Annnnd we're back...

Yes, I know it has been a while since I have written an article. It has been a strange summer, and I found my inspiration lacking with a wrist injury that kept me out of the gym for a month. It is hard when an injury prevents any real effort in the exercise world. Everyone kept telling me that I needed to just do cardio, but I loathe cardio.

Now in the end I did end up strapping on the baby carrying backpack and hitting the trails. I ran some and I even picked up a new sport, but I still didn't have much motivation. Now with my wrist healed I am headed back to the gym with goals that a mere 10 months ago I would have said were impossible. Closer to ever to new fitness abilities I am slowly gaining my motivation back. 

I think the major reason for this second wind of motivation is an up and coming S.C.U.B.A. trip. I did mention that new sport right? This trip is the second week of October and I find I want to be as fit as possible. Not really for aesthetic reasons either. This is the first time fitness hasn't directly related to a physical description of my body fat percentage in my head. I want to be fit because the better in shape because the better VAO2 capacity I have the longer I can stay down because I won't use as much air. This new correlation between fitness and goals is a good thing and one I am quite pleased to have. Hopefully it does not leave once I get back from my trip. 

For now though we will just be under the assumption that it will stay and that the writing will resume its course and that there will no longer be month long breaks between articles.

Glad to be back,

FitGirl

Lift heavy or go home!

As I mentally prepare for front squat push presses tonight I am plagued by the image of the women at my gym who go there to lift 5lbs of weight and then they go home. It really and truly frustrates me that these women are afraid of "bulking up". 

Let's follow the horrible bulking train of thought.

Doing some heavy weight lifting sets at the gym on a regular basis transformed a seemingly average woman into a freakish half-woman half-hulk hybrid.  Then because of the huge amounts of testosterone (because she would have to have high levels of testosterone to bulk up) she began to rage rampage around the city like a crazy female body builder version of Godzilla *insert T-Rex screech here*. Eating cars, babies and sheep she became unstoppable in her "looks like a dude" body. The end result is that her disturbingly bulky muscles left her alone and undesirable. Finally she will die a sad  death alone with her Mr. Universe physique and her 100 cats will feast on her ripped body for years to come. Because let's face it who is going to miss a hulkinator woman and all lonely women have cats...

Sound crazy? 

It is.

 
The worst part of the whole endeavor is how women define bulky. It isn't the she-hulk above, it is a body like that of Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby or Linda Hamilton in the Terminator movies. A body like this is what a good program like Crossfit and a good diet will do to a woman with genetics to look like Hillary Swank and Linda Hamilton. Sadly while I would love to look like either of these women, I must face the fact that I am not either of these women. I do not have their genetics. The only thing I can hope for is the best version of myself.

This brings me to my last point. If by going to the gym and lifting five pounds 1000 times someone hopes to achieve a body like *insert celebrity name here* then they are going to be sadly disappointed. Not only is that  workout ineffective and boring, one simply won't achieve that body because they aren't that celebrity. Our quest for fitness should be just that, a quest for fitness. Striving to be the best I can and the strongest I can is my ultimate quest. I stopped comparing myself to the women above a long time ago. I am not them. Neither are you.

I use my lifting time as a time where I become intimately familiar with my body. Learning my limitations, not aspiring to have the limitations of others. I know that I get better every repetition I do and no magazine or person or conglomerate can make me want to be anything else. It it my moment of Zen where nothing exists but myself and the olympic bar. I sweat, I grunt, I sometimes even feel like dying, but I do it. No one can take it away from me. That is what real lifting does.

Be more, be strong.

Self Sabotage and becoming Strong

I haven't been honoring my commitment to the site lately. I haven't been honoring my commitment to myself either. Don't get me wrong. I've been hitting the weights. I mean really hitting the weights, dead lifts, squats planks and the works.

The funny thing about this is that I have not been fueling my body the right way. How can I tell my body in one breath that I want it to perform and be this excellent machine of fitness and strength and in another eat Pizza and Doritos. Really? How does this message make sense?

Dear Body.

Please perform hard, work until you ache. Exceed my expectations.

P.S. You only get processed corn and trans-fats to be able to do this. Oh yeah and I am also going to have some wine about three times a week so that you can't properly heal or process cortisol.

That is the wrong letter to send to my body. It shouldn't be the one I've been writing and yet it is. It is time to take a serious look at the diet. The diet is the only reason that I am not seeing results. I am active as hell. It is a little bit like self sabotage. Somehow we all do this. We get so close to a goal and then we feel we don't deserve it so what do we do, we make sure it explodes in our face.

It partially has to do with the messages we are sent by those around us. All around us are messages that we simply aren't good enough. No matter how hard we try we will never be good enough. Surrounded by these messages, is it any wonder that we begin to come apart at the seems when we start to prove two principles: we are good enough and we are worth it. Everything underneath the conscience level begins to scream and the no processed food commitment we made becomes a lie. When we don't really believe we deserve things we set ourselves up to fail, proving that we really weren't good enough to begin with.

Reasons like these are why we need to reach out to those who will tell us we are good enough and we are worth it. I know that people like those with Strong is the New Skinny are the ones we should be listening to. People and groups that encourage us to be all that we can, to work as hard as possible and achieve everything we need and more.

It means that it is time to write a new letter.

Dear Body, 

I love you. Work hard, become great and I will give you everything you need. I won't give you the crap you don't. You are worth the effort and time to provide you with great nutrition and I promise I'll stop filling you with things you don't need. You're worth it. No, we're worth it.

What letter do you need to rewrite in your life?

Weight, weight, weight!

I thought I would share something with you, your weight does not matter. Not losing 1lb a week won't make or break you. If you plateau it is not the end of the world. It will be ok and the lbs will eventually come off.
I have been roughly 158 since the middle of march, I have lost a whole pant size and a half, and have stayed the same weight. People who haven't seen me proclaim that I have lost so much weight. When I tell them I haven't lost any they scoff at me.
What's my secret? I lift weights, eat healthy amounts of food, go on long walks, play with my son, and enjoy every activity I do.
Here are a few tips from me to you about how to enjoy your new lifestyle (because it shouldn't be a diet).

1. Find an activity you LOVE (hiking, bike riding, roller blading, backpacking, swimming). Do this activity instead of something you hate (walking on the treadmill at a hot crowded gym).
2. Find foods you love and eat them frequently. I eat pancakes 3-4 times a week for breakfast, they are multi-grain protein pancakes that taste better than buttermilk pancakes. They fuel my body and ensure I have the energy I need to go about my morning. They are nutritious and delicious. I am in love with brazil nuts, I eat them almost every day. I HATE hate hate hate beets, I never eat them. I wouldn't eat them if you told me that they would make me lose weight faster.
3. Make it a family/social event. Take your children/husband/girlfriend/friend/roommate with you when you do your activity. Since I have found a lifting partner, I lift harder and work out more efficiently because we push each other. I hike with my son and dog, they both beg me to go. My son is only 13 months and he will go to his baby backpack and try to get into it if we have not gone in more than two days.
4. Don't set weight loss goals. Set fitness goals. A goal of losing 1lb per week is a great lofty goal and can often lead to disappointment. Set fitness goals. If you can only hike two miles without being completely exhausted set the goal to hike 4 miles by the end of the month. If you can only swim for 10 minutes set a goal to swim for 20 by the end of the month. These are goals you have complete control over(assuming you don't hurt yourself). Weight loss is sometimes out of our control, because of hormones etc.
5. Most importantly do an activity that is going to build muscle. Lifting weights is a good idea, and there are some really great programs. Don't worry about bulking up because eating at a deficit you won't be able to. Strength training will however, prevent you from losing lean body mass when you lose weight. We all want to lose fat, and not lose muscle. Doing something to preserve your strength will help you not lose as much lean body mass as you would had you avoided the strength training. 

Do those five things for a month and you will be down in inches. You may weigh the same as you do right now, but your body composition will change and you will be healthier for it.
Remember the scale is a tool, if it is depressing, demotivating and deterring you than you should throw it out and get a new tool. A tape measure and body fat calipers are just a few of the many tools out there to help you assess your body composition. You are more than a number so don't let a number define your entire outlook on healthy eating and activity levels.

The suck

So I wanted to discuss the suck. I know for those of you who read my facebook page you have been hearing about the suck quite frequently. The suck is that moment in your work out where life sucks. Your body starts to hurt, your lungs are on fire, and to top it all off you really just want to pack it up and go home. Getting through the suck is an important part of becoming a better, stronger person. These are the moments in life that can define a person, or redefine them.

Photo from anamillerpsychic.com!

Recently I have been experiencing a whole heaping helping of the suck. It has plagued me like there is no tomorrow. I haven't wanted to even work out, but I have somehow continued to drag myself to the gym. Despite my best efforts the suck was there from the beginning to the end of the work outs. It haunted me worse than the a creepy little ghost. So this heaping suck has me down and out. I had actually started loathing my trips to the gym, a sign of a burn out soon to come.

Enter the box jump. I recently started doing box jumps. For those of you who do not know what a box jump is watch this video...

Wonderful now we all have a frame of reference for the next bit of conversation. In the video the box is about the size of the box I began to jump on. I understand that this looks like a tiny box, but in fact if you have never tried a box jump it can be tricky. That and the fact that I am a clumsy lug does not help. 

I had been struggling for going on two weeks with finding any resemblance of motivation as I set up my interval. Seated low rows with rest time filled with box jumps. The gym had moved my metal boxes that I was used to using and I had to set up some of the blue plastic boxes. I grabbed two without thinking that it was double what I had originally done. I sat down at the row without looking at the weight and began to do my rows. Little did I know I was lifting 55lbs, only on my last repetition did I notice this was 15lbs more than I usually lift. This put a tiny smile on my face, and the suck faded long enough for me to finish the rep and stand to face my box.

The box I had set up is about 12-18 inches. I think closer to 18 but I am not sure as I have never measured it. It is double what I had normally done. Standing there looking at the box the image of me crashing and busting my skull open on the row machine played on loop in my head. I took a deep breath and I jumped. To my surprise there was no crashing, no gasps from stunned gym-goers as I came tumbling down like humpty dumpty because I landed it. The smile on my face got bigger and bigger as I did my ten jumps. I had finally defeated the suck. Motivation took over and the suck was chased away like a scared little child instead of a big bad poltergeist.

What's the point? If you stick with it, even when everything in your body and brain are screaming quit, you will have the best feeling of accomplishment ever. Giving up is always an option. In fact I can usually find 100 reasons not to give myself my hour a day to strengthen my mind and body. Not giving in to the easy way out is the hard part. It can change who you are. I have always been a quitter. If something was hard I simply avoided it. If I wasn't naturally good at it I didn't do it. Now that has changed. I will take on the challenge. I know that I am capable of things I never thought possible, all because I can get through the suck.

How do you get through the suck? Knowing how to push through gives us strength for all areas of our lives.

Top tips to fight the flab

Since I have lost all these inches people have been asking me what I did and what they should or could do to lose weight. I thought it might be fun to do a series on tips for you on how to fight the flab. Over the next few weeks I will introduce some steps that you can take without altering your lifestyle too much to change how you look and feel.

At the end of the post are the names of the articles that I will be writing to help you do what I did. I am not an expert, and I am not yet at a healthy weight. So I don't have all the answers, but I am going to pretend. I am going to let you all speculate as to the nature of the articles by their titles, and am planning on getting out one a week (give or take). So now you have something to tell your friends about. Yes spread the word. See the Facebook button at the bottom of the article? Click it... No really, click the freaking button! OK well here is the first of ten... Click the button!

You gotta move-it move-it!

 

One of the most basic statements I have heard about weight loss is to eat less and move more. All the time when I discuss moving more people tell me that they don't have the time/money to go to the gym. I understand that it can be difficult to go to the gym, I KNOW that they are expensive, but you don't need a gym to move more. There are a few things you can do throughout the day to increase the level of movement without even taking extra time out of your day.

Park at the END of the parking-lot

It annoys the living crap out of me that people will circle the first five parking spaces at the local store in order to avoid movement. I park at the end of the lot. The end that seems to always have free parking. The one that doesn't have a traffic jam of overweight over lazy people vulturing the one open spot. I am sure that you have heard the joke "they should make fat people parking at the end of the lot so they walk more." Well, why not? I did, I know it's not a ton of space and it may only add four minutes of walking in a day, but if you make it a habit those minutes can add up, you can also walk faster than your mosey so that you get your heart rate up! This goes along with walking quickly wherever you walk. No more moseying.

Chores

No one likes cleaning their house. I hate dishes as much as the next person, but now when I clean my house it looks like a cross between an aerobics class and some cleaning commercial. I move a ton. I shake my booty and break a sweat. I don't just load the dishes or vacuum the floor. It becomes a little workout session. Take the chore that you are already doing and make it work for you. Yes you will look like an idiot. My husband tries really hard not to laugh at me when I squat to put a dish in the washer or when I do some Zumba mid stroke of the vacuum, but then again he hasn't complained either. 

Catalog downtime and make it movement time

 I don't believe people don't have time to exercise. There are plenty of hours in the day and unless you are working three jobs and raising kids by yourself you have no excuse. If you sit and watch TV for an hour a night that is downtime and time that you could go for a walk/run/bike ride/hike. When you are looking around the house wondering what to do, get moving. Do some jumping jacks, or eight count push ups or anything except sitting on your butt watching TV. If you don't move more you can't lose weight.  

Find a hobby that is outdoors or involves movement, change your TV time into hiking time or kayaking time or mountaineering time. Don't sit and do nothing. You have to take an active part in becoming active.

Heart Rate

Any chance you get to get your heart rate up do it. Standing at the microwave for two minutes? I do the modified push ups against the counter while I wait for my leftovers. Take the opportunities that life affords you. It will take a time to start to see these opportunities but once you start to see them, you will wonder how you ever lived without them. Any time your heart rate jumps you burn more calories. It takes a while for a max heart rate to drop to a resting heart rate. So if you do go for walks, throw some High Intensity Interval Training HIIT in there. Do jumping jacks or mountain climbers every block and then resume your normal pace. 

JUST MOVE!

Fitness blogs...

So along the way I have started collecting other blogs about fitness. Some I read and I love, others I read and I hate. 

One of the ones I love, not simply for the name which is epic in nature, is Strong is the New Skinny SINS. SINS links many other blogs, opening my eyes to the world wide web of internet fitness bloggers; we can talk about them later. I like SINS, I especially like their Facebook page. I enjoy the links and seeing others who value strength and fitness rather than a pant size. I am not saying that pant size isn't something to chase, but I could stay the same pant size if I could work up to running a 5k three times a week and doing  some of these

One of the articles linked by SINS from Practical Paleolithic discussed how the media set so many of us up for failure. They pump us full of the notion that we can have a full time job, raise a family, work out to maintain a body fat % of 5 while still sleeping our full 8 hours a day. I have been giving this a lot of thought and have definitely noticed that since unplugging from the evil idiot box (No cable television service, I do still watch Netflix) I have had fewer negative cognition's about the state of my body. I do think that some of us out there really need some media awareness on the side of our fitness order. Media want to make money, they cannot tell you that you are doing a great job, and then expect you to buy their product that will make you better/faster/stronger/anythingbutwhatyouare.

So while you dedicated five wonder over to SINS and Practical Paleolithic remember that they are great sites, but I am the person you actually know!

P.S. I hit the two mile mark running yesterday.