Friday, January 30, 2015

Me Vs. Barbell

Just an update:

This week...

I gave myself a forehead goose egg doing snatches.

I hit myself in my hoo-ha doing cleans on blocks. May have nerve damage.

Last night I nailed myself in the throat doing the CFC complex and can barely swallow today.

I don't know what I did to offend the barbell, but I deeply apologize. Stop beating me up.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

I ate ALL the macros.....blech



I've gotten into a bit of a donut habit (Sammons' Bakery y'all), but it's ok because I make it fit my macros. It's not that hard really. I just cut the PB out of my oatmeal and trim out some fat and carbs in other places. It makes me happy to eat a yummy donut when I finish lifting.

But then I lost control and did the cardinal sin of healthy eating; I slipped up and then said "Well, I blew it. Might as well go for the gusto!"

And Tuesday I paid for it by being physically ill.

Let me tell you how this started. On Sunday we went out to eat with some friends and I saved up macros to splurge on the Whipped Cream Oreo stuff at the Chinese restaurant. NOMNOM. But, because it was sooo good and I "deserved" it, I ate two helpings. No big deal, right?

Then on Monday morning I got a nice little chocolate donut to eat post lifting and it was great. I didn't eat much else because the Paleo Gainz lady was coming to the box that afternoon and I wanted to have lots of macros left to sample all her delicious goodness. And boy was it good! And everything was fine until she packed up to leave and left a multitude of sweet treats. And even though it's Paleo, it was still dangerous. Imagine eating 10 LaraBars in one sitting. That's basically what I did.

At home that night, even though I was full and felt gross, I went into full "WTH" mode and ate not one, but TWO biscotti!

And then I wake up Tuesday morning feeling hungover and crappy and with a resolve to get this crap back under control. The Arnold is 36 days away and I cannot be doing this binge thing. And that lasts until I get to the box and Paleo Crack is staring at me. So I eat some. Then some more. Then I eat Paleo Pancakes (yes, plural and more than 2). And then I decide that I simply cannot do my workout until I have a donut. So I get in the car and drive to Sammons' and get TWO. One pre and one post WOD, you know, to cover my bases. And one was just a simple chocolate donut. But the other.....oh the other.... a lovely, fat cream filled chocolate donut that weighed about 6 pounds by itself.

So I start doing my warm up and feel a lot of yucky. Imagine how you feel when you try to workout the day after the stomach flu. Everything was slow motion and it was heavy. I failed on my last set of bench presses and thank my lucky stars I didn't clamp the weights because I had to dump them off me. Even though I feel like poo, I tell myself this is all my own fault and that I have to PUSH THROUGH. I do part two of my 6 part workout and then call it for the time being and eat my second donut. Of course, I already feel like a greasy, sugar bloated dead fish, but by God, I want that donut. And then I proceed to pass out and nap for 2 hours.

I wake up like a junky needing a fix about 20 minutes before I have to coach.Everything is blurry. My head is pounding. My mouth tastes like morning breath laced with Crisco icing.  I text my child telling her that I will pay her back double if she will bring me a chocolate bar. Luckily, she was busy and said no. This is when I realize, I have hit bottom.

I have often told our athletes that just because your car has a flat tire, you don't take a knife and slash all of the tires. Just because you slip up on your diet once doesn't mean you just blow it up and that is exactly what I had done. I finally got my head back on straight and drank a bunch of Progenex More Muscle before I went to bed because I'm pretty sure all that was in my body was sugar and fat. 

I wish I could insert a little asterisk that says some details are made up, but they aren't. I really went pyscho! And I really felt physically ill. This morning I ate my normal oatmeal and then had meal two with chicken and veggies. AND I FEEL GREAT! The fog is gone and I can see clearly! What's scary to me is that I know better. I know how my body reacts to sugar and fat. I've done this thing before. But what about people that eat like this everyday and don't realize that the sluggish gross feeling doesn't have to be there? What about those of you reading this that do this and feel bad thinking you are the only one? Nope. We all have our weaknesses and slip ups.

Here's the trick. You have to pull yourself out of the slump. For me, it's easy because I have a reason. A goal. If you don't have a hard concrete reason to get off the binge bus  it can be really easy to stay in the Eff- It-Who-Cares Camp.  So right now decide why it's important to you to eat healthy. What is your reason? And it better not be "to look better" because that reason won't work my friends when you are staring at a pack of Reese's Cups. And the reason that it won't work is that those damn Reese's Cups will look way better than any of us ever will! :)


Thursday, January 22, 2015

My first weightlifting meet....

This year I'm dedicating myself and my focus to weightlifting. So far, so good! I'm also focusing on growing myself as a coach and am enrolling in some amazing coaching courses! As the year progresses, I'll write about how things are going and what I'm doing to conquer the beasts!

One of my 2015 goals is to qualify for the Pan Am Masters and I've got a few different things planned to get there. My first meet was last weekend and I'M IN LOVE!

I am competing this year in the 53kg weight class so my first success this year was making weight at the meet. I've been "dieting" since September. Eating lots of food, but just slightly under maintenance level so the weight loss was slow and (mostly) easy. When I stepped on the scale that morning and saw 52.4, I did a little happy dance, SUCCESS!

I say "mostly" easy above, because there was one week, about two weeks out from the meet where I was tired, hungry, upset, crying and just feeling like a loser. The training mesocycle I was in was coming to an end and it had been hard on me and my body. I had also backed down my calories a bit to make sure I made weight AND my female hormones were not helping the situation any. Poor Jeremy. I literally cried every day I touched a barbell. He had to pat my head, hug me and tell me it would all be worth it. And it was! When I made weight it felt like a Super Bowl touchdown.

After the weigh in I slammed a Monster, a coffee, my pre-workout concoction and a donut. HAHA FTW I made weight! Apparently that gave me a little too much energy because Jeremy kept telling me to, "sit down!" and "stop wasting energy!". Like that drunk person who thinks they are stone cold sober, I thought I was as calm and as relaxed as a cheetah with a full belly lounging in a tree. Guess not.

The place the meet was held was tiny, so I had to keep my claustrophobia in check as I warmed up. And I had to get used to hearing that I was in the hole, and then bumped back, and then on deck, then bumped back. Thankfully, I didn't really have to listen. Jeremy did that job for me!

When I first stepped on the platform it was so cool. I mean, it was odd because 40 plus people are sitting 8 feet in front of you staring at nothing but you, but it was still cool! I hit my first snatch at 45kg and had my second SUCCESS of the day! My goal at this meet was to a) total and b) go 6/6. Hitting the snatch made me one step closer to both.

Weirdly enough, the second lift was when I got nervous. Who knows why, but I became way more anxious about hitting 50. I've hit it many times in training, but the people watching me that were SO COOL earlier now became a little embarrassing. They.are.staring.at.me. They.are.analyzing.my.every.move. I'm that weird girl that split snatches..... But I made the lift even with all those thoughts and did my little happy dance.

My third lift was 53 (my PR is 54.5), but I'd hit it enough it should have been fine. But the voices in my head got to analyzing everything. What do they think of my pre lift routine? Do I look stupid when I do this? And then the kiss of death..."THIS IS AN OVER BODYWEIGHT SNATCH". Lol, I'd hit it before weighing about 55 so that thought was really irrelevant, but that thought is what made me miss my last snatch. However, if we were using CrossFit rules I made that lift, but in weightlifting that cute press out just doesn't cut it. Oh well! On to the C&J!

I'll spare you the details on the C&J because they went great 3/3 hitting 64/68/70 complete with a full out, legit happy dance at the end because I had totaled! The over-analytic thoughts were still in my head during the c&j, but all the Monsters and donuts (yes, plural) had turned their volume down enough that I didn't hear them so loudly.

I didn't go 6/6, but I am totally ok with that. I didn't PR any lifts, but we hadn't planned for me to. We wanted my first meet to be relatively stress free and fun and it was. The fact that I won my weight class was pretty cool as well as being overall female Sinclair lifter and overall female master's Sinclair lifter. :)

Things I learned at my first meet:

Find the clock. Yes, I'm the idiot who kept hearing "one minute" but having no freaking clue where the clock was. I found out later that it was on that huge 55 inch tv screen to my right and I'm blind. Ok, 55 inch might be an exaggeration, but how I missed it is beyond me.

Put on a show for  the audience. They are there to watch the show. They think it's cool that you have the guts to get up their and lift. They think it's awesome (albeit weird) that you split snatch. They want you to succeed!

Pack REAL FOOD: Yes, I lived on Monsters, donuts, one Kill Cliff Bar and a banana that day. But a bit of tuna and maybe some cold pasta would have been a nice addition.

At this writing, I am 42 days from lifting at the Arnold and am really excited about the training these next few weeks will bring.

PS: I would love some sponsors! Anybody want to put their name on a 53kg Master's Lifter?
PSS: I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you want to purchase something from Amazon, like this adorable Gremlin Gizmo, Amazon gives me a little thank you gift of a few pennies for referring you. But you don't have to purchase the Gizmo, anything you purchase through my link works. Weighlifting is expensive, every penny helps! :) :)