Lessons

Much of life is about learning lessons, living through an experience and coming out on the other side wiser and better. Someone who has lived a few more lessons than me (but whose name I can't seem to remember at the moment) said that when we stop learning, we have stopped living. I have thought a lot about that concept since I first read about it, and I subscribe to it. Life is learning. Only when we lie lifeless in bed, completely devoid of interaction and stimulus, when our minds are taken from us entirely, do we stop learning, and that, my dears, is no life.

The last 18 months or so have given me many lessons, and it has underscored previous ones. Often, my heart aches with the knowledge of which I am now so keenly aware. Moments are fleeting and precious, and the people in our lives are what make them worthwhile.  In this vein, changes are afoot. After all, what good is a lesson upon which we do not act?

The weather in north Florida is on the change as well as autumn has brought its chill a bit early. We had frost yesterday morning! I never see a frosted patch of grass that I don't think about all the mornings I stood with wet hair waiting on the bus or huddled in the passenger seat of Daddy's '79 Ford F150 waiting for the heater to kick in. Daddy was always convinced that I was going to catch my death from that frozen head of hair. :) So the last two days, I've not needed a fan at all for my workouts. As a matter of fact, I've had to wear a t-shirt and capris and was still a little chilly. This is the first year I can remember when I actually have looked forward to the cool weather.  I guess we all really do change with time.

 At Moe's yesterday (I didn't have time to prepare anything before work), I ran into a couple I took care of a couple of weeks ago. They insisted on buying my dinner. What a lovely treat!

Living

I work in an ER which can be a pain in my ass. People are idiots which keeps me in a job and drives me crazy all at the same time. The job does, however, give me some great and wonderful gifts. One of these is a keen awareness of just how precious life is in its many facets.

I have done a lot of things, have led a charmed life really. I have skydived, and kayaked rivers. I am a cave diver, have been diving all over the Carribean and the US. Swum with dolphins in the wild, been diving with sharks on multiple occasions. I live in one of the cave diving capitals of the world. I have held the lives of others in my hands and watched them take their last breaths despite anything I could do for them--and watched them take their first breaths as they came into the world. I have given people the joy of finding out they were pregnant and given them the worst news of their lives as I told them their mate or parent or child died or that they were filled with cancer. While my life has not been as dramatic or full of impact as some, it has been full, and I am thankful for it. And I don't mention these things to brag. Rather I say them to illustrate that my life has not been without drama and adventure, I have done and continue to do, many of the things that people tend to list in the things that they want to do "when."

I am also an avid people-watcher. I watch people--study them. I really, truly look at them as I'm going about my day wherever I am. People actually probably think I'm crazy, but I do. And seeing people in their last days and hours can be enlightening. No matter how young or old, I've never heard someone in their last days and moments talk about climbing mountains or jumping out of planes or doing any other grand and wonderous, adrenaline-pumping thing. They talk about the people they love and Sunday dinner and how goofy so-and-so was. They hold hands and take each moment and hold onto it as tightly as they can. They roll outside (if they can) to watch the sunset, or they watch it from a window. They go out and bring in favorite foods. They rent favorite movies. They tell family stories and thank each other for things that happened years ago. And they hug, and they love, and they hold hands some more. Those families that don't get those last moments--the ones to whom I am giving that dreaded, horrible news of sudden loss? They never say, "but he never got to paddle class 6 rapids!" They worry about praise never given and love never expressed. They fret over arguments left unresolved and hard feelings never worked through. And they miss the little things--like the dirty clothes that person once left strewn through the house or their dirty glass that never got put in the dishwasher. I have learned a lot from both sets of experience.

While I still have a long "bucket list," my job has given me the gift of understanding that living truly comes in the small quiet moments of every day. Living is eating dinner every day with my love. Living is taking the time to go for walks and play ball with my girls. Living is talking to my mom every day on the phone and letting her and my dad know that I love them and hearing from them that they love me. Living is letting the house stay a mess while I go fly-fishing with my 80-year-old fishing buddy. Living is driving with the sunroof open and the windows down. And living is SO many other things in my day-to-day life that I try to remember not to take for granted.

So live the big moments and the little ones and start doing it right this second. Living has almost nothing to do with your pant size.

Sacrifice

As I was cooking lunch for me and my husband this morning, I was looking at his part of the meal, Ro-tel dip and BBQ cocktail wieners, and wondering if I wanted just to make this a splurge meal for the week by eating a little and following it up with some ice cream. I would be cooking some steak and super-lean ground beef anyway to keep it from going bad while we're gone the next couple of days. The beef was to be my lunch, along with some squash, peas and tomatoes, all fresh. The whole time I was cooking, those two crazy voices were conversing in my head.As things were about to be finished, Marc went out to swim and asked that I bring a drink to him. I did, and as I was coming back inside, I caught a glimpse of myself in the windows of the back door. A whole new line of thought immediately started.

The glimpse I caught was enough to dissuade me from splurging on the Ro-tel and weiners. After having eaten my steak and veggies, I acknowledged the desire for those foods was just in my head. My plate was infinitely more enjoyable than Marc's.

But another line of thinking started with that glimpse as well. For a while now--a couple of years maybe--I have wondered if having the physique that I want is worth the "sacrifices" I will make to get it. After all, even though I'm not satisfied with the one I have now, I'm not grotesque by most standards. Stirring the Ro-tel, I realized that it is worth it--at least for now. At least, when I find myself looking in the mirror at what I want to see, it will be. I want to see that reflection, just for a little while. Then I might reconsider the "sacrifices" made to be there. For too long, my sense of self-worth, my opinion of how I represent to the rest of the world, has been wrapped up in this endeavor. I have allowed being chubby to make me miserable, to take from me things that it never should have. I have lived for too long in anticipation of what it would feel like to visibly show the hard work I put in working out. To say that sacrificing some to reach my goal is ludicrous. After all, how can I, in good conscious, call it sacrifice when truly it is fueling my body with wonderful food that keeps it strong and healthy?

What Percentage Frowns?

Sunday, January 31, 2010
168.5#

The hubby and I made a short trip to Wal-Mart the other night, not something we do very often. We purposely avoid Wal-Mart (probably not a subject you want to get me started on) as much as we can, but sometimes living in a small town limits our options for acquiring specific goods and we are left with no option. Certainly, both of us going to Wal-Mart at the same time is virtually unheard of, so when we found ourselves together there the other night, we had an opportunity for some interesting conversation.

For an interesting anthropological experience, go to a Wal-Mart during a busy time and count the number of smiles you see on faces and the number of frowns you see. Though I've noticed that more people frown than smile pretty much everywhere (interestingly enough even in amusement parks), the percentage of frowns at Wal-Mart that night was staggering.

As we were getting what we needed, I felt the weight of worry and unhappiness beginning to settle on me just from being around these people. They were down-trodden, weary, miserable people. They argued amongst their groups. They ambled aimlessly through the store as if they had nothing better to do. Initially I smiled in greeting as I came up to people, but after the umpteenth "WTF?" look I got, I gave that up. I looked at the hubby and said, " I'm pretty sure the happiness could get sucked right out of us if we stayed here too long." He agreed. For an hour or so after we left, we talked about how surrounding oneself with misery invites misery. Part of fitness is happiness, and part of being happy is making a conscious effort toward being happy. We can choose to go to places and do things that feed our good spirit, or we can go places and do things and be around people who require sustained effort to be happy around, who virtually suck the happiness right out of us. I am coming to realize that choosing the happy places is not only okay but necessary. Fitness not only comes with good nutrition and exercise but also with the sunshine of happy faces and the comfort of pleasant surroundings to feed our souls.

Feeding our souls at home is our new addition to the family, Luna, our German Shepherd Puppy. She is ten weeks old, and we brought her home last Wednesday.

Big sister is NOT convinced that she is a "happy" addition. LOL
TODAY'S WORKOUT:

3 rounds of:

double 16kg c&P x 3, squat x 2, double 20kg deadlift x 3, rest 1 min

20kg C&P 1/1 x 2, Goblet squat x 3, rest 1 min

5 rounds of:

Black and purple band assisted pullups x 2, perfect pullup x 2

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT:

5 Rounds of assisted pullups x 3, pushups x 3

10 12kg tgu, alternating sides.

FRIDAY: 550 20Kg swings in ~31min

TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY NO WORKOUT (Brought Luna home Wednesday).

Do-Overs

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Life decisions have this way of causing me undue stress. I labor over them. I write lists of pros and cons. I drive my friends crazy talking the decision over and over as I try to decide what would be best. I talk to my hubby. I talk to my dad. I talk to my mom. I talk to my siblings. I am alternately sullen and annoyingly talkative about the subject. Generally, I am obnoxious. I think I get this way because I feel like each life decision sets in motion a series of events that have potential to put life on an unalterable course. And that inability to alter the course is what scares me. At times, the fear can be paralyzing, keeping me from making a decision and moving forward.

To some degree, I even have this difficulty with workout and nutrition plans. I tend to be afraid of losing strength or making gains or losses in the wrong places. Over the last week, I've thought a lot about this paralytic fear of decision making that I have, and I've realized that life is actually full of do-overs. Just because I took a right turn a mile back, doesn't mean I won't have another fork in the road later on. I might lose some strength here, or gain a few pounds there, but in the process, if I keep my eyes open and my ear to the ground, I will learn. With that knowledge, then, I can make a better decision next time. To learn, though, I have to keep moving forward. There's only so much knowledge to pick up here.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: VO2 max: 12k. first 44 sets, 7 reps, then 6 reps on the remainder of 80. For 4 random sets my timing was off and I only got 5. This is a direct result of 2 things...piss-poor fuel lately, especially yesterday, and where I am in my hormone cycle. I've noticed a serious dip in strength and endurance about 7-10 days before my period that usually lasts about a week. (Sorry, fellas, but I thought the girls might find this an interesting observation.

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT: This was intended to be about twice as long, but I had "bidness" to take care of and it ate up my time before work. I started to ditch the workout all together, but thought better of it.
15 min of AMAP rounds of 5 (green and black band assisted)pullups/4 perfect pushups=8, same as last week but didn't feel nearly as strong as last week's did.

SUNDAY: OFF

Soar With Eagles or Roost With Turkeys

Monday, November 16, 2009
167.5#

A recurrent theme of conversation in our household of late has been the importance of keeping good company. I suspect most of us have heard of the concept of "playing" someone better to become better. That is to say, competing against a more skilled opponent. Business moguls apply this to business theory. Academics apply it to advanced thought. We, at home, have been applying it to friendships. True to form, I have been thinking about it in terms of how it applies to every aspect of my life.
To some degree, we are a collection of the people with whom we have come into contact throughout our lives.We learn from them, draw from them, absorb them, in ways that are often completely unconscious. Obviously, the more we are around someone, the more we absorb from them. One would think we incorporate little from strangers we only briefly encounter, but sometimes this assumption does not hold true. After living in the socially toxic culture that is Memphis, I was much less tolerant of the "little things." I was impatient and critical because that was the attitude I had learned to "throw back" at the total strangers who could interact on no other level. I have learned to grow past that point in my life, but I see now that I am a collection of the people I love. I know who gave me my love of the outdoors, who showed me that exercise could be playtime for adults, who taught me generosity and compassion, who emphasized attention to detail, and I carry a piece of them and all the others who have influenced me with me everywhere I go.
Realizing this fact, though, I had to examine the full nature of what I might be absorbing from the ones I choose to make a part of my life. With this has come some harsh reality. I have been examining my life on a much deeper level, looking through this particular "lens," and what I see has surprised me a bit. I am trying to adjust accordingly, and at times this can be exhausting.

WORKOUT:
As many as possible sets of 12kg snatches 12 right/12 left in 15 minutes...Today this was 9
rest 3 min
As many as possible sets of purple and black band assisted pullups alternated with 4 perfect pushups in 15 minutes. The pullups were supposed to be 5, but I couldn't get 5 good ones, so I went down to 4 then realized I needed to go down to 3. got 7 sets total.

Heart Attack Grill

Sunday, October 11, 2009

http://www.heartattackgrill.com/media.html

Maybe some of you have come across this place before now, but my first exposure to the Heart Attack Grill (see link above), was tonight at work when I walked by the television playing the Travel Channel as I was going to the restroom. At first I couldn't figure out what they were talking about but I hung around until I did. Burgers were smothered in cheese and mayonnaise. Instead of a salad bar, they have a french fry bar on which the fries are cooked in lard. People over 350 pounds eat free--every day. I was fairly taken aback, honestly, but then I applauded the owner for his originality. His was a marketing strategy to do what he can to make a buck. I get it, and "it" is brilliant. As they interviewed the patrons, however, I was disheartened. As one would expect, they were all corpulent, but they were also deluded and complacent, often stating in their brief interviews that they were glad they were already on cholesterol medicine.

I wonder, though, if these restaurant patrons even remotely begin to understand that even one meal like this has an immediate effect on their system. We tend to think of things like our nutritional intake in the cumulative, and ultimately, that is the most important thing. I, like most active and health-oriented people, believe in the mental health behind an occasional "cheat day" or "cheat meal." Complete glutinous debauchery like this, however, can have immediate ramifications. Within minutes of completing a high fat meal like this, our body is bombarded with its contents and is forced to deal with them. For some, the result is fat-laden blood like this (you might remember this pic from last year on my blog):

The blood on the right is what blood is supposed to look like after it's gone through the centrifuge. The blood on the left is the blood of a woman who had, in the last few hours, had a high fat meal. That stuff that looks like a cream layer on the top?...it's, well, a cream layer, a layer of fat on her blood, fat that was dispersed in the blood before the centrifuge.

How well do you think that blood functions? How smoothly do you think it flows through the tiny vessels of your heart, brain, kidneys, feet, and eyes? It functions so poorly in so many ways, in fact, that research is showing that the hours following a meal like one at the Heart Attack Grill actually show an increase in heart attacks (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0813/is_n4_v21/ai_15224643/).

Please don't misunderstand me. I appreciate capitalism and originality. I think the fellow who came up with this concept is absolutely brilliant, and I wouldn't picket or protest his business. Heck, I might even visit it on a cheat day. :) I wish, though, that ours was a world where a concept like this would wither and die for lack of business while the parking lot in front became the town's rowdiest tire-flipping, kettlebell swinging, rope flinging gathering place of people.

TODAY'S WORKOUT WAS A SHORT ONE: 6 minutes of 16kg snatches, 30 burpees.

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT: See the press/squat/push up/dead/plank/burpee workout above...BUT I got 3 (count them...THREE rounds of 2/2 strict presses with the 20kg!). I had to add some burpees to total correctly for the burpee challenge, too.

Immersion Therapy

Wednesday, 9.9.9
Off-161.5#

I hate spiders.

I don't mind most other creepy, crawly critters. Snakes? No problem. Ok, I hate scorpions, too, but spiders, well, they are Satan-spawn. Hate 'em. And you see, Florida is spider heaven. They're frikkin' everywhere! I was well aware of this fact when I bought into this deal, and decided just to suck it up and deal with it. Spiders eat mosquitoes, and the only thing more plentiful in Florida than spiders is mosquitoes. Hate them too. As a rule, I try not to kill things. Bad karma. Everything is here for a purpose and all that jazz. Spiders and mosquitoes are fair game--especially if they're in the house. As a part of my attempting to overcome my aversion, a few months ago when this gal (look at the white space just to the right of the word "Cameo") moved into the neighborhood in and around my pull up bar, I chose to just leave her there and see what came of it. We made an agreement: I would leave her alone. She would leave me alone. Thus began my tenuous relationship with an arachnid workout buddy. The body on this joker, with NO exageration, is as big as my thumb. I almost renigged on our original agreement today, though, when I got ready to start my workout and she was fighting a hornet that captured in her web. As creepy as that was, it was nothing compared to watching her spin a web around the hornet, carry it to the center of the web then suck its bug guts out. I get chill bumps just writing about it! She's still there, though, and with the help of her friends (see video below), I'm slowly growing less repulsed by the 8-legged critters in our yard.



WORKOUT:
3 5-rung black and purple band-assisted pullups/elevated perfect pushups
Ladder 1: squats with single leg pulse at bottom on each rung
Ladder 2: partial pistols
Ladder 3: 30sec plank.
30 Challenge Burpees

A Different Kind of Workout

Saturday, September 5, 2009
Off--159#

My folks are here in Florida to visit for a while--how long is yet to be seen. They got here on Wednesday, and each day we have visited, watched some TV, had a little excursion here and there, and generally enjoyed each others' company. I was born 27 days after my mom's 42nd birthday, so my parents are a little older than other people's my age. My mom is 78, my dad 73. As much as I enjoy seeing them, each time I do, I must adjust to their physical and mental decline from the way I see them in my mind. In my mind's eye, my dad can still reach out and wrap his arms around a fencepost, waggle it around a little bit and pull it out of the ground. My mom is still the best crossword solver in the world. And I am still 20...

(pics taken with my iphone)

But my mind's eye is wrong, and seeing the decline breaks my heart. The physical is hard enough, but the loss of mental sharpness is what really gets me. To some degree, such loss is predetermined by genetics, but it is by no means an inevitability for most people. We can fight it off much the way we fight so hard to keep away the physical decline. In honor of my wonderful parents, I thought I'd share some ways you can work as hard to keep your mind as sharp as your physique.

Just like our muscles become conditioned to our workouts, and we must change things up to continue to challenge them, our brains become conditioned to our patterns. Each and every part of our bodies will do everything it can to make its job as easy as possible. That is simple survival. The patterns of our actions form pathways in our brain that allow us to perform those patterns with as little effort for our brain as possible, on autopilot so-to-speak. Think about your drive home from work. How many times do you get home and not remember much of anything about your drive? You were on autopilot. When you break out of this pattern, you force your brain to construct new neuronal pathways, to literally fire new circuits that weren't being used, just like a new workout recruits new muscle. Use a neuron, and it is more likely to keep firing. Let it sit dormant, and well, it's harder to get going again.

So how does one keeps as many neurons firing as possible as frequently as possible? The first step is to use as many senses as possible as frequently as possible. Consciously absorb all of the sensory input you can as you go through your day. Shut one sense down in an attempt to heighten another. Close your eyes and focus, really focus, on the sounds around you, the way the room or the yard or parking lot smells. Focus on the textures of your surroundings. Slow down at your meal and truly taste your food, feel the way it pops between your teeth or smooshes on your tongue. Don't just float through life, BE AWARE of everything. APPRECIATE everything. For what it's worth, the mentor who taught me this concept believed sex was the best way to stimulate all the senses at once. :)

The next step in keeping the brain sharp is staying out of the proverbial rut. If you usually drive to work in an automatic, every now and then borrow a standard transmission vehicle and drive it. Occasionally ride with the windows down or drive with gloves on. Take a different route to work. Try new foods. Sit in a different chair in your living room. Do your nightly routine out of its usual order. You get the idea. Shake things up. It forces your brain to stay awake.

Give it a try. It's actually refreshing.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: 16kg Swing Practice with a focus on keeping it sharp. 40 sec of swing/20 sec of rest x 30 rounds.
I had planned to do my grind routine today, but my head wasn't in it d/t some minor family strife. I almost ditched the workout entirely, but decided to just go with something simple and trudge on.

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT:
3 5-rung ladders
Black and Purple band-assisted pullups/Perfect elevated pushups.
1st ladder--feet together squat into one-legged pulse on each side with each rung
2nd ladder--partial pistols from the top
3rd ladder--30sec of plank.

THURSDAY'S WORKOUT:
VO2 max 80 sets of 7 with the 12kg.

Workout Logs.

Wednesday, July 15, 2008
Off--162.5#
Everyone takes a different approach to workout logs. Some people don't use them at all. Others document not only every rep and plan, but also every other detail in their lives, in them. Some use good old-fashioned paper and pen. Others have moved on to some electronic form of record keeping. As with anything, there is value to all of these approaches--even no log at all.

Some people feel so intimidated and/or restricted by a workout log that if they felt like they had to keep one to "workout properly" they wouldn't do it at all. So, for them, that approach is perfectly valid. I, however, tend to fall more in the category of people who keep their workout log together with my record of life in general. I log the day, my weight that day, whether or not I work, and my workout every day. If a workout is particularly good or bad or has a pertinent feature, I write that down. If something in my life is bothering me or is just wonderful, I write about that. And I make general notes about my nutrition. About once a month or so, I write my measurements in a different color. PR's get special indicators, and changes in the program get notes. I have referenced my log quite a bit here lately, going through it to plan my workouts and when I need to advance myself to the next level. Doing that rather than depending on waiting for a point when my body felt as if I needed to move on, has led me to make advances lately in my lifting capabilities that I'm not sure I would have made otherwise. And by looking back, I've also been able to see just how far I have come strength-wise. I have also been able to track my weight and measurements to confirm what I felt was stagnation and compare what I was doing this time last year when I was a little lighter to what I am doing now. Because I have not detailed my nutrition but only given a general overlay, however, I am having some difficulty tracking exactly how that has played in without overlaying the paper log with my online food log. As a result, I am rethinking to some degree that way of keeping the info. Certainly, the personal notes in my log are not something everyone would feel comfortable doing. I believe, though, that they are crucial to the process. Life is not a vaccuum. Each aspect of our lives in intricately related to all of the other aspects, and to ignore the link would be unwise. And as I have reviewed what is going on in my life at any given point, I have been able to learn something about how it has affected everything else. Hindsight is 20/20, you know.

Another large value to a workout log is the ability to show it to a trainer or appropriately educated friend. Despite the clarity that time can provide an individual, we are still approaching any topic with our own biases. Fresh eyes can often find patterns and issues that we might overlook. Here, I suspect, many would balk at sharing a log with personal notes, and for good reason, I suppose. I have contemplated just this thing and decided that the benefits would outweigh the risks if I decided to have someone take a look.

I've been loving my workout log here lately. Some would call it a journal, and I suppose it is. The people at work think I'm crazy for writing in it as much as I do. It is tattered from being well-loved, warped from workouts in the rain, dirty from lying on the ground and smudged from sweaty hands. And it is worth every second spent.

TODAY NO WORKOUT

YESTERDAY...NO WORKOUT

MONDAY'S WORKOUT:
3 5-rung ladders of
black and purple band-assisted pullups/elevated pushups.
After each rung, I did 1/1 partial pistols counterbalanced with the 12kg.
30 Challenge Burpees in 3' 46"

SUNDAY: NO WORKOUT

I'm consoling myself, saying my week lately is starting on Wednesday. So I took Sunday and Tuesday off last week, and this week will be Wednesday and Sunday. LOL

General Bad-Assedness

Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Work--161#

A while back I mentioned that I was doing a lot of thinking about what Mr. Whitley terms "General Bad-Assedness," we'll use GBA for short. That thought process is an ongoing ever-changing one for me, and I think about it frequently.

First, let me say that there are many forms of bad-assedness including the actions and self-sacrifice of good parents, spouses, civil servants, soldiers and many others. I could go on about this ad nauseum but will spare you this time around. For the purposes of this blogpost, "general bad-assedness" refers only to physical bad-assedness.

Each person's day has a different set of needs and demands and, therefore, will require different skill sets and levels of fitness. General physical bad-assedness takes into account not only these daily needs and demands but also what, for most of us, is most likely to forever remain a hypothetical potential need for a more advanced set of skills and level of fitness. Let's face it; most of humankind makes it through their days just fine without ever putting themselves through any additional physical training. They plod along, not necessarily happy with but neither particularly bothered by, their lovehandles, poor endurance, sloppy posture, weak backs or any of the other attributes of which we, the fit-minded, so often live in fear. Few of us (thank goodness!) are ever truly faced with a situation in which our physical prowess makes a life-or-death difference. For me, however, GBA is a physical state of conditioning that, when that highly hypothetical situation arises, drastically elevates one's chances of survival. So as I contemplate GBA, I consider what physical attributes would make me more likely to survive the hypothetical "shit hitting the fan" (SHTF).

Realistically, even any given SHTF episode is going to be different from any other given one, but when I think of it, it's generally a scenario that involves the requirement to physically out-maneuver an opponent. That opponent might be trying to get to me or something I have for some strange reason or might be trying to get to someone I love. Or that opponent might be attempting to beat me to something. I can imagine numerous different scenarios but suffice it to say that they all involve my physical prowess versus someone else's.

So, what are those attributes I feel would be most useful? In my mind, the things that would allow a person who possessed them to be deemed a "general badass" include:

1. Quickly covering ground/distance on foot. In all likelihood, this would involve some distance further than a city block or two but most likely not too much further than a mile.

2. Explosive power: Think sprint, jump, knock crap over.

3. Maneuverability/Agility: the ability to change position in multiple planes quickly.

4. Pure, raw strength: fairly obvious.

5. Endurance, or perhaps I should say "enduring strength," because what I generally mean is to be able to display all of the above longer than the opponent.

6. Indomitable spirit (thanks TaeKwonDo). One can be beaten even before they start if they think themselves beaten. Conversely, an iron will is difficult to defeat.

I desperately wanted to add in a few other skills such as proficiency with a handgun and long rifle, being able to hotwire a vehicle, ability to ride a motorcycle (the very reason I'll never be a complete and total badass :) ), the ability to pick most locks, basic ground-fighting, take downs and hand-to-hand, and blade-fighting skills. Ultimately, however, I decided these were just gravy. They definitely move a person up in the food chain, but I don't believe they are an absolute necessity for general bad-assedness.

Please chime in in the comments with your ideas.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: 12kg VO2 Max. I ended up starting with 7 reps per round and decreasing to 6 after the 40th round, then backed on down to 5 a little while thereafter as my form was degrading. I last did this workout on May 16 and did it with 8 reps in all but the last few rounds, doing a total of 80 rounds. Today, however, I just was NOT feeling it. It was rough. I think the two biggest factors were the oppressive heat without a breeze (talking dead calm here) and I think I was dehydrated. Regardless, it was ugly, but at least I got a little something done.

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT:
5 rounds of...
C &PP 20kg x 2, 16kg C&P x 3--Right then left.
Elevated perfect pushup, having to move to perfect pushups from the knees in rounds 4 & 5 x 5
Wlaking 20kg Lung x 10
Double 16kg DL x 5
Plank x 25sec
Rest 25 sec

20kg Tabata swings x 2 with 2 min rest b/w

30 challenge Burpees in 6'19"

I was a hair's breadth away from pushing through on the left-sided strict press with the 20kg.

SUNDAY'S WORKOUT: Technically it was off-day, but I went for a nice, slow walk for a mile then did a bit of yoga just to be outside.

Fortitude

Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Off--Slept 1030-1630-161.5#

Main Entry: for·ti·tude

Pronunciation: \ˈfȯr-tə-ˌtüd, -ˌtyüd\

Function:noun

Etymology:Middle English, from Latin fortitudin-, fortitudo, from fortis

Date:12th century

1: strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage

2obsolete : strength

A little different format today...

My workout today was as follows:
4 purple and black band assisted pull-ups
2/2 assisted pistols
Run ("run" does not equal sprint but instead is a pace faster than a jog which is a lumbering pace I can keep for a long time. "run" is about the speed I can keep for a mile without keeling over.) around the yard=~100-120 yards.
Push-ups with brutally strict form for 30 seconds. These are slightly demoralizing since I have to do them from the knees. Mr. Calleo, however, graced me with some of his wisdom as learned through his many studies, and I have resolved to do them right whatever way I am forced to do them and take solace in knowing that I will surely build to a full push-up some day. I can't say enough about how much I appreciate all the feedback on my video--given both publicly and privately. Thank you.
Run the yard.
Hanging leg raises alternated with hanging knee raises x 10 total (this should be for time, but my watch self-destructed a la Mission Impossible).
Run the yard.
Plank for 30 sec.
Run the yard.
Repeat for a total of 3 rounds.
This was supposed to be done for time, but again, my watch didn't cooperate, so I just worked on through instead of stopping to use a different timing device.

Then...AMAP 20kg TGU which ended up being 1/1x4

I like this workout.
I think I mentioned this the last time I posted it, which was also the first time I did it. And as much as I liked it the first time, I liked it more today, but not necessarily for the reasons you might expect.

I do this workout, or some form of it, to work on those things I feel are some of my weakest points. I call it my "Better Me" workout, version 2, an adaptation of what I've been doing for the last 4-6 weeks (version 1). People, myself included, have a tendency to "mentally masturbate" as a favorite firearms instructor of mine once put it. They will find the thing they are good at and do it over and again, calling it "practice" or "working out." When they finish, praise themselves for the discipline to do it and their remarkable skill and go home. They will stand square and still, facing a still target, in sunny conditions with no stressers, hit the mark a dozen times and go to the house confident they can kick ass in a firefight. They will run a treadmill or an elliptical machine or sit in a machine and move the peg, pushing the resultant weight and work up a glaze of moisture, hit the showers and go to work boasting of the ass-kicking they just gave themselves. Those folks are "mentally masturbating." When the SHTF, they are the ones left looking around wondering what the $^@% just happened.

Those people, though, that the rest of the world sees as just a little bit off their collective rockers, the ones who go to the outdoor range in the rain, set up half a dozen targets, bring a jump rope or a kettlebell and hit that for a couple of minutes or just run around the empty range for a bit then start blasting the hell out of the targets while they're moving, crouching, or finding cover, the ones who you never see in the gym because it doesn't have the right toys, the ones whose workout clothes don't match and stay stained, those are the ones who are truly ready for what life just might throw their way. Those are the people who are comfortable facing a weakness, or even a fear. Only when we acknowledge then turn to face down our fears and weaknesses can we overcome them and, therefore, be better ready for tomorrow.

That is what my Better Me workout is about. I face my weaknesses and in doing so, will hopefully one day make them strengths. As I was facing them today, though, I realized I was building strength in an area I'd not anticipated. About half-way around the yard, somewhere during round 2, I was ready to slow down just a tad, make it a jog instead of a run. Typically, my workouts involve some down time, maybe just 10-20 seconds of shuffling my feet, but some downtime regardless. This workout by design pushes me to keep moving, never stop. I realized today that more than a physical accomplishment for me, this is a mental one. My mind is ready to give up way before my body makes it truly necessary. That realization, somewhere between pull-ups and a plank, where fortitude overrules a treadmill, was an important one for me. I get out there and sweat it out consistently for a thousand good reasons, but I keep finding more. And today, the idea that as I'm not only strengthening my body, I am building fortitude as well, was much more tangible for me. I have known it on some level all along, but today it hit me like a train. I also realized that that is one of the things I like SO much about my friends here in the blogosphere. We are hundreds or, sometimes, thousands of miles apart, most of us out there each day duking it out with ourselves in solitude, yet we are out there, finding our weaknesses, facing them, and pushing through to make them better with no one to hold us accountable but ourselves and the harshness of life itself.

So Simple

Saturday, January 24, 2009
Work 6p-8a--158.5#
It is simple, really. A hunk of iron molded into an elementary shape. It has neither a mind nor a will of its own, neither heart nor flesh. It is not magical or mystical. Having no pride, its finish, marred by chips and rust, causes it no strife. It is the very definition of insentient.

I stand over it, my mind an endless stream of worries, my heart full of fear and doubt. Where I cannot focus my thoughts or efforts, it begins to pull them together for a purpose. With a cleansing breath, I reach for it and by necessity all other thoughts begin to fade away. With each swing or snatch, clean or press or squat, it becomes my counselor. I cannot lock in the shoulder, ground my feet, snap my hips without focusing on that little piece of iron and the way my body interacts with it. Where there is focus, there is no worry, doubt or fear. It pulls at my grip, and I let go of the worries. It fails to settle smoothly and gently at the top of a snatch, and I give up my nagging doubts. Rock bottom pushes any fears from the crevices of my mind as it forces me to think only to pressurize and go up. It demands to be the center of my attention and in return gives me clarity of mind.

For this gift alone I would be eternally grateful, but as the worries fade away, I open myself up to lessons, and it becomes a cold and heartless teacher. My lungs begin to burn. My muscles quiver. My hands hurt and I am spent, but the plan was for more, so it somehow beckons me to do more. It taunts me in its simplicity. It is a small ball with a handle. Surely thirty more seconds cannot be that long. And it teaches me to persevere. It teaches me to push past what I think might be pain. It teaches me pain is an attitude. It teaches me that I can, that my barriers are self-imposed, that things are not always as they appear, that an hour can pass in the blink of an eye and ten minutes can be a lifetime, that simple acts do not always yield simple results. With every swing or snatch, with every move, it teaches.

Then, when I stand sweat-laden and spent, having let it drop heavily to the ground, it remains quiet, inanimate, uncaring. Hands on my hips, mind focused, I take a cleansing breath and think about my lesson and a simple, molded hunk of iron.

WORKOUT:
Double 16kg C&P/Bent Row 5 3-rung ladders.
Double 16kg Squat 5 2-rung ladders.
4 minutes of continuous 16 kg swings.

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT: VO2 Max workout 12kg for 50 sets (25 minutes). Consistently got 7 reps, occasionally got 8.

Pondering Goals

Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Work 6p-8a

As is all too common this time of year, I have been pondering my goals. They come in many shapes and forms and span the breadth of my life from work to home and all parts in between and around. I have lived my life in the ever-present shadow of some goal or another and after residency found myself a little lost as this flat, expansive future lay before me with no major obstacles to overcome. With my career goals accomplished, I began to focus on the fitness goals that had had to come second for so long. Many, though not all, of those goals have been reached, and to some degree, I find myself feeling complacent.

I've decided that inertia is a bitch and stagnation its companion. While neither 155# nor the physique and level of physical fitness I now sport is my goal, I no longer disgust myself and even occasionally look in the mirror or at pictures and think, "Thirty-five isn't all that bad after all." I can go and do as I please and outwork everybody I know. My blood pressure at the doctor yesterday was 92/46 the first time and 96/48 the second. And while I might not look like a goddess of health, I don't look like Buddha either. While this is a good thing, it seems to have taken away some of the urgency I felt this time last year, so my workouts don't seem to have that same umph, and my diet needs some tweaking. I am the victim of inertia, and as a result I have stagnated.

Having goals is not the difficult part. I can list goals ad nauseum, but I've discovered that they have little meaning and provide little motivation without a thorough examination of their reason for being--which can become a quagmire of thought. Saying that I want to be fit leads into the question of "why?" and, somewhat more importantly, "what is fit?" The answer to these questions is unique to each person who asks them, and I have been formulating my answers over the last several days.

Fitness for this somewhat paranoid farm girl translates to survivability. Not only is life more fun when body habitus, strength and endurance are not an issue, but physical stressors such as trauma and illness are more likely to be survived--and survived without lifelong disabililty--when the victim starts out in good physical condition. Fat people can't fly in medivac helicopters, and intubating someone who's neck is so damn big as to be nonexistent is a scary prospect. But survival goes beyond that for me to something much darker and probably a little pathologic. For me, the level of fitness I would like to acquire is the type of fitness that would make surviving the proverbial shit hitting the fan much more likely. If one day I am puttering along, Obama is assassinated and the world goes into instant udder pandemonium with riots, fires and all manner of violent chaos, I want to be able to do what I need to do to get the hell of dodge. Or if some sketchy character starts chasing me through the boatdocks of Jacksonville, I would like to feel confident that I can scale the fences and obstacles between me and safety... Yes, I know this is ludicrous and insane, but I continue to acknowledge and embrace my insanity by having these goals.

After defining these goals of fitness, they are best accomplished in small steps, so I've been thinking about what those steps need to be and how to measure progress toward them. A vague idea of a fitness assessment test is forming in my mind, and I will continue to hone this over the next few days. Right now it feels a lot like everyone else's basic fitness assessment with a timed run, pushups, pullups, maybe box jumps, burpees and snatches. I think I mostly I want to stick to bodyweight exercises and would really like to have an O-course to run. I'm struggling, though, with exactly what and how I want to do. Suggestions welcomed.

Disenchanted

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Work 6p-8a--155.5#

A year or so ago, I met a young lady in her mid-teens in the ER shortly after she had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, what not so long ago was known as adult onset diabetes. Since then, I have seen her several times, almost always because her blood sugar is out of control. Here lately, it has been more out of control than in, often running in the 400's to 500's. Someone's initial response to this might be to blame her, accuse her of eating poorly and not caring for herself. Someone's initial response would be wrong.

This little gal is smart and kind, and, I believe, good. She's a senior in high school, works at Wal-mart and pretty much takes care of herself, all the while aspiring to go to college next year. And she truly wants to know how to care for this disease that is trying so desperately to defeat her. When she comes in, I try to talk to her to see what her primary care doc and her endocrinologist are doing to try to fix the problems she is having. Most of the time, the answer is nothing. Most of the time, it seems they just tell her to take more insulin when her sugar is up. At no point has anyone really sat down and taught her how to care for herself including how to eat and how to exercise or what to do when presented with a diabetes related problem. It's not that she doesn't listen or that she doesn't ask questions. She does. Her questions are intelligent and appropriate, but they are met with a deaf ear and apathy, and she leaves the visit with her doctors knowing no more than she did when she got there. Even her visit to the dietician was fruitless. On the surface, this would seem like the common denominator is the girl, but I know without a shadow of a doubt she is not the weak link in this chain. I know because when we interact she listens to what I suggest and asks questions and listens to what I say in answer. I know because last night she came to see me at one in the morning to ask more questions and show me her food journal to see what feedback I could give her.

This whole experience has left me even further disenchanted with my colleagues. I often find myself frustrated with either their lack of knowledge or their poor bedside manner or their apathy. Occasionally I'm disappointed by all of the above. But seeing this girl so neglected leaves me embarassed to be even remotely associated with the profession. I just want to throttle her doctors for not taking or having the time to help teach her what she needs to know and her mother who is a nurse for not placing more focus on her child who needs her. And I'm embarassed because I know this is the rule in healthcare rather than the exception, a fact that is driven by a broken healthcare system and a public who by-and-large just wants a pill or a quick-fix.

This young lady gives me hope, though. She reminds me why I went into medicine. She brought me a card (that's it in the picture) and a gift when she came last night. She thanked me for taking the time to try to help. She'll never know how so often I limp along in this ER feeling like I'm just throwing band-aids over situations that I have little power to fix because the patients choose not to work to help themselves or how much that card means to me and how it'll join the short little stack of notes or cards I've gotten over the years that I go back to time and again to remind myself that sometimes I might make just a teeny bit of a difference to someone.

WORKOUT: Today was my first day back after 8 off. It was going to be yesterday, but I jacked up the alarm and would have missed work if the hubbie hadn't realized something was awry. I had hoped I would go bounding into this workout blowing the top off of everything, but I didn't. Honestly, it was a weak workout. I just didn't feel strong, or coordinated for that matter. As I pondered the situation during my breaks, I think at lease some of that might have been a factor of dehydration. I think I probably was drinking about a liter less water per day over that last week because I wasn't working out.

5 rounds of the following:

30 sec of green band assisted pull-ups

30 sec of pushups

30 sec of box jumps--I just did this on the first round and changed it to burpees with a knee to chest jump on the subsequent rounds because I think my wierd modified box jumps might be part of my knee problem. There is NOWHERE to do real box jumps, so I've been flat-footed jumping over some stuff as my box jumps.

30 sec of plank

assisted pistol 1/1 x 2

rest 1 min

20kg TGU 1/1 x 2

20kg Tabata swing.

Some Things Of Which to Perpetually Remind Myself

Saturday, December 20, 2008
Work 6p-8a

Try to be someone on whom others can depend, all the while understanding that there are few people on whom you can depend.

A little R&R is not only good for the soul, but occasionally the body needs some, too.

NEVER dye your hair; it wrecks the texture.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Christmas trees really are a lot of fun.

Call Mom and Dad. Everyday.

This, too, shall pass.

It can always get worse.

No good deed goes unpunished. (That was important enough to mention at least twice.)

Out of Touch

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Work 6p-8a--153#

Somehow, I am at once an insightful person and a completely oblivious one. My study of people, the human body and its psyche has been a lifelong pursuit, one that I don't see ending any time soon. I try to listen to and appreciate my friends in a way that allows me to provide sage advice when requested and withhold it when I see it is unproductive or unwelcome. I know their moods, their "tells," and the inflections of their voices. Yet, I am my own greatest conundrum. I know so much less about myself at 35 years, 4 months and some-odd days than I ever have at any moment prior. But I am learning.

Today I have realized two things.
First and foremost, I have realized that I can say "no" too easily to the ones who matter most to me and not easily enough to the ones who ultimately matter least. This epiphany is courtesy of a wonderful friend, what I often refer to as "chosen family," who happens to know my tells. The ER where I work is perpetually understaffed, and as a result, I frequently get calls begging and pleading me to fill the holes. I have missed too many special occasions to mention and broken more promises than I like to remember in the name of fulfilling my duties to the ER and the community for which it cares. Saying "no" to the scheduler who is desperate and nearly in tears somehow has been so much harder than saying it to my husband or my loving parents or various friends. Tonight when she called begging me to work tomorrow, this good friend looked at me and said, "I will kick your ass if you work tomorrow night. You are leaving me and the rest of your friends to go to Florida so you can spend more time with your husband and improve your marriage, live your dreams, but you're thinking about working tomorrow night?! Your husband has driven 700 miles to spend your 2 days off with you. If you work instead of spending time with him, I will kick your ass and take it as a personal affront." And like that, it clicked. I said no and felt empowered for it instead of being filled with guilt and self-loathing as I have in the past on the few occasions when I have told them no. How has it taken me 8 years to get this?

Me, the friend who inspired the epiphany, his wife, and his other buddy

May 10th of this year just after we all jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

Next, I was going back over a post that Tracy Rif put up a couple of days ago in which she discusses her dysfunctional relationship with the scale and calorie counting. As I reread her post, the same words that originally reached out to me did so again. "I don't think knowing what and how much you're eating is a bad thing, and I'll tell you what....I'd rather be conscious of what I'm doing than not. But when you let it control you, instead of you controling it then it's time to re-evaluate why you're doing it. My daily calorie consumption and my daily weigh-ins used to simply be data before it became a measure of my worth." The meandering course that is my thought process lead me from this to the realization that I have never, not once, been at peace with food or with my body. I thought about how the need to count calories and weigh-in daily is not only a product of a slightly obsessive-compulsive personality, but it is also a direct result of a person's lack of familiarity with him or herself. If I understood my body's rhythms and signals well enough, I would eat only those things that made it feel best and only in appropriate amounts. Understanding them would allow me to gauge my need for less food or more, or more activity or less, based on how I feel when I move or wear my clothes. Looking back, I am closer now to beginning to understand the rhythms and signals than I have ever been, but I am still far removed from being comfortable enough to fore go the scale or a rigorous and constant self-evaluation of my nutrition. I recognize now, though, that being able to do that is difficult in large part because of my never having been able to to do it before. I've been sneaking food since I was 6 or 7 years old, and was anorexic later on. When I did find a healthy weight (at which point I still wasn't comfortable with how I looked), I was paralytically afraid of missing a workout, a feeling I am currently vividly remembering. As G.I. Joe was so fond of saying, however, "Knowing is half the battle." So now that I recognize my shortcomings, I can focus my efforts on correcting them in hopes of one day being able to toss the scale and eat without guilt or overwhelming forethought.

WORKOUT: On day 3 of my week-long hiatus. This is gonna be a long week.

Sunday, November 30, 2008
Work 10p-8a--154#

When I went to Mom and Dad's this weekend, I read the local paper and came across this ad. Can you see what sent me into a tyrade? ARRGGGGHHH!

We had a wonderful dinner yesterday for Thanksgiving. Almost everyone was able to be there, including my 20-year-old niece and nephew whom I haven't seen in probably 6 or 7 months. Everyone was healthy and happy, and we all took the time to sit and visit, catching up on everyone's respective worlds. Daddy felt well. The kids were well-behaved. It was just a fantastic day. Unfortunately, the fellow who was supposed to work every night this weekend bailed on it, and they couldn't find anyone to cover tonight. Because of that, I had to break my promise to my parents to spend the whole weekend with them and come home early.

I suppose my irritation with that and my lack of sleep over the last few days contributed to my dragging around today. I spent 14 hours wallowing in the bed to today, missing the hubby and dreading going to work. If it weren't for Mr. Calleo, I probably wouldn't even have gotten in a workout today. He threw down the gauntlet for me Friday before I left for Mom and Dad's, so I took the challenge today. Honestly, it wasn't my best effort, but I did it, and I did it all, so I have to at least be proud of that.

WORKOUT:

5 rounds of over 32 minutes...

10 double 16kg swings

8R/8L 12kg bottom's up cleans (these were supposed to be swings from the outside of the leg, but I either beat the hell out of my calf or tweaked my knee trying to keep it out of the way, so I changed it to cleans.)

8 double 16kg dead cleans

5 RR with a pushup after each rep

Finished it off with a 100 yd double 16kg farmer's walk.

It was great workout, actually quite the exercise in full-body tension.

ANSWER TO MY QUESTION... Look at the picture of her; then, note that she is advertising her "weight loss program."

Shortest joke

We occasionally tell the world's shortest joke which is a little crass
but has a darkly funny edge to it (please don't think I am not an
animal lover-this is just one of those things that strikes me funny).
"A baby seal walks into a club."
So then at the grocery today I saw this and about fell over.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Work 6p-8a--152.5#

I always find the way my day straddle's everyone else's to be a little odd. Do I wish everyone a happy holiday now or in my post that I do later, that for me will be Thursday's post... Ultimately it doesn't matter which I guess is the beauty of it all.

I love Thanksgiving. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite holidays, right up there with Valentine's Day and Fourth of July. It has all the warm fuzzies and fantastic food without the pressure of gifts and decorations and all the other fanfare. As with almost all of the holidays, my family isn't actually celebrating it on its given day. We always adjust for multiple family members in the medical profession and just have our day when we can. This year my sister and I work Turkey Day/Night, so we'll feast on Saturday. I will, however, just be extra thankful all weekend long.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I am the most blessed person on earth. And for this I am thankful every single day of my life. But right now I want to specifically thank all of you for taking time out of your days on occasion to read what I have to say and comment on it. Knowing that you do pleases me and makes a difference in my life. I even (I hope not too presumptively) consider many of you friends though I may not have had the chance to meet you in person. So THANK YOU and HAVE A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING!

BTW...Dad's kidney function is back to normal, so we're well on our way back:).

TODAY'S WORKOUT: M1W1D1 SIM with 16kg and 30 sec rest intervals=35min.

Anthony C.--Let me hear those challenge ideas of which you speak.