2014 TypeC Health and Exercise Challenge

[INTJMom]

I forgot to check in on Sunday, but I DID do mt exercise program!
And I also did my ab crunches every day... well I forgot on Saturday... and then never got around to it.

 

[kyuuei]

I wish I was working out more than I am. Mental exhaustion is starting to set in, and I still have the hardest 3 weeks of the semester to go. This upcoming week is the 3rd worst week, with the subsequent two coming in 2nd and 1st.

I'm eating too much and then too little because of my schedule and lack of access/time to decent food choices. Even worse, I'm not exercising at all and my hips are suffering for it. I'm going to attempt to just work out hungry and see if that helps, and just do a lower impact exercise. That way I can do it and shower long before we have dinner.

I really, really hope the next semester is kinder on me. I'd like to be able to play at the recreational center I have free access to downtown after classes...

 

[kyuuei]

Well, finally got to work out this week. I don't think I'll keep it up throughout the week, but doing it tonight felt good even if I was a little numb through it from horrid repetitive class material.

 

[Ivy]

I've been derailed by a family issue- I pretty much stopped walking and tracking a couple weeks ago. I started walking again yesterday and I plan to start tracking again later this week when things go back to their normal levels of crazy. In the meantime I haven't binged, but I have been drinking sweet drinks which is one of the only things I had pretty much cut out entirely, so I might find that I've gained a little bit when I weigh in again.

In my old mindset, this would be failure and I'd just give up and go back to binging and being sedentary. I feel like that all-or-nothing thinking is behind me, but I guess we'll see. I'm hoping the progress I've made in the past six months will carry me through this setback.

 

[INTJMom]

I've been derailed by a family issue- I pretty much stopped walking and tracking a couple weeks ago. I started walking again yesterday and I plan to start tracking again later this week when things go back to their normal levels of crazy. In the meantime I haven't binged, but I have been drinking sweet drinks which is one of the only things I had pretty much cut out entirely, so I might find that I've gained a little bit when I weigh in again.

I did the same on Sunday... I ate a bunch of junk food that I have cut way back on.
I will probably gain too... and my face may break out too.

In my old mindset, this would be failure and I'd just give up and go back to binging and being sedentary. I feel like that all-or-nothing thinking is behind me, but I guess we'll see. I'm hoping the progress I've made in the past six months will carry me through this setback.

I know what you mean! I used to be the same way! But I can't afford to go back to the way I was. I can't believe how weak I feel after missing only one week of exercise.

Checking in for this week. I did my exercise program on Sunday morning.
It's still a challenge for me. My muscles are sore for a couple of days following.
I've done my 20 ab crunches every morning.

 

[Randomnity]

For anyone still checking, I'll sheepishly admit that I completely flopped on the last week of the challenge. It kinda fell by the wayside as I got ready for my month-long trip, although to be honest, I could have fit it in, that's just an excuse.

However I'm pretty proud of myself for sticking with it (almost) to the bitter end - nearly 6 months! That's about 6 times longer than ever before. I'm choosing to take this week off as I readjust to real life again (sigh), but plan to start back up with the same routine starting next Sunday night.

(I'll keep posting updates here weekly, at least until someone tells me to knock it off )

 

[kyuuei]

^ I like seeing your posts so please do. Especially since your posts are super honest.. I get competitive and I'm like "Aahh man.. [MENTION=2]Ivy[/MENTION] AND [MENTION=206]Randomnity[/MENTION] worked out this week??. I HAVE to now...." and I get my lazy butt up and stop watching medieval documentaries and making excuses.

Speaking of excuses.

I had time, energy, and the determination and motivation for working out today. I also kinked my neck last night somehow.. and I cannot move any part of my neck to the right side. I feel like Zoolander. It pretty much blows. I'm hoping sleeping tonight will work it out a bit, if it's still bad tomorrow I'm applying heat to it while I study.

 

[INTJMom]

Yes [MENTION=206]Randomnity[/MENTION] please keep posting!
I am going to keep posting too!
It helps to know that you and others like [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION] and [MENTION=2]Ivy[/MENTION] are still working on your goals.
It helps me stay faithful with my goals too.

 

[kyuuei]

Week 1 of exams DONE. I have some awesome news for my fitness stuff too: I only have half days of classes each class day. I go to school more often, but for a shorter period of time.

For me, that means it won't be cost effective anymore to drive to school. Instead of a whole day of classes + hours of bus time home, I'll be dealing with half days. So, I'll be borrowing a bike from someone and biking the 3+ miles a day to the bus stops and taking the buses to school each day. I'll just pack a change of clothes in case it rains like crazy in my book bag. And, since I'll be dealing with biking vs driving and dealing with long bus rides each morning and afternoon, I'll probably try my hand out at checking out the rec center at least once a week and trying to meet up with the houston rec group so that I can play volleyball like I wanted to do this semester but lacked the time.

More exercise each day being forced into the routine. <3 So it's not sooo bad. That way I can focus more on weight training and stretching with just a little cardio.

 

[INTJMom]

I did my exercise routine on Sunday.
I have stepped it up a little bit by doing some standing leg work that I used to have to do in a lying position instead.
Also I am doing it with one pound ankle weights.

And I did my ab crunches every day - 10 slow and 10 fast.

I've been think about what Arnold Schwarzenegger says that Ali used to say when asked how many sit-ups he did.
He said he wasn't sure because he only started counting after it started hurting.

 

[kyuuei]

I went running once this week.. I think after my exams I can try to squeeze in a butt workout and a P90X3 workout.. but that might even be pushing it right now.

I'm hovering at 126-127 lbs right now. I'll probably gain a pound or two while I'm on vacation (which may be augmented by all the hiking or bike riding I may or may not do) but otherwise, I'm all set up to try gaining some muscle weight in the fall. Myfitnesspal has a 31 day tracking streak for me right now, which I'm pretty proud of.. A whole month of actually tracking my food intake.

I'm trying to track down a foam roller that I can use on my hips. I haven't done any of the physical therapy I'm suppose to do... I think I'll pack my strap though, so that I can give myself no excuse for it while on vacation. Maybe I'll even just do stretching everyday and work on my horrid flexibility issues.

Also, one of my favorite motivator girls Betty Rocker had a live, free webinar and she actually answered one of my questions which was a dumb, irrelevant question, but still! She's a real person, and she genuinely cares about fitness and she's super motivating to watch on screen. I'd like to get her total body transformation books one day because I like how much detail she goes into the mechanics of the body.. But her free resources are great right now for me. I got three pretty awesome recipes and the coleslaw recipe I actually care for and would like to make at the next family function.

 

[Randomnity]

I'm really glad a few people are still continuing with this, because I'm pretty sure the only reason I was able to start working out again this week was looking forward to posting with success (or, avoiding guilt of posting/not posting with failure). Peer pressure for the win!

Sooo reboot week 1 (I think after ~6 weeks off, it counts as week 1 again) report:

Overall successful! I went back to my most recent routine, the fitloop beginner routine, which I did for a few weeks before my "break" and liked for the most part (link). Got all 3 days done for this week. Slight modifications: dropped reverse plank, since it inevitably hurts my shoulders, skipped side plank 1/3 days for the same reason, and skipped squat jumps 2/3 days because my ankle was feeling a bit sketchy about jumping.

Injuries/problematic body parts - spoiler for rambling

I've determined that my wrists and shoulders are both not up to handstand work yet, so I replaced those exercises with mobility+strengthening exercises for shoulders, wrists, and ankles. I'm also still doing wall pushups because both wrists and shoulders hurt with regular ones, even with as good form as I can figure out. I was hoping the break would help, and it did for my shoulder, which completely stopping hurting - hard to tell whether the issues were caused by volleyball (spiking), too much computer use, lab work, or the exercise routine itself, unfortunately - it started hurting again this week, after about a week at home and all of the above. My guess is the computer is the main problem, so I really need to start watching my posture and start stretching or whatever. Or just spend less time on the computer, ugh.

Ankle is pretty much same old - no real improvement or worsening while on holiday, although it would hurt after a few hours of walking had accumulated in the day, not necessarily all at once. I actually played soccer last week, with a brace, and it was mostly OK but hurt a bit later in the day. Hard to tell with the brace, since that makes it hurt in the first place. Seemed fine at volleyball (I've played twice since returning, once with a brace). Will step it up with the ankles strengthening exercises and will try to be cautious about playing soccer, and hopefully I'll be able to improve it a bit.

Wrists are kindof a new problem, no day-to-day trouble, only seen with the fitloop routine, which is a bit harder on them than past routines I've tried. I've tried both the fingertip pressure and palm cupping things, and am trying to keep them in mind, but they actually make weightbearing extremely painful compared to the "incorrect" way of resting all your weight on the heel of your hand. It sends jolts of pain through my forearm and tendons. Anyway, I'm trying to avoid weightbearing exercises (like regular pushups) and will stick with the wrist strengthening exercises for a few weeks and see if I see any improvement.

Bonus - my reps or times for everything are already as good or better than they were before I left, so I don't seem to have lost much if any strength over the break, AND I seem to be down a couple pounds since I left, despite eating every pastry in Europe (although I did walk a fairly ridiculous amount, hours and hours most days). Not nearly the fitness setback I was expecting!

 

[kyuuei]

^ Oh man, my wrists always feel like they're made of bird bones.. Even when I was doing somewhere around 60-80 push ups at a time, I felt like one tiny wrong move and those spaghetti noodles would just snap. Whenever I do push ups, they get a little sore, there's nothing much there seems that can be done about it except drink water and suck it up and alternate exercises so they recover. My brother in law has some perfect pushups that are GREAT and take a lot of the strain out. I wouldn't spend actual money on them, but if someone you know has some steal them or just use large dumbbells that will do something similar. It helps a lot, you can adjust the way your wrists are sitting and holding weight.

Doing handstands is a great goal though! I think they look awesome! I can't do one without a wall, and not for more than a couple seconds... if I don't fail massively.

Maybe some yoga poses would help with the stabilizing+building needed in the shoulders and arms?

I do something like that except I don't do that at all because that looks good actually.. and my feet are on the ground still. But I squat down, stick my knees/legs onto my arms and try to balance myself with minimal weight on my feet. It might be something to try adding when you've built up some confidence

That is one thing I can say about Yoga, I definitely felt more work in smaller areas I never pay attention to otherwise.. I still hate it.


No working out for me yet But maybe I'll get to play outside for a little while with my nephews and burn off some energy that way. Something at least...

 

[INTJMom]

I did my exercise program today and I'm feeling very good about it because some of the exercises were noticeably less difficult for me than they were even last week!

Also for my daily morning ab crunches, I went form 20 to 25.

I'm kind of bummed though because I weighed myself earlier in the week and I weighed 156 and yesterday I weighed 161!

I just weighed in again at 161. Seriously.

 

[ygolo]

All I have been doing is walking around either campus or near where I live. I measured it with a pedometer on Friday, and it was close to 8 miles in a day. While I walk I tended to do it with my relatively heavy laptop and books (between 8 to 12 lbs), and cutting my calorie intake (espeacially from carbs).

I run about a 400 calorie deficit a day according to myfitnesspal. I think the low carb metabolic advantage is working for me, because, on a non-ketogenic diet, it is supposed to take 3500 calories to lose a pound. But I am averaging about 3 lbs a week with a 2800 calorie deficit. I suspect this will slow down a lot, now that my BMI and body far percentage is close to healthy.

I've lost twenty six pounds is 8 weeks. For my height, that is a lot. Because of this, my fasting blood glucose has dropped from 125 mg/dL to 95 mg/dL, my blood pressure (both systolic and diastolic) have dropped by 20 mmHg, and I was able to discontinue hydrochlorothiazide.

I was forced to by new pants and new belt because the old ones would not stay on. I'll get new shirts once I finish losing weight. I have about another 10 lbs to reach my goal.

Oh, and I started weight training again today (not trying to build because that can backfire on a diet). Calorie deficit when close to healthy weight can make us loose a lot of muscle, and that is not a good way to lose weight. So far, my 26 pounds have consisted of about two pounds of muscle, 22 lbs of fat, and 2 lbs of water.

 

[kyuuei]

^ holy moly you're on fire Ygolo!

400 calorie deficit from the baseline? Or from your goal intake? I noticed mfp really lets you choose the calorie options you one.. I set it at 1200 calories because I don't log in many of the things I take in (1-2 bites of anything, drinks, vegetables that are plain just the dressings, etc.) and I just wanted to make sure I was getting decent calories of the things I really screw up on (like eating tons of sugar in a day and none the next to see if that could cause my headaches, etc.) only.

 

[Evo]

Been keeping up on the exercising.

I have still been trying to walk during lunch although, I despise to do it during the day. I only do it when I work a night shift now.

So I will have to find a replacement for that soon cause I am switching over to days.

But I have been doing well with my pushups and sit ups everyday [MENTION=6071]Oaky[/MENTION]

Also the food...meh. Been kind of slacking in this department. But also kind of sick recently. Gonna try to get a cooking buddy or something. Or maybe some kind of routine where I buy a bunch of food and then cook like 5 meals in one day so I can freeze them. My issue is that I have not brought salad to work for a long time. Need to do that again.

I think that pretty much sums up my last 2 months.

 

[Ivy]

I am walking/exercising regularly, but not tracking my diet. That was working so well for me- need to get back in the habit. Still having some trouble getting back on the wagon. But my life is about to get way simpler, so..

 

[kyuuei]

I am walking/exercising regularly, but not tracking my diet. That was working so well for me- need to get back in the habit. Still having some trouble getting back on the wagon. But my life is about to get way simpler, so..

I find it helps me to have the little reminder thingy go off on my phone.. and I usually try to plan the meal out for the next day ahead of time, and just tweek and adjust it to press 'submit' later on in the evening. I've got a 39 day posting streak right now and I narrowly missed it a couple times!

 

[Ivy]

Just set that reminder- thanks [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION]. I had a streak of 165 days, from January to July, and I was perhaps more upset about breaking it than I should have been. :/