Sweat & Sparkle

Lazy Summer

I wish this was how my days are going!

Summertime is for slow, lazy days, lounging languidly on the beach, swinging gently in hammocks…yeah, right. Summer has always been the busiest time of the year for me, since my company has the amazing intellect to schedule most of our biggest events in June and July. Thanks, work!

Last week was a non-stop blur of meetings and events, and since my boss says I am so good at organizing things, I get the dubious honor of planning and coordinating everything. Again: thanks, work!

The kids are home with us for the week, and we celebrated Father’s Day together and had a great day. The poor kids have listened to endless foaming-at-the-mouth rants and diatribes about how their father has the nerve, and has no right, to want to spend Father’s Day with them, courtesy of their womb-for-rent, Psycho, who clearly has multiple untreated issues. I can’t even imagine what it’s like living day to day with that kind of insanity.

So things are going well, just extremely busy, and I get frustrated with the garbage the kids have to deal with just because Psycho can’t handle the fact that their father is happy now and isn’t interested in her or her drama. From the sounds of it, absolutely everything in her sad, pathetic life revolves around what my fiance and I are doing, and after ten years of this, it’s not only annoying, but disturbing: she obviously has no plan to ever get a life, not when she is so obsessed with ours.

Well, since she insists on staying on our asses, I suppose all I can do is extend to her an invitation to get comfy and keep gawking, because we intend to just keep on being happy while she keeps on being miserable!

Doing Nothing

I weighed in Saturday morning before heading to the garden center and prepping for a day of yard work: 206.4, a small gain of 0.2 pound from last week. Hmmm. I really wanted a 2 pound loss, not a gain of any kind, small or otherwise.

I worked out six out of seven days, so my issue is not exercise. I already know my eating habits need improvement, and I’m sure the gain is due to drinking soda and snacking. A little here and a little there won’t hurt, right? Well, it all adds up, and this week was a perfect example of exercise not cancelling out bad eating habits.

Other than that, we had a great weekend. I spent a sweaty, humid afternoon digging in the dirt on Saturday while my fiance mowed the lawn. I planned to clean the house on Sunday, but he suggested that we just spend time together on Sunday and relax. Relaxing is not something I do well! I always have a to-do list, always have a mental checklist of things I need to get done. But I figured, why not try it?

We slept in late, went out for breakfast (okay, brunch), then spent the rest of the day just enjoying the house and the yard and spending time together. At one point I got up to trim the potted plants on the porch and water them, and he laughed and said “You don’t know how to just take a day off.” That’s true, but I was trying. I finished up and came back to snuggle with him and marvel at the wonder of just doing absolutely nothing.

Of course, we will make up for it today. When I get home from Spinning class, we will need to clean the house and tackle everything we didn’t do yesterday. But it was still definitely well worth it!

Weigh In and This Week’s Goals

After suffering through my first two crazy, insane, grueling kickboxing classes, I couldn’t help but think I better have a damn good loss this week! I lost 3.2 pounds this week, down 5.4 total. Not bad!

My stepkids were home over the weekend, and it was tempting to skip my workouts to spend more time with them. But I hate the idea of using the kids as a reason to slack off. There’s something so tacky about that. So I headed off to the gym and fit in a workout each day.

My goals this week are: (1) log my food on MyFitnessPal at least 5 days; (2) work out each day at least 30 minutes; (3) keep cutting back on soda and drinking more water or unsweetened tea; and (4) lose 2 more pounds.

Kickboxing

Most people don’t know that many moons ago, in another lifetime, in a galaxy far, far away, I used to be in kick-butt shape. During college I got hooked on judo, and that led to karate and then kickboxing classes years later at a martial arts studio.

When my kickboxing instructor got injured and couldn’t teach anymore, I couldn’t find another teacher like him, so I gave it up. That was at least 10-15 years ago. I’ve been struggling ever since to find a workout that I love anywhere near as much.

I got bored quickly with running, but I kept trying to force myself to do it anyway. Finally I decided it was time to get back to what I loved to do. These days, martial arts classes are pretty expensive, so I found a reasonably priced cardio kickboxing class, clicked on the link for their online registration…and hesitated.

I’m not ready for this! I was practically screaming at myself to just back away from the computer. I am nowhere near the shape I was in when I took kickboxing classes. I am overweight. I am out of shape. I told myself to wait until the next session of classes starts in August, and use this time to get into a little better shape first.

But even as I thought it, I knew what would happen. Between now and August, I would promise myself I’d get into better shape, then I wouldn’t do it. August would show up with me even heavier and in even worse shape. Nope, not giving myself the chance to do that. I registered for class.

The first class was last night. Right after the warm-up, we hit the floor for 60 push-ups. I knew I was deeply, hopelessly, and horrifically in trouble.

We ran. We did push-ups. And more push-ups. We punched with weights. We did movements and activities I believe are used to torture people for information. I was gasping for breath and sweating so bad, it was running into my eyes.

At some point, when I was near death and contemplating stumbling to the front desk to beg them to call 911, the kickboxing instructor bounded over to me like a hyperactive Tigger and asked, “How are you doing?”

I wanted to punch her in the face. When I could actually draw enough air into my battered lungs, I said, “Really?”

She laughed, gave me a thumbs-up, and said “You’re doing great!” before zipping off to lead the next round of agony.

I was a bit disappointed it’s more of a boot camp than kickboxing. Yeah, there were rounds of punching and kicking, but after having serious teachers like I’ve had in the past, I cringed at the lack of instruction about proper form. (Kicking with bad form will kill your knees). I was sweaty, worn out, and drained, so it was a great workout, but I was hoping for more kicking and punching than running laps and doing push-ups. Well, it’s not like the classes I used to take, but it sure beats doing nothing, so I’m still glad I signed up.

Weigh In

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect at weigh-in on Saturday morning. I ricocheted from days with no workouts and eating out, to days where I stayed within my calorie limit and worked out (begrudgingly, but I still did it). I ended up losing 2.2 pounds this week. It was so encouraging to finally see a loss on the scale! It’s motivating me to try even harder this week and see another one.

The three-day weekend wasn’t long enough. I didn’t do any formal workouts over the weekend, because I got more than enough manual labor in! I’m sure I burned a ton of calories doing yard work, and it was blazing hot, so I drank more water than usual too. I was surprised my body didn’t reject water as a foreign substance and demand Coke instead.

I am aiming for two more pounds gone this week. One week at a time, I am going to make it.