No Foolin'

I'm afraid that I don't have anything to fool you with today. But it's been a while since I checked in and wanted to do at least a quick update.

I'm still playing around in the 295-297 zone, so frustrating. BUT, reviewing my data on Happy Scale, I realized that if I only weighed once a week, this rut would only be three weigh-ins long, which is not that big a deal, you know? I'm calming down a little bit about it now.

My partner and I were talking earlier about it, because he's kind of been playing with numbers about 10 pounds over me for a while – and wants to break out of there. So, this week we both set goals to lose 5 pounds each. This would take me down to 292. I know I can do it! I have the knowledge and skills! I have the determination! The impetus for this is a short overnight trip we're taking next Sunday to Cleveland, which is about 3 and a half hours away – I guess that sounds kind of silly, but it's a good enough reason as anything. We're going because a friend of mine from college is having a screening of his first feature film at the Cleveland Film Festival and I really want to see it on the big screen. It's a just-in-case it doesn't have wide enough distribution to come to our area. Plus, I haven't seem him in a good 20 years, and he'll be in attendance. (The movie is The Transfiguration, if you're curious – a vampire movie!) So anyway, it'll be nice to show up in Cleveland feeling good about myself all around. We rarely have overnight trips in hotels anymore, so it will be extra fun.

This past week was a busy one, exercise-wise. I did something every day except Monday, and all early mornings, too. (Groan – NOT a morning person at all!) Tuesday I did my PT cardio homework, which was a walk/run at W 4 min/R 1 min x 6. It went well and had no trouble with my leg, knee, or anything. Wednesday and Thursday I had early morning gym appointments to accommodate my trainer's new schedule, and Friday I had my last PT appointment! Yay! My therapist said that he was very pleased with my progress (me too!), and wrote out a 2-week walk/run schedule to follow. Then, he said to send him an email at the end of that to let him know how it went, and we'd go from there. So I'm pretty excited about that! Today I had my usual 11am gym appointment, and tomorrow will be more walk/run, with 2 minute periods of running instead of just 1... and some tennis!

I just want to expand a little bit about my experience at the gym this morning – it was fantastic. I had actually really wanted to skip for no good reason, but I got myself up and out. I was kind of hoping to do some deadlifting today, but instead Rick had me doing a bunch of stuff that would help support my deadlifts. I'm always game for whatever he has in mind for me to do, so that was fine. We did a bunch of dumbbell moves, and some callanetics and core work and things like this leg lifts variations set I often do, topped off with one of my new favorites, the supported row. I found an image of what the machine is like that I use for that exercise, see:

Image source

This guy (the machine, not the actual dude!) was the one who made me cry. Let me explain!

Rick had me do a number of sets, and it was the last thing on my workout before cool down on the treadmill for 10 minutes. Anyway, it's a cool exercise to do, and he starts me without any weight at all and adds more as I go along, varying the number of repeats throughout. You can image that after almost an hour, I was feeling pretty tired, and on top of that, I'm expecting my period pretty soon. The second I completed my last set, the gates flew open and the tears were unleashed.

Man, oh man. This is the second time I've cried after a good lift – the last time was when I achieved my 216 lb. deadlift. I'm finding this sport of weightlifting (or, as Rick came up that I like better, "power building") is quite emotional for me! I'm sure it's parts physiological, emotional, mental – there is so much concentrated effort that happens, and it's really intense! Then, the feeling of a big accomplishment, PR or not, well... all that coming together and you've got a big wonderful mess, as far as I am concerned. I kind of love it, too. Like, I really love it. I feel at home when I am lifting, and contrary to what you might think, the other folks at the lifting-focused gym I sometimes go to are super nice and supportive.

Food has been mostly OK, except for yesterday which was a big mess – the worst and most I've eaten in one day in at least a few weeks; today was so-so but not the worst. I am excited for the upcoming week and working on getting really serious along with my partner to get some stubborn pounds off.