Week 13 Day 1: Extended

So I did just what I said. I woke up bright and early, and got ready for the gym. I completed a harsh leg workout, but I ended up splitting the workout. I had only finished squats, hack squats and one-leg jumps before my husband woke up and wanted to come to the gym. So I finished up this round with 12 minutes of HIIT and went to get him.

We came back to the gym and I finished the remainder of my workout. For the first time ever, I enjoyed doing deadlifts. I felt strong and in control and I loved it! I almost cried doing 20 and 2s between prone leg curls and leg extensions. It really, really hurt. I also pushed super hard with leg press, using heavier weights again than usual. And as crazy as it was, I finished with my final and last 12 minute HIIT session. I’m completely done the challenge. All workouts and the equivalent for 4 cardio sessions a week completed. What a feeling!

I had taken some pictures two days ago of some ab outlines that I saw! I was ecstatic! And yet when I finished everything today, my pictures did not turn out the same way. I don’t know what I did! I was so depressed and almost ready to call the competition quits when I noticed someone had asked when the pictures were due, and our coach has given us an extra week to get pictures in! This was the hope I needed!

I’m going to monitor my diet very closely this week and try and get a picture to show the hard work I’ve done. I know my pictures won’t reflect the same fat loss I’ve seen from others, but I do want to be able to show what I’ve accomplished, and for whatever reason, my body does not reflect that today. So I’m going to take advantage of this week, and be watching for the opportune moment. It’s going to happen!

For the rest of the day, we didn’t get to the mall to shop for Christmas like we wanted, but we did go to a Mexican restaurant that we haven’t been to in a long time (I didn’t eat very much) and then we spent some time at Chapters. We absolutely love books and I was able to purchase my new agenda (what I used to write down my workouts) for the new year. It was a good night, and a day filled with hope. My husband is more or less in charge of my food and workouts this week, so let’s see how these pictures will turn out! The best part is, I don’t care if I win. It would be nice, but it’s ok if I don’t. I just want to see that hard work show!

Week 11 Day 4

God knew I’d need my car this morning. He knew my husband needed it to work last night. Because for the first time ever, my husband got called into work very early and I had to drive myself. The best part was, I was up so early so he could drop me off as per normal that I had time to eat, and take my time getting ready. I can’t lie, it was actually kind of nice!

Work went well today. It was busy, but everything seemed to be good. It was after school when things got crazy.

We had our second after-school tutoring session today and it seemed like a bigger mess to me this time than it did the first time. My head was swimming with names, grades and subjects trying to match up the tutors and tutees, and trying to make sure that everyone had someone to help them. We also had a few problems arise that we now have to address, but hopefully everything will run smoothly once those problems are dealt with.

When the students left, my room was a mess. Papers and pencils were everywhere, chairs all out of place, bins of books knocked over; it looked like a tornado had come through! I had to take a few minutes to clean it before I even decided to go home without any other school work. My mind couldn’t handle it tonight.

I got home (late) and expected to go to the gym right away. However, my husband was sleeping and did not wake up easily. In fact, we did not end up going to the gym until 2:30 in the morning! I know, we’re crazy; dedicated, but crazy.

I had a leg workout today and it didn’t quite start out the way I wanted. I had worked my squats back up to 95 lbs, even though it’s still a struggle. My form just is not right. But I’m tired of fighting my form and not being able to raise my weight.

Tonight was different because my husband came over to watch and give me constructive criticism. My form is terrible. I did more squats than normal, changing my foot placement, changing the placement of the bar on my back and shoulders, and making tons of different modifications to see what would help. It was more squats than I wanted to do, and we didn’t figure out the solution to my problem. But it was nice to work with my husband again, and more squats can never hurt… right?

The rest of the workout went well though it drained every ounce of energy I had. Between leg curls (prone and seated), leg extensions, leg press, bench jumps, calf raises (both seated and standing), plus several other exercises, you can bet I was walking funny by the end and knew the pain would be coming soon. It was a tiresome workout, but a good one.

I doubt I’ll go to sleep since we’re leaving the gym at 5, but we’ll just have to see what happens. One thing I know for sure is I’m leaving the gym STARVING and will be eating before I sit down at home. I have to feed this tired, muscle growing (I hope) body.

Week 8 Day 6

I’m hungry. In fact, my body feels like it’s starving. I can’t say that I’ve been hitting my macros the past few days as I’ve been happy just to ingest any liquid anything, which has been mainly fruit, veggies, and some protein powder. I have been trying to get some BoltHouse smoothies from the grocery store to drink (I know they aren’t the cleanest), and so in that way have been getting in some extra nutrition, and I’ve also been keeping up with my multivitamins and supplements. But I still can’t chew. My teeth are too tender. I tried chewing a Breton mini cracker today, the super soft, melt in your mouth type of cracker, and I could only chew one before my teeth were very sore. Still on that liquid diet today!

Definitely got some of this because “Tis’ the Season!”

I had a chiropractor appointment this morning that went well. I planned on going to the gym to split up my workout with my husband again but instead ended up going to sleep and quickly found out that I just wasn’t getting rest. I’d wake up, and wake up, and wake up, and wake up, all the while sleeping in between but never feeling any different when I woke up. I don’t get it. I’m really not sure what’s going on.

When my husband came home from work, he was too tired to go to the gym right away. So he stayed home and took a nap while I went to the gym because I knew my workout would take a long time tonight. I came back and woke him up about half way through my workout, drank a protein shake in order to help my starving body continue, and went back to finish my workout.

It was a long workout, finishing the ab exercises from yesterday, combined with legs today (90 squats!!), and of course the cardio I had to catch up on. We also had to do dropset to burnout leg extensions. I swear my quads were about to break apart. I definitely wasn’t able to walk the greatest after!

I tried something new today: Sweet Sweat! I had been given product samples of it a long time ago, but had never tried it because I always worry about chemical reactions ruining my clothing. Thankfully, my wonderful hubby picked up a Sweet Sweat belt under which you apply the Sweet Sweat so that it doesn’t touch your clothing! Boo yah! Let me just say, the results shocked me. I never knew I could sweat that much, seriously. And yet I didn’t feel overly warm like I thought I would. It obviously worked though. So I’m going to wear it for a few weeks to see if it makes a true difference and I’ll keep you updated!

Sweet Sweat! Try it out!

Week 8 Day 2

Today was another long day. I can successfully say that after last week of not getting much curriculum taught, we at least hit the books hard today! I think we came up with some well researched answers last week that helped truly answer some of their questions. Now to move forward with that knowledge!

We’ve also started studying the book of Revelation. My students are interested in learning what God warns for the ending of time and what God tells us to do. So I’ve quit my plans for worship, and have taken on this study. I have great hopes and purposes for this study!

I also found out this morning that I have a meeting right after school and that there is another super important meeting tomorrow that I’m going to have to miss and catch up on later as well as a mini-meeting the day after and a long training meeting the day after. Catch my drift on all of these meetings I’m expected to be part of and yet somehow still function as a regular teacher and wife and mother to our animals? I can’t seem to keep up!

Today’s IT meeting did go fairly well. Expectations were laid out which means I have yet more work to do. Somehow, somehow I need to get caught up and stuff done. My life needs to get back in order.

My workout this evening was much anticipated. I needed to get some stress out. It was my first leg workout this week, and although there were a lot of hefty things I hate doing, I looked forward to it tonight. It was an excellent workout and I left very sore.

A new exercise I had to do was called “20s and 2s”. This is basically how it goes:

20 leg extensions, 2 leg curls
18 leg extensions, 4 leg curls
16 leg extensions, 6 leg curls
14 leg extensions, 8 leg curls
12 leg extensions, 10 leg curls
10 leg extensions, 12 leg curls
8 leg extensions, 14 leg curls
6 leg extensions, 16 leg curls
4 leg extensions, 18 leg curls
2 leg extensions, 20 leg curls

Can I say ouch? That’s definitely how I felt at the end! I was so happy to go to bed and rest up my legs tonight!