Frustrating WOD - 29.9.13

Urgh! WHY DOES THAT HAPPEN!??

Went to bed far too late (3am) and still expected to be amazing at training this morning. Gah. Still struggling with this shoulder which is incredibly annoying. Easing off this week after competition wod last weds. Still covered in bruises. I dunno, maybe I just wasn't feeling it today.

Double Unders to warm up...I can now string about six together.....good grief!
Glute activation, and then deadlifts.

Previous deadlift 1RM, 90kg. Last week I managed 85kg on my own and then wussed out. So, today we started at 10 for 50kg. Working up to 1 rep at 80kg. Ridiculous. What's wrong with me!

Everywhere hurts! Back still sore (muscularly) after the competition wod Weds, and shoulder feels weak AS. No fight in me. PPPFT.

I totally out-psyched myself off the deadlift, and thus the workout

Fight Gone Bad - 3 rounds for reps. A minute of :Wall ball @6kg
sumo deadlift high pull @ 25kg, box jumps,  push press at 25kg, rowing for calories.

With 1 minute rest at the end of each round.

HORRENDOUS! Box jumps killed my shoulder, and after round 1 had to drop the weight off the bar and stick to strict shoulder press.

Little bit soul destroying if i'm honest.

Then I did yoga which I also sucked at. Set the day up to suck. It's all in  my head, I know it is!

So - here's the next week's plan!

I am gonna eat soooooo clean. All this training and eating utter shit is getting me nowhere. Time to get serious.

I am also gonna get to bed for 10pm each night this week. And get up at the same time irrespective of schedule. I am gonna stick to the MEBB training sessions with my coach weds/fri/sunday and in between times I am gonna mobilise my ass off, work on individual skills and get a sports massage!

Feel better having blogged it out. This too shall be a tool!

Laters!

Testing....testing....

Trying out a post from my phone....in a bid to ensure i actually do blog!

On why the scales are bollocks...

This morning I weighed myself.

Then I went to CrossFit.

When I got back I weighed myself.....I was SIX POUNDS HEAVIER.

I had done a series of heavy squats cleans and jerks and a particularly evil met con involving travelling burpees....

Thoughts of chocolate and wine and 'Oh sod it' flew through my head.

I went for a wee.

I weighed myself. Again....

I was 7lbs LIGHTER......

Scales are bollocks (as is weighing yourself 3 x a day....but it was just to illustrate a point!)

Let's not give them any undue power, eh?

L x

Er.......Remember me ?!

Holy crap it's been a while ! I'm BACK BABY!! Hello blog heads ! So. Whats been going on with you?! We last spoke May 2011 so, in fact, a year ago...good grief !! In fairness, I have been extremely busy qualifying as a Personal Trainer and setting up my business! I am VERY pleased to report that I am now fully qualified and fully operational ! My website is here and this is where I train my one to one pt clients - remember the Trainer I've trained with since waaaaaaay back in 2009? It's his studio! How cool is that! Who would have thought it! My Bootcamps are still going SOOOO WELL with six sessions a week and loads of clients, as well as a LOT of laughs. Suffice it to say, I am massively busy!

So all in all, dearest blogland, I could NOT be happier. I did it! I BLOODY DID IT!!!! My journey from fat to fit is complete!

Or is it.....?

Oh guys, here's the thing.....I got fat again !!

Well, ok, maybe not fat, but I am DEFINITELY heavier than I was this time last year at the height of my training and working towards qualifying. It's the oldest, crappiest reason in the world...

I DO NOT HAVE THE TIME !

I have gone from loving training and being so immersed in it and working towards goals and events and aesthetic body change and adaptation, to spending every waking minute trying to support my clients to do just that, that it leaves little time for my own training.

I have had a very low week this week, and in an effort to pull myself out of the self-flagellating black hole that threatens to engulf me, I have been trying to establish when exactly I last felt in control of my body and eating and training and I realised, amongst many other things, that one of the things that helped encourage me and spur me on was you lovely lot ! Sooooo....here I am !

In some ways I am back to the drawing board....in other ways I feel quite positive, I am still human, I make mistakes. But you can bet your ass I will do my darnedest to rectify it. So, here we go. A stone (14lbs) to go.....

It's GREAT to be back

Lizzie xxx

Eating humble pie....

There comes a time in life where, on occasion, you have to man up and admit you were wrong. I HATE such occasions, but this past few days I have to admit I have been utterly slapped down ! :-)

Yesterday, a few of my ww buddies were on twitter, bemoaning the fact that they had only lost 0.5lbs at weight in etc etc.....there ensued a debate which kinda went as follows....




*Top UK PT* Ditch the scales!
*Me* They're fine as PART of your arsenal to measure progress
*Top UK PT* They're inaccurate and many factors affect reading! Go to the loo and then weigh in!
*Me* As long as they're used sensibly and as a controlled experiement then surely they're ok!
*Top UK PT* As you well know they can encourage an unhealthy dependency. Use clothes to measure your progress


This made me think. About how clothes can be JUST as fickle as the scales. You know those old reliable jeans that are your 'go to' ?? Well, on a 'fat' day, they're just as likely to indicate a 'gain' as the the scales are! I then planned a whole chuffing blog post exposing this fact and feeling VERY smug about myself.

And then...........

today is a Bank Holiday here in the UK, so Rich and I decided to go out to play in the beautiful sunshine we've been having. Getting ready, I grabbed a pair of shorts which I was triumphant to 'get bakc into' this time last year, just to see if they fit .......bearing in mind all the b*tching I have been doing of late at myself because I feel like I've gained weight. Tried them on. And below is the result.


















Massively too big. As in can't-wear-them-without-indecent-exposure-too-big.....Error.


See, I've been consistently(unfavourably) comparing my physique to 'this time last May' when, looking back, I felt much more lean and honed and toned, and I WAS LIGHTER ON THE SCALES ! This year, I am heavier.....however, a quick check back through facebook shows me quite clearly WEARING these same shorts on holiday with my girlfriends, cartwheeling along the beach in them, in fact, so they absolutely fitted me and - more to the point - stayed up this tie last year. SO. Moral of the sory is, YES I may be heavier BUT once again the CLOTHEs have proven to be the best gauge of progress, because I am quite clearly smaller tham I was this time last year.














And whilst, in the grand scheme of things, none of this matters one iota, the moral of the story is that I could either be really down about the fact I am heavier (according to scales) than last year and feel sh*t about myself and take a train straight to self pity city and moan about undoing all my hard work and giving in and slacking off and being a crap example etc etc OR I can go with the indisputable evidence of that pair of shorts and feeel all of a sudden on top of the world like I can do ANYTHING and rejoice in the fact that my body HAS changed....seemingly for the better.

SO, in conclusion, I must eat humble pie. The scales are categorically NOT the best measure of progress. In fact they mess with my mind. I knew this....I of all people knew this...but I reeeeeally and truly thought I had a handle on it. Turns out - not so much.

So yet again,Mark, you were right. I will TRY and ignore the scales (again!!!) and continue trying to measure what I deem to be 'progress' in this way. I am totes glad you're in my life ! (annoying though it is to be once again proven wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Ditch the scales people (she admits, begrudgingly !!!!!!!!)

Love Lizzie xoxo

BodyFitBootCamp

Hey peeps,

Soooo....guess what I've been up to?! Getting my very first, bona fide, fitness business venture off the ground THAT'S WHAT!!!!

How good is that?! Check it out here! My friend and mentor, Mr Mark Raynsford is the Director of BodyFitBootCamp in Surrey. I don't know if I ever told you about my little running club that's been operating since January this year, with the aim of helping women who might otherwise be intimidated by gyms and the like, to learn to run in a fun environment, with likeminded people. Well, it's been going great guns but was starting to need something else to develop it. Through various chats on twitter and with Mark, an idea began to take shape of actually turning my running club into a boot camp !

Fast forward a few weeks and here we are !!!!!!!! It's all happened so fast and I am so buzzing! it's GREAT to be doing something I love, motivating people who want to make fat loss and fitness changes in their lives, and getting paid for it!

Our sessions last for about 45 minutes and we work HARD! No equipment, all bodyweight exercises and a bloody good laugh while we're doing it !

I am so grateful to Mark for this opportunity - it's well exciting! I am loving seeing the enthusiasm in the members as they see results and get all passionate about training and eating right. IT IS GREAT !

So that's where I've been ! How we doin, blogland?!

Love Lizzie xoxo

#FoodFail

Bonjour mesdames et messieurs...



Sunday again eh? How DOES that happen?! Quick update.

There's a part of me that is loathe to 'fess up the following to you....but I need to! Just because I am a CBT and future PT doesn't preclude me from slipping.....so here goes.....

I had a truly terrible week last week - food wise. Did not workout one single iota (oh, apart from a mega guilt induced far too long cortisol through the roof run on Monday) and ate utter sh*te all week. Yesterday I went out to Liverpool for a friend's birthday and for the first time since Feb 2010 or thereabouts, I felt reeeeeeallllly uncomfortable in my clothes. Getting ready & picking an outfit was a total nightmare, nothing fitted, or hung right, or looked good. Just like the old days. Cue self-loathing. A week of stress meant troffing pretty much what I liked (so, bread...also cake...also not really cooking properly) and having wine on school nights, and having reeeeally pants sleep and not working out has all taken its toll on my poor little bod.

That feeling of 'uncomfortable' was an odd one. Once so familiar and yet now so alien, it was weird to be back there. A timely reminder though. I hated it. I'm not perfect. I still struggle from time to time. Ok so it's not major binge-eating or the dreaded binge-purge subtype but for me, it's a struggle. And almost certainly stress-related. But I was reminded (again) of what I've changed in my life, where I want to be, and yes the body I still want - as in that whichI am yet to have - and mostly, of how much I DO NOT want ever to go back 'there.'

So, how do you pull yourself out of the hole?

1. TELL SOMEONE - accountability is everything. Choose someone to tell who will not let you get away with it, won't collude with you, will hold you accountable and ask the tough questions, all without judging! Tall order, but we all have those people in our lives. Be honest with them!

2. SET A TIME LIMIT - For me, it was a week. I was knackered. Defences were low. Did not AT ALL feel like working out. So I didn't. Every time I made a less than perfect or out of the norm food choice, I reminded myself that on Saturday this would stop. This helped me to cope in the short term with the damage I was doing and the ensuing guilt. It also mentally prepared me for getting back 'on it' when my time limit ran out.

3. TAKE NOTE - Journal it, tweet it, blog it, - whatever works for you, however you keep track of your thoughts and progress. Record HOW you feel in the midst of an 'off' period, record WHY you're experiencing it (if reasons are known). For me it helped to stop and jot down precisely how I felt when I woke up at 3am with heart burn because I'd eaten pizza at ten o' clock at night! What a div ! When I was fat I used to get that all the time - haven't had it for 2 years...it was a shock to be woken up by it...and then not to be able to sleep for ages, thus waking up knackered and cross, less able to 'cope' with life and less motivated to yank myself out of the hole, more likely to make stupid food choices and steer clear of working out....and then being ensnared in a vicious cycle of the same.....groundhog day anyone?

4. TAKE ACTION - Rather than dwelling on the negative - the above - use it to turn to a positive advantage. As well as noting the HOW and WHY make sure you ACTION PLAN - the WHAT and WHEN ! What will you do to stop? Plan in your next workout - make yourself accountable for that, tell someone your plan. Do a healthy food shop. Get rid of the crap. Don't carry cash when you go past the tempting food places. Make it harder for yourself to give in. Change your route home. Do all of the above! And the 'when' is the time limit spoken about above.

So, for me, this week. I have complied with my time limit. I did a gym free kettlebell workshop in the garden yesterday along with bodyweight workout. I ate healthily and limited my alcohol intake despite a night in town AND a dinner out. A healthy food shop has been done, meals are thought through for the week and workouts factored in.

All in all I'm setting myself up to succeed. Keep me accountable, won't you?

Love Lizzie xoxo