"You're a Bum!"

I arrived in the locker room today just as boot camp was letting out.  A bunch of my buddies came staggering in, warning me that Jeff (who had just taught class) was hyped up today.  Oh boy, here it  comes I thought to myself. 

The boys on my team weren't able to make it to the group workout so it ended up being just Lakshmi and I facing the scale and Jeff.   I felt good about it.  I knew that I had really pushed it this week and made the right choices in what I ate.   What a great day it was, because Laks and I both lost four pounds this week, making my total 89 pounds GONE!  With only 11 more to go to hit that big milestone of 100 pounds lost, I was fired up and ready to work out.

Jeff told us that he'd been watching a "Rocky" marathon and was channeling his inner Mick.  The "Rocky" movies are on my favorites list and I especially like the training montages, but it's a whole new thing to experience it in real life.  He had us hitting the heavy bag and switching up on the elliptical machine.  We were squatting and curling and pressing.  We were doing 200 meter sprints on the rowing machine and planks (me with a 20 pound weight on my back for crying out loud).  Yo Adrian, what a workout.

When he took us over to the elliptical machines at the end of the workout, I knew what was about to happen. It was time for the challenge that defeated me last week...trying to keep the speed at over 100 while on level 20, for a solid minute.  Last week I tried this five times and couldn't last longer than 30 seconds.  I wasn't optimistic.  It's so much harder than it sounds!

Mick is famous for telling Rocky, "You're a bum!" I was determined not to be one too. I put my mind in another place and let my body take over.  At thirty seconds in, I felt like I was losing all of the breathe in my lungs but I kept going.  At ten seconds left, I felt like I couldn't go on, but I was too close to quit.   You can do anything for ten seconds, and so I just kept breathing and kept going and finally the minute was up and I'd conquered last week's challenge!

So the Rocky workout was done. Bring on the gray sweatshirt and the old Chuck Taylors.  One of these days I'm going to run up those steps in Philadelphia.   I would definitely feel like a champ then!

Zumba Challenge

The first time I did Zumba (back in October), I looked at my cousin Devon and said, "How in the world did we used to go out and dance all night in college?  I'm about to die and it's been thirty minutes!"  It's gotten better since then, but an hour of Zumba is still intense. 

Today I went to my first Zumba dance party with my friend and teammate, Lakshmi.  I didn't know if I could make it the full two hours, but I was interested to see how long I could last.  It was held in the reception hall of the Cameron Art Museum and the party atmosphere was already in affect when we arrived.  Around seventy people crowded into the room that had the lights off and the disco ball going.

The instructors were on fire and quickly whipped the crowd into a dancing, hollering frenzy.  It was contagious, and soon I'd forgotten that I was working out. Mentally I was back at the club in college, dancing all night with my friends.  The first hour passed quickly, and so did my energy.  I stepped out to take a water break around an hour and fifteen minutes in and noticed that my body had started to protest.  My knees hurt, my feet hurt, and I was drenched and tired.   But then Lakshmi looked at me with a grin and said, "So are we going to do this?  You never say give up."

I took a deep breathe and a swig of my water and watched as one by one, half of the class dropped out. Fitter people than me were throwing in the towel. Could I really do this?  Just then Pitbull came over the speakers and I felt my energy come back.  It was tough, and for the rest of the time I had to put myself in a different place mentally, but I made it!  Two full hours of cardio.

Laks and I after 2 hours of Zumba.

Another cool thing: my mom, a talented artist, had a painting on display at the Cameron, just around the corner from where we were doing Zumba.

"Moonlight on Topsail" by Theresa Elias

It was an awesome day.   Granted, I limped out of there a sweaty, hurting mess, but I did it!

The Stages of Transformation

This evening I found myself alone in the gym, chugging away through the bike interval workout I did on Monday with Millie and Sylvia.  It was the end of a long day and I had lost interest in my music and couldn't concentrate on the televisions or magazines.  My mind started to wander, and due to my location and upcoming completion of our year long Transformation program, it wandered backwards through the months of this journey. The program was divided into four phases, named Phase 1, Phase 2, etc., but as I pushed myself through what Marisa calls "guerilla cardio," new names began to take form in my mind.

I decided to call the first phase Rebirth.  In the beginning, we started out relatively new to the world of exercise and being healthy.  Like birth is for the mother and the baby, it was painful.  Muscles that hadn't been used were stiff and sore, easy to fatigue.  Lungs that weren't used to exercise were quick to become winded. We had to learn how to eat, how to move, how to readjust our schedules. We felt unsure in our new surroundings, self conscious at times as beginners. We didn't know what we were doing.  We tried new things, learned new things, failed at times and learned lessons.  In my case, I started out only being able to do the most basic of things like standing up and sitting down over and over, and following Jeff as we walked lap after lap around the gym. In those simple exercises, my rebirth was formed.

The next phase I decided to call Credibility. In this phase, we gained self confidence and started to see results.  People began to take notice.  Gym regulars began to realize that we were now locked into the program and that our commitment wasn't just a flash in the pan desire that starts out strong and then peters out in a couple of weeks.  We began to test the waters of new exercise, like that first Step class or Zumba class attended, and started to form close relationships with each other. Folks that had seen us maybe start and stop good habits multiple times began to realize that this time was different, this time was for real. We started to invest in our commitment with Ipods for the gym, gait assessments for the right shoes, sports equipment like boxing gloves, and new gym bags.  The numbers on the scale came down and down.  Little victories were frequent and we rode high on our successes.

Then comes the next phase, one that I've decided to call The Trial.  In watching any long term weight loss show and in what I've experienced, this phase is usually inevitable. We were now gym regulars.   We were in there every day working out, but at this point you reach a stage where you become too comfortable in your successes.  You figure you can have a little of this former forbidden food, or a little of that treat that you wouldn't have touched before.  You are faithful to the gym, but your portion size becomes distorted.  You think you're doing well all week, but when the scale doesn't move (or moves the wrong way) you look back at the week and realize all of the places you've faltered.  You become frustrated with yourself. Your trainers look at you and ask what happened and you don't know what to say.  You start thinking that you're never going to lose weight again.  What was once joyous and uplifting now flips around on you and forces you to look at your most base of flaws. I called this The Trial because this is where most people get off the ride.

If you can make it through the previous phase, you come upon where I'm at now, The Resurface.  I can't describe how it happens, but if you make it through your trial, you eventually resurface into your confidence.  You look back on what made you successful in the beginning and you get back on your game.  The muscles that you've been conditioning all of this time begin to take you to a whole new level.  You push yourself harder, taking yourself out of the comfort zone so that the workouts are just as hard as they were in the beginning and you're a sweaty, quivering mess every day.  A sweating quivering mess with a smile on your face and that same old joy back.  You know now in your heart that without a doubt, you're going to reach your goals and the scale starts to be your friend again.

These are my stages of Transformation.  My physical transformation is not complete yet, but I know now that it's just a matter of time and persistence. 

Dana Comes to Step

Today was Marisa's turn to slaughter me in Step class.  And a slaughtering it was!  Marisa was on fire today and the energy of the crowd was right there with her.  Brave Dana responded to the pressure that Millie and I put on him to come to class.  I guess we convinced he and Clint that it was a great workout and not just for girls.  Indeed there were more guys there than usual.  All the steps were used up and you probably couldn't have squeezed another one in there had there been one available.

As we walked out of the gym, Dana was shaking his head at how hard the class was and said, "At one point I had to lean against the wall, hands up like I was getting arrested."  Millie and I almost died laughing.

It has been one tough workout week so far, one that has left me literally drenched with sweat each day, and I love it! Jeff told me to eat clean this week (nothing processed) so that will be an added challenge, but so far, so good.  And, if you need any convincing that exercise and eating right works, I offer some comparison pics:

Me Before

Me tonight with my husband, Eric.

My Own Personal Gauntlet

My transformation team has a checklist that we're supposed to complete daily and turn into our trainers every Tuesday at weigh in.  It details our exercise, food, water intake, and sleep.  Normally I'm an A plus student who wants to get a gold star, so I always remember my sheet.  Today however, I was rushed getting to the gym and realized as soon as I walked in the door that my checklist was upstairs on my desk.    Not wanting to hold up the group, I figured I'd just email it to Jeff after the workout.   Turns out Millie had forgotten hers too.

We were warming up on the bikes when Jeff and Marisa came to collect us.  Upon finding out we'd forgotten our sheets, they insisted that we run upstairs and get them before weigh in. Dressed in our gym clothes, Millie and I self consciously dashed up the gym stairs, across the first floor to the elevator bank and traveled up to our desks to grab our sheets and dash back down again. I know we looked crazy; it was a different kind of warm up!

After weigh in, we got down to business.  I was the only one of Jeff's crew who was able to make it today, so it was time for some some one-on-one torture, I mean training.  My own personal gauntlet, starting out with hitting the heavy bag and going directly into squats.  A couple of rounds of that and we moved on to curl press/squats with weights/squat curl press circuits that increased in time each round.  Feel the burn!   The sweat was rolling down my back...and then he made me get on elliptical.

Jeff put his finger on the level button and I watched as the numbers gradually increased to the last setting: 25.  Ow! I felt like I was climbing through quick sand.  Then he issued the challenge: I had to keep it at a speed of 100 for over for a solid minute, then I was done.   I gave it all I had, but somehow every time, the speed would drop to 98 and I'd have to start over.   I was covered in sweat, but I hate to fail at anything.  I can't remember how many times I attempted it, somewhere between five and seven, but I kept slipping down to 98.  I was disappointed but Jeff pointed out that I still got in some really good cardio.

We moved onto doing some exercises on the bands and then he made me run sprints.  Lord have mercy. I was the equivalent of overdone pasta at this point.  Across the room, Marisa had her crew taking turns on the rowing machine, seeing how quickly they could row to 200 meters.  Jeff asked me if I had it in me to join them.  I was exhausted and shaky, but I also hate not to rise to a challenge, so off we went.  When it was my turn, Jeff, Marisa, and my wonderful Transformation team mates surrounded me and cheered me on to those 200 meters twice.  My best time was 59 seconds, and it was all hard fought. 

I staggered into the locker room and collapsed on the bench.  At this point I had a ring of sweat on my shirt that went almost half way down and I was as pink as a flamingo.  Some friends, who had been working out in the exercise room, came in at that point and exclaimed, "What happened to you?!"  A great workout that's what.   My own personal gauntlet.

It's Not Personal

I checked my sanity at the door today and did two intense workouts.  I knew I was working out with John after work, but I still couldn't miss time burning calories with my girls in our gym.  Sylvia, Millie, and I decided to do this intense bike interval workout that we'd done before, only do it exactly how Marisa had given it to us (we'd only worked our way up to half the interval time laid out by the workout).

After warming up you set the bike to level three and keep the speed at over 85 for two minutes.  Then you take yourself down to a level one for thirty seconds and then back to the hard interval for another two minutes.  Can't remember how many times we did that (Millie was in charge of the sheet and the stopwatch) but for the next round you take your level up to eight for two minutes and take your speed down to 60.  Then you have a 30 second break at level two. We completed this round and all total it was a 45 minute hard core cardio session.   All of our shirts were soaked and during the two minute intervals, we couldn't chat at all.  We also learned that the bike seats aren't the most comfortable in the world after a while, and that's why we unanimously agreed to do our cool down on the treadmill.

After work I hurried over to John's gym.  We did kettle bells, squat jumps, the treadmill at a 10 incline holding a 20 pound kettle bell and switching it back and forth from arm to arm, all three times around...then we headed outside.   He had me do push ups and bench dips on the tire, hit the tire 15 times an arm with the sledgehammer, an exercise with the medicine ball, then drag him back and forth across the parking lot with bands around my waist and him alternating the resistance.  And we did that three times.   Once again I was shaking and soaked, but felt amazing! 

Needless to say, it is nice to be relaxing in my favorite chair in the air conditioning with my jammies on.  Tomorrow we train with Jeff and I'm sure he'll be out for blood after the white bread incident.  I am so blessed to work with such amazing trainers.  I may cut my eyes and huff during the workout, but as John said tonight, "It's not personal, it's just fitness."

Wing Fix

We had a great day today swimming at our friends' pool.  My perfect kind of day.  I swam laps and did handstands and flips like I used to back in the day at the lake with my cousins.  It felt great and hopefully I burned up a bunch of calories.

Before we left the house, I started my crockpot and tried a new recipe that helped fill my chicken wing craving.  While it's not as good as some crispy hot wings dunked in blue cheese, it definitely was a nice work around.

Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 bottle of Buffalo sauce
1 packet of dry ranch dressing mix
1 tablespoon of butter

Place the chicken breasts into the slow cooker and pour in wing sauce, ranch dressing, and butter. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours.  When it's done, shred the chicken and cook for 10-20 minutes to let the sauce soak in.
6  servings, 140.7 calories, 2.5 g fat, 2.5 g of carbs, and 11 g of protein.