Thursday, May 26, 2011

Eat More Eggs Eat More Chicken Be More Sore

WOW! A lot has been going on in the past few days. I guess I'll start at the beginning. Four years ago I presented the idea to start a 5k for our district to our Education Foundation. With a small committee of two other people we started a tradition. This past Saturday was our fourth annual 5k. It takes a lot of planning, but is a great event. All of our walkers and runners came crossed the finish line in under and hour. Pretty good especially since this was our hilliest course.

Later on Saturday I went to a graduation party for the son of a very special friend. I remember going to the hospital the day this boy was born. He is now a graduate. It was great seeing friends and catching up a bit. I do have to say (and you all know how this is...eventually we have to talk about the food)those southwest chicken eggrolls....YUMMO! And the graduation cake??? DELISH!!! Don't worry I had talked in advance with trainer about this. It was approved.

Sunday was a hectic day. Running errands in the morning and then preparing for the graduation of a very special girl. In November of 1993 I became a nanny for Emily. She was six months old. When I took this job I thought it was just a job. I had no idea it would change my life. I stayed with the Emily until she was three and a half and I needed to decide what I was going to be when I grew up. However, I continued to have contact with Emily and her family. Emily and I went to the petting zoo and lunch, movies and lunch, the mall. I stayed with her when her parents took a rare opportunity to go out of town for a weekend. Even as she grew older and I figured she would want nothing more to do with me...we still spent time together. So imagine the emotion of going to graduation. I called her mom the night before and she had been crying as well. We both agreed we hadn't anticipated this emotion. Graduation was wonderful and emotional. I'm so proud of the person Emily has become. After some pics, Emily's mom, Ann gave me a hug and told me thanks. I can't even type this without crying. She said, "No I mean thanks for everything. She wouldn't be who she is had she not had you." Later, Emily's Dad, Dan reminded me that I am family. These people are such an important part of my life.

I returned home from graduation and an hour later the news hit that Joplin, Missouri had been hit by a tornado. The last I heard it was an F5. The latest death count was 122. I can't imagine what these people are going through, yet I can think of little else. Today we were expected to have a tornado outbreak over the Kansas City area. We did get a horrible thunderstorm around 1:00. And it's storming again. Tornado watch until 3:00 a.m. Now I'm sitting here typing in the dark while I have battery left.

Well...it's a day later...the power went out last night and I guess I don't have Internet in a power outage! A tornado outbreak did occur over Kansas City today with a touch down in Sedalia. We spent two hours in the bathroom as the sirens sounded. It was draining, but I have to say I am happy that I was with kids. I hope I helped them feel safe. It was unnerving. Trying to remain calm, imagining pics you've seen recently in the news, and hearing the sirens over head.

Tonight I had a conversation with a friend who is a police officer in Ozark. They have been sending crews to Joplin. I had no words. I feel like a failure little bit. He wasn't himself. He kept saying "Tammy it's the worst thing I've ever seen. You aren't seeing everything on the news. You can't imagine." I wish I would have known what to say. It feels hopeless. As he said, "Right now there is no light at the end of the tunnel for them." Very disheartening.

Let's talk about yesterday's workout and the pain I am still feeling. Trainer Mike started the workout different than we've ever started before. We started with crunches, rolled over into pushups, jumped into frog hoppers, lept into a sprint and finished with jumping jacks. We repeated this three times. Then there were some declined bench presses. I was lying upside down and had to bench press. Once I assured myself that I was not going to fall off the bench and onto my head it was all good. We also did some work with the leg press where I could never go as low as Trainer Mike wanted me to. He kept saying lower, lower, lower and I was trying I really was, but seriously. So then we did dead lifts in a slightly different manner. I stood on a bench with the weights in my hands and bent over to touch the floor with the weights. Trainer says this is a good exercise for girls and their rears. Two days later and my rear is still sore so evidently he is right on. As he had me grab the weights for floor presses and I was getting into position he said, "You are the only one of my clients that will do these." This caused me to chuckle and nearly knock myself in the head with the weight. I said, "Why am I the only one?" "They just tell me they aren't doing it. And it's one of my favorite exercises." I never knew it was an option to tell him no. I think I've only done that twice, but mostly I just do what he says cause he's the boss. For our last exercise of the evening Trainer picked up a 50 pound barbell and told me to follow him. We went to the end of the gym and he offered to help put the barbell on my neck. This is when I realized my trainer is brave. I always talk about how scary he is, but he put that on my neck and walked right beside me as I lunged down and back twice. Then he took it off of my neck. I told him it was brave based on my stability issues. He chuckled and said I'm no longer a baby ninja. Or a baby panda if you have watched that movie which I have not. Anyway, his point was that I am not skilled by any means, but I have made progress.

We had quite the discussion of my level of soreness and Trainer thinks I should be more sore. When you are sore it means the muscles are growing. So we increased my chicken and eggs the day of my workout with Trainer. There is some sort of acid in these two foods that is supposed to do something to the muscle fibers so that I will be sore and they will be growing. Moving on people...movin on...I have a weight loss goal to reach by the 40th birthday which is rapidly approaching. No time for cheating. No time for slacking. Got to hit it hard every day. No mercy!

No comments:

Post a Comment

The purpose of this blog is to share my journey to a healthy lifestyle with others. Losing weight has been a battle my entire life. I had an eye opening and life changing event which propelled me to take action. Come and join me on this journey. We will laugh, cry, celebrate, and learn. And in the end, we WILL beat the bulge.