Niagara

Could it possibly be two weeks since the Lean Eating Gathering in Niagara?! The days have taken on a life of their own, and I am simply hanging on by a thread, a tattered flag in the wind as they fly by.
For those of you unfamiliar, the Lean Eating Gathering was a meeting for some of us ladies in Precision Nutrition's Lean Eating Coaching program. Krista Schaus, one of the coaches (who happens to be my coach), holds the gatherings every 6 months or so as a way to bring together lean eaters for a workshop of speakers and some coaching in the gym. One of the speakers Krista brought was Gino Arcaro, a football (American) coach in Canada. In his talk he mentioned the concept of a "Stretch Goal." When he speaks of stretch goals, he means for one to have a goal that seems just completely ludicrous and work toward that goal. Though he says that he has met that goal more often than not, the premise is sort of that whole "Shoot for the moon. If you miss, at least you'll land among the stars" thing. Shortly after his talk, we went to the gym for our work with Krista and some of the other PN coaches. As she was reviewing our Bulgarian split squats, for my second round, she upped my weight to 2.5 times the weight I initially had picked up to use. When she told me which weight to pick up, my initial reaction was to give her that WTF?! look. Of course, my next reaction was to go pick up the weight she asked me to...then to split squat it no problem.
So often we underestimate our capabilities--not just in the gym, but also in life in general. One of my biggest take home lessons from the weekend was to continually push myself, to not only embrace the "difficult, difficult," but also to ban from my brain the notion that "I can't." Instead, the concept I will embrace is that "I can't yet," and I will test myself to see just how far I can go. The focus will be on the YET, not on the can't.
I came across a plaque in my wanderings this week, and in light of the talk had to come home with it. Here's a pic followed by some pics from the Niagara weekend.

:(

I have been avoiding this post for a week or so now. These last weeks have been heavy and sad, and coming here to update and move on has been something I have been avoiding. Though I have been away from the forums and from my log, I have not been away from my habits otherwise. I have, other than a few meals on a few days, stuck to the PN habits and done my workouts. This consistency has served me well. In an otherwise impossibly stressful time, these things have been an anchor and a comfort. As a result, I have gained only 1.5 pounds of weight, which for me is nothing short of a miracle. At one other stressful time in my life (though it was nothing like this), I gained 20 pounds in two months. My measurements are really no different and I actually think I'm a bit more defined and trim than I was a month ago. I emailed Krista to see if this was even possible and she assured me that it was. At least I'm not crazy in that regard.
Can you tell I'm avoiding the meat of the issues?

Ok, so, my dad died unexectedly May 1st. After spending the week in Tennessee for the funeral and tending to business, I was only home in Florida for less than 72 hours when my brother called to tell me Mama had fallen and broken her hip. Her hospital course was horrible and due to some significant negligence on physicians' parts, she ended up almost dying and spending five days in intensive care. Had she not had medical personnel at her side, she would have died. Despite being the youngest, I am the one my siblings turn to in times such as these, and I am the often the one left making difficult decisions, and there were lots of them. In short, it has been a horrible 6 weeks.

Thankfully, my mom is a fighter and she is getting better day by day. Her insurance has decided they're tired of paying for rehab (if anyone's elderly family has Blue Cross Blue Shield Advantage as their form of medicare, get the OFF of it NOW), so she will be coming home Friday. I will leave after work Saturday morning and spend next week doing our own set of rehab....and dealing with some other family issues that popped up today.

Behind the scenes, many of you have known these things and been popping into my life here and there to give me support and love. I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciate those thoughts and prayers and sentiments. Though I only "know" all of you on the internet, it does not lessen our friendships to me, and you mean SO much.

Wow! May already?!

Wow, Does time fly!
I can't believe we're practically in May already. Finally I am digging myself out of a hole of anxiety and busy-ness. One of my colleagues was fired a couple of weeks ago, and I have been picking up shifts to cover in addition to having taken a week off for a "staycation." I'll not bore you with the details of the work situation, but I will bore you with staycation pics.

The DH and I were determined to get some serious diving done while I was off, and not only did we get that done, we also did some scouting for future dives. Here are some pics of said missions. The hiking was at Camp Kalaqua near High Springs. We were trying to see what things looked like at Hornsby Springs, the spring they use for swimming on their property. It's supposed to be a fantastic cave, but access is uber-limited. We were also looking for the access to Treehouse Spring on the Santa Fe River. We think it might be in the body of water you see behind me in the picture taken in the woods. Not sure, though. The cave pics were taken at Ginnie Springs by Hollywood stills photographer Gene Page, who happens to be a friend of ours AND one cool dude.

One of my other projects for my time off was to do some climbing at Gainesville Rock Gym. I couldn't find anyone who wanted to go with me, so I went by myself and, therefore, didn't have a belay. So I had to spend my time there doing only bouldering (climbing without belay). I was initially very disappointed, but it turned out to be a good thing. The whole point behind doing some climbing was to get me out of my comfort zone a bit. Climbing without belay simply took things up a notch. I ended up climbing a nice, easy wall as far as about 10 feet high. Problem? Getting back down. I ended up climbing back down a foot or so then dropping the rest of the way. The other thing it pressed me to do was play on some walls that didn't go up very far but encouraged lateral movement. This took me out of a previously set thought process and led me to stretch my idea of my assignment some. All-in-all, it was a great experience, and I'll be going back...Oh yeah, and it smoked my forearms!

The workouts otherwise have been going well. My handstands are coming along, getting stronger and longer, and I am still enjoying that process as well. I continue to find new ways to challenge my concept of my being a "jump retard," and that is fun too. Nutrition is advancing, honing. I'm not dropping weight, but my measurements are starting to budge, and I'm definitely seeing more and more definition.

Arms

They fired one of the other providers at work, so I'm about to start a 5 night stretch (of 12 hour shifts) to cover some of the shifts he left. Needless to say, I won't be posting here much over that time, so I wanted to post these pics from my dinner last night. My college roomie and I ate at Bistro Aix in Jacksonville...Tres chic! We had a great time, and our meal was wonderful. Needless to say I had a splurge meal. In the one picture of the two of us where you can see our arms, mine look HUGE, but that is ok. In real life, I am beginning to see a lot of muscle there, especially when I move around, so I know that as I drop fat, those big arms will be ok.

OUT of the Zone...

I've begun to work on some things to break me out of my comfort zone a bit, to work on some things that, in my head at least, I have difficulties doing. These are climbing and jumping. The idea is to build confidence in these areas in hopes that it will provide confidence in the other areas of my life where I seem to have trouble...like dropping fat. Right now I'm having some issues with finding a way to cover the climbing part, so I thought I'd throw handstands in as a substitute. The jumping is going well so far, and Luna LOVES the practice. Abbie, however, is now convinced we're both nuts.

"New Agey Shit"

Ok, so I've been a little AWOL lately. Many different things have led to this absence but mostly it has to do with work. For the last 3 weeks I've been working 2 on then 2 off which sucks and never allows for any real productivity. For those of you who have worked night shifts, you know what I mean. If you've never worked them, well, take my word for it.

While I haven't been keeping up my log/blog or showing up lots on the forums, I have been plugging away at my workouts and keeping my nutrition under control for the most part, and I had a little budge in the numbers last week to show for it. Still, the numbers aren't dropping the way they seem like they should, and I am exploring causes for that. As a matter of fact, I think that one of the biggest barriers lies in my own brain. As such, I am trying some of what my dad would call "that new-agey shit" to see how it does--rewording "self-talk", visualization and the like. To some degree I have been doing this for months, but I am adding in some things and trying to be more proactive than reactive with it now. One of the things I'm going to start doing is drawing myself athletic in my workout log. Sometimes I might just draw an arm or a leg but I will draw myself as I am going to be and see how that helps. I am also working on visualizing myself how I will be and actually feeling what that will be like. Maybe hocus pocus, but it can't hurt.
The hubby lost 3 pounds this last week and is keeping up his activity level. Woohooo! Diet is still atrocious, but less atrocious than it was.
Here are a couple of pics for you. The one is my new workout space that I am LOVING. The other is me with my new phoenix earrings in honor of my new LE group.

Baby Steps

Yesterday was a FANTASTIC day!
I started it with a short run with the hubby. This doesn't sound like much but is an enormous step in the right direction for him. I really think that he's becoming more dedicated to being active and adjusting his intake a little. I'll take whatever I can get.
Then we kayaked the whole Rainbow River and and did part of it twice because we had to go 1.5 miles upstream to get the the headwaters.
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From March 8th on the Lean Eating log:
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly five days can go in some ways and how slowly in others. The trip home was a whirlwind, but I felt like I was away from the hubby and the girls for weeks instead of days. Nonetheless, there were bright moments during the pandamonium, and those are what I will share.

My mom is almost 80 years old, and when I am home, she usually takes the opportunity to take a break from the kitchen and let me do the work. I know that I have precious limited time with her, too, so on the rare occasion that she cooks something while I am there, I eat it--no guilt associated. So I was only about 70% compliant over the 5 days. Mom was feeling better than usual and wanted to cook for me. Naturally that involved lots of processed carbohydrates, and I can honestly say that while they were delicious, I looked forward to getting back to my usual routine of healthy, unprocessed foods. And this wasn't just a "I know I need to" sort of thing. This was a "ugh, I need more of the good stuff" kind of thing. Definitely a shift in how I have previously felt on both emotional and physical levels.

When I'm in TN, at least some of my workouts end up being in a gym, a definite deviation from my norm. I'm not accustomed to being in front of mirrors as I sweat--or in front of people. Every now and then, though, a change can provide some feedback that is helpful. First, I could definitely see new definition in the mirrors. Granted, I haven't worked out in front of mirrors in over two months, but still it was gratifying. And second, I actually had someone ask me if I was a trainer because they hadn't seen me there before and my form was so exemplary. Now, maybe he was just flirting, but I guess either way I could take it as a compliment.

Then, as I was traipsing through the airports on my way home to Florida, I felt....sinewy...athletic...strong. I felt like an athlete. Like that James Taylor song "Something in the Way She Moves," the way I moved just felt different. I know it didn't just change that quickly, but how I felt it did somehow. I remember feeling that way when I was in high school, like a well-oiled machine, all parts working in harmony. I was leaner (ok, I was technically anorexic) then but certainly not as muscular as I am now although I was working out regularly and participating in a couple of team sports. In college despite my regular runs and occasional other workouts, I rarely felt that sort of athleticism and really haven't since until now. Today I didn't really feel that same global connection, but it was there yesterday, and I have no doubts it will be back.

I did my weigh-in and measurements Monday when I got up ("today" for me), and my weight was up a pound from last week. I had actually weighed before I left and had been down a pound from the previous weigh-in, but between the 70% compliance and what I suspect was some slight dehydration from travel, I was up overall. Yes, I know most people go DOWN in weight from dehydration, but when it's only mild, I actually go up a fuzz, almost as if my body is rebelling from the temporary deprivation. My measurements were down a fair amount, though, so I'm okay with it.

Routine is good. Good habits are great, but the occasional break from routine and habit can be enlightening sometimes. I like when that happens in a good way.

Now a pic of me and my nephew and me and my brother: