JCC 2016 Fitness Goals

Welcome to the thread queen of the jackalopes and congrats on making such good progress with your running and weight loss goals. I'm like you; pretty much the only fitness activity I can keep at over time is running!

 

For a year I've been working out every day and pulling 13 hour days at work. Every couple months my body burns out, or I just become overtaken by fatigue. But I typically ignore it and just keep going. Except yesterday. Yesterday I went for my regular three mile run while exhausted and then got ready for work.

I started feeling so exhausted and achy every where that I could not bring myself to face another 13 hour day. So I instead took the day off and stayed in bed all day. First off day in a while.

Today I'm contemplating whether or not I want to work out. The pain is now mostly in my lower back but everything else feels back to normal. Plus, I'd feel lazy if I let myself skip a day. :/

 

Ezio, take a break! You need to be able to recover from training. Do you periodize? i.e. hard days, medium days, easy days?

I know unsolicited advice is against the ethos of this thread but building some kind of deload into your training cycles will help with performance and prevent burnout (and eventual injury). If you feel you need to do something, why not do something restorative? e.g. light mobility/corrective work, walking, gentle swimming etc. More is not always better!

 

What other restorative activities do you suggest?

 

Pretty much any activity that doesn't fire up the sympathetic branch of the nervous system (doesn't release stress hormones)... gentle kayaking or paddleboarding, some forms of yoga (think flexibility rather than strength), animal flow, ground force method/primal move, gentle bicycling... even just gentle play - throwing a frisbee/kicking a ball around with friends, practicing handstands/cartwheels etc. I honestly think walking in natural surroundings is one of the best options - as well as reducing stress, acting as a mobility reset and burning some fat while preserving muscle, it also stimulates the lymphatic system, helping to remove toxins from your system.

 

What unhinged said, and I was going to suggest just walking around with some good company, but natural surroundings is a great suggestion too.

 

I decided to let my toddler choose whether or not we skip the gym today by asking him, after we took his sister to school, if he wanted to go play with the kids at the gym daycare or come home. He chose home.

I'll take the kids out for a walk later. Thanks for the tips.

 

A gentle swim and a massage is a good restorative day I find.

 

Maybe I should look into weekly massages.

 

In a parallel universe in which I'm loaded I have weekly massages. As it is I have one about every six weeks!

 

One of the few things I miss about London is my massage therapist :-(

She was strong and not afraid to use elbows + entire bodyweight to work out adhesions. I've tried a couple of people down here but they're just not as sadistically brilliant... have to rely on a lacrosse ball :-(

 

After initially losing 13 pounds, I stalled out, and then gained back 2. As of yesterday, I cut out the miso soup, which was accounting for about 25% of the carbs I was eating. This morning, the scale says those 2 pounds are gone again. Hopefully they stay gone.

 

This morning I went back to the gym, assuming that staying all day Sunday in bed and continuing to rest yesterday would have been enough recovery time for my body. I think I was wrong. By the end of only an hour-long workout, I almost puked at the gym, was dizzy, and my abdomen was overcome by sharp spasms. I limped my way to the daycare center, got my son, got to the car, and sat down with the AC blasting (still in park, mind you) for like 10 minutes until I felt okay again.

On the plus side, my biceps seem larger.

 

OMG, Ezio, that sounds awful. Could you be dehydrated? Or possibly have a mild case of the flu? Maybe you should see your dr.

 

Given that my daughter just started kindergarten, it's possible that she's contaminating me with all kinds of nasties. I remember her getting sick every other week in preschool. :/

 

I don't wish to break the unsolicited advice policy, but don't go trying to push yourself through your illness exercise-wise. You could end up doing a lot more harm than good.

 

Glad to hear you're surviving, it must be tough going some days.

 

Actually, the first week was the worst. It's not fun right now, but it's not terrible. I understand that people go through carb withdrawal during the first days of a liquid diet, so maybe that's what was happening.

 

Only a couple more days to go on this liquid diet! I'm down somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds--it's hard to tell exactly how much, because my scale isn't very reliable. I got a new one for my birthday--a balance beam one that should say the same thing every time I get on it.

 

Second week back to school and I got deathly ill on Friday. I worked out Thursday and haven't been back. My lung capacity (because the ickiness has decided to settle in my chest) is terrible. I am thinking about just walking on the treadmill tonight and listen to my podcast. That way I am at least getting something in without hacking up a lung. Scale says I have lost maybe 5 pounds since starting out in July but my shoulders and legs say the loss is bigger. Having swimmer shoulders, I notice weight loss there before anywhere else. My bones are starting to stick out more and my jawline is getting sharper. Idk tho.

 

Ran 18k on the hills on Sunday. Cold, damp and windy! Think I'll enter a local half marathon in a couple of weeks. Haven't done any specific training so no great expectations, but something to shake up the usual routine a bit.

 

Reintroduced carbs to my diet (I've been unintentionally avoiding them with my diet of convenience revolving around spinach salads, fruit, and almonds). This week I've been binging on carbs, like I can't get enough. Sandwiches, pastas, or just plain bread.

 

Sounds like a good thing, Ezio... you do intense exercise, you need carbs for recovery & glycogen replenishment. Damnit, I'm giving unsolicited advice again! Sorry. Could well have contributed to you feeling run down recently though.

Lifting is a funny old game. After my last comp I was so relieved to go back to more manageable weights after all the heavy triples and doubles (and the singles at the comp itself). Two months on, I'm sick of doing so much volume with more moderate weights and can't wait for the program to progress to heavier low rep work. The grass is always greener! There's also the whole thing that - although getting stronger - a new 10 rep max just isn't anywhere near as sexy as a new 2 rep max or competition PR.

 

Felt like puking within the first twenty minutes of my workout this morning. Maybe it's possible that I need a week off from lifting? A few days break clearly hasn't helped much.