Bringing the heat

Yesterday I had a fantastically ass kicking session with my trainer.  We mostly stayed outside doing stuff with the TRX, stability balls, bosu balls, ropes and some free weights.  The circuit was hard.  My nutrition beforehand was a little off because I didn’t have my normal meal an hour and a half before the workout.  I had half of it 2 and a half hours before and then the rest a half hour before. (I had an appointment in the middle.)  But energy wise, I did okay.  There was only one small period when I felt like my energy level was failing me.  The rest of the time, it was just my muscles failing me.

We talked about my progress.  Considering where I’m coming from – i.e. my current weight – my trainer is really happy with my progress.  He said that the level of fitness I’m bringing every day is great.  But it’s time to turn it up to get through the body fat barrier.  I got some new homework, which will be a little tough to complete since I’m going away for the weekend, but I have confidence!

Who knows, I’m going to bring my workout stuff, maybe I’ll sneak in a workout in Vegas.  But probably not.

Human Pretzel

In the interest of cross training, to support my very inflexible husband, and because I love it, I took a yoga class yesterday.  7 years ago I practiced once a week at The Yoga Center in Portland, ME and their approach to Hatha and Iyengar made me feel strong and centered.

This class at my gym here in SoCal was listed as Hatha, but the instructor introduced herself as a substitute and warned us that she runs a really hard class.

OMG, that was true.  Within minutes I had broken a sweat.  And it didn’t stop.  There were lots of transitions, but not quite as fast as Ashtanga.  And I’m really, really bad at transitions.  Lots of people in the class were up for the hard moves.  I think she led the class in to 10 different head stand variations over the 90 min.  The most impressive one to me was a move from downward dog into a back bend.  Whoa!

I didn’t do that, of course.  I stayed in Child Pose when they were inverted.  But even Child Pose was starting to be hard on my knees by the end of the class.  I’m glad I stuck with it, even when I panicked at the realization that the class was 90 min, not 1 hour.

I literally sweated buckets.  I had to flip my mat over once because it was too slick. But I got to get in to some familiar poses and I hope to go back to another class soon.  I’d probably better pick a beginner class though.

What I’ve been doing for training

The thought to do a triathlon really just hit me in early June.  But I’ve been workin’ on my fitness for a few months now.  I have a great trainer at my local gym since February.  I pay him to seriously kick my ass once a week.  We’ve been doing a lot of strength training, and I’ve definitely seen results.  I’m a lot stronger, I have more energy.  My arms have definite tone.  I haven’t seen much change as far as weight loss and decrease in size.

Going to the gym once a week for a serious workout is great – but it’s not enough.  I try to go and do cardio on my own, and I succeed – sometime.  That’s a big reason why I want to have the triathlon goal.  Triathlon is a serious, all around fitness test.  You can’t just be good at one thing.  Something like this will make it even more important to hit the gym more and more, and also to get my nutrition in check.  I’m trying to wrap my brain around the concept that I need to eat MORE.  Sounds counter intuitive, but I think it’s my particular problem at this point.

I’m not doing this all to look pretty!  Case in point, this is me after a long cardio session.  But I’m still smiling.

No makeup, all sweat. Gosh, my nose looks huge from this angle!

New blog, new start

I’ve tried blogging before.  I always start well, but quickly backslide.  I don’t have enough to say, I don’t want to be as transparent as I need to be.  There’s a lot of reasons.  I’m trying it again.

See, instead of documenting my weight loss efforts (which when spotlighted by a blog look pretty crappy) I’m going to be documenting my new goal.  I want to compete in a Sprint Triathalon in 1 year.  It’s a BIG goal.  I don’t own a bike.  I can fast walk a 5K.  My swimming skills are good, but probably not competition ready and I don’t have experience in open water.

San Diego is the *perfect* place to do outdoor activities.  I’ve been taking so many baby steps, I figure it’s time to try a big jump.  The weight loss is a big part of the picture, but I am not going to be defined by my body’s mass – I want to be defined by my capability.

So here’s me at my first San Diego 5K back in 2009.  Keep watching for MORE BLOG POSTS!