Getting in Shape and Feeling Overwhelmed

Ok ladies, in this post I'm going to be perfectly candid and honest with you. Normally I try to keep things personal, but at a certain distance, but I'm laying it all out for you in this post.

A few weeks ago I blogged about how I was tired of getting on the scale and being disappointed by the numbers and how I wasn't going to do that anymore. I'm happy to say since then I've only gotten on the scale maybe twice. It's hard to break that habit. I have been going to the gym more, my goal is four days a week and if I do it more than that, then great.

However, I had a gym failure the other day and felt so frustrated that I honestly wanted to just cry. In the gym. In front of people.

As a little backstory, I started doing Crossfit this past summer and really enjoyed it. I started seeing results quickly and could tell I was becoming stronger. Then around September the class time changed to a time that was too late in the day for me and I hurt my back doing deadlifts. It was my fault that the injury happened, as I hadn't warmed up enough and I knew it, but I wanted to see how much I could lift and ended up hurting my back. Thankfully when I had it checked out it turned out to only be a pulled muscle, but I foolishly didn't realize how long a pulled muscle in the back could take to heal. I also discovered that one of my legs is slightly shorter than the other, which my Crossfit trainer had actually pointed out the very day I got hurt and the physical therapist and doctors think that contributed to me getting hurt. Anyway, my back still hurts on occasion and for several months after that I rarely did Crossfit and got into a not working out funk.

Fast forward to last week and I started doing Crossfit again. I went to the lunchtime class and was very disappointed with it. Not because our trainer isn't awesome, because he is, but because I felt like an outsider with the rest of the group. Not one of them talked to me, except our trainer (who I'm friends with in real life and on Facebook). None of my friends from the previous class go to this lunchtime class, so I have nobody that I know and it's just very awkward. Not to mention all these people can do everything so much better than me. I am not a natural athlete and I have not done anything really physically demanding in awhile, so that already puts me behind these others, but it was just down right embarassing. Every skill that we worked on that day I could barely do.

The next day I emailed my friend/trainer and asked him what I could do to improve, because I just felt like I wasn't strong enough to do these moves and I needed some help. So now, he's put me and one of my friends from the previous class, on a strength building program and told us we also need to do Crossfit regularly to help build our skills. Here's the problem, I don't like the lunch class because I feel so alone in there, so I'm thinking about doing the workouts on my own. Plus, as much as I like Crossfit, I don't feel like it's the be-all, end-all of workouts. I like doing yoga, and spinning and dance stuff too. Plus I need to fit building up my running on the Couch to 5K program in there too. I just feel like there is so much stuff I need to do and so little time to do it. I don't want to burn out or hurt myself, but I want to get in shape. Now I'm to the point where I almost feel overwhelmed and I don't even know where to start.

Crossfit Update

So, I've been doing Crossfit for almost two months now and I thought I'd give my readers a little update on how it's going.

Honestly, I can really tell that my strength and conditioning have improved. My times for some repeat workouts have improved, often by several minutes. I can lift heavier than I could when I first started.  I can even deadlift 155 lbs and that was several weeks ago, so I'm eager to see if I can deadlift even more now.

 I see some changes in my body as well.  I've had several people tell me it looks like I've lost some weight, but the scale doesn't reflect that. Which is fine, because if I look more toned, I'm ok with that. Some shorts that I bought right before I started Crossfit that were a bit tight fit considerably better and looking at pictures I can see more definition in my arms and legs.

I really am enjoying the people that have been in this class with me. We've gotten a bit smaller than the first day we started, but it's a really fun group and we have a lot of fun.

Here is an "action" shot from today. I'm doing wall balls here, which I really hate, by the way.

 It's a bit hard to see in this picture, unless you click on it so it's bigger, but I told my instructor I wanted to be tagged in the picture because I wanted to brag about my guns on Facebook.

Crappy Crossfitter?

I've been doing Crossfit for about two weeks now. I must say that it's a love/hate relationship. I hate the workout while I'm doing it, but I love how I feel afterwards. I really think that I'm already getting stronger, at least in my upper body and I'm no longer as sore as I was after the first workout.

That being said I kind of had a bad moment yesterday after our workout. Our workout of the day was Nancy and for those who don't know it involves 5 rounds of running 400 meters followed by 15 overhead squats. I'm not a runner anyway and I'm especially not a runner after I've been doing overhead squats. The first couple of laps I was slower, but fine. The last three laps I had to walk about 30 feet and then continued running. My time wasn't horrible and I wasn't the last one to finish the workout, but afterwards the guy who is leading these classes pulled me aside to tell me he thought I wasn't pushing myself hard enough. I'll admit, I probably could have ran a little more on the workout yesterday, but that's the only workout we've done that I felt like I didn't do as much as I could have.

Afterwards I felt kind of bad about it. I didn't know whether I should feel good that he thought I wasn't living up to my potential and talked to me because of that or if I should feel bad because he thinks I'm just a craptasic Crossfitter. No one else got the motivational speech that I did, which made me feel even worse. Anyone else experienced this in Crossfit?

Crossfit: Day One

I've been curious about Crossfit ever since I met my friend Sara several years ago.  She used to blog about it regularly and although I wanted to give it a try, I never got the chance to work out with her.

Then we moved to Italy and there was no Crossfit class here. So, I just put it on the backburner and watched as several of my other military wife friends around the world got into Crossfit. Finally last year on our Vicenza gym website an airman posted that he was coming to Vicenza and was Crossfit certified, did we have any classes.

Lo and behold the airman is here and is now doing a two month beginner Crossfit class three times a week.  I immediately said I was interested and yesterday was our first class.

I must admit I was nervous going into it. I know what Crossfit workouts are like and I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to make it through one.  Well, the workout was intense, but I made it through it. Even though I alternated feeling like I wanted to drop to the ground with exhaustion and wanting to yak.

Our workout was:

400 meter run
21-15-9 (in other words 3 rounds) of squats, push-ups and dead-lifts
Finish it off with another 400 meter run

I'll admit that I had to walk part of the last 400 run. I was EXHAUSTED. But I finished, even though my total time wasn't that great, but it was my first time so I'm just wanting it to improve.

I was really pleased with how encouraging everyone was, it made things that much easier and I really liked knowing that my form was right when I did deadlifts (I can attribute that to Sara). I was a little surprised by some of the girls there though, one admitted that she'd never lifted weights. I was shocked honestly, I can't imagine NOT lifting weights, but to each their own.

I'm super sore today even though I've tried to stay active and even took a long walk and did stretches. Tomorrow is my next class so I'm hoping I'm not too sore.

This Is My Life

Today I did my first Crossfit workout, I needed to switch up my workout routine a bit and so I called on my good friend Sara for her advice. At the time I really felt like my time was slow and I pretty much sucked at Crossfit, but I really felt good after it and for such a short time of working out..it felt really intense. I think Crossfit and I are going to start a new relationship.

Last week I painted my nails red and liked it so much that I told Sean I was going to make red nails my signature. Yeah....I'm already tired of them. Call me fickle.

I was browsing over at Old Navy today and they have the cutest outfit combos on there. Some of the items I posted a few weeks ago, but I didn't come up with the combos like they have.

Observe

I've been reading Bill Bryson's Walk In The Woods. If you haven't read it you should. I have laughed so hard reading it. Basically it's about the author hiking the Applachian Trail. One of these days I'd actually like to hike the Appalachian Trail, I'm not sure when that's going to happen though.