first and third stations were my favorite, and that is sarcasm at it's finest. The first was surrenders and high knees, and the third was goblet squats (squats + kettlebell weight) and jump squats/total body extensions. My legs hurt already. The other stations included shoulder taps (high plank, and you take one hand and touch the opposite shoulder) and jumping jacks, this high step with weights, and a lateral side jump, and then an inverted row and toe taps (low plank, moving your feet out to the side and taping your toe on the ground), and the other station had ab stuff, where you lay down on the ground and bring your feet up to touch a 10lb medicine ball you raise from above your head + flutter kicks. 2 times through allllllllllllllllll that. I didn't mind the toe taps or the row haha. I need to get my inhaler refilled though, because at the very end I could feel my chest tightening up.

 

Darin text me after and said he was impressed. me too. impressed I didn't die, mostly. I got a battle wound, that's what I'm calling it anyways. When I was going from the inverted row to the toe taps, I scraped my elbow on the ground and didn't notice until after. Now it hurts. I'd take a picture, but a)I'm lazy and b)it would make me look like a huge baby.

 

anyways, boot camp #3 is in the books. I mayyyyyyyyy take next weekend off from boot camp, mostly because if I don't have to work,  I plan to stay in my bed all weekend. Which is a nice incentive to get myself caught up at work, so here's to hoping.

 

=)

CPR, squats and Napoleon Dynamite's girlfriend.

I am so freaking tired. First of all let me say, basically all during my work out, I felt like my hair was tore up from the floor up. I probably took it down and pulled it up 5 times. I looked like Napoleon Dynamite's girlfriend. The one with the crazy side pony tail? yeah. her. She and I were one in the same. for real. and I have mt.kilamanjaro (I know I mutilated that spelling but I'm too lazy to google it) and friends on my face. It's like I'm 14 again. 

Anyways, we kept with the "slow it down" theme, which was again, fine with me. I think he only had to tell me to slow down like twice. We didn't do dead lifts yesterday, we started out with the BPTs (see the last entry if you don't know what I'm referring to) except not on the smith machine. I think I got through like 3 sets, but on the last set I think I got to the 9th or 10th and had to bail. My arms were REAL tired. Then we laid down on the mats (if that was the end of this thought, that would have been fine too) and did these things called "CPR" and straight leg raises. the CPR thing was basically a crunch with your arms in the air...kind of like you were giving CPR to Jesus (clever), except it was much slower than you really do CPR and Jesus doesn't need me to break his ribs and zyphoid process during the process. I basically needed CPR after all that. Moving on, then we did these things that I really did hate with my entire heart. I don't know what in the world they were, but it you held this bar, and then pulled it up over your head, then down, then to the right side, then back to the left. that was 1. So we "only did 5", yeaaaaa. bad news is, I may be bad at math but I'm not that bad. It was 15. Darin basically said "sorry I'm not sorry". He saved the best for last, and I think we all know that's sarcasm. He stopped at the weights and looked thoughtful and said he was trying to decide what weight, and I suggested 5's. I got 12's. What did I need them for? The return of squats. Not just any squats, oh no. Squat and presses. or whatever they're called. You do a squat, and when you stand up, press the weight up. Yea. It's real fun. I suggest everyone give them a go. I almost started complaining, especially since Jennifer and I did the hack squat machine yesterday but I doubt it would have changed anything haha. Maybe I will start complaining. Since we did a lot of arm stuff again today, after the first set he gave me 10's. Still not 5's. Then after that, we did "5 special squats". I had some special words going through my head at this point. Ones I don't care to share with my blog followers who may or may not be sailors. They were squats like we used to do at the beginning of every single stinkin' workout but 'slower' ... I don't know how well I did on that but I was kinda over it at that point. Then we stretched. I'm not sure what kind of sorcery they have going on there but I'm planning on going to boot camp again Saturday. Seriously. I remember saying in early June "you won't catch my dead, lifeless, dehydrated body at boot camp". Never in my LIFE did I think I'd voluntarily get up at 7am on Saturday morning to go to anything called "boot camp". I hope it rains Saturday morning. I hate the outdoors and I'd rather die than run up that hill again....and I use the term "run" very loosely. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my life. Oh, and apparently we're "boxing" next week. That will surely be a raging success. I'm not a fighter, I'm more of a go with the flow/chill out type. I've never thrown a punch in my life. I guess you never know if you don't try. Who knows. I might be the next muhammad ali. Except I'd like to keep both my ears. I really don't know what I'm saying. so probably not haha.

I actually did really good eating yesterday. I had cereal for breakfast, a turkey burger from the cafeteria and grilled chicken for dinner...funny story about lunch. I decided I didn't want whatever the coffee cart has (Atlanta bread...how sad, I know the schedule) so I went up there and decided to try the turkey burger but anyone who works at the hospital knows how sketch the cafeteria's food can be...so I got the turkey burger and some mac and cheese, JUST in case the turkey burger was gross. But lucky for me, it wasn't. it was actually really good, and I prefer it to a normal hamburger any day of the week. Plus it had like 35 grams of protein (so said the thing at the grill)....then I had greek yogurt and oatmeal pre-workout. Darin gave me some protein powder that's flavored like "dutch chocolate". Apparently you mix it with 4-10 ounces of water and drink it after you work out. My ADD kicked in, and on the way home when I was stopped at red lights, I was shaking it, and then turning it over (he put it in a glad container, and the lid had the logo thing on it, and when you hit it a couple times, the powder took the shape of the lid!) and seeing if I could get the "glad" label to show up in the powder when I turned it right side up. Yea. I had a long drive home and every red light from here to Antarctica caught me.

So, in the process of writing this between last night and this morning, I decided to get up and make the drink and woman up (I did this last night around 6pm). It wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. I measured out a cup of water because I was under the assumption that that's 8 ounces, and hopefully I'm right. It was kinda thick-ish....more like a melted milkshake but hear me now and hear me loud, it didn't taste like one. It kinda tasted a little like diluted unsweetend hot chocolate. I think I could get used to it, if I used super cold water. It had this weird foam on top that I didn't drink. I don't feel any different. I dont know if I should or not haha. Maybe I'll start drinking that stuff out of my superman cup, so I can't see it/can tell myself "superman would drink this". Lately I've been bargaining with myself, as weird as that sounds. Like, Monday I wanted chic fil a, so I said. Nessie, you can get tea if you get a salad, or you can get a sandwich and water. I don't know what that has to do with anything. but whatever.

Anywho. I need some sleep. Bad. I've been going to bed super early, like I'd say 8:30 is staying up late these days. However, I've worked like a bazillion days in a row with no end in sight. Whatever, I'll have a ton of overtime on this check, so hopefully uncle sam will keep his paws off it and I'll get to enjoy the fruits of my labor one of these days.

"I could kick your ass" by justin moore is playing on shuffle right now..... and how sad, my arms are too tired to reach over and change it. hope my manager doesn't come in here haha. how embarrassing. Time to get to work. uuuuuuuuugh. I'm over this whole "having a job" thing. I'm ready for a vacation. annnnnd some caffeine. and food. I'm starving.

=]

No hurry.

As of 6:30 this morning, I'm down exactly 40 pounds! That's the good news. Bad news is, I made this joke at boot camp about "being sick" on monday so I wouldn't have to work out, annnnnnnnd I woke up this morning feeling pretty lousy. Well played universe. well played. Hopefully it's just my allergies. I don't have time to be sick!

So the thing is, I may have said this already but I'm gonna say it again. I really don't think I could have found a better personal trainer than Darin. Seriously. He's got to be one of the most patient and down to earth people I've ever met. I'm fairly sure he told me approximately 502,908 times to slow down yesterday (I seem to want to do everything as fast as I talk). I think he told me at one point, no matter how fast I did something, I didn't get to leave early. Which wasn't my intent, because as much as I do complain about being sore/tired/working out in general, if I didn't LIKE going to O3, I would have quit looooooooooooooooong ago.

So workout #ivelostcount... He said "we're gonna do something different" and I was like, if it's boot camp, I'm leaving. I legit probably would have cried. But we didn't do anything involving a timer, which was fabulous. He upped the weight on everything but it was lower reps....I think evens things out a bit maybe. I don't know what I'm saying. I think we only did like five exercises and that was fine. by. me! We did everything slower, and took longer breaks between sets (yesssssss. I DON'T miss the 25 seconds in between sets). It was pretty great, if I do say so myself. I've worked allllllllll week/weekend with barely an end in sight and boot camp was a swift kick to the teeth.  We did dead lifts, the bench press thing, lat pull down, seated row and this weird thing I almost choked myself on. I can't really explain how it happened, but it was what it was. I just realized we didn't do any kind of leg work really (other than the dead lifts) which means one of two things. That he didn't plan it like that orrrrrr the more likely of the two, and we'll do leg stuff Thursday. I would really wear long pants the rest of my life if it would mean no more leg exercises. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's out of the question, so we'll see about Thursday, I guess. I actually kind of grimaced during the second set of the bench press things (I generally don't make a ton of faces). I call them that because I'm not sure what they really are, so henceforth I will say BPTs. Anywho, the second set had more weight and I had to do like 6 maybe? my memory is going, but about rep #5 I kinda thought......well, this isn't going to end well haha. I got them all the way up, but it wasn't without great effort .... which I'm sure is the point.

My back hurts, but kinda in a weird way. Like I can't tell if it's the muscles (here's to hoping) or the hardware. My arms are a little fatigued this morning. Pouring my cereal was like a mini workout. My calves still are a wee bit iffy but I could stretch and fix that, I'm just lazy.

My weight loss has slowed from rapid to not so rapid and it sucks, just so we're clear. I guess I didn't gain it overnight (though it sure feels that way) so I won't lose it that quick. Some days I think the gastric bypass/lapband would have been easier but I wouldn't have learned anything. So I need to stop being in such a hurry and I guess enjoy the journey more and focus on the good things. Like the fact I can do more in the gym than I ever thought possible and the fact that every day things aren't as hard for me.

This really doesn't have a ton to do with anything but right now I'm at work (surprise) and I'm eating special k for breakfast...the chocolate kind (don't judge, it's like 120 calories for 3/4s of a cup!) and I'm out of plastic bowls. so I have to improvise and eat it out of my mission tumbler we got for nurses week, and all the chocolate pieces are at the bottom :( which is the worst. #firstworldproblems/#princessproblems

I guess that's all I have to say for now. I'm sure I'll think of something else the minute I hit "publish" but whatever. I guess actually working at work would be a good thing to get started on. Even though some days, the best part of my job is the fact that my chair swivels.

=]

baby steps.

baby steps are clearly for the weak. Boot camp is like jumping off a 50ft high cliff in to the pacific ocean in December. Yea, it's gonna be one of those posts haha. I'm so tired, I'm basically crazy as can be, so I can't be responsible for what comes out of my mouth. I don't know what got in to me and convinced me to take my massive self to boot camp again this morning. Oh wait. I do know. Karen, Darin and the little voice inside my head that says "get up and exercise fatty mcfatterson!".

 

Shaina taught today and it was different haha. It was weird not having Darin tell me what to do, and by different I mean a nice change. For a "warm up" which, if that's all we had done I'd have been completely fine with it, we ran up the "small hill" in the parking lot twice doing "high knees". I'd rather have just laid down and rolled. It would have saved time. At that point, I could have drove off in to the sunrise (seriously. so. early) and been completely fine with myself. Then we did 20 jumping jacks, and then we went inside where all hell basically broke loose. Seriously, that was basically the craziest set of exercises I've done in a while. well. since thursday at least. I'm hoping I can remember them all, but the first set was "car drivers" i think. Aka a wall sit where you hold a plate weight out infront of you and twist it like you're driving. Then there were mountain climbers, these bridges where you laid down and put your feet on two medicine balls, then lifted your hips in the air, then there were push ups, step ups with this ridiculous thing that looked like a massive rubber band that you like put on your shoulder and the arch of your foot and stepped up on a weight bench, kettle bell presses, leg lifts and this thing with a bosu ball that I literally would never care if I ever even watched again. You were supposed to jump on it (um no thank you) then squat, then jump off, sit down on it and do a sit up, then get up and do it again. I literally think I did 2 of them in 40 seconds. I don't know if it's because I'm the size equivalent of godzilla or my balance just sucks but I wasn't pleased with that one. I was sweating like a straight up whore in church by the time it was over, which isn't unusual, just not my favorite thing in the world.

 

Oh! and for those of you who were wondering which, by my count is approximately zero, the exercise I couldn't think of the name for last post was called a "hanging pull". the board from my personal boot camp/hell was still up this morning!

 

not only did I not get to go home and lay down after all this, I had to go to work haha. It's overtime though. I neeeeed to come in and work tomorrow but we'll see if I'm able to walk. I also may just lay in my bed all day and finish my books I have on loan and sleep. This has been one heck of a week. I stopped at subway after boot camp and got a sandwich, but that also is long gone like my greek oatmeal this morning. I'm hoping I can squeeze in a nap before too much longer.

 

first person to text me after reading this and volunteer to come to boot camp with me next Saturday can have shotgun in my car. I promise to clean it out before then, too!

 

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