Days of abstinence: 12
Days until surgery: 72
Weight: 167.0 pounds
I had a lot of trouble waking up this morning which is
unusual for me, particularly when I get to bed on time; which I did last
night. I was in bed before nine, so
getting up at 4:00 to exercise should have been easy. Most mornings, in spite of my very early
hour, I wake up before the alarm goes off.
Not today. No Siree Bob. This morning the alarm woke me up and I knew
I needed more sleep so I reset the alarm for 4:50 and skipped my exercise for
the morning. This seemed perfectly
reasonable to me considering how sore my arms are. Ouch!
When I finally got up and weighed myself I was surprised to
see that the scale had gone up, not down.
If you are like me and monitor your weight daily then you know there can
be temporary swings in your weight. For
me, I usually know when it’s coming and it’s usually caused by something that I
am aware that I did. If I eat a big
dinner late in the day or eat a lot of particularly salty foods, I know I will
be a little bloated in the morning. I
didn’t do either of those things yesterday.
Also, and this is going to sound funny, but I can usually tell if I am
going to weigh more or less than I did yesterday by how heavy my breasts
are. When my breasts feel heavy, I know
I’m retaining water for some reason and I’ll see it on the scale. That was not the case this morning though. In fact, overall, I feel relatively lean this
morning; so I was surprised to see the scale result. Not upset, mind you, just a little surprised. I am always curious about what causes these
fluctuations. I think it is good to know
what is going on inside my body, as much as I can know.
The only thing that I can think of that would cause this
temporary weight gain is muscle inflammation.
I think the same thing caused my need for extra rest this morning. I did a particularly difficult workout
yesterday, followed by kickball. The
workout was a Daily Burn Black Fire workout called Weighted Tabata. It goes like this:
After about 4 – 5 minutes of warm up exercises you do eight
sets of 4 different exercise. Each set
is 20 seconds long with a 10 second break between sets. You do as many reps as you can each set, then
your score for that exercise is the lowest # of reps you got in any one
set. For instance, the first exercise
was a push press. Hold 15 pound
dumbbells in each hand with your arms bent and holding the dumbbells just above
your shoulders. In one movement, bend
your knees slightly, then straighten them to stand up tall and at the same time
push the dumbbells straight up into a shoulder press. Do as many as you can in 20 seconds. Rest 10 seconds. Then do it again, as many push presses as you
can for 20 seconds, then rest 10 seconds.
Do 8 sets. My first set I did
10. By the time I got to the last set I
was doing 6. More importantly, by the
time I got to the last set, I was lifting to fail. In other words, I could not do another one.
The next exercise was easier and I timed out on it. I was not to the point of failure during the
20 second set. It was a dumbbell swing,
like a kettle bell swing, but with a 20 pound dumbbell. My score on that was 9. (Therefore, I did at least 9 times 8 = 72
dumbbell swings, since 9 was my lowest score in the 8 sets).
The third exercise was a Bent Over Row using 15 pound
dumbbells. My score was 6 and I was
exercising to failure on that one. And
the last exercise was a dumbbell thruster, which was not unlike the push press
but instead of bending your knees slightly you go into a deep squat and then
push yourself up and do the shoulder press.
Again, I exercised to failure and my score was 6.
The results? My arms (mostly
biceps) hurt today! Not just that vague
muscle soreness but seriously hurt. Not
in a bad, scary way like, “Oh my god, did I hurt myself?” hurt, but more in
that, “Shit, that was one hell of a workout, hurt.” I think my body didn’t want to get out of bed
this morning because it was working hard on healing those damaged muscles. I think the same thing caused the weight
gain. That soreness in those muscles is
inflammation. There is a lot of repair
work going on in those muscles right now, and that repair work starts with
inflammation, which is going to cause some weight gain.
I think I did the right thing this morning to sleep in for a
few extra minutes this morning and to take the day off from a workout. I’ll drink a lot of water today and eat
right. I’m sure I’ll be even more sore
tomorrow, but by Tuesday my muscles should be feeling better.
With regard to food and my sugar addiction, everything is
fine. No cravings. No desire to go off program. Susie brought cupcakes to kickball yesterday
for Rick’s birthday. I was not even
tempted. I am feeling confident and
strong in my commitment to abstain from sweets forever and ever. I am not feeling deprived or sorry for myself
or like there is something wrong with me.
It just is what it is. For now,
this does not feel like a big deal, it’s just a deal.
I have a HUGE week ahead of me at work. Very soon I will be able to blog about what
is going on. Until then, all I can say
is that we are undergoing a mid-year audit (for good reasons) and I’ve had zero
time to prepare for it. As far as I can
tell I’ll be working long days and weekends until my surgery date of December
16th. Fun Stuff. Oh, yeah, the stress doesn’t help with weight
loss. I do believe that stress causes
increased cortisol levels which makes it difficult to lose weight. That said, I took the day completely off
yesterday, got all our meals cooked, played kickball, worked out, and had time
to sit on the couch to relax with Jack.
I know it is important to have days like that, even when I am extremely
busy. I know it helps keep the stress
level in check.
That’s it for now.
Have a beautiful day!!
No comments:
Post a Comment