Weight and Bleed

I'm going to say this really, really quietly. I still weigh 169 lbs today.

Yeah, whew. Ugh. That makes me feel a little nauseous to say. I feel it too. I'm wearing skinny jeans today, and they do not make me feel skinny!!! But I figured a little uncomfortable, hidden muffin top will make me more conscienous of what I eat today. Yeah, I'm weird. This isn't really a solid guilt-inducing plan. But whatever.

So remember last week's post about the nightmare and my goals? Ha. Hey, I'm doing to public food log, which is quite humiliating, especially when I typed in pancakes followed by ice cream last night. Yup. That's embarrassing. Or cookies for breaksfast. Now the breakfast problem is actually due to the fact that I usually have these 4 oz yogurts prepped, but a bunch of my tupperware went missing/uncleaned so I had a shortage and have none of my grab-and-goes ready. My own fault and easily remedied.

The 100 push-ups for 50 days. Yeah, well, I'll leave that to the professionals. Sorry, Bex. I was doing like 50-60 for a couple of days. Then said screw it. I'll do 50 push-ups every other day. Leave it at that. Or like 200 push-ups on Thursdays since both my morning and night class are push-ups obsessed.

Anyway, I thought I'd review my exercise progress here, since generally its exercise I chat about in this log.

Saturday: Ran 1.5 miles in the pouring rain, 3/4s of which was up horrible hills; sprinting home. 67 push-ups. Free weight work on delts and biceps.
Sunday: Ran 5 miles; felt good and could have done more
Monday: Ran fast 2 miles in the morning; inter. pilates at night (with ball)
Tuesday: Ran 3 miles in the morning; upper body machines and pull-ups, ab routine and extensive stretching at night
Wednesday: Abs class; Inter. pilates (with ball again) in morning; leg machines

Thus far, I'm pleased with my running. I'm trying to get back into the daily habit, and only then start pushing my distances on weekends. With a 5k as my only immediate goal, I'd really like to start pushing speed rather than distance, since I might hold off on a marthon until next fall, rather than making spring my goal.

My strength training is basically back where it was pre-vacay. Given that I'm a bit heavier, I'm pleased that I'm still using the same assistance level on my pull-ups - that I didn't have to up it to balance things out. So I'm actually pulling up more weight than I was before! I've added some variety to my routines. Instead of doing three sets, increasing weight of the same muscle group in a row with rests in between - instead, I'm swapping between two machines with different muscle groups and not resting in between sets. I'm also trying to shift to a Leg Day and Upperbody/Back Day pattern, rather than an All-Body routine 2-3 times per week.

My muscle conditioning classes are simply not doing it for me anymore. They are both unsafe in their own ways. The instructors never check form. One is rep-obsessed and the other is combo-obsessed. If the exercise isn't unsafe, its useless entirely. I suddenly found myself modifying like 3/4s of their workouts, and realized that I could do a far better job just doing a personal workout. I'm trying now to go to the gym at class time and do my own thing for the length of class. That way I'm not cutting it short or anything, but I'm actually doing a workout that is safe for my body and strength levels. I was chatting with another girl about it - we're the two strongest people in the class, and she put it like this "If we're the strongest, fittest people in that class and WE have issues with the exercises, god knows what its doing to the rest of the people in the class." Thats a big red flag. I've spoken to several of the trainers about it before and they all seem aware of it, but I think its a matter of coaxing the instructors into change. I'm pretty sure they spoke to the Tuesday instructor about checking form, so he started walking around mid-exercise shouting encouragement - but NEVER corrects anyone, even when they're doing stuff blatantly wrong. I mean, wtf is the point then?!

Anyway, that's where things stand. I feel okay today.