Week 4 of Frisky Fall, Sunday Posts, and Races I Want To Do

I began Tone It Up’s Frisky Fall Fitness Challenge halfway through the 1st week but did all right keeping up. I did really well the 2nd week. The 3rd week, however, kinda went downhill as my shins really hurt (I have issues with them) from the mileage and then I got a shoulder injury.

The challenge isn’t even halfway done though so there’s still hope for me. Though I may stay a bit on the lighter side with the cardio, I’m doing my best to keep up with the strength training.

Here’s the schedule for the 4th week:

• Monday – 30-min run, Frisky Fall Full Body Routine, Malibooty Workout
• Tuesday – Sunrise Routine, Frisky Fall Arms & Abs routine
• Wednesday – HIIT Routine, Flat Fit Sexy Abs
• Thursday – 3-mile run, Frisky Fall Foam Roller Routine
• Friday – Frisky Fall Routine, The Best Ab Routine
• Saturday – My Favorite Activity, My Choice of Given Routines
• Sunday – 5k

Sundays always have the 5k and I never do it. Sundays are my day off and I have no time away from my family when I can conveniently do it. Also, my son may last for 2 miles on a hike but he can’t manage 3.1 miles yet.

On another note, I’ll be too busy to post on Sundays so I’ll be moving that weekly post to Monday instead. I’m also going to hold back to just one post a week instead of two. I just don’t have much to say these days.

One thing I want to whine and sigh about is a desire I’ve had for about 3 years now – I really want to do a Warrior Dash or a Spartan race.

Always the same things come up to keep me from participating:

• money
• location
• shoulder weakness

They’re all big reasons but my shoulders are the deciding factor. I tore the rotator cuff in my left shoulder about 2-3 years back and, although I got my strength back, it always twinges a bit if I push it too hard. Now my right shoulder is giving me problems as well. How am I supposed to climb walls and ropes, etc if I can’t rely on my shoulders to support my weight and get me through the obstacle?

It’s very aggravating. That kind of race is my bucket list of things to do in my 30s so I have about 7 more years to do it. 7 more years is a long time to accomplish something so I have no reason to worry about not getting it done right now, but still. I see other people completing these races but I have to stand to the side and can only wish I could participate.

Very frustrating. If I ever am able to do one of those races, I would want to wear blue war paint or something pointing to my Swedish heritage. It’d be fun!!

Is there anything you’ve been wanting to do that you can never seem to do?

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How Often Should You Measure and Weigh Yourself?

Stereotypically women are known to be crazy obsessed about their weight. When they want to lose weight, they’ll jump at extreme measures like skipping meals, juice cleanses, and cutting out practically all foods so maybe they’re left with celery and cayenne pepper or something.

Then we weigh ourselves twice a day, praying we’ve lost weight each time. After a couple days of starvation, we ask our s/o if we look any better. Their answer is always the same, “Uhh…You look the same…”

And we wonder why we’re not getting any thinner. We’re starving! Why isn’t this scale changing?? It’s been two days! Oh! Of course, it must be broken. That’s it.

I do not do this. I used to (not with the crazy diets but with the obsessive weighing), but it was driving me insane so I forced myself to stop.

It’s best to weigh yourself once every week. Also, wait to measure yourself usually once a month. I break this rule all the time by weighing myself every day. I’m not being obsessive about my weight. I’m just curious what the previous day’s meals did.

My husband is currently trying to lose weight because he saw himself in a picture and realized he had a belly shelf. He’s acting like a stereotypical woman now and is starving himself and checking his weight every single morning. Every night he’ll come to me and ask proudly if his belly looks smaller.

Which it doesn’t.

At all.

He just had his 40th birthday (slower metabolism) and doesn’t do much in the way of exercise. I have a feeling his belly won’t be changing all that much any time soon. But he’s not unhealthy. He’s like a bottomless pit when it comes to food but it’s mainly healthy food.

He’s gained about 10lbs in the last 10 years as opposed to me who can gain 10lbs in 1 month when I get lax with my eating/fitness habits. He is, generally, a healthy person. He just has a growing belly shelf that I chaulk up to increasing age and slowing metabolism (and a lack of exercise).

How often do you weigh/measure yourself?

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Success with Omeprazole!

I did it! I managed to get myself off Omeprazole! WOO!

For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the generic name of the drug Prilosec which is used for really bad heartburn. I’m not talking about the normal heartburn you get every once in a while when you get junk (or just food that doesn’t agree with your body). I’m talking about nearly uncontrollable heartburn that visits you every day (or close to it) and revels in your pain.

The doctor told me the side effects of the drug but I didn’t have much choice at the time because nothing else was working and I was beginning to mix antacids in “large” doses. What my doctor didn’t tell me was that when I tried to stop using it after long-term use, I would instantly get seriously nasty heartburn every day for awhile.

WTF??!!

After several failed attempts to rid myself of my drug crutch, I finally managed it! It took about 2 weeks of a diet of miso soup, fish, rice, oatmeal, grapes, tea, smoothies, and TUMS. The amount of TUMS in the beginning was over the recommended daily dosage but I was able to scale down each day.

It’s been about 3 weeks or so and TUMS still goes with me everywhere I go because nearly every time I eat I get heartburn but it’s only 1 tablet of the ultra strength and I’m right as rain.

Considering my heartburn started because of a physical deficiency (I don’t have a working sphincter where my stomach meets my esophagus), I’ll probably never be without TUMS, but at least it’s only 1 tablet after most meals/snacks. Could be worse. Much worse.

Mornings are pretty easy. It’s the afternoons/evenings when the TUMS comes into play.

I’m just glad to be off the Omeprazole. Yay! Success!

What’s your go-to antacid?

Frisky Fall, Yoga, and Abrasions

Halfway through the 2nd week of the Frisky Fall Fitness Challenge from Tone It Up. How am I feeling?

SORE!!!

But good.

Here’s another great place to keep up with the week’s activities: Frisky Fall. It’s one of Tone It Up’s boards on Pinterest.

I wish I had internet at home so I could follow their videos. But, alas, I don’t so I can’t do some of their exact workouts like Tuesday’s Bikini Yoga routine. I watched the video though and found a DVD at the library that seems to be a good substitute. They’re not the same, of course, but at least I found a fun yoga DVD!

Calorie Killer Yoga (with Colleen Saidman)

“Award-winning yoga instructor Colleen Saidman leads five energizing practices that will increase metabolism, strength, flexibility, balance, and focus – all keys to maintaining a healthy mind and body. Each practice builds to the next, increasing the cardio challenge as you progress.”

Here are the 5 routines:

• Constant Cardio (20min)
• Energy & Endurance (25min)
• Sustained Burn (25min)
• Rise & Shine (15min)
• Balance & Restore (20min)

I chose Constant Cardio. She went a little fast but I caught on soon enough. I had issues with swinging my arms up and down so quickly because I was injured yesterday.

I’d like to say that I threw myself on barbed wire to save my son from imminent doom and torturous pain…but that’s not what happened.

I had just finished the running portion of Insane Cardio

and was picking my son up from school. He wanted to run down the field to another gate so I was standing on the curb by the car, keeping an eye on him to make sure he was okay. Sooooo I was exhausted and not paying attention to what I was doing aaaaaand I opened the door and the corner whacked me in the shoulder.

It’s not as if this has never happened before. I expected a bruise at the worst but usually all I get is brief pain and then I forget all about it because there’s no mark. Not so in this case obviously.

My husband freaked out when he saw it a couple hours later. By that point it didn’t even hurt. I put a bandaid on it and stopped caring. But he acted like my arm was going to fall off and dashed us all off to the hospital where there’s a walk-in clinic. If there hadn’t been a clinic, he would’ve rushed me to the ER. No joke. That was his first idea.

The doctor glued it up with some purple glue (way cool) and sent me on my way.

So swinging my arms around kinda hurts right now because it stretches the skin. But, all in all, I really enjoyed this yoga routine. It was fun.

Do you have any scars? Do they have good stories?

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Frisky Fall Challenge From Tone It Up

As of last week Monday, Tone It Up began their Frisky Fall Fitness Challenge. It’s an 8-week fitness challenge. Registration is free. Just sign up for their free newsletter and you’re e-mailed your weekly instructions/plan every Sunday.

Every time you finish a challenge (which is every day), you check in on Instagram, Twitter, etc. Every time you check in, you enter to win a drawing (I believe). In my mind the whole check-in thing can get complicated because there are different places they mention to do so but, since I have no expectation of winning anything I don’t mind it so much.

You take pictures of your workouts, yourself, your food, etc and post them up with the appropriate hashtags for other Tone It Up members and participants to see. This also includes the dreaded “Before” pic of yourself when you start. But if you don’t want people to see your “Before” pic, you can always send it directly to the ladies in charge (Karena and Katrina) in an e-mail.

Detailed instructions for all of this on the website – Tone It Up Frisky Fall Challenge.

My main hope is that this will get me back in the game exercise-wise. I also wanted to see if I could complete their 100 miles by Halloween goal.

Put simply: you’re supposed to go 100 miles by Halloween. You can walk them, run them, bike them, swim them, etc. They’re not very particular about how you get your miles just so long as you get them. The numbers are different though if you bike or swim them. Biking will have you dividing by 3 (ex: biked 9 miles = 3 miles for challenge); swimming will have you multiplying by 3 (ex: swam 1 mile = 3 miles for challenge). However, if you do other methods like dancing or something to get “miles” in, they say it’s safe to assume about 10-15 minutes of hard cardio will equal about 1 mile.

I printed out a nifty tracking sheet that 2Kandis on Tone It Up made for the challenge. It made me remember when I was working as an ALT in Japan (assistant language teacher in a school) and made newsletters for the kids in my classes.

I haven’t been able to keep up with it as well as I had hoped (a few set backs at home and I started the challenge on Wednesday instead of Monday), but I’ve at least gotten in 6 miles. We’ll see how far I can get.

For the rest of the workouts, I did the leg workouts on Thursday (1st day I could) and have since needed the use of the handicap bar to sit on the toilet.

Whoa.

Do you think you can do 100 “miles” by Halloween? Wanna try?

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Learning Bellydancing

I do not pretend to know anything about dancing or any styles of it. In fitness I started out more as a “pick up, put down” kind of person. My idea of dancing was to sway from foot to foot or look like a complete weirdo by going all out silly as a kid.

That was actually pretty fun and I don’t regret a minute of it, but it kinda backfires on you when you do it in front of people and they take you seriously.

That’s why I like the little little kids who are around 3-5 years old. They’re not old enough to want to try to be “cool” so they think it’s hilarious and fun when I get down and boogie with them.

It took me months to teach my body that it had hips. And over a year to add any sort of grace or style to my Zumba moves. Not that I’m graceful by any means. It’s been over a decade since I could be termed clumsy, but when I get to dancing something new, I can assure you I am a klutz.

Bellydancing is not new to me anymore but when I was first starting, I had no idea what DVD to look into. I wanted to get exercise out of it, not just learn it.

After looking around on Amazon (I’m not the pickiest shopper), I chose

Veena and Neena’s Bellydance Fitness for Beginners

and Discover Bellydance with Veena and Neena.

I’ve heard good and bad things about them but, seeing as how I was a beginner in exercise and in bellydance when I got them, I was satisfied. Aaaand I’m still a beginner so I’m still satisfied with them.

However, the question remained: Can they really be described as bellydance? I still don’t know the answer. I mean, yes, they have you learning the moves and bellydancing routines but are they authentic? And what would constitute as authentic anyway?

I’m still working up the courage to tape myself doing one of these videos but I think I have a respectable hip sway…most of the time.

Anyone have any suggestions on bellydancing DVDs?

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Life Is Funny…Not

Life is funny but I’m not altogether amused by/with it.

It’s amazing the coincidences that can pop up. A few posts ago I wrote about sleep and why we need it (aptly titled Sleep and Why We Need It). Then about two days ago I was hit by a bout of insomnia.

Nothing is surer to drive me nuttier than squirrel dung than not being able to sleep.

What made it worse was that I was extremely tired from having been awake since 6am and having had to deal with 1st day of school issues with my son. Neither of us had any issues dropping him off at school. I stayed about 5 minutes with him and he was fine. It’s what he told me he did, or didn’t do as the case was, at school that got me on edge.

So the afternoon was a bit taxing on my emotions and I was tired from exercise and from being awake for so long. But I laid in bed for 3 hours feeling tired tired tired, but being unable to fall asleep.

I wanted to cry.

I moved to the couch where I could use my sound machine and I managed to fall asleep for short increments. But I kept waking up then because my position kept sending sharp, shooting pain through my hips. No way to really fix it but I managed well enough.

My poor husband though. I ended up snapping and yelling at him about dishes yesterday. Then I burst out into huge sobs like I haven’t done in I don’t know when. Told him what was really wrong – the heartburn and insomnia. Guy babied me the rest of the day. Every time I laid down I’d hold onto his forefinger like he’d disappear.

Luckily, though it took awhile to fall asleep again last night, I persevered and did it! WOO!!

Oh yeah, about that heartburn comment. I’m on another round of getting off of Omeprazole. I think I’m succeeding this time. Today’s the end of week #1 and each day gets a little better. It’s the nights that are the hardest, but last night was pretty good.

People have told me home remedies for heartburn. I thought they were nuts and I really don’t know if it’s true or not but this herbologist lady swore it works.

• mix 1 tsp apple cider vinegar with 1c water
• drink about 30 min before eating to prevent heartburn

It seemed to work but, then, I was eating denjangjigae (Korean miso-type soup) which is full of probiotics to aid with digestion anyway so I’m not sure how helpful the apple cider vinegar was.

In any case, it’s worth a try, especially at night when I need it most.

Do you know of any home remedies for heartburn? What do you do when you can’t sleep?

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Moving Slowly Into Push-Ups

It may have happened that someone didn’t warm up one more…or more than one morning…before jumping into 20 full push-ups. It may have happened that someone tweaked a muscle in her back so she couldn’t move well for a couple days. There may even have been familial witnesses to this act of stupidity and the subsequent consequences.

I’m not saying it happened. But it could have happened.

Somewhere out there.

To someone.

Not me of course. Would I ever skip a warm-up and go cold turkey doing an exercise I worked my butt off to be able to do? Nooooooooo. Never. I’ve never skipped cooldowns and stretches either.

After…this person’s…back started feeling better, she moved back a ways on push-ups. Not in number, that actually increased. No, in form.

She remembered, not a workout, but a plan she found on Pinterest that helped ease a person into 20 full push-ups.

So she plans to take it easy for awhile and work her way back up to the 20 push-ups. The 50 wall push-ups, while a lot in number (and hard on the elbows if you have tendonitis), aren’t so bad. Well, they are if you have difficulty with push-ups of any sort, but they’re not that bad if you think of other modifications for doing push-ups.

I would say if you can’t reach the full 50 in one go, stop when you have to and do one of a few things:

• stop entirely and try again the next day and the next, each day aiming for a higher number
• stop for a short rest and continue on after a minute or so, work in increments
• break it all up for different times of the day such as morning, afternoon, and night

Me? If I can’t do something (like get to a certain rep or do a certain exercise), I’ll do as many as I can (or do as well as I can) and then wait maybe half the day and do it again. Then I’ll do it again the next day and the next. Each day I see improvement.

For these moves I would keep on doing them until I’m comfortable with each section and then move on to the next and I would endeavor to keep at it every day.

It sounds like a lot of work but it doesn’t take that much time to do.

And to supplement the exercises and increase muscle mass everywhere else in the arms (easier to gain muscle and better toning, less risk of injury, etc), here’s an upper body workout from Tone It Up (sorry for the length):

I used this workout earlier in the summer and it was very enjoyable. Depending on the weight of your dumbbells, it can be difficult but the moves are so simple and take so little time that the workout flies by…at least for me. I use lighter weights for my shoulders and heavier weights for everything else.

And don’t forget to warm up before you start exercising! Even if you’re pressed for time. You’ll regret it if you don’t and get injured.

What’s your favorite upper body exercise?

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