Support and Accountability

“I am the only person responsible for my results”

This has become my new mantra. How easy it is for us to kid ourselves.. to think just one won’t hurt. Or to say I don’t care today I’m stressed so I am gonna comfort myself, one day won’t hurt. And then you find it spiraling into over indulgence and yet another week down the drain.

I have been spinning my wheels for 15 years. I have gone from not caring to caring to half hearted to down right ocd. And where has it got me? zilch.

I have read so many books, looked at so many diets, mangled my brain over the right mental attitudes and tricks. I have started afresh with new found determination over and over again.

Where am I? No further than when I started. Learned a lot yes, but it seems I always missed that crucial lesson. I keep looking for the answer, for the new trick, the new tip. And it’s sitting right under my nose all along.

Me..

I am the only one who can decide to make this work, I am the only one putting food in my mouth or choosing not to exercise.

Eat less, move more. Stop kidding myself that one won’t hurt. Plan my indulgences, don’t let them just happen.

That’s not to say no one can help, I finally hired a personal trainer to do just that. Someone who can beat me up when I misbehave (and I know she can as she goes to my Jiu-Jitsu school) . Beth is a prime example of what I want to look like, she has a fantastic figure, is strong and lean not just skinny. She can throw the weight around with the best of the guys and she can do unassisted pullups (one of my own personal goals). I have always highly respected her abilities in training sessions so I finally bit the bullet and asked for her help professionally instead of just oddball chats here and there.

I am starting once a week with her on Friday nights after work. I figure she can help me work out some of my weaknesses that don’t get addressed in the more generic group classes, like my inability to do a real pushup or hold my feet straight out at 2 feet off the ground let alone 6″. I suspect there is going to be a lot of core and upper body work

I’m also looking forward to it as a way to measure progress. John’s circuit training classes are awesome but we rarely do the same thing twice so it’s hard to really measure progress on a weekly basis. ‘Getting fitter’ is a bit too vague for me I’d like to see my bench press weights steadily improving or number of squats in a minute etc improve.

I have been behaving myself for the last 3 days nutritionally, well mostly, I did have some crawfish cheese dip at lunch on Monday (along with my salad) but I adjusted my dinner to account for the additional calories and that was my only slip for the day. I have totally banned myself from any cream or sugar in my coffee. It’s the start of a slippery slope for me.

I’ll wait to see what Beth suggests before I make any other drastic changes. I’m not sure if she is going to go in depth to my nutrition or just give me some guidelines. She gave me an awesome price so I suspect it might be just straight training. If it is I will probably ask if I can upgrade to the ‘delux’ package

Jan 28th Workout

Circuit Training.

10 -15 mins of running by the time it got to my go.

1 min rounds of:

• Rowing
• Jumping Pullups
• Box Jumps (12″ box)
• Kettlebell Clean and Press (12kg bell)
• Kettlebell swings in harness (12kg)
• Bosu Ball Squats
• Man Makers (10lb db’s)
• Sandbag squats (50lbs)
• Airdyne

Much better than last week. Exhausting but not crippling.  The harness is new. Basically a length of elasticated rope attached to the wall at one end and you in a harness at the other. Move out until you have the rope under some decent tension and then perform the swings. Fun, since when you get to the top of the swing your center of balance is such that you have to do some serious work so as not to get pulled backwards onto your butt by the rope Glad to say I would get dragged back a step or so but I did successfully avoid landing on my butt

Bosu ball squats are just evil, I managed a few but was very wobbly. Everything else was challanging but good

Jan 27th Workout

Adult class tonight – 90 minutes.

Jo-Ellen was there which was cool, we are about the same level so work well together. We did a repeat of the choke and guard escapes that we did on Monday which was also cool as it helps reinforce it  

Rolled twice afterwards 10 minutes total. Tapped Jo out with an armlock first time round woot

Jan 26th Workout

Ladies Class tonight, with Mitch. I was still sore from last wednesday (more on that in another post) but I managed to get through it. Classic warmup and stretching followed by burpee progressions. Did struggle with those.

Technique was 3 types of headlock escapes. and finally we rolled for 2 x 5 minute sessions. Exhausting but great fun.

Jan 21st Workout

Circuit training. 

wow, talk about brutal, John called it ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. No running to start this time, just straight into the workouts. 

Squats —— 80, 64, 48, 32, 24, 16

KB Swings – 40, 32, 24, 16, 12, 6

Pullups —- 20, 16, 12, 8, 6, 3

Basically first set was 80 squats, 40 kettlebell swings then 20 pullups. (my pullups were jumping pullups, I might have figured how to pull myself off the ground in a rope but it aint happening with the bar yet.)

I knew I was in trouble before I started but I did complete it, *cheer* was a fair bit slower than my partner and sadly this was her first workout back after a car wreck left her with a couple broken ribs and a seriously messed up leg/knee. Not sure if she broke it or not. 

Still she is a fitness trainer already, in amazing shape and has considerably less weight to squat so I’m not beating myself up but I was at least hoping to keep up with her. 

I didn’t think to time it this time but I am gonna use this as a benchmark workout. Repeat it every couple weeks/once a month maybe and see how I improve.

Jan 20th Workout

Adult class tonight, pretty good, did our usual warmup, including a whole bunch of burpees – bleugh, although I have to say I did a lot more this time than last week. I might have lost some fitness over the holidays but thankfully not all of it.

Technique went okay, was working out with Mike (purple belt) and we did some guard work and self defense. Rolled with him afterwards too. 

Not much else to say

3 day weekend’s ftw

No workout  Thursday night. School was having a seminar with Allen Hopkins. Normally I would have gone but having been gone so long I knew there was no chance of a stripe and I am still feeling a wee bit  sensitive about weight etc, there is very little working out in the seminar’s its all technique so while good learning not so much good calorie burn. 

Friday night is traditionally grocery shopping night so is one of my day’s off. I behaved at the store and didn’t buy anything I shouldn’t have. I did raid the vegetarian Amy’s brand sections for some nice veggie soups and enchiladas. Of course I view these as sides or base’s to add meat to cause I can’t see me giving up my meat any time soon. Don’t panic Pa, I’m never gonna go veggie

I wandered through Sams club on thursday night as well, amazingly managed to get out without spending a fortune. With all my recent reading I am now firmly convinced that being afraid of carbs is a no no. It’s all down to the calories. Funny how we tend to go in circles in nutrition. That said I am looking at the quality of my calories. Quinoa and steel cut oats instead of caramel coloured white bread (what americans call ‘wheat bread’) etc. Good healthy whole foods, not processed junk.

That said I picked up some parmesan encrusted tilapia which was pretty good and even Koby liked, I am always on the lookout for something I can easily bake while I’m in the shower and serve for dinner as opposed to making us different meals. I also found some cod with a cracker based coating. Oh and my sams club finally started carrying the chicken and asaigo sausages a few people have told me are heavenly. They had some cooked up in the store for you to try and wow, talk about yummy. So we have a variety of grub to keep us going for a while. 

Saturday didn’t quite work out for workouts. We ended up playing Rockband till 2am so a 9am workout class wasn’t happening. I planned to go to my ladies class at 11 instead but managed to sleep to late. Ho hum.. I did get to my guitar lesson though. 

That was awesome. I decided to go with the actual guitar instead of bass in the end. I love my bass but I can apply a lot of what I learn from the guitar to the bass while not so much vice versa. I also gravitated to the bass cause I found it a lot easier to play with the thicker wider spaced strings. Now I have a proper teacher to show me stuff I think I will find it easier. 

My teacher is awesome, he has way too much energy but it definitely helps inspire you First lessons are always a bit awkward but he showed me how to read tab which I already knew to some extent and showed me some chord changes and scales to work on. I am also learning Frera Jacka, woot! Thankfully we will be working up to the rock and metal He is gonna tab out Money by Pink Floyd for me which is pretty cool

My fingers are already sore and I barely played anything during the lesson, gonna start with 10 mins practice a night, hopefully that will let the callouses develop without shredding them completely.

Jan 14th Workout

Woot, circuit training tonight. Always one of my favourite classes . Started off running and as I am at the back of the line I am always the last to go through the circuit so I get to run the longest. Yay, I think lol. Wasn’t too many people so was 25 mins of running, 15 mins to go through the circuit.

1 min rounds, 30 sec rest.

• Rowing
• Front Squat (12kg kettlebell)
• Rope Climb
• 12″ Box Jump
• Guard Ups
• Thrusters (45lb barbell)
• Ball Slams (35lb medicine ball)
• Sandbag Squats (50lb sandbag – swing up and over head onto shoulders, squat, put sandbag back to floor)
• Man Makers (12lb db’s)
• Wall Burpees

The running did kinda suck, my ankles were cramping up badly I got some wraps for them tuesday night but of course forgot to bring them with me for when I needed them most. Hoping it is just something that will improve in time.

The rope climb was enlightening, I was sure I would fail miserably and while I didn’t exactly climb much I was able to actually pull myself off the ground. Pretty good start in my mind If I can figure out the footwork to grip the rope I think I might actually be able to do it. Everything else went well and I was suitably exhausted afterwards

Jan 13th Workout

Adult class tonight, 90 minutes. Not sure on time splits but a good solid warmup, running, matt drills, stretching and then floor work (ab work, burpees etc). Floor work sucked, I could feel every single extra pound I put on making stuff harder. That and just losing my conditioning. Oh well, ’tis motivation to stick to it and stay clean on the food which I have been. Time will tell.

We did guard pass work tonight, I rolled with Mitch and picked up some good stuff on where I was going wrong. He’s a great teacher. Just wish I didn’t feel so clumsy.

Jan 12 Workout

I definitely don’t recommend taking a month off. .. sigh. Going back did remind me how much frickin fun jiu-jitsu is

Ladies class tonight, 1 hour, 20 mins warmup – running, mat drills and stretching, no burpees. 30 mins technique on a few head lock escapes and counters and 10 mins rolling. I have forgotten almost everything… sigh.

I did decide to finally get the white to blue belt dvd set from Pedro Sauer as my christmas present to myself. It should really help me as I’ll be able to watch and rewatch it regulary without forgetting stuff in between. Hopefully Koby will let me practice on him, I’m not holding my breath on that though I’ve been putting it off as its $140. Mitch (teacher) said it was definitely worth it though.