My Week in Review

I won't bore you with anything but the fitness things that I did this week. This is, after all, a fitness blog.

Booth and Bones

Monday: Since I'm training for a 5k my training runs are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. As I've mentioned in several other posts, we are really focusing a lot on fitness at my place of employment and because of that we have a treadmill in my training lab (I'm the trainer). So to do my 1.75 miles I turned on the projector, accessed my Netflix account, turned up the volume and ran/walked watching an episode of Bones. Boy, did that help quickly pass the 30 minutes I was on the treadmill. You can bet that I will do that again!

Tuesday: Gym night. Chest and shoulders, plus no-impact cardio. I did my best to do my shoulder raises with 10 pound dumbbells like I was asked to do, but dammit if that wasn't too heavy. I should have gone down to 7.5 pounds, but I didn't. I did do everything else to completion, though.

Wednesday: Another run night. I was going to run at work and watch another episode of Bones, but when I went to change I realized that I left my sports bra at home. I seriously thought about running in my regular bra, but decided the annoyance of having to change my stride to keep my breasts from bouncing into my face was not going to make my run fun. I have a co-worker that has said she would run with me, so I went home and got the running appropriate bra on, and met her at one of our local greenways. One of the great things about living in Knoxville is that there are a lot of greenways to choose from. The one to the left is one that I like to run a lot when I'm doing my outdoor running.

Thursday: This is date night and I battled hard with deciding whether or not to go to the gym. Plus I was really tired. Anyway - the gym won out and I was feeling mighty #fitfluential and hot when I left the gym and met my husband for our date. Because I was on a schedule I modified my workout and just did pull downs (up to 80 pounds), bicep curls, back extensions, and Brazilian crunches. I also did 20 minutes of no-impact cardio. It was a great workout (and date)!

Friday: My last night of running for the week. I texted David to see if he wanted to run with me. It looked like a nice day outside and I decided that I wanted to run outdoors. I came home from work, changed my clothes, and off we went to the greenway up there on the left. We did 2 miles in about 35 minutes. I know that is slow, but I'm still in training and it was cold, so it took a bit of time to warm up.

Saturday: As soon as I finish this post, I'm off to the gym for a session with the trainer. It's legs day. I will be on the floor for the rest of the day cleaning. Hopefully I'll be able to get back up!

All in all it's been a great fitness week. I feel pumped, and I'm not even worried that the scale is staying where I don't want it to be. I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that it takes time to see results.

So here's my question for you: What's your favorite thing to watch/listen to/read while running on the treadmill to pass the time?

Have a great day everyone!

Lazy Bones

I'm at lunch on what is turning into a lovely Monday and I'm pondering my existence from the weeked.

Does anyone else suffer on the weekends? Let me rephrase that. Do anyone elses workouts suffer on the weekends? Let me give you a brief recap of my weekend and you tell me if you have moments (read: weekends) like the one I had.

Friday night: Sat my ass in the chair all night and watched Bones on Netflix from our new Blu-Ray player. I don't even remember if I cooked dinner or not. Sad. I know that I didn't do my burpees or any exercise for that matter.

Saturday: I woke up at 8:50. I was supposed to be at the gym at 9:00 to meet Oli. I texted him feeling incredibly guilty for not going to meet him at the gym. He asked me if he wrote me out a workout plan would I come in later and do it. Maybe I was lying to myself, but I told him that I'd go in. Did I? Of course not. What did I do instead? I made a frittata for breakfast, met a friend for a journey to the Healthy Living Expo (what a joke) downtown, and then I went home and, you'll never guess.... Yep. I sat on my ass watching Bones all night again. I did make homemade chicken and cornmeal dumplings for dinner, so that was good. All in all, an enjoyable day. With the exception of the guilt.

Sunday: I woke up at 9;00 a.m. I walked out to the living room and sat there, on my ass, until bed time watching Bones. I was supposed to do consulting work, but I didn't because I was too enthralled with Seeley and Temperence and all the fun people at the Jeffersonian Institute. Ugh! What a wasted weekend. I started to feel guilty around 6:00 that I hadn't done anything all day but sit on my toosh and eat. Oh well, it's behind me now, but I still feel like shit for spending a weekend like that.

So that was my weekend. Was yours better than that? Please make me feel better about myself and tell me that I'm not the only one that spends my weekends like that. I didn't even do laundry. The good news is that it is the week and there won't be countless hours for me to spend sitting on my ass watching a television show. But, just to top it off, I went to Cookout for lunch and had an order of hush puppies and two corn dogs. I didn't want tomato soup and that is all I had in my drawer at work.

The best thing I can say about this day is that I brought my gym bag with me and I'm going to hit the treadmill, or the pavement if it's not raining, after work. I have to do that. And, I'm going to make spaghetti, which I know isn't the healthiest, but is the tastiest for dinner tonight.

So tell me - was your weekend as exciting as mine was? Or, were you a good little person and go to the gym, eat healthier than I did, and move more than to just switch which side of the couch to lay on?

Charleston, SC - A Girls Weekend

My best friend and I went on a girls only weekend to Charleston, South Carolina this weekend. Actually, I'm still in South Carolina at her house writing this post while she and her boyfriend cook us some paella for dinner. Yum!

Saturday morning we got up and went to breakfast before making the 3 hour drive to Charleston from Greenville. When we got to Charleston, we checked into the Hampton Inn - Historic Center and set out to the Visitor's Center to get information on the walking tours that they offer. We bought a $6.00 guide book for a self-guided tour of the amazing homes around Peninsular Charleston.

Earlier in the week I posted a question to my Facebook friends asking for places to eat in Charleston. Everyone who responsed said that we had to eat at Hyman's Seafood. Because we'd had a later breakfast
, and attempts at making reservations for dinner failed, we decided to eat a late lunch/early dinner. When we came upon Hyman's we realized that there was not much of a wait, so we put our name on the list. It was a great decision. We ordered a local brew to accompany our shrimp and crab dip, S's she-crab soup, and the fried shrimp po boy that we split. The bread the po boy came on was wonderfully fresh and soft. After lunch was over, we exited through the gift shop where S came upon some salt scrubs which she enjoys. She went over to the jars to open one and smell the Magnolia scent and an employee came up behind her saying, "NO, NO, NO, NO. We don't open things here." It was very off-putting and left us both with a bad taste in our mouth after enjoying such a great meal.

After our unfortunate encounter in the gift shop we headed down to the Historic Charleston Market. This was the place that S wanted to make sure we saw. It was great in a super chaotic, ultra-touristy way. We walked through all four buildings of vendor stalls and didn't buy a thing. We did both try on this cute ear warmer thing that buttons behind your head, under your hair, but S didn't like it because there was a good sized knitted flower on top of it. It was cute on the right person, but neither of us were the right person! Once we finished that we started the walking tour. It was very intersting and informed us of some very neat historical facts. It was nice. Six dollars well spent!

We wandered down to the Battery (I think) and started our way back to the hotel because it was getting quite cool at this time. Once we got back to the Hampton Inn we warmed up and recharged! In our research for this trip, S found this neat little restaurant/market called Caviar and Bananas. We ordered a cheese plate with local honeycomb and fig jam alongside strawberries, grapes, and orange slices. We bought a bottle of The Stump Jump Shiraz. We sat at the window, watched people walk by, and savored our wine and cheese. Once we finished our vin et fromage we headed down to Kaminsky's on Market St for dessert and more wine.

We had a bit of a wait there as it is a small place, but because we were a party of 2, we got in ahead of the party of 5 that was in line when we got there. We each started off with a glass of wine. S enjoyed a very nice Malbec and I had a Coppola Shiraz. Both were quite tasty. I don't quite know how to explain the dessert options that we had to choose from, but it was a very, very difficult decision to make. In fact, I had to order a second glass of wine before I could decide. Ultimately I had a brownie a la mode. S was enjoying toasted almond martinis so she elected to have a slice of almond cheesecake. Hers was really good and mine was just, really, just meh. But, the conversation was amazing and the drinks were good, too. We each had another drink and then decided to head on back to the hotel.

This morning we got up and went to Hominy for breakfast. We walked the mile from our hotel to the restaurant along a path that took us through the side streets where it's pretty obvious that tourists don't usually go. We did, however, walk by a firehouse where there were two firemen cleaning the floor. Cute firemen. After a 45 minute wait at Hominy we got in and ordered some really good coffee along with a bloody Mary for S, a mimosa and a poinsettia for myself. All drinks and food were very yummy. After brunch we walked around and did more of our tour. The houses in Charleston are absolutely gorgeous. We ended up in this lovely little book shop called Blue Bicycle Books. This, my friends, is where I bought an ah-mazing gift for my love. He hasn't received his gift yet, but I don't mind telling you it came from a bookstore, because really, in a million years he would never, ever guess what the title is. I only hope that it'll make him smile and let him escape from his worries for a moment.

We finished our day with a trip out to Folly Beach. It was a beautiful day to spend some time on the beach thinking about how small we really are. Actually, I was thinking about how much I would have enjoyed being there with D, but I focused on taking some photos and enjoying my last moments of vacation with my best friend. As I finish this post, she is setting the table, her boyfriend is out picking up his employee to join us for dinner, and I'm wishing I'd brought my computer along with me so that I could post our photos.

I'll try to get them up a little later in the week, but for right now, I hope the recap of our trip will do a few things for you, namely: remind you that it is very important to take the time to be with those you love and care for and also that you can never have too much wine in a weekend with your best friend. I sign off as I go for a refill of my glass.

Cheers!

The Couch

Does this happen to anyone else?

You come home from a long, hard day at the office, sit down on the couch, and then all of your good intentions for the evening leave you in an instant? That was me last night. Came home from an appointment and sat on the couch and stayed there until 7:15 before I got up to cook dinner (spaghetti and garlicy crescent rounds). Then I promptly went straight back to the couch and stayed there until it was time to go to bed at 10:00.

On Monday night when we got home from our days D was feeling very car sick for some reason and it freaked me out a little cause it was so weird and he never gets sick that I sat down in the chair the whole night to care for him.

I haven't been to the gym in 5, yes, five days. I have been doing my burpees (which are getting much more difficult) but I haven't done anything else. Tonight I really need to go get that last arm workout in since Oli is back from South Africa and I told him that I really wanted to shock the hell out of him and get all of my workouts done. I don't know if it's going to happen though. I should just pack my gym bag and get my ass to the gym tonight straight from work.

So tell me - What keeps you from the gym after a day at work?

Hitting a Wall

It seems like every time I workout, or, more specifically, lift weights, I hit a wall. Nearly every single time. Why does this happen? Am I not eating enough? Am I eating enough, but not enough of the right things? I always have my Shot Bloks with me, and they are a life saver, but I don't think that I should rely on them all the time. I could keep this quote in mind:

Maybe it's Oli's fault for giving me workout plans that are too hard. Although it's not like I don't finish my workouts. I just about die 3-4 exercises before I'm done with the whole thing. Then I eat 2 or 3 Shot Bloks depending on how bad I feel and the carry on. It's not always bad, but it does seem like the past few times I've worked out I've crashed. Tonight my husband was very encouraging. Just 3 more sets; now just 2; last set boo-boo, you can do it! He's great (by the way, despite my wall hitting tendency, I did way better than him in our workout tonight!). To make you understand a little more about why I might be regularly hitting walls, below is a list of the exercises that we had to do tonight.
15 minutes on the elliptical at level 14
4 sets of walking lunges - roughly 24 each set
4 sets of hamstring curls - 15 per set, weights 30/40/40/30
4 sets of hip adductors and abductors - 15 per set, weights 40/50/60/70
4 sets of back extensions - 15 per set
4 sets of one leg calf raises - 15/12/12/15

And then, because we like to punish ourselves we did our burpees. I did 7 and DH did 10.
Now I'm tired because I've been up for almost 18 hours and because I kicked my own ass at the gym.

One other thing that I've done is tentatively agreed to run the Knoxville half marathon. I don't know when it is and that is the biggest determining factor for me because I have to have enough time to train for it to get ready, but I might be able to do the 5k that's associated with it if I don't do the half.

So, today's questions are these: What do you do when you hit a wall during your workout? and What do you recommend as your pre/post workout meal/snack to bring your energy level back up? Let me know in the comments below.

Oh - and a post script - have you ever made food in a jar to freeze? I've made lasagna and apple pie but I'd like to make something else. Do you have any recommendations for that?

R

Is being competitive a bad thing?

Last night I posted this tweet:

Rebecca Alcorn @rebeccalcorn

So remember that blog post from yesterday reveling in how good I was this week? Kinda blew it today. #fitblog #FitFluential

  

I got some feedback from two people on Twitter and they were both very positive and reminded me that it's just one day and you can get back to normal tomorrow (thanks @Schmiet and @LiveLoveNRun). So that's exactly what I did this morning. I got back to normal.

I slept for 10 hours last night so I was very rested. My sweet husband made me my coffee and breakfast (two whole grain waffles with peanut butter on them!) like he does most mornings. We were just going to go do 20 minutes of cardio but he said "So, are we doing a full workout today?" and I thought to myself, why not? So we get our gym clothes on and headed out. Here's the problem - I'm a bit competitive when it comes to athletic adventures. 

When David was in high school, he played football and lifted weights heavily. He managed to injure himself at some point doing something regarding weight lifting. He was all into reading Muscle & Fitness. He was very muscle-y. I mean, damn. I wish I'd known him then. Don't get me wrong, he's still got a great body, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I really enjoy muscles! But I digress. 

He has this image in his head that he should be bigger than he is. He weighed this morning and he's up to 167 (the little shit) and he's still dissatisfied. He has weighed under 170 for probably a year now and he's frustrated by it. Oh yeah, and he's 5' 9". Like I said, he wants to be bigger, but not as big as he was in high school and college (the first time around). I'm giving you this back story so that you can understand why I'm competitive with him. 

Here is my part. I've battled back and forth about whether or not I should post my weight on here because it's scary. I mean it's super scary. It's not as scary as it was last August, but it's still scary. So last August I was 279 *gasp* and I've since lost 20 - 25 pounds *wahoo!!*. When I weighed today after our workout I was 258. My weight fluctuates on a daily basis, as does everyone's (which I have to keep telling myself). Now here's the thing - when I was in high school I played soccer. I hurt myself and had to have 3 knee surgeries. I'm an athlete. I have broad shoulders, curves, and strong legs. Oli keeps saying that if you were an athlete in high school, your body somehow remembers that and you can always be athletic. I don't know if that is what he actually says, but it's something like that. He's usually talking while I'm doing some sort of strenuous activity! 

I find that most athletes can be quite competitive. I'm using that as my excuse. In our routine today, David was able to do heavier weights than me on everything, but I completed more reps than he did. Maybe he went to failure, but I still did more reps. Sure, on the pull downs he did 70/80/90/70. But I did 50/60/70/70 and did my full 15 reps on each set. He could only do 15 on his first two sets and then failed at 13. That means that I did better, right? I mean, I completed all my sets. Then the other thing was our dumbbell curls. He did 15 pound dumbbells for four sets but we both struggled through all of the 15 rep sets. I only did 12.5 dumbbells and then on my fourth set I did 10 pound weights. 

The next thing that we did that he did better on me on was stadiums. We had to run 3 sets of 5 rounds on the steps. Well, D did his full 5 each time. I did 5, 4, 3. He carries 90 pounds less than I do. But the fact of the matter is, I want to be better than him. I mean, I work my ass off when I'm at the gym. I try really hard to eat well. He can eat whatever he wants and just work out lazily (not that he does that at all) and not gain any flab. He maintains. I miss a workout or have a day or even just a meal where I don't eat well, and I'm pushed back. Maybe it's competition with myself and David is just my target, or maybe it is just all out competition against him. If there was someone who weighed something similar to me it would be easier to have a healthier competitive nature with, but I'm really not sure. 

But maybe it's not competition at all. Maybe it's me wanting to prove myself to David. Maybe it's me saying, "Hey guess what, buddy. I can do anything you can do better. I can do anything better than you." 

Does anyone else feel competitive like I do? If so, is it your spouse, your friend, or just yourself? Is there a cure? Not that I want or need one, but if there is, it'd be nice to hear about. Or, if there isn't a cure, do you think that it's healthy? Let me know in the comments below. 

Oh yeah - and I hope that everyone has a very happy and safe New Year's Eve.

Work stress = bad eating and exercise, right?

The stress that I've been succumbing to at work is building up more than it had been before the holidays. I worked from home on Tuesday, worked at a different office on Wednesday, and was in my own office today. Tomorrow I'll probably work from my office again, but I get a lot more done when I work from home as there are many fewer distractions there than are at the office. Even though my stress has been increasing with the impending due date of a huge ass project I've been working on all year, my eating and exercising has been pretty damn good this week.

This is appropriate.

I had a few slip ups, but other than popcorn for lunch on Tuesday and a Grande White Mocha from Starbucks yesterday, I've done pretty well with my eating.

Tonight I did my second sans Oli workout and it was much less painful and draining than the workout on Monday. I may not say the same thing tomorrow morning, but for now I don't think I'll suffer as much as I did earlier this week! Last night was just cardio so I decided that instead of doing the Arc Trainer for 20 minute intervals, I would do the Step Mill for 10 minutes. Ha! What a joke. I did my first 7 minutes and had to pause in order to catch my breath. Then I finished the rest of the first 10 minutes just fine. I took about a minute and a half break and then attempted to do 5 more minutes. I thought I'd be able to finish, but boy was I wrong! I had to pause again after only 2 minutes and then I only made it another 2 minutes and 11 seconds. My calves were burning so badly. I stopped because I just didn't think I could take another step. So I foam rolled which helped some, but walking out to the truck was still a challenge. All the exercise and eating well has helped keep my stress level lower than what it would normally be if I weren't practicing those good changes.

True, true.

All in all it's been a great week. The Maintain, Don't Gain challenge at work is winding down, so hopefully I'll be able to get to my starting weight or less, but I don't know about that. I'm only 2.6 pounds over what I was when we started before Thanksgiving, so if things keep going the way they are now for the rest of the week, I should be good. I'll report back on that later.

Today's question: How has your holiday wind down/resolution gear up week been going?