Two steps back, again.

OK loyal readers.  I'm back.

I've been sidelined with shingles.  I don't recommend.  What started out as, what I though was an irritation from an invisible shirt tag or stray tortilla chip turned into a rash and stabbing pain in shoulder and neck.  I couldn't wear a bra for several weeks.  Not because of the rash, which wasn't pleasant, but because the lymph nodes in my shoulder were so painful.  I had an earache and a sore throat from the swollen glands.  I also had pins and needle feeling in my shoulder that occasionally turned into the feeling that someone was stabbing me with a knitting needle.
I had to stay out of the gym for about 3 weeks, which has turned into 4 weeks with the holiday and guests and all around freaking busy schedule.

I'm down to a slight rash, slightly swollen nodes, and an ear ache, but all is manageable.  The shooting pains seem to be over and the tingling is gone.

Now I also have an oddly swollen foot and leg, which I think is mainly due to the prednizone I was taking.  So I'll be managing that for the time being.

I've marked the time in my calendar again now.  I'm back at the gym regularly with goals, beginning on Monday.  I attended the pull up seminar this week and I'm setting a goal based on that.  There will be extra time in the gym in July!!

The kids have their schedules set up for July and I can fit right into their work shifts.  I'm excited to be going back.  Also setting some fitbit goals.  All in, right???

Happy July folks.  Hope you can beat the heat (It's summer here), or the cold (for those in the Australian winter).

Are Doctors Even Paying Attention?

I saw Meg Allison's Instagram post today.  If you haven't seen it, you can find it here.  She is a Crossfit Games competitor.  She is in peak physical shape.  She has an 8 pack for goodness sake. One that looks like you could play xylophone on.
When she went to the doctor, he didn't even look at her.  He looked at her chart and told her that she should probably lose 5 -10 pounds.  He didn't even look at her with his eyes.

I'm not the same at Meg Allison.  I'm not in peak fitness.  I don't have an eight pack that you can see. I am overweight.  But I'm really strong.  I weight more than it looks like I do (even though it looks like I weigh a lot).  Muscle weighs more than fat does.  But I had an experience at the doctor that infuriates me as much as Meg's experience should infuriate anyone.

I go to Crossfit 3 -4 times per week.  I have changed up my diet and I was following a plan that had been successful for me.  But suddenly, I was gaining weight.  Not a little weight either.  I went up 40 pounds in total.  Fast.  Without changing anything.  Naturally, I was concerned and thought there might be an underlying cause.

So I went to the doctor. I explained what was going on and asked to have my thyroid checked along with anything else that might explain it.  My doctor said "exercise more and eat less; calories don't appear out of thin air".

As if the *only* possible explanation is that I eat too much and don't exercise.  She didn't take into consideration that I DO exercise and I AM eating appropriately.  She did check my thyroid (all is well).  Everything else came back normal too.  So normal that she is surprised at how healthy I am for being so fat.  FOR REAL.

I think that doctors are relying too much on what is typical.  Meg isn't typical.  I'm not typical.  We don't all fit in the same bucket.


I still maintain that there is something else going on.  I think my hormones are out of control as well. Perhaps it's related to my age?  As soon as I shake the Shingles, I'll be upping my gym time again and I'm working on how to fix my diet to get fat loss and muscle gain.  My weight is stabilized, but I'm having trouble losing it (once again). Also, I'll be looking for a new doctor soon.

My Why and Other Musings

Shari talks a lot about finding your "why".  No one will find the drive to make life changes without defining the reason for making the changes.  I listen, I really do.  I thought I had my why.

     I don't.

     I lost it.  I can't remember my why.

I went to a mini seminar at my box last week.  The topic was finding the motivation to reach your goals in the gym.  And the first of four bullet points was to Find Your Why.   He even went around the room and asked everyone what theirs was.  The one thing he added was that "losing weight" cannot be your why.  It has to have an emotional attachment to it.  I heard someone say he wanted to compete, one lady said Crossfit makes her feels younger, one said she wants to be able to do longer and more challenging hikes.  There were a lot of reasons.  I was last and couldn't remember mine.  I finally came up with "I wanted to be able to keep up with my kids".  And that is true.  When I started nearly 4 years ago, that was one of the reasons I wanted to do it.  But now I do a pretty good job of keeping up with them and showing them that I want to live a healthy lifestyle.

     So, I lost my why.  I need a new one.

- I thought about this a lot over the last week.  I do want to lost weight.  But, as my coach said, that doesn't hold enough emotion to be my why.  I did think of one though.  I'm tired of being out of breath and hurting all the time.  It's tiring and it's embarrassing.  I can be better.  I want to *feel* good.  And that has enough emotion to bring tears to my eyes when I think of it.

     And now it's in writing.

- The second point was to choose your community.  This is a tricky one.  Even my coach said this is the hardest of them all.  I've chosen part of my community to be Crossfit Post Falls.  There are the most supportive people in there.  They are the people who cheer and help lead me to be better.  Many many people in there have become good friends.

     But everyone has friends and family outside the gym.  To really be successful a person needs to be around the people who will help them reach their goals.  Don't hang around with the people who are going to drag you down.  Fortunately, I have few folks who don't support my goals. I think. I don't have anyone who pushes me to go to the bar.  There is a lot more junk food at my work than I should be around, but there isn't much I can do about that.  I have to change my work routine a little to avoid it all, and I can do that with a little effort.  The people I hang around with may not be on the same path as I am, but they love that I'm on this path and they are supportive.  My mom even changes the way she cooks when I'm coming over.   I think my community is pretty great.

- The third was pick a goal and track progress.  I wrote about picking a goal not too long ago.  I have to revisit and revise that one, but I've already started.  I have progress pictures and I log every workout in WODTogether.  I'm adding a goal to step up my running/walking again, and some weekly pull-up practice.   I spent a lot of time in the Open Gym time while I was training for Weightlifting and the extra gym time was super.  As soon as it was over though, I went right back to my old schedule.  I'm revising my gym schedule.  I'll be spending some time in the open gym time every time I'm in the gym.

   The goal I am choosing though, is to do another Olympic Weightlifting competition.  I really enjoyed that and I'd like to lift heavier.  Part of reaching that goal includes losing weight.  I'll be able to lift more if I'm not carrying all of this around all the time.

- And the final one was to celebrate small victories.  This one is hard for me.  Coach said that getting to the gym is not a small victory.  I disagree.  It might not be for him, but there are some of us who wouldn't do anything at all if not for getting to the gym and making it there is a daily challenge.  But I also see his point.  Getting there isn't enough.  It's the beginning of going though the motions.  I don't want to just go through the motions.  I don't celebrate getting to the gym.  I don't celebrate anything really.  Not like I used to.

     His point was not to celebrate every workout, or every round, but every single rep.  Every rep is a celebration.  I'm going to try to remember that when I hit the gym tonight.

Weightlifting Event

The weightlifting event this weekend was awesome.  So awesome.  I am so excited that I was a part of that.  Our gym/club was well represented with lifters (three of us were first timers), and the crowd was filled with Crossfit Post Falls members and family and friends of our lifters.  We have the best and most supportive community.  As soon as I figure out how to down load and post the videos that someone took of me, I will post them.

I truly look forward to doing more of this.  I've got to lose some weight and increase my lifts to get my scores higher.  I'm oddly excited for the challenge.

Negativity?!

I'm facing negativity all of the sudden. It's about the weightlifting. I am floored. Two very nice ladies at work are suddenly "you are going to hurt your back", "you shouldn't be weightlifting".  I was excited to share my adventure and can barely get a word in before they are shooting me down.  I'm surprised because the daughter of one lady is a circus performer and very talented gymnast.  She's training to do a hand balancing act and I've seen her do silk aerobatics. The ladies aren't telling her not to do something because there is a risk of injury.  So it leads me to believe that they think I'm either too old or too unfit to do this.  They don't even know that I have a coach, and I've been doing these lifts for 3 years already.  I'm just improving them now. With coaching. They don't know because they don't want to hear.

On the other hand, a good friend asked me all sorts of questions and was super excited with me. She gave me the best compliment. "One thing is certain, Krista, you aren't afraid to try new things".  That was awesome to hear. And I might write more about that later because, while flattering, it's far from accurate.

In any case, I guess I'll keep my training progress and competition to myself at work. Work isn't a happy place at the moment, so it's not a bad time to be silent and to take my lunches out of the office.  I'm surrounding myself with positive people and good influences.  I no longer have room for negativity in my life. I don't want the negative people to hold me back.
I'm still surprised but maybe I shouldn't be.

Competition

I wrote last about setting goals.  I'd realized recently that I don't have a goal to work towards.  I've started a SMART goal (which I still have yet to complete, actually) and I've been feeling GREAT about being at the gym regularly and working hard to improve.  I don't want to be there, just showing up.  I want to be gaining something.

Last week my coach asked if anyone wanted to compete in a local Olympic Weightlifting Competition.  My interest was immediately piqued.  I need to do something like that.  I WANT to do something like that.  I declined.

What??  Yep.  It's something I'm very interested in and I declined to sign up when an opportunity was handed to me.
It is very scary and I declined.  I think I secretly hoped he would try to talk me into it.  Because I'm sure I'd have been easily swayed.  But I also didn't really want him to, because I was embarrassed by my fear.

I put it on my calendar to go watch the others.  I thought I'd find out how a competition for Weightlifting works.  That might alleviate some of my fears for the next time. Right?

This weekend my coaches put on a mock Olympic Weightlifting Exhibition at the gym.  It was last minute and, though I know it wasn't, it felt like it was just for me.  I loved it.  I learned what lifts are expected, who can do it, who DOES do it, and how it all goes.  I joined in as a lifter and had a great time.  By the end of it I was sure that I did want to join.

I've contacted the coach about doing it.  The notice is short, but I feel OK about that, as a beginner.  I am supposed to meet with the coach tonight to talk about signing on.  Tonight I'll find out if he thinks there is time to practice for the upcoming event, or if I should find one a little further out.  Either way, I'm going to do it in 2017.

*update: I got the gym last night and jumped right in to training.  There was no talk about can I do it.  The coach told me what to do and I did it.  There are 3 girls doing it.  I think all of us are first timers.  I loved every minute of it.

**update: I'm now an official member of USA Weightlifting.  Eep!!

Setting Goals

There is some differing advice on setting and sharing goals.  It used to be that people said you should make a goal and share it with someone.  Telling someone what your goal is was supposed to make it more likely that you reach the goal.  It doesn't matter if you tell one person or if you announce it to everyone.  Saying it out loud to someone other than yourself helps you to reach the goal. 

The advice I see the most these days is to set a goal and to keep it private.  It's only your goal and sharing makes it less likely that you will reach the goal. I've read several articles with this advice recently. And it surprised me, because it is exactly opposite of the advice I'd followed previously.

I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Personally, I do a little of both.  

What to you think?  If you are reading this, please let me know what your opinion is.  Do you share a goal or keep it private?  And why? 

I've slacked on making goals of any kind recently.  And that shows. I haven't made any progress in any corner of my life either.  I need to have the carrot and I haven't provided myself with that lately.  It just so happens that it's the time of year that people are tossing out their new years resolutions.  It's ironic that I have reached a point where I need to set some goals. I was reminded recently that I can do hard things.  I have, in the past, made some life changing decisions that weren't easy to make and set the wheels in motion to make the changes.  I have done it.  I can do it again. 

It's spring now. A time of renewal. It seems fresh and clean and a good place to start.  It is now the beginning of April.  So this is the perfect time to find a target and set a goal.  It's time to go <again>. 

I've written before about SMART goals.  

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Record-able, and Time-bound. This resolution will be a SMART one.  I think I'll try the advice of "keep it quiet" and see how it works.  I plan to set a lofty goal and map out the steps I need to take to reach it.  Perhaps I'll share next April, to see if I make it.  Lets see if I remember (feel free to ask me next year).