Falling off the wagon is easy...

I found this week that falling off the wagon is pretty easy. I had thought for sure that I had become so accustomed to going to the gym daily that I would really be struggling with not going all week. Not the case. With the 5 am wake-up calls (from my alarm) and the excitement around a new school year, I didn't end up being at all upset to miss the gym. In fact, it was almost the opposite: I was totally content not going to the gym. I still made it on Thursday evening and then again this morning. This morning I did not have a tonne of energy and I wasn't bouncing around nearly as much. It seems being lazy is more of the addiction than working out. I just don't want to get back to the point where I have to force myself to work out, because that will quickly lead back to the point where I come up with a thousand excuses why I shouldn't go right now, or the most dreaded of all: "I'll do it later." Do you know how many loads of laundry never get done on time because "I'll do it later?" I think that demon phrase is in the process of working its magic on my laundry as we speak...
It's Saturday morning and I had thought I would sleep in. I guess I did a little bit, but I still woke up at 6 instead of 8 or 9. I don't mind; it just makes getting up during the week that much easier.

The class I wanted wasn't until 11, which is also hard because I always seem to feel like I don't want to start anything until after I've gone to the class - which means after lunch. By then, I'd accomplished nothing for so long today that all I wanted to do was nap. I have heard of the theory that when you sleep TOO long, you actually make yourself more tired. I wonder if that applies to sitting around - if you do nothing for long enough, it makes it twice as hard to get up and do something. Playing around on the computer was the compromise of trying to get something done. I do have some lessons to plan... (which is clearly not what I'm doing right now).

I think I've realized this week that the Drumming class instructor is my idol. She's roughly my age, with a very similar body shape, and also a teacher - grade 5 or 6 instead of high school. She's clearly in better shape - more endurance, stronger muscles, but still has a similar physique. And yet I ran into her on Monday, I also passed her on Thursday about to teach yet another class, and then she taught today's class. I guess the plus is that I was also at the gym on those days - but it left me wondering how many days a week is she here? I realize some of that may be substituting for an instructor who seriously injured herself and has been out for over two weeks, but still. I barely made it through my own first week of school and here she is not just going to the gym, but running multiple classes. Plus, she has a big energetic personality, and the booming classroom-teacher voice that I haven't learned yet. She just gets right into whatever we are doing, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn she is a great teacher at school too. I need to get some pointers, and maybe a bit of motivation.

I still haven't lost any weight, and my knees are sore constantly. Instead of seeing all of these wonderful results, I am pretty much right where I started at the beginning, except that now my knees hurt. They haven't really shifted around out of place since I was physically active as a teenager and playing basketball in high school. All that time, I graduated over 15 years ago, and they haven't bothered me. Now, I start doing squats and getting active and my knee-caps are back to shifting. It almost makes me want to say "well obviously I should stop working out". Realistically, I need to fix the injury I never bothered to fully deal with. I don't know why they would start acting up when I start doing exercises, especially when I'm pretty sure doing squats was one of the things I was supposed to do to strengthen the muscles to hold them in place. Go figure. I am tempted to drag out my knee brace and wear that for a while, then sign myself up for some more Physio to get the right stretches. In theory...

And then there's focusing on the weight loss... I'm happy with my results of feeling better, more energized, and being able to make it through a class without getting seriously out of breath. That in itself is a victory of sorts, but I did sign up to lose weight. I started at 200 pounds, and I still weigh 200 pounds. I can't even pretend I lost of few pounds. I am literally the same weight. Even the body type stuff isn't really helping me out; I'm sticking with moderate to low-cardio, I'm not doing any weightlifting, but I am going repeatedly, and many of the exercises do involve repetitions. Then again, I was doing Yoga for a really long time during the month. No more Yoga for me now, the instructors I like both work during the week. I'll only see the one on Holiday Mondays, and the other I might see at Christmas Break but that's it - or some of his workshops if I feel like shelling out $35 for 2 hours. I am tempted...

I think my goal for next week if to try and go to Boot Camp in the morning tomorrow, see how I feel about it after I've gone, and then try to focus more on getting short gym visits in. 1-hour classes just aren't going to work, but going spinning with the other teachers at my school on Mondays and Fridays after school, getting to a Boot Camp in the morning on Wednesdays if I feel up to it, and doing some exercises at home every day or going to the gym to use the equipment should help keep me on track. And I need to incorporate more weights and more repetitive movements like squats and bird-dogs. At least now I know the journey is not going to be as easy as I thought it would be. In my mind, I think I felt like I could have lost 15-20 pounds by now, and it's just not the reality. I'm also back into school time, which mean lunch consists of whatever I can quickly pack in the morning; and dinner consists of whatever I can quickly throw together in a very short amount of time. Except, I'm not a good cook, so a lot of this involved take-out or pre-packaged garbage marketed as food. We must've eaten at fast-food joints or restaurants 2-3 nights a week. It adds up quickly. I'm not surprised I weigh 200 pounds, but I also know it's going to be hard to not fall back on that routine. Just this week I took a microwave dinner one lunch, we had hot dogs at a school BBQ one day, we ate pasta one night, pizza another night, and tonight is going to be hot dogs again. Not off to a good start - and our after school activities haven't even started yet.  *eye roll*
We'll see how the Boot Camp going tomorrow. I'm nervous this is going to be way out of my league... but I also want a replacement for the group-training sessions I can't justifiably afford.

Dropped the ball...

I gave in and didn't go to the gym yesterday, and I didn't even work out at home to be able to say it was OK because I still got a workout. I made it so close. It was August 31st...

To be fair, I did have a lot to do, and by the time I got around to being able to go, it was evening and there weren't really any classes being offered - I guess going to the gym is not everyone's "go to" fun thing to do on a Friday night.

I do have to say that my knees are feeling a lot better, so maybe taking a day off wasn't such a bad idea. The stiffness is almost entirely gone - whether that was from a day of rest or soaking in a bath I'm not sure, but it feels better. I did set my alarm for 5 am that morning to try and get up and make it to the 6 am class. But then I didn't get to sleep until 1 am and said "not a chance" to getting up that early - not when I had a busy day ahead of me. I also didn't accomplish even half of the things I wanted to get done yesterday either.

So I didn't make it, and yesterday I felt really bad about it (guilty), but now I'm over it. It was yet another day where I just didn't stop. According to my fitness tracker I got in 55 minutes of physical activity - I'm guessing all of that was walking around the school setting things up, and then around WalMart getting some supplies with my oldest daughter.

I had set an alarm to get up this morning to try the suspension workout but didn't get to that either. A small monkey crawled into my bed for snuggle - can't say no to that. And then she promptly fell back asleep on me and I didn't want to move her just to go to the gym.



BUT... I went to the drumming class a little later today. It was pretty good. More and more I am doing an increased number of jumps (instead of bouncing on my heels), and I am picking up the movement patterns faster - I even tried the shoulder shake the instructor does that makes it look like her shoulders are dancing (not successful). I can't seem to separate the movement of my shoulders and my hips to set them doing two different things. She makes it look so easy and natural and I feel like it's totally out of my realm of possibility. I came close a couple of times, I was doing some moves with my shoulders, one of which actually looked kind of good in the mirror before class had even started and I was shocked (no sense of rhythm here at all). I keep meaning to practice at home. I really can't dance. I'm getting a little better at finding the beat at least. Anyway... I wasn't out of breath at all, my throat got dry a couple of times from the heavy breathing (you breath a lot when jumping and bouncing around), but I was able to keep going the whole time. The only times I toned down my bouncing and jumping was when my knees started to hurt. I haven't fully been able to get them back to feeling like they are in the right place after the Aqua classes from last week. Also, with doing all of my squats (I think I mentioned I learned this month that I've been doing them wrong my whole life) the muscles around the knees are getting really tired because of the unfamiliar and new movements. 66 days to form an automatic habit. I have to keep going to get my squats down right and to practice keeping my shoulder blades back instead of rounded forward.

I'm still not 100% confident in this drumming class, but I'm getting closer. There are some moves I get right away, to the point I can even predict what's coming next. I am also adding in some of the "extras" to get a more intense workout (some, not all). I keep moving up closer to the front in each row; I'm no longer hiding out at the back. I'm getting there. The instructor is an elementary school teacher and part of me was daydreaming "hey, maybe I could do this too - get paid to get my workout in once or twice a week", but I'm not even close (probably comes with a free membership too). It's also helpful that she has a build similar to mine and isn't skinny with ripped muscles everywhere. Though she definitely has a stronger base of underlying muscle than I do - and WAY more energy. Distant future day dreams. I'd be far more interested in learning the Yoga Tune Up, but that's going to involve a lot of understanding of the muscles in the body and their interconnectedness. And better balance. And more flexibility. Both male instructors are constantly naming off the muscles, joints, and body parts that our moves are impacting. It's interesting, and way beyond my knowledge zone.

Like I said, distant dreams. I am contemplating the 2-hour leg, muscle and calf workshop in late September just so I don't lose the progress I've made so far. 2 hours on a Saturday, that's not so bad... But it's a body-part I don't wholly care to work on...

We'll see. I will most likely keep up my post-a-day routine for the rest of the weekend, but I think that after this point I will be submitting fewer entries, partly because I won't be going to the gym as much, but also partly because I am noticing I don't have a lot of new and exciting information to share in these posts. I am hitting a plateau in my workouts to some extent. I haven't lost any weight, but I am going to the same classes to work on my flexibility, mobility, balance, and overall fitness. As great as it is for my body, there isn't much to report back on, so my entries are side-tracking. I am going to try to overcome this plateau and continue into workouts with more results, so I will report back on that, but writing that I went to drumming class or Yoga again and it was a good workout isn't horribly exciting.
I think I am either going to try a Hot Yoga class tomorrow morning, or I am really going to push myself and hit up the Boot Camp class - time to get my butt kicked a little more...
There are a few more intense classes I want to try out, I'm just building up the nerve because many of them are way outside my comfort zone. When you are out of shape, it's one thing to show up to an "intro" class, or a class where you are the youngest one in the room because it's easy to get used to the workout. It's another animal entirely to walk into something that involves weight lifting, or interval training, or kickboxing, or boot camp-style stuff. A lot of these are marked as "Intermediate/Advanced" and even the ones that aren't seem a bit intimidating.

I'm working up my confidence, and trying to build a little strength beforehand, so I can go and give those a try. They may be even more effective in my fitness journey than the cardio classes. In looking at my body-type, I am not the type who benefits overly from cardio-based stuff. I am going to need to incorporate more weight-lifting and repetition-style workouts to get results. Joy. At least it's not telling me I need to take up running or cycling on a regular basis - so not my favorites. I guess if I was really bothered by my lack of workout yesterday I could've gone for a swim (I had thought of doing that but gave up), or I could've gone for a run; it was nice out and it totally would've counted as a decent workout...