Ben Carson Under Fire?

I have heard from many different places that Ben Carson is under fire for the way he treated the press in a recent press conference. I don’t think Ben Carson is completely flawless – no human is! But this got my interests peaked because as many of you may or may not know, he’s quite the guy with quite the story! I really encourage that if you don’t know his background, look it up! This guy is pretty amazing, and the best part is, he’s kept God in the forefront of his life.

Anyways, the first thing I did was to look at different articles to see the opinions voiced. This is when I learned about what the press was upset about.

Years ago, when Carson was looking at going to universities, he was offered to attend a reputable military school. Whatever the wording was, he was told it would be free. Carson took this to mean a full scholarship. He told the military officer that he would decline as that was not the route in life he intended to go. Thus, he applied and went to medical school and the rest is history.

The press says that Carson claimed he had the full scholarship to a place that apparently doesn’t even offer scholarships. Now, that’s fine. The military officer may not have used the word “scholarship” so yes, maybe Carson did not quite understand the meaning at the time. He worked very hard to pay for everything he had in life, so going to school for free because of good grades would quite obviously appear to be a free scholarship to him. I can see that. But call it a lie if you’d like. I guess it depends on how you see the situation. But then there was an argument that he never even applied to this military school. Well of course he didn’t. He never once said he did. In fact, he said he had $10 in his pocket. Applying to schools at that time required a $10 fee meaning he could only apply to one – his medical school.

So of course, this completely disqualifies the arguments I’ve seen in the articles. But I didn’t stop there – I went on to see Carson’s behaviour at said “press conference”.

At this press conference, the press kept asking him about these same questions, the same ridiculous, disqualified questions. As anyone would, he got frustrated that they were going over the same things again and again. He then threw the ball back in their court and asked why they didn’t dig into deeper issues with the current president and other candidates, one being Obama’s sealed school records that nobody can look at. Carson questioned why the press didn’t want to know what was on those school records and why they were being hidden. Honestly, that’s a good point. Carson’s story is out there, his memoir is there, and the questions they’re asking are already answered if they look at the whole picture. Why don’t they want to know things that are completely hidden for some reason? Doesn’t that make you question things?

Anyways, I find this whole situation completely blown way out of proportion. What do you guys think? Did I miss something? Is it as ridiculous as it appears to me? I honestly think they’re just digging for anything against Carson, even the most trivial of things, because if this was the worst thing he’s done, are we even looking at other politicians? It blows my mind. Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Day 17

Meals:

Breakfast: 1 Minneola, 1 Clementine, Water (15 mins. away from food)
Post-Workout/Lunch: Vegan Nachos (Blue Corn Chips, Veggie Ground Round, Salsa, Tomatoes), Cappuccino Soy Milk
Supper: 3 Freezies (It’s getting really hot here)
Late Supper: Went out to eat – 1/4 Cheese Quesadilla (ugh…), Tortilla Chips, Jalapeño Bottle Caps, Seasoned Fries (packed up the veggie burger and took it home), Iced Tea

So not the best take-out choices, but I am slowly improving while eating out. I didn’t have near the dairy I usually succumb to (usually 1/2 the quesadilla, and ranch with the jalapeños), but I still have room for improvement. My husband even ordered a piece of cheesecake with berries and whipped cream, and I’m proud to say I didn’t take a single bite!

Workout:

I was able to go with my husband this morning – I love working out in the morning! Here’s what I did:

Squats
1-Legged Leg Press
Standing 1-Legged Leg Curls
Seated Calf Raises
Chiropractor’s Exercises

Day 16

Meals:

Breakfast – 2 Minneolas
Lunch – 3 Organic Bananas, 2 Small Bags of Chips
Snack – Chocolate-Covered Almonds (need to find a dairy-less chocolate)
Supper – Vegan Teriyaki Noodle Bowl (lots of veggies!), One Vegan Samosa
Post-Workout – Cappuccino Soy Milk, Remainder of Vegan Teriyaki Noodle Bowl

Workout:

Bench Press
Shoulder BB Press
Close-Grip Bench Press
Incline Bench Press
Cable Flyes
Rope Tricep Pushdowns
Drop-Set Lateral Raises

It was a much more intensive workout than I have been doing the past couple of weeks, but believe it or not, my energy held up! I’m not any weaker nor any less capable than when I was eating my miserable diet. I’m celebrating!

My Rib is Injured… Again!

Several summers ago, I got sick. The worst part of getting sick for me is always this nasty cough that I get. This particular summer, the cough was so bad that I heard a “snap” following a hard cough. I didn’t notice anything at first though I had a huge feeling that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t until later that I figured it out.

I jumped in my father’s truck that he had let me borrow while working away. And as soon as I had jumped up into the seat, I felt it. It was a tight feeling at first, but then quickly developed into a bad pain. I could barely turn the steering wheel. In the short 5 minute drive to the trailer I was renting, I knew I had to call my mother to come drive me to the hospital. I had to wait a fair time for her as I was about 45 minutes away, but she quickly came and took me to the hospital.

The hospital was about another 30 minutes from where I was, and the wait at the hospital was about 2 hours. The problem was, by the time I was registered and sitting in the waiting room, I was having a hard time breathing. All I can remember is intense pain and focussing on low and shallow breaths.

We waited for awhile until my mother decided to check where we were on the list, only to find out that we had been bumped down rather than up and the wait from that point was longer than 2 hours. It hurts to breathe but I’m not a serious case? My mother was mad to say the least.

We hopped in the car, and headed to the next hospital an hour away. It was a shorter time than I would have had to wait at the first hospital, and this hospital took me in right away. The only problem was, I had popped a rib muscle, which the doctor promptly told me hurts as much as breaking a rib (crazy pain), and there was nothing they could do except give me Tylenol 3.

Now some people I knew would have gone crazy over Tylenol 3. My mother had a mini freak-out session about how I might become addicted to it, but after telling her everything would be fine, I got my prescription and was on my way.

It was a painful summer. The T3s didn’t touch the pain hardly at all. I always walked around with one hand putting pressure on that rib area. It was awful. Nothing but time was able to heal that wound.

Once again, I was sick a few weeks ago and the cough has mostly gone but not completely. I know my body has suffered a little more than normal (didn’t help when my chiropractor asked what happened except I had been doing nothing but sleeping and sitting on the couch, trying to get better), but my body still seemed in decent shape. I worked out this week and everything seemed good.

Last night was a chest workout, and even though I warmed up and stretched, in the very first exercise (bench press), my rib started to hurt. I can’t remember if it is the same side or not, but I’m pretty sure I popped a stupid rib muscle again. It hurts so bad and I have to put pressure on the area to even try to take a deep breath. My abs are also starting to hurt because of the way I have to modify my body when I need to cough. It’s miserable.

I had just gotten well enough to start back in the gym and this is what happens! Ah!

To be honest, I wasn’t going to complete my workout last night because of the pain. But as I sat in the locker room, looking at my open locker as I was going to change, I got mad, closed and locked my locker, and went out and did the incline dumbbell press. I’m pretty sure it was a very dumb idea. I’m pretty sure I made it worse. I had written down to do 4 sets of 12, but after 3 sets, I knew I was being ridiculous. I shouldn’t be mad, although it was hard to not at least be disappointed.

So here I am with heat packs and taking it easy. I would much rather be in the gym but I’ve done my damage and I should know better. Injuries are something to take serious and it’s very important to know when to quit. So learn from my mistake and save yourself some pain. I’m all about lifting heavy and “sucking-it-up” in most situations, but I felt the pain and knew I should have quit. Next time, I will.

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.

The Famous “Bounceback”

I wrote a post a long time ago about being sick, and coming back to the gym. How my body surprised me, and the determination of not giving up. Well, today’s post is kind of on that track, but with a different twist. One that even shocked me.

I wrote yesterday of how I badly hurt my quad the night before. I took extra special care of it yesterday, trying not to overuse it, and just watching it closely. Once I finally got outside for morning recess with my students (after a VERY stressful morning), I simply sat on the ground in the shade and relaxed (don’t worry, I could see all the students from where I was sitting, teacher’s duty never ends…).

I got up and noticed it felt mostly better, though not quite all the way. So I decided to do a “sample” squat. It went ok, but I wasn’t sure what adding weight to it would do so I just continued to be careful throughout the day.

As I was on my way home, I began pondering what I should do to workout. I couldn’t really do chest or back or arms and shoulders because they were already done and I needed to do shoulders and arms again the next day. So the only option was not to go to the gym, or take a chance and do legs. Can you guess what I did? Took a chance. After all, it was one of my most stressful days at work. Almost everything had gone wrong.

When I got to the gym, I started thinking about what I was going to do. As is super important, I knew I had to warm-up that leg. NEVER take a chance on stressing muscle groups without some type of warm-up. It’s safer in the long run. For my warm-up, I got on the treadmill for 10 minutes. Normally I’d suggest a 5 minute warm-up, but because I was recovering from an injury, I did double to be sure. I kept it at a walking pace, and only added a small incline after the first 5 minutes. This seemed to go pretty well.

Next, I headed to the women’s workout room. I’m not afraid of working out in front of men, in fact that doesn’t bother me at all. What does bother me is that sometimes the gym is SO PACKED and the women’s room never seems to be that bad, and that was the case last night. Especially with my leg being the way it was, I wasn’t sure how “fast” I’d be according to the men’s standards. The women’s section is a calmer place.

Once I got in there, I decided to jump in a try the squats. I used a very lightweight, 40 lb barbell. I used sumo stance. These didn’t really hurt but instead gave me a feeling to know I needed to still be careful. I actually succeeded in my 3 sets of 20 which surprised me, but I knew I shouldn’t persist past that. No need to aggravate the injury. I then tried some sumo deadlifts with the same weight, but my leg wasn’t having any of that. So I headed for the leg press.

The leg press I used was the type that pushes your seat back. Normally, I would just do normal squats and deadlifts, but I figured the extra support might be a little better for a day like today. What happened next blew me away. The press had been left at a weight of 135. I decided not even to attempt that and dropped it to 55 lb. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 75 lbs. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 95 lbs (what I normally do on free weight squats), I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 115 lbs. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 135 lbs. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 155 lbs. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 175 lbs. I did 30 reps. And it was at this point I stopped. Not from pain, not from exhaustion even. But from the simple fact I knew my leg may not feel it now, but it would later. I honestly couldn’t believe it: that I mentally was able to keep going, and that my leg not only held up, but went so heavy! I began thinking that maybe my legs have been under-recovered.

Next, I went for 2-30 second planks. These went by so easily.

After that, I went for the abductor and adductor machines. Adductor was so, so, so good. I haven’t done exercises for my adductors in so long, and it just felt so good. But again, I was doing 30 reps a set and continued increasing the weight until I was raw sore. Phenomenal. The abductor, well, significantly weaker than my adductors, but that’s ok. They still hurt me today, but I pushed them as hard as I could.

That pretty much concluded my workout, aside from the fact I forgot to mention that I did a set of 30-35 reps of calf raises in between each set of squats, but I’m just blown away and still am. That was such a GREAT workout, and only a day after injury? I never do that heavy of weight normally (except sumo squats was lower), and NEVER have gotten up to the amount of reps I used yesterday. I am in awe of what a body is capable of, of what a dedicated mind can do, of the punishment our bodies is able to handle and keep going. We ARE God’s greatest creation, and He must have put so much work into us. How much we doubt ourselves daily, how little our brains allow us to do, and yet here’s our body, just waiting for its orders so it can show us how much more it can conquer.

Love your body. Push your limits. See what amazing things you can do!

Celebrate Your Successes!

I’ve been working out fairly seriously for about 2 years. It actually has probably been 3 years, but there were periods of time where I took breaks (later regretted). In those two years, I have changed my view on so many things.

At first, I just wanted to be thin and worked out in so specific routine, but whatever I felt like for the day.

My next phase involved my husband introducing me to structured workouts. This was a bit of a battle at first, but I came to appreciate and realize the potential of structured workouts. This is the stage I also realized that I could not even bench press the 45-lb bar! I honestly couldn’t do it!

The next phase involved my diet and changing what I ate. I was still in the mindset of not wanting to look muscle-y but wanting to be thin. There were a few arguments involved in this stage as well and I’ve “wobbled” on this a few times.

After that phase, I think it finally became serious. I no longer thought that having some muscle was anti-feminine. In fact, I’ve grown to love the look. I would never compete in women’s bodybuliding as that is not the amount of muscle I would be comfortable in. But a shapely body with muscle is very beautiful on a women, and that’s been a total mind-change.

I had a 2-month phase where I was actually tired of working out. I had a rough year and just wanted to have a break from everything (except my marriage). I was on vacation, didn’t want to be so structured, and totally rebelled. This of course led to some awful weight gain and I kicked myself about it for a long time after.

But after that 2-month period, I’ve been in my final phase, and that is dedication. I’m dedicated to my workouts because I want them. I’m dedicated to eating clean and fitting my macros because I want to. Nobody is forcing me to do it. It’s all me and I love it. I have goals, I have an ideal body look, and I’m going to continue to fight day after day to get there!

When I look at how far I’ve come, it’s incredible. I’m nowhere near my end, quite close to the beginning. But the funny thing that I realized tonight was my success with that bench press. You see, I mentioned I couldn’t lift the bar because when I started, I honestly couldn’t. I was so much weaker than I thought. Tonight I was able to bench press 70 lbs for 5 sets without help. I hope to bench press much more than this, but just the fact that I’ve not only become strong enough to lift the bar but to go above and beyond that is something to celebrate.

Celebrate the successes. Make the successes and progress your own. Don’t do it for someone else, do it for yourself. When you want it, and you own it, you will do that much better.

Crazy Gym Story #1: I Guess I’m Invisible?

So normally I have amazing times at the gym. Other than being too busy sometimes and having to wait FOREVER for the machine or weights that I need, I have never had a problem at the gym. But last night? I don’t know what was going on!

I was doing bench press. Even during my rests, I was sitting on the bench. I never got up once. And what happens? Well, two things.

#1: Keep in mind, my husband is standing behind me to spot me. A guy comes over and starts unloading one side of my bar! The very bar I was using! My husband was like.. “Um, excuse me? We’re here, we’re still using it.” The worst part? The guy looked like it was no big deal, but put my stuff back on.

#2: Seriously like a minute or two after, the guy on the bench press on the other side of us takes weight off of his bar and puts it on mine! I had a clip on my bar to hold my plates in, and he just threw the weight on. So again, my husband touches his shoulder and gives him this “Are you crazy?” look. Then has to say to him, “Um… we’re here. We’re using this bar.” And this guy at least was apologetic.

But seriously?! I began to wonder if I’m invisible. Of course I say this while laughing now. But what a crazy night at the gym!

Do you have any crazy gym stories? I’d love to here them! Comment below!