Changes, All the Little Changes

Before I get to the actual post, today, I slept in. So my workout will be between work and girls night. It will be Push Circuit 2, so it's 35 minutes and weightlifting-focused, so I think I can do that, shower, and walk to the restaurant in time after work today. The front room rearranging has taken a toll on my bedtime.

Okay, on to the Changes.

I've been documenting the daily stuff on here, but sometimes, I like to make a retrospective.

Today, I realized that there are a lot of little changes that have been adding in to the big changes.
And some of them aren't so little. But all of these changes have been since the beginning of this year.

• I see a therapist every other week. We are evaluating different possibilities of the root of my high anxiety issues & panic attacks as well as my scatterbrained-ness and overall mental health. I want to be able to have a plan of attack that is appropriate to what my brain is doing rather than guessing and worrying about it. 
• I am following the ChaLEAN Extreme 90-day Challenge. I'm following the schedule, and while I may have missed a day or workout here and there, I have been very good about giving it my all every day. I'm glad that I chose a program with workouts close to 30 minutes each day rather than over an hour. It's manageable, and I can fit that in to my schedule. It's a small commitment, but I'm seeing the results. (Dude! I have BICEPS!!!!)
• I'm taking a daily multivitamin.
• I'm drinking Shakeology every day, which I didn't quite realize until yesterday how much it has been working for me. When you drink something that filling every single morning and then you have to fast until 11 am one day, let's just say that my sweet cravings were off the charts yesterday. I wanted to eat everything in sight! I have really been loving the chocolate flavor with a healthy dash of Cayenne Pepper added to it.
• I am attending Weight Watchers meetings and tracking my intake as well as my activity. We'll see how ActiveLink works for me once I get past the assessment phase. This has been a really good change. I've been dropping pounds since starting this. It has been the impetus to cooking at the house more, drinking less beer and alcohol, and focusing on fruit, vegetables, and protein sources to fuel my workouts.
• I'm cleaning things up. I'm making places for everything. I'm getting rid of clutter. I'm removing the excess (but I'm not getting rid of my jeans. My jeans will stay in my closet forever. I think I still have maternity jeans somewhere.)

So lots of little and big changes. They are all starting to add up. I can see muscle in my body. I feel better. I feel happier. I feel less like the world is going to crash in on me. I am getting stuff done. And I am moving forward. Little changes. They make for big leaps.

~Katie

Failure

Failure.

What does it mean to you?

In ChaLEAN Extreme, failure is the point at which you've worked your muscle so hard that you are unable to do another rep in form.
This causes your muscle to rebuild through the rest period and grow stronger.

I have been working most of my exercises to failure in 10-12 reps. I have been trying to make sure I try the next weight up for exercises that I did the week before.  If I was using 5 lbs, I'll use 10 lbs. If I was using 10 lbs, I'll use 15 lbs. Sometimes, I realize that I made a mistake and switch back so that I can actually complete more than 5 reps.  This is one of the issues I'm trying to work through. For some of the moves, I am stronger than 5 lbs, even going super slow and flexing the whole time, but I can't go past 5 reps with the 10 lbs. So what can I do to push past that? What can I work through to get up to the weight I know I can tackle? Perseverance.

This morning, I felt like a failure, despite what my body has been telling me, I felt like I had not achieved anything.

So taking a lesson from weightlifting, I'm taking it as a sign that I can get stronger. Still. I am still capable of continuing. I am still capable of succeeding.

I often feel like I've failed at tasks at work or with my business. But maybe I'm just working myself to breaking? I need to work a different "muscle group" and let the one I've failed at rest a tiny bit. Not ignore it and never address it again, just work on something else, focus on another aspect for a little bit. I have lots of balls in the air right now. I need to give them each their due attention for cycling amounts of time. Not work on one at the detriment of others, but work on one until I have worked it as much as I can for the day and then switch to the other.

I can do this. I will take a cue from this. Failure is not the end, it's just the beginning.

~Katie

Push ups!

One great thing about this program is that I'm getting results. It's tangible. So my weight has gone up a bit. That's fine. My muscles are building! I'm feeling less acutely sore every day.

While I'm increasing the weights I use, my biggest benchmark that I can see & feel changing every day and week is my ability to do push ups. When I started 2 weeks ago, I could barely bend my elbows and push back up. I could go about halfway down before my muscles gave out. On my knees.

I'm still doing push-ups on my knees, but I could do 8-10 of the push-up + leg lifts today. And then did 3 more slow push-up at the end! This is momentous! I may be able to start challenging myself to do some full ones with my feet rather than knees as the fulcrum this week!

Yesterday, I had a bad eating day. Brewed beer with friends & had pizza then had tons of Brie at the Super Bowl party. And ice cream.

This week, I'm challenging myself to work out in the mornings and cook dinner at night. And then planning on feeding my mind as well as body with my second therapy session on Thursday. I've had to go through a whole giant questionnaire & some of the questions are really difficult to answer with just yes or no. Things aren't perfect, but they never will be. However, I'm working on being happy and combatting the lows.

~Katie