Category Archives: Why am I doing this again?

My adventures into a “healthy” weight.
for why I am doing this read why I’m doing this, the post!

what to post when you haven’t been

Knitting, Miscellany, Ranting, Why am I doing this again?

So it’s almost two… yep two months since I last posted, and the longer I put it off, the harder it is to just sit down and write something. To write anything. Anything at all.

Part of the truth is I haven’t wanted to be any where near my computers. I haven’t been coding, I haven’t been designing or drawing, or painting… just knitting.
Remember the booties, the ambitious goal me and the fiancé had? Well I worked and worked on them, when I really wanted to be lace knitting, or working on my entrelac cowl or on the custom bike mittens someone asked for. But I spent november and december knitting booties. And that fine, but I like my knitting to engage me, and that why I do complicated projects. Unless I’m bored or tired or burnt out or all of those things and then I knit a rib stitch scarf or maybe even a bootie. Continue reading →

some ups & downs

Miscellany, Why am I doing this again?

I’ve haven’t been spending much time at my computer,
I’ve been either knitting furiously on the my couch till the wee hours of the morning or at the gym and lifting club.

And it was been a bag of mixed results from the gym.

Last week, a low point – had a work out that left me for the first time not only gasping for breath on the floor but crying. I felt so defeated from it I just lost it. Usually I’m to stubborn t o start to cry or give up. I may slow down, but not stop. Part of it may be a case of sports induced asthma, which I can’t rule out for sure until I have health care and can afford a doctor visit. Not being able to breath is a tough thing to just work through.

High point last week, I have been doing a training routine at the gym called Smolov Jr for about 4 weeks. That’s meant to increase your push press and back squat numbers. So last week we retested and I got 2 new PR’s! My push press increased 15 lb. to 125 and my back squat went up 20 lb. to 205. I didn’t fail any of my attempts either, so given more time I may be able to improve those yet. My fiancee hit his lifetime goal for his back squat too, 405 pounds!
We were both flying high that day. The next we were pretty sore.

Then high point again on last Sunday, at lifting club, I made my goal for my dead lift, I lifted 205.

And  yesterday major low point again, I woke up with a sore neck/shoulder on my left side. I went to the gym any way thinking I would work it out.
Nope.
I completed 6 push-ups and the pain doubled, I could barely move my neck, my arm started going numb. So I left early, by the time I’d gotten home it was worse. It hurts so much, I can barely knit.

I hate just lying around, I like to be doing something always, and injuries like this or when I’m really sick make me unable to do anything else. You just lay there suffering. Maybe watching some horrible TV show or something.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me to take it easy more, that I need to find peace in just sitting there.

Or maybe it’s a challenge from the universe to see if I’ll ever finish all our x-mas gifts.

 

i have a wide grip on this

Why am I doing this again?

Sunday’s are lifting club. I head to a friends garage where a small group of us lift heavy things with help from Mike the coach.  He has me on a 5lbs a week increase. So I’m only up to 135 on my dead lift as of yesterday. I did my five sets of five lifts and then at the end used one of the others girls weights, at 185. I just lifted it twice, but I had to know if I could. I think I will make my 200 lb goal.
I  have a wide grip too, I’m blaming my short torso. It might be my wide stance too.
Then it was bench presses, which he has me at 60 lbs, I was good until the end when I added 20 more. I could do it! Here my grip is not as wide as it should be.

I know I didn’t listen well, but I felt pretty good about it anyway. Lifting is a simple way to push my self with out leaving myself grasping for breath on the floor.
Then we did pull ups and no. No, I can’t do those at all. Can’t do push ups really either. I have to do them on my knees and I can only do around 25 before I just can’t get up anymore. We did the Chief last  Thursday. We had 3 minutes to do as many rounds of 3 power snatches (for which I also have a wide grip) , 6 push-ups, and 9 squats (this is 1 rep). I never thought I would regard squats as a resting period. Then we would get a 1 minute break and then go again. We had 5 rounds of this, I averaged 2.5 reps. The pushups where the worst part for me. The coach suggested I try them with a box under my hands, so you don’t go down as far, it really helped.  But I skipped my usual Saturday class because it had more push ups. I keep feeling bad about this, but then I think about push ups and have to admit I would skip it again.

why am I doing this, the post!

Miscellany, Why am I doing this again?

I should explain that I try very very hard not to be a judgey person, and I try to embrace what is beautiful in every body type.

But that being said I am over weight, and a lot of people would be in my position.
I spent five years as a full time student who spend most of her time sitting at a computer doing homework and when not doing that my preferred way to relax was again sitting on a couch with 2 needles and yarn. My sleep schedule was non-existent, I opened a coffee shop at 4:30 am half the week, while staying up to at least midnight to get work done after my child’s 8pm bed time. I considered it good night when I had 6 hours of sleep.
So five years of sitting a lot and not sleeping.So now with the support of a great partner I have started attending a crossfitt gym (or box, you call them boxes).

My goal is not to be skinny, but comfortable in my own skin again. I was a healthy size 10 who could lift around 200 lbs ( i worked in a warehouse) five years ago. By BMI standards I was still considered overweight then!  Crazy!

That  all being said, crossfit work outs can be crazy, just plain nuts. I don’t know what I was thinking. So I will complain about them for now and brag when I one day finish one of them at RX.  🙂

what does 300 hundred sit-ups feel like?

Miscellany, Why am I doing this again?

Well first off, so bad as you might think.

The work out was 300 sit-ups for time, but every minute the coach would yell and we all had to do 3 burpees .
Here is a Burpee Video link to some crazy cross-fitters from another box, sorry the music is loud.
Being the band new wuss to cross  fit  that I am, my burpees are slow and scaled,  and if I tried to do 3 every minute my 25 minute max work out would have been mostly burpees. So I scaled down to 2 and finished in 19 minutes and 48 sec!

After the workout my throat tasted of stomach acid and my legs where shaky.
The day after usually  sucks after a tough work out, but I really feel okay? Just a little sore in the mid section.
Weird right?

We’ll see how I am after lifting club today. My goal is to get over 200 for my dead lift before the end of the year.