Best Body Bootcamp: Overall Recap

Transformation is not a future event, it is a present activity. ~ Jillian Michaels

Over 8 weeks of the Best Body Bootcamp program, I lost:

My BMI is down to 30.27 - getting very close to the "overweight" category (under 30) instead of obese.

The decrease in my ribcage is a lot, but it really was suddenly over the last few weeks that I was able to fasten my bras on the smallest hook instead of the middle hook.

Best Body Bootcamp: Week 8 & Holiday Half Training: Week 1 Recap

I actually did 7 workouts this week! (Albeit condensed to three days.)

Workouts

Tuesday: Ripped in 30 Week 1 workout + 2 mile run (13:19 pace)

Friday: Ripped in 30 Week 1 workout + 2 mile run (13:29 pace)

Sunday: 5k race (course was slightly long - 3.18 miles; 12:17 pace) + 1.70 mile treadmill speed workout (increasing speed by 0.2 every 30 - 60 seconds up to 6.0 mph, then decreasing every 30 - 60 seconds) + Ripped in 30 Week 2 workout

Total miles: 8.88

I'm trying to balance speed and endurance; probably in large part due to adding strength training, I can get pretty fast without it feeling that difficult (fast for me meaning 11:00 min/mile versus 12:30), but have a hard time keeping it up. On one of my short runs this week I ran spurts quickly, but kept stopping to walk, and my overall pace ended up exactly where it would if I'd run a slower consistent pace. 

Best Body Bootcamp: Weeks 6 & 7 Recap

Week 6 workouts

I did one BBB strength training workout, and a 2.65 mile run.

Week 7 workouts

I did one BBB strength training workout, a 10k race (finished in 1:25:56), and a Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 workout.

Although I'm glad I'm doing the bootcamp program for some extra motivation, I realized it's simply not working for me to do the BBB strength training workouts - getting three new workouts every other week would be great if I were in a place where the variety would be motivating - but right now it's a hurdle, since the first week of each two-week phase takes longer to look up and learn new exercises, and even just having the workout on paper versus on video makes it harder to have to look up the routine in between sets. So on Sunday I started week 1 of the Ripped in 30 program (via GaiamTV) - right now I need the constant directions during the workout to overcome laziness. I also realized that I like Jillian - I've never really watched Biggest Loser, I just know of her from pop culture, so I wasn't sure I'd jive with her style, but I actually do find it motivating. It's no-nonsense and practical, yet encouraging.

This weekend I also, finally, put together a training program for the Holiday Half that I'm doing in December. Well, a quasi-program - I'm not mapping out every running workout, just scheduling the distance for each week's long run. It was a little difficult to plan out, due to the timing of Thanksgiving, immediately followed by a week-long vegan yoga retreat (which I also did last year, and it's an amazing experience, I highly recommend it if you're intrigued by yoga and/or  veganism), and then the race is just two weeks after that. In addition to a long run each weekend, I'll do at least 2, ideally 3, runs during the week, including a mix of speed-work. Within a few weeks I hope to be running at least 12 - 15 miles a week.

I was motivated for both starting the Ripped in 30 and to get going on my training plan after running the 10k Sunday with my friend Beth. We've previously run a 5k and a half marathon together - so she realized how much I was struggling during the 10k, and was surprised how much I needed her to keep me going, versus me helping keep her going in prior races. Her comments pointed out that she's seen me perform at a much higher level, and basically wiped out my excuse that I was doing the best I could lately with my exercising. Yes, you won't always out-perform yourself and PR at every race, and life circumstances will temporarily get in the way sometimes, but I've been using my current depression and sleep issues to avoid exercising, and feel like there wasn't much point in trying to improve, and not wanting to admit that I've taken a step backward. Realizing that I not only can, but have, done better, is helpful to push myself again.

Best Body Bootcamp: Week 6 Goals

Workout goal

1. Do at least one set/circuit of all three BBB strength training workouts.
2. Do at least two runs, including one at least 4 miles (I have a 10k coming up on September 9!)
3. Find/put together a training plan for the half marathon on December 16 (my third half).

Health goals

1. Drink no more than 1 pop per day.
2. Be in bed by 11:00 (12:00 on weekends).

Best Body Bootcamp: Week 5 Recap

"This week I'm taking a week vacation, during which I plan to really focus on workouts and healthy habits."

Errmm... does cleaning my disgusting apartment (never quite caught up from the void of tax season this year) count as a "healthy habit"? Mostly I spend my vacation watching shows on Netflix (including a lot of Clean House), reading advice columns (not sure why I have this recent obsession), and gradually getting my apartment back in order - sorting things to take to Goodwill, rearranging furniture, vacuuming (emptied the canister twice... ewww), scrubbing.

I did go on a 7 mile hike on Monday, and a 3 mile (if I remember correctly? haven't uploaded my garmin data yet) on Thursday.

I suppose my healthy goals were the same as usual, which means I didn't meet them at all. Sleep schedule was all over the place. 

Best Body Bootcamp: Week 4 Recap

I did three runs this week! Plus one strength training workout. I didn't quite get around to even setting goals this week; if I went with my usual ones, I didn't meet them anyways. But I finished finals for the summer term! This week I'm taking a week vacation, during which I plan to really focus on workouts and healthy habits.

Monday: Strength training + 2 miles in 26:27 (13:14 pace)

Wednesday: 2 miles in 25:29 (12:43 pace)

Saturday: 3.1 miles in 43:35 (14:03 pace)

Best Body Bootcamp - Week 3 Recap

Oh dear. This week was sort of a complete fail, workout-wise. I exercised once. I did half of two of the BBB strength training workouts (i.e., 2 of 4 sets) on Saturday. The rest of the week I was cramming for finals or being lazy.

I did, however, meet one of my goals (no more than 1 pop per day) 5 days! And I met the second goal (go to bed by 11:00) 4 days.

Best Body Bootcamp - Week 3 Goals

Really my goal for this week is (was) merely to survive. I had two presentations at work already (today and yesterday), I have a final exam tomorrow, and another takehome final which was originally due Friday, now extended until next Wednesday but I still intend to finish it by Sunday.

For tracking purposes, I'm sticking with the same two - I'm actually sticking to them a lot better now! Considering the stress I've had in the last couple weeks, my sleep hasn't been that terrible, and minimizing caffeine and going to bed early-ish are certainly relevant factors in that.

Health goals

1. Drink no more than 1 pop per day.

2. Go to bed by 11:00.

Best Body Bootcamp - Week 2 Recap

This week's workouts
I wasn't feeling very well the beginning of the week, and was traveling at the end of the week, so not the  best in terms of exercising.

Monday: Nothing.

Tuesday: Upper body strength training + HIIT cardio running outside - 5 minutes warm up at 13:05 pace, 60 second intervals for 10 minutes, 5 minutes cool down at 14:07 pace. Fast intervals ranged from 9:21 to 10:34! Total distance 1.65 miles in 20:44. 

Wednesday: Lower body strength training.

Thursday: Nothing. Too busy getting ready to do this:

Going to my family's lake cabin for a long weekend provided a much needed break from certain stresses. Despite the three-inch wide swelling from a mosquito bite on my leg.

Friday: Nothing. Traveling, shopping, reading.

Saturday: 1.5 mile walk with my parents. Will add time and pace when I've uploaded data from my garmin.

Sunday: 2.2 mile run. Will add time and pace when I've uploaded data from my garmin.

Goal 1: Drink no more than 1 pop per day. 
Met 5 days!!!

Goal 2: Go to bed by 11:00.
Met 4 days.

Best Body Bootcamp - Week 2 Goals

I'm setting myself up for healthy eating this week with some lunches:

Baked tofu: Drain, wrap in towel to press out excess water, cut into 1-inch pieces. Put in a glass baking pan, drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and nutritional yeast. Bake at 425 for about an hour, flipping pieces midway.

Zucchini, fresh onion, and garlic, stir fried in olive oil.

Near East wild rice

I also set up a "salad station" in the fridge - washed lettuce in the spinner, plum tomatoes, carrots, green pepper, and cucumber.


Health goals
I think I'll continue to work on the same goals from the first week. Didn't do too well sticking to them, but I think they're important habits to build right now.

1. Drink no more than 1 pop per day.

2. Go to bed by 11:00 pm.

Best Body Bootcamp - Week 1 Recap

This week's workouts

Monday: Upper body strength training + HIIT cardio on the treadmill [60 second intervals for 11 minutes, alternative 6.0 mph and 5.0 mph (with a few breaks at 4.8 and 4.0), with warm-up/cool-down of 0.2 mile each way walking from my apartment to the complex's fitness center]. I think to better fir the HIIT concept I should have gone a bit faster on the high intensity intervals and slower on the recovery intervals. (More like 6.5 and 4.5 mph, maybe?)

Tuesday: Walked 1.5 miles round trip to/from Coldstone... still counts, right? 

Wednesday: Lower body strength training + 2 mile run in 27:21 minutes (13:41 average pace), with warm-up/cool-down of 0.25 mile each walking from my apartment to the main street. Other than the hill, I did a decent job keeping a consistent pace of 12:00 - 12:30 - especially considering my legs were shaking from the weight working immediately beforehand!

Thursday: Yoga class (1 hour) at Blissful Energy Yoga Center. My goodness, my legs were so sore from the previous day strength training!

Friday: 2 mile run in 26:20 (13:10 average pace), with warm-up/cool-down of 0.25 mile each walking from my apartment to the main street. Ran the whole time (paused only for literally a few seconds to let someone cross a narrow bridge on the trail, that's the one spike on the graph)! This was a recovery-type run and I did several small loops around a park to avoid hills, trying to work through the soreness in my legs - still feeling Wednesday's working! I'm not sure if yoga yesterday simply didn't help enough, or actually made it worse.

Saturday: Whole body strength training + CATnip 5k race + 3.0 mile walk to/from the race. No PR. :( My time was 42:32 (average pace 13:41). It was hot out (the race started at 6 pm), my legs were still sore, etc. I'm disappointed, but it reaffirmed that I need to do more deliberate training - for speed and distance - when I sign up for races. 

Sunday: Rest day! I did some foam rolling and stretching; my quads are finally merely "sore" instead of "hurting"!

Goal 1: Drink no more than 1 pop a day. 
Met 4 days.

Goal 2: Go to bed by 11:00.
Met 2 days. 

Hurts So Good

I did this week's lower-body weights workout two days ago, and my quads are aching almost as much as they did two days after each half marathon I've done!  Clearly haven't done any strength training in quite some time.

I'm a bit concerned, as I'm running a 5k tomorrow afternoon, but I took advantage of the packet pickup at a running store (at the shopping center next door to my apartment complex, who knew?) to buy a foam roller. I was already doing some massaging with my hands, but upping the pressure with body weight on the roller - wow! So, so, tight. 

Randomly freaked out by my garmin the other day.

Tomorrow is the CATnip 5k, which benefits the Cat Adoption Team, a no-kill shelter in Sherwood, Oregon. I adopted my beautiful Imogene from CAT three years ago. If you're looking for a cause to donate to, it's a very worthy one.

My current 5k PR is 38:55 (average pace 12:32), from a race about six weeks ago. Since then, my default pace when starting a run, if I don't think about it too much, has tended around 11:00 - 11:30. I don't usually keep up that pace for three miles! But it doesn't feel super fast, so I might be able to do it in a race setting. 

It'd be ok goal: 37:59

It'd be awesome goal: 35:00

Best Body Bootcamp - Week 1 Goals

Last night I did my first bootcamp workout!

In addition to the weight lifting, core, and cardio workouts, Tina has participants set 2 additional health goals. Each week you get a point for doing workouts 5 days, and for meeting your other goals 5 days of the week. Part of the fee for the program goes to a raffle drawing at the end - each point for meeting a goal gets you in the drawing to win.

For further motivation and rewards, I'm keeping some measurements to track my progress. I haven't decided yet if I'll provide the actual numbers, or just the amount of change. Sometimes it bugs me to read other bloggers give their weight, and even though I know they're doing way more to be healthy than I am, plus we're all built differently, I still feel jealous that some girl who's 6 inches taller than me weighs 50 pounds less. So I don't want to set up a situation for anyone to consciously or unconsciously judge themselves, me, or others. But on the other hand, part of me is simply embarrassed about what the numbers currently are, and it might be good for me to publicly reveal them.

Health goals

1. Drink no more than 1 pop a day. (Pop is my primary morning caffeine source. I don't dislike tea, but pop certainly tastes better! Coffee is simply gross.)

2. Go to bed with lights out by 11:00. 

A History of Running & Weights

My first deliberate attempts at fitness were all about strength training. I got a circuit workout from an issue of Cooking Light, bought some dumbbells, if I remember correctly I even made a weight bench from cement blocks and a board (like the bookshelf concept). This was in high school and the interest stemmed from PE class freshman year. Even though I thought the concept in class was stupid, and even unhealthy for the majority of students - it was all about maxing out on a few lifts - for some reason I did like the idea of lifting weights. I added cardio via exercise videos, mostly aerobic dance and kickboxing.

I also sporadically ran. I remember one year running a couple times with my friend Ashley, but we usually ended getting food at Arby's, so the net result wasn't the healthiest. At one point my best friend Elizabeth and I were trying to exercise together, and after doing one of my regular kickboxing workouts, she decided I would be capable of running 5 miles (she did cross country, so 5 miles would be no big deal for her). I honestly can't remember if I actually ran the entire thing or if we stopped to walk, but I do remember being very impressed with myself. 

I kept running sporadically through college and after, definitely no more than a couple miles at a time. And always plenty of walking breaks. Then one year at work, running was the thing to do. Everyone was running. I'm not sure of the exact order of events, but eventually my friend Dim and I completed the Couch to 5k program, and I also did a lot of running with Melanie. I did my first 5k race in September 2010 (Portland Race for the Cure). I was exceptionally proud of it because I ran the entire thing without any walking breaks!

Then some more of the sporadic running; I did another 5k that March, and another in May. At the Race for the Animals I met Karey. She had started running about the same time I did, and I was impressed that she was doing the 10k that day. I think it was around that same time that I started reading healthy living blogs, such as Healthy Tipping Point. Reading about healthy food and marathon training normalized such behavior, and I started thinking... maybe I could do that. 

So when I saw Karey's post on facebook that she was running the Hippie Chick half marathon - I decided to give it a try! My longest run in my life was still that 5 miles with Elizabeth; in recent times my max was 5k (3.1 miles, for any nonrunners reading along). I looked up training plans, but didn't specifically follow one; I just kept gradually increasing mileage, but only got up to 8 miles before the race. Despite being somewhat undertrained, I thoroughly enjoyed it (thanks to Jolene, who paced most of it with me - she was holding herself back to avoid aggravating a knee injury; Jo holding back = me giving all I had) and felt greatly accomplished!

Prior to the half, I had been experimenting with barefoot running shoes; several weeks before the race I switched to only conventional shoes, so I'd be feel more comfortable running distance in the shoes I'd actually run the race, but afterwards I switched to only running with barefoot shoes. Since I knew I needed to let my body adapt to the lack of cushion, I didn't think I'd be ready for the Foot Traffic Flat half marathon that Karey, Jo, and Beth were doing on the Fourth of July. And, no, I wasn't ready! My longest distance in barefoot shoes was 6 miles. But I realized how much I needed a goal to make myself run as much as I really wanted to, so I signed up for it anyways. 

In the two and a half weeks since then, my feet have gradually returned to not-hurting. The last couple miles of the half, my feet hurt like crazy, and I was thinking I had done some serious damage to them. My left foot in particular seemed to have symptoms of plantar fasciitis. I've been taking it easy, not running more than 2 or 3 miles at a time (but still only using barefoot shoes), and now I barely feel a twinge when my muscles are tight first thing in the morning or after sitting for a long time, and during running it feels just fine. 

So, anyways, back to the topic of bootcamp... in the last few years I've focused my fitness energy on running. I don't regret it; I'm really proud of what I've accomplished. However, in the meantime I've let strength training go by the wayside. In reflecting on my running, I realized that I need someone to tell me what to do. As much as I enjoy running, I'm pretty lazy. When I just ran on my own, knowing I'd walk when I get tired of running, I'd walk far too often, and for far too long. It wasn't until I did C25k and had a program telling me to run for 90 seconds at a time did I actually feel capable - realize I was already capable - of running 90 seconds at a time. And that became 40 minutes at a time! 

Running is very much a mental sport. Your body is capable of SOOOOO much more than you brain lets it believe. Half-hearted attempts at the 100 pushup challenge or getting back to my Cooking Light circuit training showed me that the same concept would greatly help me get back into an overall fitness program. After reading on This Runner's Trials about an online bootcamp, I headed over to the trainer Tina Reale's website, and luckily she was just starting a new session of Best Body Bootcamp!

I hope taking part in this 8-week training plan will:

1. Force me to do what I want to do but am generally too lazy to make myself do.
2. Remind me of the fun I used to have in more fitness activities.
3. Get me on track to lose weight. (I'm officially obese - my BMI is 31.24. Losing 7 pounds would get it below 30 and into the merely "overweight" category.)
4. Prepare me to train for a marathon in 2013 and for a triathlon in 2014.
5. Establish good exercise habits for mental health, to diminish recurrences of depression and anxiety.