Chin Up

Holy shit, y'all! I just did a chin up. First time ever! well, the video is the third time. I just decided to try it and did it and was like, did that just happen? So I waited a few minutes and tried it again. OMG, I totally did it again! Now I need it on video. I can do a chin up! AND I'm PMS'ing this week. I'm so stoked! Then I did a fourth and tried to pull my chin even further once I got up, to totally get into lock off. Now it's time to start incorporating chin ups into my training. Woot!

October

Goals check-in for October
Here were my goals:

• stretch & strengthen bendy video once/week on Sundays
• hoop 3x/week for 10-20mins followed by pullup bar work (Sun/Wed/Fri)
• finish high hoop practice goals 
• no drinking except: Oct 14, Oct 28, Oct 30 (bookclub)
• finish scrapbooking projects
• lyra: twice this month, back to back mon/tue sessions 
• no weighing until Oct 27 (last Friday of the month) 

I spent all sorts of time last month, creating a table and giving myself grades. I have zero energy to do that every month. But seeing the goals listed again is helpful. I know where I came up short, where I succeeded, and what I need to focus on next month.

Goals for November...the theme for this month is mental health

• bendy video 2x/week...I've been doing well to get this banged out on Sundays. It's time to add a second day/week. Hubs is even keen to do it with me. This video is HARD! But I love the loosey goosey way I feel after I've finished.
• lyra on Saturdays plus 2 private lessons...anything else is just bonus
• silks on mon/thu except on private lesson days, unless I just FEEL like it
• run intervals 4x/week...no more easy walks, just a run. Again, if I FEEL like doing an entire 45min (run plus walk), then super. But at a minimum, run.
• diet break. no weighing. no bothering with progress photos or measurements. just eat more, keep adding protein to coffee, and focus on mental health
• vitamin D...turns out, I might have a deficiency. My bloodwork came back below normal. I have zero interest in taking a supplement. I've recently started taking a multivitamin, that should help. I'm also aiming to go outside for a few mins/day.
• hooping. I still haven't figured out why my desire to hoop has waned.
• crafty goals. I'm just gonna keep this here as a reminder. 

Heavy Lifting TB

Throwback to 2012, I took up heavy lifting. For pretty much the entire year. I quit when I started roller derby that November. There just wasn't time to get in three lifting sessions per week plus derby practice, which required a shitton more cardio endurance than strength. I found a folder my husband must have created for me, just called videos. It's basically all my lifting videos, for checking out form.

Here's me squatting 120lbs.
Damn, this makes me want to get back into heavy lifting again. So badass! But WHEN? When would I have time, for crying out loud...

OHP...this looks like 65lbs (I think those are 10lb plates on each side)

Deadlifting with the big girl plates, 135lbs

Bench pressing 83lbs

Mood & Energy

The thing about me is, I can get knocked down by extreme disappointment and depression...but after the fog clears a bit, I can sit down and tweak my plan to give me renewed hope.

Yes, my weight is a CONSTANT source of frustration. My lack of strength and flexibility, too. I'm lazy, tired, sad...all the time. You name it. But here's what I can do about it.

• Running intervals. I KNOW these do wonders for my depression. So why did I quit doing them? I thought maybe walking on the treadmill for 45mins, 4x/week, would be enough. Obvs not. Instead, I'll run my five intervals, then finish walking, during that same 45min time period, 4x/week.
• Increase protein. I don't really like protein shakes, per se. But today, I mixed protein powder into my coffee. It's delicious! I needed a whisk to really get it dissolved, but that worked like a charm. Yay, more protein!
• Silks. Gonna give this 8-class pass a proper go. My plan is silks class on Mondays. Lyra on Tuesdays and Saturdays. On Thursdays, I'll either have my private lyra lesson or silks class. That means FOUR aerial practice days/week. 
• Sleep. I need to get more sleep. I plan to start going to bed a bit earlier and not watch TV in bed. Instead, read. I want to read more anyway. 

I'm hoping with this tweaked plan, what it will ultimately improve is my mood and energy. Without those, nothing else works. 

September Grades

September is over. How'd I do on my goals?

13 lyra sessions. Mon/Thu/Sat	I missed one, sort of. Got 12.5 sessions. That Monday where only the low hoop was available, left after 20mins. Went the next day, Tuesday, but skipped Thursday. I did about 20mins of hooping, instead. I'm glad I adjusted and did SOMEthing. Was back at it by Saturday. I'd give myself an A for this goal.
Dial in diet. Weigh myself at the end of Sep. Measurements, too.	My diet was ON POINT, except for the couple of days after vacation at the beginning of the month. I've gained since last time I weighed myself, and after a month of diligent dieting and no booze, I'm still up a couple pounds. Enough to put me back in the obese BMI category. Fuck BMI. Measurements have not changed. I took progress photos but haven't looked at them yet. A-
No drinking the adult beverages.	I had wine on Saturday, Sep 30, but otherwise, September has been dry A+
Walking. I need to up my NEAT. 4x/week.	There were 17 planned walks, I missed 5, in the beginning of the month when my a/c was broken. I'd say this is quickly becoming a habit of mine. solid B+
Hooping. 2x/week. Sun/Wed	There were 8 total. I missed 4. However, I hooped 2 other days this month besides Sun & Wed. This obvs needs work. I'll revise this goal for October. D
Social Media break.	Yep, did well on this. Amazed how much I don't miss it. If someone forgets to reply to my message, then I'll just move on.

Okie dokie, let's plan some goals for October, shall we?

• stretch & strengthen bendy video once/week on Sundays
• hoop 3x/week for 10-20mins followed by pullup bar work (Sun/Wed/Fri)
• finish high hoop practice goals 
• no drinking except: Oct 14, Oct 28, Oct 30 (bookclub)
• finish scrapbooking projects
• lyra: twice this month, back to back mon/tue sessions 
• no weighing until Oct 27 (last Friday of the month)

Goals

They say not to put deadlines on goals. But I'm gonna anyway. I had set a goal for myself early last year. That by the time I turned 40, I would reach goal. I wanted to look and feel the best ever.

I didn't reach my goal. I haven't lost anything in a year. And it's frustrating as hell.

I'm 40 now. I'm going to set some long-term goals. My goal is to accomplish these by Feb 2018. Why Feb? It'll be my lyra-versary.

• Goal weight. 169.
• Promote to lyra intermediate.
• Hoop every damn day!

I also have quite a few bucket list goals. But I get overwhelmed and then don't work on any of it. So my plan is to prioritize and focus. Once one goal is checked off, I can work on the next. Some of these I can do a little bit each day, like 1-4. Or that's my goal...

1. Toes to bar. I can practice this at home with my pullup bar.
2. Pullup. Just one. I'll need to hold that shoulder lock off position for a few beats. 
3. Splits. Or at least, drastically increase flexibility. 
4. Shoot the duck. I'll need to first train narrow-stance ass-to-grass squats. Then pistol squats.
5. Lifting routine 2-3x/week, whether with dumbbells or a power cage; at my age, I need to strength train. But it's not currently my focus.
6. Squat bodyweight/bench 100lbs...this will need to wait until I have a proper power cage.

A friend of mine sets monthly goals for herself. I think this is a great idea. I feel inspired. Here are mine for September...

• 13 lyra sessions. Mon/Thu/Sat 
• Dial in diet. Weigh myself at the end of Sep. Measurements, too.
• No drinking the adult beverages. Stay focused on what I want most vs what I want now!
• Walking. I need to up my NEAT. 4x/week. 
• Hooping. 2x/week. Sun/Wed
• Social Media break. I need to clear my head and heart of things that might upset me.

I'll check in at the end of September, see how I did.

One final note. I keep daydreaming about performing. I know deep down this will never happen. I'd be too nervous. So this needs to stop popping up in my brain each time I set goals. I need to go ahead and remove it from my bucket list...

What Derby Gave Me

There's been some ugly in my derby, particularly this year. This has helped...

I thought it would be helpful to focus on what derby brought to my life, rather than get mired down in regretting that I'd ever put on quad skates.

• Got me in shape. Seriously. When I first started years ago, my endurance was shit. Someone recommended C25k. I kept getting stuck around week 4/5, so I just decided to run intervals. And running intervals does wonders for my depression. Plus, now my endurance is decent. I know I'm not going to die.
• Confidence to wear quirky outfits. It opened up a world of cute leggings, tights, booty shorts, colors, and the confidence to rock them. Wear whatever the fuck you want!
• Hooping. I'm not sure I would have found it (again). As a teenager, I had a cheap hoop, and would have my mom time me to see how long I could waist hoop. I could go for ages. But it never occurred to me to do anything more with it. When I was skating with that rec league in 2015, I was researching ways to improve my core. And hooping came up.
• Thus Lyra. If I hadn't found hooping, would I have found Lyra? I'm not sure. Certainly not when I needed it the most. Lyra is fixing what derby broke.

Sprain

Merry Christmas! What did Santa bring me? A sprained ankle. On Saturday, I went with friends to a river trail, and I must've been talking, not paying attention, got too close to the edge of the paved trail, which is quite a step down into a steep hill of bush. I rolled my ankle out and fell on my bum. Online self-diagnosis, it's just a grade 1 sprain. It was goose-egg swollen for about a day, now it's just generally puffy in my ankle area. But tight, which makes walking difficult without a limp. I've been icing and taking ibuprofen and wrapping it and trying to elevate as much as I can. And staying off it. I'm pretty miserable. No skating, no hooping (the weather was gorgeous yesterday, and it went to waste), and not even my incline walks on the treadmill to burn some calories. Until it heals. I guess this week, I'll need to watch what I eat a bit closer than planned. Boo.

Active Hobbies

No new hooping videos to share. But I have been hooping. I've been out there, dancing, not worrying about, am I any good, is this video worthy. It's been gorgeous weather this week, couldn't let it go to waste. Twins are coming along. Flow is coming along. Most importantly, my dance is coming along. It's not just about the tricks. It's about the movement. Just checking in here today to say how grateful I am to have found hooping. And derby. They couldn't be more different, training for one doesn't help the other at all. But it's fun, hella fun for me. Finally. Active hobbies I enjoy doing.

If you've ever been tempted to try hooping, do it. Get yourself a hoop. Check out Deanne Love's online tutorials. And go for it!

Thanks

10 lbs down since mid-March. All thanks to hooping! I look forward to seeing my skills progress, more twin hooping, more dimensional dance flow. I'm so glad I found hooping. It's the best thing to happen to me since I met my husband. It's the perfect amount of challenge, physical exertion, creative performance that I could ask for. As a kid, I loved rhythmic gymnastics, with the hoop and ribbon, but I wasn't very flexible. I tried belly dancing a few summers ago, that was fun. I did colorguard in college and loved it. Hoop dance has the best elements of all that. It's my favorite!

Still going to roller derby because I love my retired league. But my passion is hoop dance.

More

It's official. I was 199.0 this morning. ONEderland! What I'm doing is working. My life is about more, not less. More hooping. More skating. More fun. More vegetables. More deliciousness. More loving myself, inside and out. More healing. More forgiveness.

I'm almost 40, got just over a year to go. I'm not looking forward to 40. Hell, I didn't do well with 30. But here's to feeling my best and looking my best as I change decades.

stupid scale

Went to derby last night. Was the only rec skater, as expected. Burned a shitton of calories. Got on the scale this morning.

The stupid scale and its stupid numbers. I don't understand how I can be up 1.5 lbs when my tracking says I should be down that amount. I weigh and measure everything I eat, write it all down. I eat 3 servings of non-starchy veg about 5 days a week. I workout 5 days a week. I've even increased my steps to 10k/day this week, to improve NEAT. I just do not understand how I could not be losing weight. All these weeks of doing just this. Eating at a 500cal/day deficit. Carbs average 100g/day, so some days are higher, some days are lower. Protein averages 100g/day. I've been tested for insulin resistance and low thyroid. All apparently normal. I'm beside myself and don't know what more I can do.

It just drains all energy and motivation. I have no desire to hoop. Good thing derby doesn't come back around until next Tuesday. I'm sick of working so hard and doing everything right. My BMI says I'm obese. I know BMI can be an unreliable indicator of health but not at the obese levels. And I'm obese. Feels like I'll always be obese. I've always been obese.

I hate it.

Calorie Burns

Derby last night was a TOUGH one. We had a guest trainer, yay! Worked our asses off. Obstacle courses, weaving, lateral movements, hip checking, booty blocking. I was so burnt out, I pretty much couldn't hang with the last drill. They were going to do a race. I said I would sit out. They did backward skating instead and told me to join when I could. I felt bad about that. I always feel bad when I hold people back due to my lack of endurance. At the end, the trainer high fived me and said I really hung in there. And then she mentioned the last time she was a guest trainer in the spring, how much I struggled. It wasn't fun being reminded of that, but I guess any improvement noticed is a good thing.

Burned nearly 1100 calories. Boom.

Today, the rain just won't quit. So no proper hoop flow. My ceilings are not tall enough. Instead, I worked on hip hooping and booty bumping inside. Also trying to get better at simple waist hooping with my feet close together, throwing in some 360 turns without stumbling. I knew I was really working hard by how winded I was the whole time. Ended up burning 409 calories in 36 minutes. Damn!