All stars, poker faces and remembering.

the ice we skate is getting pretty thin, the water's getting warm so you might as well swim. my world's on fire, how about yours? that's the way I like it and I'll never get bored.

 

HUGE bonus points if you remember that song. I just re-discovered it on pandora and well, it's been on repeat for a while. because that's what I do. Obsessively listen to a song on repeat until I ruin it for 10 years. Hear it again. lather. rinse. repeat.

 

I know I said I would blog Thursday, but guess what. I do what I want.

 

This week has been pretty okay surprisingly. I've learned a lot. like Kevin doesn't need direction from Darin to be crazy on his own. Though, I'm not super sore today and by that I mean not much at all. Like my ass was a tiny bit sore for maybe 2 hours this morning until I got moving. Kevin put me through the wringer yesterday and I've hadTWO asthma attacks in two days. I dont know what is happening. I don't know why NOW my asthma is making itself known. I did cardio at the rush on Monday, and I had just finished rowing and was considering going to stretch and my lungs were like, no air for you! suckaaa. Then, Kevin had me doing 21-15-9 wall balls, side throws and this weird thing on the step and within the first 10 wall balls I had to stop. I could feel it coming and Idk why but I'm always scared of my inhaler. It's like a jack in the box to me and I always jump when I push it. Kevin asked if I wanted to find something other than wall balls since they seem to be a exacerbating factor. um no, I'm pretty headstrong sometimes. I WILL do what I want and I eventually want to go back to crossfit so I might as well try and nip that in the bud now. Don't tell me no unless you want me to do that, but I'm also not stupid and reverse psychology doesn't work on me......or does it. I don't know. I also need to work on my "this is tough" face. Another thing I can't do well is two things at once. I can't squeeze my muscles, do whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing, and focus on breathing at the same time. one of the three things won't be done and usually it's breathing. I have a bad habit of holding my breath while I exercise and then when I focus on breathing I can't keep tension in my muscles or if I'm doing that I absolutely can't control my body enough to do whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing. I also noticed I do a little like, shuffle every time I change legs for walking lunges. I'm weird. tell me something I don't know.

 

and get this. Everyone thinks I got new glasses. I haven't worn them since like march or April and I guess miss piggy's face thinned out because they look bigger on my face and everyone is like oh my gosh I love your new glasses. Take a closer look. They're scratched all to hell. and before anyone gets defensive I have called myself and my loved ones miss piggy for years. It's a term of endearment to me. and by that I mean I laugh every time I say it. but I have like 100 dollars left on my eye allowance for the year on my insurance and I'm out of contacts and have been for about a month but I'm just too lazy to go get new ones. It's funny how some areas of my life, I'm diligent and I get shit done and don't slack (80% of the time) and then sometimes I'm like oh who needs vision? these 2 year old glasses will be just fine. Who needs to go to the dentist? I just cracked a molar like 2 months ago. It's fine. But when I eat a piece of a quesadilla from the cafeteria with mystery macros I'm like OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYYY. I'm a mess. but I can laugh about it. I'm learning to be okay with not being perfect. It might come back to bite me in the ass and it might make things take a big longer than I would like but I would rather take an extra year building my body than to be miserable as fuck for 9 months.

 

also can we just talk about why all my IG friends are freaking out about Thanksgiving? everyone is posting like "ways to stay on plan"...I don't remember being worried about Thanksgiving last year (I know I did go to the gym but that's because I was bored and wanted to, not because I wanted to undo what I did at dinner) but...do you stay on plan during your cheat meal? last time I checked there wasn't any kind of bodybuilding/power lifting/crossfit event the day after. I get thanksgiving isn't an all out binge fest where you eat until you throw up and then eat more, but it's one damn day a year. Everyone is all about "one good meal wont make you healthy, it's consistency" and well, one bad meal wont make you fat either. If you truly want to stay on your plan, congrats. you're a real man. I however, am going to eat macaroni and cheese, ham, deviled eggs, baked beans, stuffing, coleslaw, some cheesecake and mountain dew and move on with my life and maybe do a little extra cardio on Friday. By extra I mean regularly scheduled/what I've missed this week, so the word extra really shouldn't be there. I'm wayyyyyy behind on that this week. what else is new? I just hate slogging it out on a piece of equipment for X amount of minutes. But I also hate metabolic conditioning, so I don't really have a ton of options and of the two...well, depends on the day and what's involved. I don't know how I get this deep in a topic before I realize this is ridiculous.

Anyways, the only thing I'm anxious about is that this is the first thanksgiving without my brosef. Am I still talking about him? yeah, I am. I miss him terribly and the holidays and his birthday (January 6th) are gonna be rough. It's hard to process the regrets I have. Like the fact that no matter where he was, I was always, always, always welcome. No matter what. But I didn't extend the same invitation to him. Though, he was living life as an addict and I was living WITH an addict and there is a difference. I do know, without a shadow of a doubt if he were here he would say "it's okay Ness, I know you loved me." The unconditional loyalty, friendship and love that he showed me in 23 years is something that I will never forget, and something I can only hope to extend to my friends and family. He might have been "just an addict" to some people but to me he was my big brother. I knew whatever I told him, he would (and did) take to the grave. A snitch he was not, and I find myself quoting him often, and missing him just as often. Little stuff has been happening around the house. I was home alone one day, and I heard something hit the floor in the kitchen and there was a box of cake mix in the middle of the floor. I would say it was nothing except the cake mix was under 2 bags of pinto beans and it was in the middle of the floor. not next to the counter it fell off of, in smack dab, face up, in the middle of the kitchen. I just picked it up and laughed, and said hey buddy, no I will not eat cake. I'm on a diet, if you'll remember correctly and I swear I could feel him laugh. Weird, but that's what happened.

 

Enough of the sappy. Tomorrow will be a day of sleeping in, family and mountain dew. Enjoy your friends and family tomorrow, faithful readers and eat some vegetables for me because God knows I'm not eating them.

Worldly workouts.

Hot damn. I seriously better wake up with Dana Lin Bailey's lower body. 

Russian kettlebell swings, (half) Turkish get ups, Romanian dead lifts, I know what you're thinking. Did you take a trip to Europe? (I have no friggen idea if those countries are in Europe) nope! I just worked out with Kevin at Plank. LEG DAY IS THE WORST DAY. Second only to chest day. I know I'm the weird one out on that, but seriously my bewbs are still store. and by bewbs I mean my chest musckles. I'm really dumb tonight, so if you're here for the endless amount of information I cough up on a weekly basis well I suggest you take it somewhere else.

 

Seriously I lost count at how many squats and lunges I did tonight. I know Kevin probably got tired of counting but it's like I lose my memory and can't count my own reps.  I think it's mostly because when you ask me to do two things at one time, hell if you ask me to do anything, if I'm not used to do it then it takes me a hot second to figure out what to do and then I probably have the ugliest/weirdest look ever on my face. Like I can't decide if I should just play dead or not. We also did and by we, I obviously mean me, did these plate pushes across the ground and the ground isn't level at plank and let me tell you about one of the dumbest exercises known to man. Turkish get ups. WHY THE HELL. What. It doesn't make any damn sense. why would you get up like that? that's so inefficient. why do you need to get up holding weight? I can't think of anything on planet earth that you can't just sit down on the ground, get yourself up and pick up and do whatever it is you're gonna do with it. Really. I'm bitching like I had to do 100 of them with 400lb kettlebells haha. I only did 1/2 get ups with no weight, and it was a descending pattern. I think the circuit was 1 arm KB swings, goblet (which apparently are referred to as "gobble" squats this week....clever. I did laugh though) squats, and then 3 of the turkey get ups on each side, repeat the swings and squats, 2, and then 1....I figure it was like that because it only took  me forever and 300 days to do them. I have jello legs already. I'm planning on sleeping with a heating pad on them tonight in hopes that I won't be in a ton of pain tomorrow but well, here's to hoping.

 

I got an inhaler. insert sad face here. Last week actually did scare me because I felt like I was breathing through a straw and couldn't catch up. So thankfully I haven't had to use it yet, though I think I'm supposed to before I exercise...which, let's be clear. Um no. this will be used for rescue purposes only.

 

It's been a week, and I am so excited to be done with work and only have a wee little bit of cardio left and by wee little bit I mean like 30 minutes of sprints and my weekend workout is shoulders + metcon. yeahhhhhhhhhhh. I'm making a face that you can't see right now. I do this every week, and you would think I would get better at this. However, what I'm trying to focus on right now is that this is not a friggen race. I'm not trying to beat anyone. I saw a thing on instagram that someone posted that said "it's hard to be happy when someone is mean to you all the time" and she was talking about how if you're mean to yourself all the time, you're gonna have a hard time being happy, which is a fair point. You know what I would cut a bitch for right now? some doughnuts. Though, I would never actually cut anyone. I would just go to krispy kreme and buy some if I hadn't already did kind of bad on my meal plan today and it wasn't another trip to Asheville. logistics. ha. Whatever though, this week was better than last and that's always a plus. Moving forward a little a time will still make progress happen even if it is slower than I would like. impatient and impulsive are the top 2 character traits that describe me best. though, they're not always bad things. Impatient can also turn in to a "I'll do whatever it takes to make this happen, NOW" because I want something, and impulsive choices have gotten me 2 trainers and 4 tattoos, also a few piercing and pairs of shoes. that somewhat rhymed. dang I did good. maybe it didn't. I'm delirious from all the lactic acid in my legs.

 

anywho. that's it for this installment of wow someone needs to revoke this girl's blogging privileges. with that, I'm out. Oh and since next week is binge eating to celebrate the death of a ton of native Americans (I really dont know what the hell I'm talking about) aka thanksgiving, I will likely blog, well, on Thursday. It will be your thanksgiving present from me to you, my faithful readers. NOW I'm done.

<3

 

Remixes and rewrites.

I made up a new version of "girl on fire" by Alicia Keyes. It's called MY LEGS ARE GONNA FALL OFF. Catchy, no? 

I'm about to write this next paragraph with all the love a girl can have for the trainer who helped her lose 100 pounds ... but I'm gonna start referring to Darin Starr as Judas. I hired Kevin to help me with conditioning/cardio annnnnd leg day. Well, that all sounds great in theory, I was all aboard the no slacking off boat...until it comes time to actually not slack off and do what I need to. I got my weekly plan update from Benedict Arnold himself, and what was missing? A leg workout. Then he says in the summary, "what could be going on there" WE BOTH KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. We. both. know. Which btw is a great song by Gavin Degraw and Colbie Calliet if anyone needs to update their playlist. Holy. Hell. Judas told Kevin to quote "trash my legs" and trash we did. So I haven't decided who I blame more, though I am down 1.5 pounds so obviously something is working. Though. My legs are toast. Goblet squats, walking lunges, step ups, offset Romanians, which Kevin called "thirsty birds" or something that I literally was like WTF. I don't understand. Then when he showed me I understood. We also did push ups (fuck my liiiife), kettlebell swings, rowing machine, TRX rows and wallballs. During which I had a straight up asthma attack and felt like I was breathing through a straw. After I literally told Kevin last week "it's very well controlled." I mean, it was until today. I just really hate inhalers.  Post workout my head was tingling and I felt SO SHAKY. Like straight up jello legs so I laid down in the back of my car for a few minutes. Thankfully I had a pillow. Idk why, I'm not in 7th grade going to sleepovers. And bless his heart, Kevin tried to talk to me but I can't even remember my own name when I'm working out like that, so much less what book I'm reading. He also noted that I was kinda guarding my answers when he asked questions and that even when my heart rate hit 181, I didn't look like it. My poker face made a reappearance. I just make faces when I'm sure no one is looking. 

This week was really, really bad. Which is weird because the last three were super fucking great. One bad choice leads to another and one gallon missed leads to another and whew. when my work schedule is inconsistant, I get inconsistant. #excuses. I know. I just listened to this really great seminar about living intentionally. Like, legit, you don't pick up the 15s instead of the 10s for a week and wake up looking like Dana Lin Bailey. That shit takes years (so I've heard). You intentionally try to get better, eat better, run better, sleep better, BE better. So I'm chalking this one up as a loss and moving on. 

You know what's weird though? Other than me? I notice myself more. Like sitting in front of a mirror doesn't automatically mean I avert my eyes to anywhere but my reflection. I actually sat and stared at myself for a while today. I just can't believe how different I look. Some days I'm like HOT DAMN You look good and other days I feel like a whale. But I'm noticing those days are less and less which is nice. It's weird though but people act like they are impressed with me. Even a couple times kevin was like "wow", especially after I showed him my update with Darin. It just surprises me how people react sometimes. I'm not anything special, I'm just Vanessa. Honestly. I'm a foul mouthed 24 year old who decided enough was enough, ya know? I got a chance to start over (see what I did there?) and decided to rewrite my story. 

This week was kinda strange too because I had legit like 6 people message me on Facebook asking how I lost weight. I don't understand the shock and awe when I say "I eat better than I used to and exercise." It's like everyone wants the secret. But there isn't one. You just have to do what works for you. Zumba, crossfit, weights, personal training, running, biking, etc. Pick whatever and do what you can and then progressively get better. I started out at a 3 minute PR on the stairmill. Now my current PR is 17 minutes. Is it 45? No. Will it ever be? If I decide I want it to be, yes. Some people say its princess status to have 2 trainers. Well guess what. I am the long lost princess of the curly hair kingdom and I do what I want and it helps me, and it makes me happy. And being happy is the secret to making it work. If I was miserable every time I worked out or did cardio, I would quit in a heart beat. But sans leg massacres like today which honestly was SO freakin hard but I wasn't ready to cry, and the occasional bad day, this shit makes me so happy. I love what I'm doing. So there. 

Anyways. I'm afraid to go to sleep because tomorrow is gonna be insanely hard as far as minor tasks, such as walking, go. I guess that just means my legs are growing. Ugh. Killer legs come from killer leg workouts. So. With that, I'm off to finish the last 3 episodes of white collar that I missed. 

Change is in the air.

here we are again, time for another thrilling edition of this girl shouldn't be allowed in public.

All. Stinkin. Week. I have been disoriented. Like I've lived the entire week thinking it's been a different day than what it was and I don't know why. I am so confused. Also I made a bunch of food on Sunday and haven't eaten one. Single. Thing. That was any sort of fast food or nutritionally baron.  I feel way, way better. But what I would do for some poptarts and ice cream. 

I am not going to bitch about only having lost 106 pounds, for real. I'm not. I need the scale to move on a regular basis and it's not happening and I'm pissed, and that's all I'm going to say about that, other than Darin is right and I need another way to validate what I'm doing is working other than the scale. 

I hired a second trainer. what. what. what. princess Polly pocket here has 2 trainers? yes. yes I do. While this week is even better than last week in terms of nutrition, my leg workout + cardio suuuuuucks. I'm just in a weird funk about that kind of stuff, I like morning cardio (who the fuck knew?!) but post workout cardio, you can forget about it. So, I thought if maybe for a month or so, I had a once-a-week in person someone to kick my ass and not allow me to slack, maybe that would help. Enter stage right; Kevin Martin. Darin knew him from way back when, and I met him on Wednesday for a consult at Plank Fitness. ALL DAY I was completely fine, I wasn't nervous, I almost forgot about it. Thank God for iPhone reminders. Then when I drove in the parking lot I was like what in the holy hell am I doing?! but uh, too little too late. Kevin was a extraordinarily nice guy and seemed genuinely interested in what I was saying and also not like he was judging me from the word go. and the space is perfect. It reminds me of a crossfit box! which I will resume one day, but we went in his office and talked about goals and what I needed and what he thought he could help with, then I had to show him how I squat and lunge (bad, that's how) and then we agreed on 4:15 today. and as I write this (I write these in parts sometimes) I am scared. to. death. this is like session 1 with Darin, alllllll over again. Hopefully I won't vomit in the adjacent parking lot this time. true life I have crazy social anxiety. I could have done without those last two words. Ha. Jesus Henry. Anyways, I PR' d on the stair mill at 17 minutes, already 5 above my November goal. I have a legit love/hate with that machine. I like it for a little bit and I like how many calories it burns but DAMN it's hard. I'm trying to use at least 30 minutes of my 160 steady state a week on the stairs.

 

So in the process of writing this, I actually went to my workout with Kevin, and this is what went down.

TRX and deadlifts and planks (FML) oh myyyy. I had quite the post workout endorphin rush on the way home. I was lovin life. And I have since then crashed. 

 

First of all, jackass here FORGOT TO EAT. That has literally never happened to me. I specifically had greek yogurt and granola in my fridge at work. I ate half a banana and 1 tablespoon of peanut butter at 1pm, and I met Kevin at 4:15. I still cannot believe I forgot to eat and I sure as shit felt it too. Anyways, the gym itself is really cool. I like my machines at the rush but I also really liked the simplistic feel of plank. We started out with some overhead squats and leg swinging and foam rolling. Kevin was really patient and smart, and I like that he explained what the purpose of things were. I haven't had someone tell me what to do in the gym since May so it was weird to just do what I was told haha but he isn't like a bossy Barry. Though during the foam rolling I kept threats of suicide to myself. I hate nothing more than foam rolling. nothing on planet earth other than corn dogs. Thankfully that was fairly short lived. Then I got to use the TRX for the first time in my life and it's not my favorite thing on planet earth. We did bodyweight rows, back extensions then glute bridges on the stability ball. The TRX was weird to me. I just have this overwhelming "am I doing this right" feeling. Then deadlifts and lat pulls. LOVE me a deadlift. I legit hadn't done them in like 4 months. then we did some kettlebell swings and 30 second planks. I haven't done a plank since I don't know when and a 30 second high plank had me shaking like a newborn deer trying to walk. Jesus. It doesn't sound like a lot but it was, believe me haha. 590 calories in 55 minutes isn't too shabby in my opinion. I'm super happy with this choice and I don't think I could have found anyone better than Kevin to help me. Darin was right, once again.

 

I'm fairly sure I'm gonna be pretty sore tomorrow. I'm SO freakin tired and I'm tracking my food on fitness pal and I still have like 300 calories left for today. fabulous. I need more protein but I want popsicles. hmm. choices to be made. 

In unrelated news, I went to my brosef's grave for the first time since the funeral. I just sat down next to it and talked to him like I would if he were here. I know he heard me and I know I probably looked crazy as hell but it made me feel better for a second. I hadn't cried for like 5 days but oh well. Is it weird I think about stuff like I should bring a him a blanket because it's winter and it's cold? It's weird. But I did. I know some people don't agree or think it's real but I swear when I go to his room and sit down, in a couple minutes it's like I can feel something in the room change. Like he's there. And I just sit there in the calmness for a second and wish he were still here. But he is, in a way. 

Enough with the sappy and sad. 

 

anyways, here's to hoping I can get out of bed tomorrow. I'm off work tomorrow and Saturday (work Sunday, ugh) so I can finally go to the rush during the day when it's not busy as hell. with that, I'm off to find play a fun game of "if it fits your macros", ha. Just kidding I'm going to eat some greek yogurt and maybe try to study some of my ACSM stuff since I'm still in the nutrition chapter. where I started 2 weeks ago. yeahhhhhhh. I have to go do something productive. Like rid my DVR of "the voice" battle rounds :P and by "rid" I mean watch.