A Constant Struggle

Once upon a time ago someone told me that you never ever really beat an eating disorder. I thought they were wrong or at least I hoped they were wrong. However, I have been finding out that maybe they were right.

This week has been really hard for me. I live to workout. I love the endorphin's that I get in my body when I workout and I love knowing that I am doing something good for my body. Not being able to run or do NTC this week has been really hard for me. I have thought about lifting weights with just my arms however, I am at a loss of what to do in the gym when it comes to just weight lifting and I think going to the gym just to life weights with no cardio is a waste of my time.

When I lifted in the past when I swam I had a trainer coaching me on what to do and helping me with form and this made it easy on me. Now I would be walking into the weights section of the gym and looking like a lost little girl, something I DO NOT want to do. I also struggle with my shoulders and I am scared to injure them again. That is all I need is an injured knee and injured shoulders.

Last night I had a doctor’s appointment and when we left I wasn’t really in the mood to make supper. Meho and I went to Co-op to pick up supper but as I walked around the grocery store looking for something quick and easy I got overwhelmed by all the food in the grocery store and I panicked. All I could think about was how this food was going to affect my body, was it going to turn to fat because I am not working out at the moment. I literally had a break down in the grocery store. Something I haven’t done in a very long time.

When things like this happen I realize that I am not over this issue and I may never be over this. I worry about having too much muscle on me. When I was in high school I built muscle pretty quick and the guys I hung out with would call me Arnold, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, by no means was I that big but hearing it from peers made me very self conscious. Sometimes when I think about how I want to look I think of looking like Allie Crandall rather than Hope Solo even though I know what body type is better I don’t want to be made fun of because I have muscle rather than looking feminine and dainty. Other times I want to strong, it is always such a constant internal struggle with myself.

I can’t wait to get back in the gym and hopefully I will hear a definite date today when I go in to the physio again.

December Accountability

I need to hold my self accountable in the month of December. With lots of holiday parties and yummy food around I need to make sure that I am staying on my target for food and exercise. 

I have come up with a system for myself. It is a calendar of December with the following guidelines. 

• Workout and Eat Clean
• Workout but don’t Eat Clean
• No Workout and No Clean Eating
• Clean Eating No Workout 

This will help me hold myself accountable. Each day I will fill it in and at the end of every week I will post it. Mainly because I can get a picture of if I need to workout more or if I can allow myself a little snack here and there for the holidays. 

I want to continue with my no sugar, however once the holidays roll in I always find it a little hard. If I know I have something to be accountable too I will do much better.

Another Injury Setback

Remember that little injury I blogged about last yesterday?!?! Yeah, it is not the little injury like I thought.

Sunday I went to the gym and did an 8 mile run. Into my run I was starting to feel a pain in my left knee cap, but I thought nothing of it because seriously if I stopped every time I got a little bit of a pain I would always be stopping my workouts. I continued through, but that night I noticed that my knee was still sore and little pains I get from running never really last that long, but my biggest concern came that night when I was having trouble sleeping due to the pain in my knee.

Yesterday I went for a 5 mile run and things felt ok until I stopped running and all of a sudden the pain that was in the top of my knee cap was now on the interior side and bottom, at that point I knew something wasn't right.

I made an appointment with my physio. While sitting on his table I couldn’t get my to lay flat and my the top of my patella was popped up and over on the side of my knee. He iced it with some machine that made my knee vibrate and then he tapped my knee cap into place. It looks like I am back at the physio’s office.

I went home and cried for about 20 minutes after because he told me no running, jumping, lunging, or squatting for at least a week. That is what I do. I lunge, jump, run, squat in all my workouts. I took a moment to be sad and then wiped my tears and thought to myself you can modify your workouts. Instead of running you can elliptical, I would have biked but I am not allowed the motion of it can pop my knee cap. This morning I did NTC and instead of lunging I planked, and if I was supposed to do sumo squats with lateral rise I just did the rise but increased my weight.

Just because I have an injury it doesn’t mean I am going to give up! It just means I am going to have to push harder in different areas.

I know right now I have to keep my eating tight. I can’t slip at this point as I cannot workout as hard as I was. I am also trying to lower my calories right now. I currently eat 1,700 – 2,000 calories on average. I need to take that down to about 1,400 calories. It is really hard because my body doesn’t want to do that, it is used to eating a certain way, but until I am back in the running game I need to watch my food intake.

Better believe I am going to come back stronger than I was before. I always do.

Pushing to Hit my November Goal.

Last week did not go as planned, at all. The whole week I felt tired and beat up. The only day I actually got out of bed was on Friday morning. I am kind of very disappointed with myself because  I should have been at my NTC goal by now and just working on my running goal and now I am not sure if I am going to make either.

I am sitting at 1,095 NTC minutes for the month of November. Not bad but not the best. I am still 305 minutes short. With 4 days left in the month I need to push big time!! 76 minutes each day for the next 4 days, doable if I can get my butt out of bed. Who wants to hold me accountable?!?!?! I know I can do it, I just need to push myself. I should have gotten out of bed this morning, but I was being a baby because my knee was sore, but I need to suck it up and get out there or I won’t make my goal.

As far as running goes, I am in the same boat as NTC. I have 74.4 miles covered right now but that still leaves me with 25.4 miles to cover in 5 days. So that is 5.08 miles each day. It is 100% doable, but again I have an issue with my knee and I am really worried to push it, but I keep telling myself to get through this month and you can rest for a few days in December. I might have to run twice on Friday to make my goal, since my half hour at lunch only allows me a 4 hour run, but we shall see what happens. Maybe I can make both my goals.

I am doing well with my Nike Kinect. I just finished my first round of my program. I love the Nike kinect system and I am so happy I got it. I was at a TRX class on Saturday and realized why I love Kinect training so much, I can’t cheat. When I am at TRX my form can get lazy, when I do NTC I can skip out on a few reps, nobody is watching I need water it is ok. But with Nike Kinect you can’t do that. Your body is being tracked and the program knows what your personal best are and it is pushing you to hit those personal best and break them. It tells you when your form needs to be corrected. You are always getting better and better. I love this training platform and I don’t think there is anything out there like it. If you haven’t tried it yet you need to because it is honestly the greatest program you can use. Every 4 weeks it has you re-do your fuel print and as you can see I have improved. I can’t wait to see what other improvements will happen in this next round and what changes my body will go through during these next 4 weeks.

The no sugar challenge it a pothole this week, but it was a small one and I am back on track. I had three cookies by George. Nothing serious but I felt kind of guilty. I am back on the no sugar train. I know I said for the month of November but I am bringing this into December. What I am realizing is that I don’t need that refined sugar in my body. I am happy without it. Day 3 was the hardest and after that it just got easier and easier, with the expectation of a friend coming to visit me. Lucky for me this friend only arrives once every 2-3 months.

Holidays are around the corner and the parties start so I am going to need lots of will power to make it through my no sugar challenge, but I am up for it. 

November Challenge is not going the way I would have hoped.

 My challenge isn’t going the way I wanted it to be going. I was hoping I would have racked up way more mileage buy this point and be over 1,000 NTC minutes right now, but sadly I am not.

Right now I am sitting at 870 Nike Training Club minutes. I mean that isn’t horrible and I will still hit my goal if I can do 49 minutes a day but I really wanted to be closing in on 1,000 minutes at this point. I have been putting a lot of focus on the Nike Kinect Training.

Nike Kinect is amazing. I only ever came this close to pushing myself this hard when I swam. The Nike Kinect platform is a platform like no other. You are constantly pushing yourself to be your best. I am in the last week of my Get Lean training plan and I have lost 6.6 pounds and a total of 3 inches off my waist. My torso is my trouble area and weight doesn’t come off easy there. This is making me really happy. I think I might do another 4 weeks of the Get Lean and then try out the Get Toned section of the program. Are you using the Nike Kinect? How do you like it?

Changes that are happening from month to month.

My running is slacking in a big way!!! I am only at 49.4miles. I have been working on my speed rather than my distance as of late. I have been doing a lot of HIIT Training and I have been pushing my pace. Right now I have an average pace of 7’11”/mile as opposed to last month when I had an average pace of 8’04”/mile. If I can keep pushing my pace and doing HIIT I will be happy. I am not in training mode for a marathon or anything right now and I am happy to be working on my speed. I am constantly running intervals whether I am on a treadmill or I am running in the trails. I will start at an comfortably hard pace and at the beginning of a new song I will look for a marker and I will sprint full out until I hit that marker and I will go back to my comfortably hard pace again. If I am on the treadmill I will put the treadmill to an incline of 2 and a pace of 7.5mp, I will run at that pace for 1 minute and a half and then I will put the treadmill up to 10mph for a minute. This gives me a good burn and really goods the blood pumping. I am enjoying doing this and it really helps me get my speed up. What do you do to change up your running?

Remember how people say squats gives you a nice bum, well I am starting to lose my bum. Maybe I am squatting wrong. I sure hope so because I really liked my bum in October, my November bum is getting too small.

Happy Training!!

My Issue with Calorie Tracking Apps

I am using a calorie tracking app right now to make sure I am eating enough. There is a fine line between eating for fuel and over eating or under eating, both under and over eating can cause you to gain weight. Over eating because your body will store it as fat and under because your body enters into starvation mode and starts to hold onto everything you put into it. I  want to make sure I am not sabotaging my body. Because I generally eat the same thing most days (creature of habit) I know if I do this for a full week I can understand what I am eating.

Yesterday I did Nike Training Club in the morning, 95 minutes worth, at lunch I ran 4 miles and after work I did a quick Nike Kinect training. I ate a total of 2,640 calories!! Yep I apparently ate a lot. It was all clean food. However, My Fitness Pal doesn't account for your Resting Metabolic Rate and it doesn't properly track calories burned.

Last January I had my RMR tested by my dietitian. She came to my house in the morning, I had to fast for 12 hours before I did this and she plugged my nose and had me breath into this machine for 10 minutes. It told me that I have a RMR of 2,300. At rest, if I stayed in bed all day I would burn 2,300 calories doing absolutely nothing. 

Also I did a lot of activity yesterday and needed to refeed my muscles after my workouts therefore needed more food. I looked at the workout tracker on my fitness pal and I feel that is grossly over estimates how much you actually are burning. The only proper way to know exactly what you are burning calorie wise is to get your V02 max tested and wear a heart rate monitor. I refuse to use the workout tracker on there.

At the end of the night I clicked the button to end my day and it told me if I continued to eat like this every day in 5 weeks I would weight 165 pounds. I am lucky that I am at a pretty secure place with myself because if I read that before I would have freaked out and attempted to purge myself. 

People remember these are generalized trackers. They do not understand your body, your RMR or how much you are burning. No calorie tracker can tell you what to eat. Please if you eat over your calories one day, look at what you ate. Is it clean and healthy? Do you feel satisfied? Ignore what it says.

Week 2 of My November Challenge

Last week was week 2 of my November 1400 NTC minute challenge and my 100 miles of Nike Running.

Two weeks into my challenge and I am 510 NTC minutes into my challenge. This makes me happy as usually I am only like 300 minutes into a challenge at this point. NTC is going really great and I have found my love for it once again. I find if a do something too much I get tired of it, but while I was training for my marathon I did very little NTC so now I love it all over again. This makes me happy. Nike Women has created a few more workouts. I am loving the new Alex Morgan workout, it really works me. Also the one that comes in the reward section of 5,500 NTC minutes, if you try it out let me know what you think of it, I love it.

The running side of things isn’t going as well as planned. I am only 32.45 miles into my 100 mile challenge and was really hoping to be at or over the 40 mile mark by this point. However, I still have tons of month left to get myself back on track. It shouldn’t be a problem to make my goal. The only thing holding me back is it has been so dang cold!! Like seriously all weekend was -20 and a wind chill, like what the heck is up with that, it isn’t even December yet.

If you have yet to go out and purchase your Nike Kinect game you are missing out big time. It is seriously awesome. I am heading into week 3 of using the game and I am down 6 pounds and 1 ½ inches in my waist section. This program incorporates cardio with strength skills. It is much like NTC but will give you feedback as you are doing it. So if your body is not in proper form while doing the plank it will tell you this. I really like this feature because it is helping me correct my form and in turn is helping me correct my form in everything I do.

How is your November month coming along?