Thursday

I am going to the gym today after work, whenever my boss decides to let me out. I am hoping for noon, but it will probably be my normal time of 2pm.  Sigh.  Anyway, I am still a bit giddy over my newfound ability to do a few pushups. 

My meeting with Vinnie about my @(*&)@#$*^!(*@&^*& tendonitis is Sunday at 10:30.  I really hope he's able to do something to help me with it.  I'm tired of being in pain while skating around.  It puts a damper on one's ability to skate fast.  (Seriously - when we go in the opposite direction, I am perfectly fine and happy.)

The eating portion of this revitalized lifestyle is going okay.  I haven't been inhaling bread like I usually do.

hm, wow.

So I just tried doing some pushups (yes, I am at work. No one else is around).  Not full ones, though - I was on my knees.  Normally I'd get through one and gasp and wheeze and cry and stop.  This time I did three before I worried that someone might come up on me.

This is big.

wheeeeeeee

So last night was Kyle Night.  Hack squats, reverse crunches while lifting a ten pound weight straight-armed up over my head, different arm machines (that aggrivated my elbow, sigh), torso twists and minutes on the elliptical keeping the stride rate over 150 and then over 160, and so on and so forth.  Wheeeeeeeee, like my title says.  Then I did about 35 minutes on the elliptical, keeping my heart rate at 147ish.  Celebrity Jeopardy! helped.

When I went to get my membership card from the chick at the front desk, she didn't have to ask my name!  I've been there often enough that she recognized me!  *That's* an accomplishment, at least.

I was *going* to use the clothes hanger recumbent bike this morning, but it didn't happen.  I still value sleep too much.   I will probably have to use it tonight.  (I'm trying to get into the habit of cardioness every day.  Bizarrely, it's easier for me to go out to exercise than it is to do it at home.  I'm more inclined to do it, anyway.  I think part of it is because there are less distractions out of the house than in the house [I refer you once again to Patton Oswalt's routine about his treadmill auditioning for his time] and the fact that I need to get out of the house at least once a day or I go batshit insane.)

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, which throws another bit of interestingness into this whole thing.  First, after umpteen squillion years of not having any plans on 12/31, WE ACTUALLY HAVE PLANS THIS YEAR.  Roy Underkill is in a bowling league (which sometimes horks me off, because it's a Thursday night league and we have derby practice on Thursday nights, so I miss Thursday practices because Maverick's not old enough to stay home by himself), and they're having a small private party with bowling and food and fun.  Roy actually wants to go to this (normally getting him to go to parties is an exercise in futility), so I'm not going to pass it up.  So that's a bunch of food I will want to eat.

Then, because it's New Year's, the gym hours are all goofy.  They open at 5am and close at 5pm, and then on 1/1/10 they open at 8 and close at...10, I think.  Or maybe 11.  I'm not sure. I wrote it down and I still forgot.  Sigh.  Plus, my sister and her family are in town from Connecticut and I want to spend as much time with them as I can.  Plus I'm going to try to convince my boss to let me take tomorrow off.  (He's not here yet.)

So, we shall see.

why, hello

TREE FALLS IN A FOREST WHERE NO ONE IS AROUND, PERSON BLOGS WITH NO ONE READING, NO ONE CAN HEAR IT SO I SWEAR A LOT FUCKETY FUCK. HI.

So!  Since the kid is off from school this week and the husband is off from work watching him, I don't have to rush home from work. So I've decided to try and do at least something at the gym every day.  Yesterday's plan was to do some cardio in the AM before work, but when I woke up at 6:30 I basically said "fuck this" and set the alarm for an hour later.  (In the end, it was a good thing because it had snowed and I would NOT have brushed snow off the car at 7am.)   So instead I went after work, forty minutes or so on the elliptical.  MST3K shorts are nice to watch while doing this.

Tonight is my weekly Death Paces with Kyle.  Whee, indeed.

I started a profile on Daily Burn so that I can keep track of my nutrition (or lack thereof) and exercise (or lack thereof) and weight loss (again, or lack thereof).  I need more protein in my life.  Hooray for Greek yogurt (which basically tastes like sour cream, and since I am a fan of teh sour cream it is full of WIN).

okay, so, hi

It's been a while, lemme sum up. 

I went in on Friday the 18th and did my thing.  Then I went on Sunday.  At some point I talked to Moby and he introduced me to the concept of muscle failure - you're supposed to finagle it so that just as you finish your last bit of exercise, your muscles should feel like they want to die.  He also explained the "rule of 5" - if you can do five more repeats of an exercise with no problem, add 5 pounds.  The idea is that you increase weight, rather than increase the number of reps.  YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY.

So, anyway.  At another some point I discovered that they are starting a physical therapyesque sort of thing.  Bingo!  I expressed my interest in that and will be meeting with Vinnie on Sunday the 3rd.  Hopefully we can get this stupid tendonitis thing under control.

Ok.  Tuesday the 22nd, I went and did my Death March with Kyle.  He seemed to think I was improving; apparently I was able to get through reps relatively easier that time than I did the first time.

Normally I'd planned on Friday nights being my time, but with this past Friday being Christmas and all that, I thought "well, okay, I'll go on Thursday, Christmas Eve, after work."  Well, they closed all the branches at 2pm.  Then I thought "well, okay, I'll go before work" but they opened all the branches at 8am. So I was like "WTF, athletic club?" and popped into one of the women only branches at noon (I got out of work early, yee).  But, I couldn't remember what my weight levels were and all the machines were different so I did 45 minutes of cardio.  And here is where I explain just how much I need to do this - I had a crappy morning on Christmas Eve and Roy (my husband, remember) said that when I got home I could open my Christmas present).  I DID NOT GO IMMEDIATELY HOME AFTER WORK.  I WENT TO THE ATHLETIC CLUB.  This goes against everything I usually stand for.

So anyway.  Yesterday being Sunday, I went and did my usual thing.  Apparently it is working - the first time I couldn't really lift this one weighted bar thing, but yesterday I could do 25 lifts of it.  Wahoo.

okay!

so.  I have to go in tonight and do my THANG.  I haven't been since Tuesday (read: day of OMFG WHAT ARE YOU MAKING ME DO, KYLE?!?!?!?) but that's okay because Wednesday/Thursday are my off days although I apparently should be doing cardio too, whoops.

So I will most likely go after Maverick goes to sleep.  That would be about 9pmish. I need to figure out what's on TV around 10pm so's I can watch it while doing my cardio.  (We don't have cable at home.  Sometimes it really, really sucks.)

 Let's see...

VH-1: Top 20 Videos of 2009 (eh)
MTV: Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights (no thanks)
TLC: Four Weddings: Four brides have agreed to attend - and score - each other's weddings. They'll be judging the food, dresses, venues and their overall experiences. The bride whose wedding rates the best wins a fabulous, a five-star honeymoon.  (has potential)
A&E: Criminal Minds (eh)

We'll see.

guh

so yesterday was my first official personal training session with Kyle.  I naively thought it just be me going through the machine routine he'd set up for me previously.

Oh how wrong I was.

I had to do all this new stuff, reverse crunches and arm pulls and tricep and bicep stuff and then go on the elliptical machine for ninety seconds keeping the revolutions over 150 and passing a weighted ball from one side of my body to the other while sitting and all this stuff with Kyle standing over me going "c'mon, you can do it, faster, faster" and I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA DIE.

Whee, I think?

it's been two weeks since I started this. Insert Bare Naked Ladies reference here. I hate the Bare Naked Ladies.

so it's pretty much a given at this point that I will not exercise in the comfort of my own home.  Witness last night - I was all set and ready and prepared to use the clothes hanger recumbent bike, but then I had to watch Sunday's episode of Metalocalypse and then I started reading Castle by J. Robert Lennon (what an awesome, awesomely fucked-up book that is) and then I had to read all the Wikipedia entries about books written by E.B. White and the next thing I know it's 12:30am.

(Insert Patton Oswalt's routine about his treadmill auditioning for his attention here.)

So tonight I meet with Kyle again.  I believe he's going to show me the cardio machines, and then I do my little machine routine with him. One of the other women in the league and I are trying to figure out a time when we can go to a Pilates class together, that should be interesting.

weekend roundup

Friday night I went to the gym.  There was no one there.  Well, okay, there was like four other people there.  But it was kinda bizarre. 

Anyway, I did my little rotation on the machines.  My arms are toothpicks.  Little wimpy toothpicks.  It was almost amusing.  I couldn't get through the reps for the pull up/dip machine and I had to set the machine to a higher weight (on that machine, the higher the weight, the easier it is).  I put a big frowny face on the sheet for that part. 

Then I did about 25 minutes of cardio, care of the recumbent bikes there.  I watched Family Guy while I did it.  Eventually I stopped because I was doing the "keep your heart rate between X and Y" and it decided it wanted to do it by increasing the resistance, rather than by having me increase my speed, so I was going about 20 rpm at about level 40000 resistance and it's telling me to go faster and all I can think is "fuck you, machine."

So that was Friday.  Saturday was the end of the year party for our derby league, which had the theme of "80's Prom".  So there was neon taffeta a-plenty. 

Sunday I went back to the gym (I hadn't had that much to drink at the party, so I was not dealing with a hangover or anything like that).  As I was packing my bag at home, I realized I had left my padlock at the gym.  They had posted signs that they sold locks, so I wasn't that worried about trying to find one.  I get to the gym, ask if anyone had turned it in (no one had) and asked if I could buy a new lock.

"We actually don't have any," the chick behind the counter said.  "They might have them at Dick's."

Dick's is way over on the opposite side of the mall.  I didn't want to shlep all the way over there, then realized the ridiculousness of this - I didn't want to walk all that way to get a lock so I could exercise.  So off I went, bitching the whole way.

When I got to Dick's, I couldn't find padlocks other than a set of two.  I didn't need two padlocks, but I had no choice.  I wait in line, pay for them, shlep back to the gym, go into the locker room...

...and discover my padlock, sitting on the bench where I had left it on Friday.

(Fortunately I was able to return the padlock set.  I drove to get to the store this time, though.)

Did my little routine again, realized again I have toothpick arms.  Did a few more crunches than the last time, which made me feel like I'd accomplished something.  45 minutes of cardio, thanks to the horror/joy/horror that is Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew.  Seriously.  Put me in front of reality TV and I will exercise for HOURS, apparently.

I've also heard that stupid "SHE WEARS SHORT SKIRTS I WEAR T-SHIRTS" song more times than I care to admit.  From what I understand, it's a Taylor Swift song.  Good for her.  Where's my iPod?

(Actually, I don't listen to my iPod when I use the machines.  It's easier for me to count the repetitions in my head.  I can't do two things at once - whenever I'm at the phone at work and my boss tries to talk to me, I seriously want to bash the phone over his head and yell I AM ON THE PHONE HERE SHUT UP UNTIL I AM OFF THE PHONE DAMMIT.)

So that was my weekend.  I need to stop eating so much.

me and roller derby

yes I know you watched roller derby back in the 1970's.  everyone did. It's not the same as it was then, though.  The description we tend to use is this:

Professional wrestling started real and turned fake.  Roller derby started fake and turned real.

There are ten women on the track at a time - five from each team.  Eight of them bunch up at one line (that's the pack.  People in the pack are blockers).  The other two line up 20 feet behind.  They are the jammers, with stars on their helmets.  They score the points.

At the first whistle blow, the pack starts moving counterclockwise around the track.  At the second whistle blow, the jammers start.  The jammers have to catch up to the pack and get through it.  The blockers help their jammers through the pack, and stop the other team's jammer from getting through.  (It's one of the few sports, if not the only sport, where you play offense and defense at the same time.)  

So the jammer gets through the pack, yay!  Then, they have to sprint around and go through the pack again.  It's on this time through that she can score points - one point for each player on the opposite team she passes.

Each "play" is called a jam.  Jams go on for two minutes, unless they are called off early by the lead jammer.  Lead jammer is the skater who can get through the pack first without getting any minor penalties (elbows, going out of bounds, things like that).  If both jammers get penalties while going through the pack, there is no lead jammer and the jam goes on for the full two minutes.

That's basically the rules in a nutshell.   (There's all sorts of intricacies I haven't mentioned - the pivot, for example, who has a stripe on her helmet - but those can be for a later time.)

99.9% of the time, I am a blocker.  I have jammed three times in bouts, when we were either so far behind we'd never catch up, or so far ahead the other team would never catch up.  The first time, I got lead jammer (I believe at which point I screamed "OH MY GOD YOU'RE KIDDING!"), scored two points and called off the jam before the other woman could score any (this is why it's good to call off the jam).  The second time there was no lead jammer, I scored four points and the other jammer scored, I believe, eleventy billion points (because there was no lead jammer, it went on for the full two minutes and I actually thought my heart was going to explode afterwards).  The third time I got lead jam, scored four points and called it off before the other jammer could score any.  (This third time was at our final home bout of the season, and let me tell you, it was so fucking awesome to hear everyone cheering me on and screaming and all that.)

So yeah, that's about it.

okay

so.  last night I boogied on over to the gym to meet with Kyle so he could show me THE MACHINES.  Welcome, my son, welcome to THE MACHINE. (Yes, I listen to Pink Floyd on occasion.  Blame Roy, who doesn't listen to any songs released after 1982, except for Radiohead.  I don't understand it either.)

He wrote everything down on this sheet of paper, thank God.  The number of each machine, which settings to set the chairs and the handlebars and whatever at, how much weight to put on each machine.  So basically, I don't have to think.  This is a good thing.  Put me in front of something and tell me how to do it, and I will do it.  

The gym is separated into different rooms - there's the cardio machine room, the nautilus machine room and the weight room.  The weight room is where all the big hulking serious guys go. At one point Kyle wanted to show me a machine in there (which I won't end up using, 'cause it bugs my shoulder [I have had weird shoulder issues for about 12-13 years now]) and before we went in, he was like "are you okay with going into the weight room?" and I thought "um, should I be concerned about it?"

So I used leg machines and arm machines and chin up machines and pull up machines and I realized just how little frickin' upper body strength I have. (Though I knew this before, when we would do pushups during derby practice and I would collapse on the floor and weep silently while everyone else chugged along.)  They had these big weighted sticks that I have to lift and stuff. 

Kyle told me I should do this circuit of lifting and pushing and pulling and whatnot three times a week, and then do some cardio, but do more exclusive cardio as well.  Geesh.  So, I've decided that my schedule will be Tuesday evenings (since I'd already had that time set aside for derby practice), Friday nights, after Maverick goes to bed (since outside of derby I don't have a social life) and Sunday mornings, when I would normally go to derby practice.  It's my hope that the tendonitis in my hamstring will calm the fuck down if I don't skate.  While I will miss going to practice, it's for the greater good, I guess.

As for the additional cardio, I'll see if I can grab an hour here or an hour there.  There are one or two branches of the gym near-ish to work.  Plus there's the clothes hanger recumbent bike.

FAIL

so obviously I did not get up and go to the gym this morning.  I woke up about 4:20 with gastrointestinal distress (my code phrase for bad bathroom happenings) and thought it would probably be best for me, the car and the people at the gym if I just stayed home.

My plan was to then ride our exercise bike (yes, we have our own clothes hanger recumbent bike.  Maybe I should've mentioned that before.  Oh well.) when Roy Underkill got up (he gets up about an hour before I do).  Of course, today is the one day that he oversleeps.  So no exercise for me.  Oops.

day ten or somesuch

So Moby showed me how to use a few of the machines.  One of them was this terrifying Roman chair thing, where basically all your weight is supported by your forearms/upper body,and you're supposed to bring your legs up to a 90 degree angle, so it looks like you're sitting. 

"Do them until you reach your fail point," he said. "Two, or maybe three."

The first time, I did five.  The second time, I did six.  Hells to the yeah, baby.

I did a few other machines as well - core machines.  GOTTA GET THAT STRONG CORE MAN.  Then I did 2 miles in 13:02 on level 6 on Ye Olde Friend Elliptical, then about half an hour on one of the exercise bikes while I watched the end of For The Love of Ray J and then I Wanna Work for Diddy.

I would make some comment about how all the chicks on these shows have goofy names like "Exotica" and "Aloha" or whatever, but I'm "Queen Kicktoria", so, hi, pot, I'm kettle.

Tomorrow, Thursday, is where I have to put my money where my mouth is.  It's the day where, in theory, I get up way early and go in.  We're supposed to get a lot of snow tonight and it's gonna be frickin' cold cold cold cold.

We'll see what happens.

day...nine? I have no idea

So I ended up not doing anything exercise-y yesterday because I got distracted by my computer.  There were episodes of Metalocalypse to watch (WHAT DO YOU MEANS WE CAN'TS DO SECRET SANTAS?!?!?!?) and then I discovered the horror/joy/horror that is Jersey Shore.

Anyway.  Moby called yesterday, left a message, wondered how things were going.  I called him back and told him.  Going out there tonight (I figure if I keep on the derby practice schedule of Tuesday/Thursday, that will keep me responsible and then do a little bit on Saturday, and then go to derby practice on Sunday).

Oh, one thing I never mentioned.  The majority of my problem, besides my inherent laziness, is the fact that I have tendonitis in the top of my hamstring of my left leg.  If I overuse it, it really starts to hurt.

When you travel counterclockwise on a derby track, guess which leg gets overused?

Sigh.

I need to find an opposite direction derby league.  I would fuckin' RULE.

weekend recap

so Friday evening I went to one of the other branches of the athletic club.  There are five of them in the area, three of which are women only, which seems a bit unfair, but (insert long diatribe about second-class citizen status and invisible backpacks of privilege and whatnot) whatev.  This one has a pool, but it's not like a lane-swimming pool; it's like the one at my grandmother's retirement village - four feet deep and good for standing around and exercising in.

Anyway, I did five miles in about 38 minutes on my old friend the ellipitical.  Why can't I run like that in real life?  Back when I was doing the Couch to 5K program, I gasped and thudded and good-Lord-what-the-hell-am-I-doing my way through a 5K in a hair under 40 minutes.  THANK YOU CRAPPY KNEES.  AND BODY WEIGHT.

So the next day, Saturday, I met Kyle.  He seemed a harmless enough sort.  I got poked and calipered and measured and surrounded by tape measure and all that. Wheeeeeeee.

Saturday night I got rip-roaringly, pukingly drunk.  Jagermeister is an evil, evil beverage.

Yesterday I spent recovering from the aftermath of Saturday.  Though we had pizza for dinner and I only had two slices. Yay for small victories.

So that's where we stand.  I will probably use the Wii Fit Plus today (yeah, I surround myself with SHINY OBJECTS THAT BOOP AND BEEP).  One of the derby league coaches is coming by tonight to buy a pair of skates that I have, so I gotta stick around the house.

day four

so my problem (well, one of them anyway) is that in the hour or so between when I get home from work and Maverick gets home from school, I turn into a human Miele.  Which is not good.  I try to go overboard on healthier stuff, but eight slices of bread (I exaggerate only slightly) is not as good as, well, no slices of bread. 

Anyway.

Tomorrow is my first meeting with the personal trainer.  I wonder what he will be like.

day 3

okay so if you know me this next sentence will make you laugh and laugh and wonder who hacked this account.

I went to the health club at 5:30 am this morning.

It's really the only time I could go. I went on Tuesday, I have my personal trainer appointment on Saturday.  Roy Underkill (my husband's derby name) has a Thursday night bowling league and I didn't think Maverick (my son's derby name) would appreciate being dragged to the child care (because how can he play Madden '04 or watch Phineas and Ferb if he's in child care?).   I work part-time, but there's only an hour and a half between when I get out of work and Maverick gets off the bus, which isn't enough time to work out.

Sooooo, that leaves Thursday AM. 

It went fine, today, at least.  It was novel, much like how I got up at 5:00 last Friday for Black Friday was novel.  (I can easily see myself going "fuck that noise" when there's 3' of snow outside that needs to be shoveled.)  There was no traffic out in the pitchy blackness, there were a fair number of people at the club.  I did 15 minutes on the elliptical (OMFG I LOVE ELLIPTICAL MACHINES.  Back when I actually tried jogging I was lucky if I could do a twelve-minute mile.  According to the machine, I was pounding out 7:30 miles with no problem), then used the ab machine crunchy thinger, then 15 more minutes on the elliptical, then some planks and supermans.  Not as many as last time, though.

And I was home by 6:50am, ten minutes before I would normally wake up. 

well

mistakes were made.  that's all you need to know.

it's not sewage. trust me.

Arnold Palmer powdered mix. This is bottle #3 for the day.

Lunch part two

had the second quesadilla just now.  I AM STILL TOTALLY COLD.

It tastes better than it looks, I guess

I am so cold I am eating now to warm up

This is my breakfast. YAY POTASSIUM

beverages ARE OUR FRIENDS

So when I went to the health club yesterday I had to buy a bottle of water because I think I left my Snazz-O-Tron 3000 Sigg bottle at practice on Sunday.  And Al Gore is crying.  Anyway, I wanted to bring it with me to work today because I've got those powdered drink sticks (Arnold Palmer FTW) in my desk.  Of course, I run around the house looking for it and it has vanished.  Sooooooo, I have to go buy another water bottle and Al Gore cries some more.  As I walk back to the car, I look in and see - you guessed it - the original water bottle, in the cup holder that is sort of behind the center dash console thinger.  Sigh.

Day One Ramblings

I have been practicing/playing roller derby since July 2008. In that time, my weight has not changed that much (I'm usually between 170 and 175) but I have dropped two dress sizes. Yay me. I haven't changed my eating habits either; bread and cheese and Goldfish crackers and Dunkin' Donuts coffee are my four food groups.

So this here blog will be my adventure into exercise and healthy eating and all that happiness. It will be rambly, it will be weird. But here we go.

I joined a health club because I am an idiot. But that's not the point. I went in today for my first session. The guy who signed me up yesterday, whom I will call Moby because that's who he looks like, was busy signing up more idiots members, so I was directed to the manager, whose name I think was Eric but I'm not sure.

When Eric asked if I currently exercised, and I told him I played roller derby, he got the typical "holy crap" look on his face which I absolutely adore.

At any rate, he directed me to an elliptical machine, said "ok, do this for half an hour, at 60% intensity.  If you can't do half an hour on this, finish up on one of the bikes."

So I did the full half hour on the elliptical.  Each exercise bike has its own little TV in front of it and it looks like they have cable.  Something to keep in mind - if they ever do another episode of Broke and Famous on VH1, I can plan my exercise routine around it.  Or Hoarders.

So the half hour's up and Moby and Eric meet up with me and seem pleased that I did the full time on the elliptical.  Jokes are made about roller derby.  Moby shows me how to work one of the ab machines, which I do, and makes me do planks, which I hate, but do.  (And Supermans, which I also hate, but do.)

So yeah, that was my first day at teh gymzar.  I have a personal trainer appointment on Saturday with Kyle.  I wonder how that will go.

Food wise, what have I eaten today BECAUSE I KNOW YOU ALL CARE SO FRICKIN' MUCH.

Breakfast - banana.  Didn't feel like coffee, which is a bit bizarre. Hm.

Lunch - two Weight Watchers chicken and cheese quesadillas.

Snack - handful of pretzels, oatmeal cookie, two big slices of bread. (carb freak hullo)

Dinner - Wendy's grilled chicken sandwich with no tomato, maybe 10 of my kid's fries. 

Snack - half a cup of cottage cheese.

Drinkage has been water and Diet Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash.  I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW SODA IS EVIL. (and yes, I live in Western New York and I say "soda" and not "pop". Whatevs.)  I really don't drink that much, I was just kinda jonesin' for it.  Again, whatevs.

(Note: I normally do not talk like a thirteen year old.)

And thus it begins.

So. I'm Queen Kicktoria and I play roller derby. Our league just finished its first season. I like to think of myself as one of the better members of our "B" team, but I could just be fooling myself.

Anyway, the fact that I even play roller derby is a major thing. I am not what you would call a fitness fan. Besides bowling, a little bit of orienteering in high school and the Couch to 5K thing back at the start of 2008, I have successfully avoided any sort of sport for my entire life. So for me to go three times a week to practice for two and a half hours and get all sweaty and stretchy and sore and stuff? It's a big deal.

Anyway. (I say that a lot. Get used to it.) This season went well, but next season must go better. I must become a lean, mean, derby machine. People must, well, fear the Queen.