Weigh-in hiccups, and feelings on Workout B

Last night was my second workout for Phase 1, Week 1. I’m thinking I may have benefitted from giving my body an extra day of rest. It was really hard for me to push myself last night. I was still sweating profusely, I know my heart rate was through the roof – I did not wear my heart rate monitor this time, though. Sometimes when I see what my heart rate actually is, it freaks me out pretty bad and I’ve definitely sent myself into a panic attack a couple times. I decided to just go by my “perceived rate of exertion” – ie: listen to your body and if you can’t breathe so well, take a break!  I did my rests like I was supposed to this time, and that definitely helped with the “omg, I’m going to die” feeling both during and after the workout.

There were supposed to be two cable exercises during last night’s routine, but I did not go to the gym so I kind of had to fudge through those with dumbbell alternates. I didn’t research well enough before starting my circuit, though, and the alternative for the cable lat pull-down I used was pretty worthless. Now I know better. That, or maybe next week I’ll feel comfortable enough to go do at least Workout B at the gym where I have access to the cable pulls.

I’ll tell you the toughest part of last night’s workout, though: the inch-worms during warm-up. My traps were killing me, and it made them so hard! (In case you’re interested in some inchworms for your own workout: go here) I didn’t do the full 10, I think I got through about 6. That extra day of rest may have made all the difference, but this way I can hopefully get a third workout in on Saturday.

I can’t wait for my strength to build up, because some of these things kill me right now! Even just the warm-up exercises. This has really brought my current fitness/strength into perspective. I’m a squishy weakling!

A note on soreness: Ms. Cosgrove makes a super big deal about stretching and this thing called “foam rolling” – some of you may be familiar with this technique. Basically you take a cylindrical piece of foam and roll your body over it in different ways. I did not have a foam roller, I had never even heard of a foam roller. I bought one – they are fairly inexpensive. Oh man. It is pretty great, not gonna lie. I have significantly less soreness today and I am pretty sure I can thank my foam roller for that. It felt so amazing to basically massage all my muscles after my workout. And that is the basic idea: this thing massages your body and assists in the recovery process. I’m supposed to do it twice a week outside of my normal workouts. I’m totally down with that because it feels awesome!

Alright… so… my weigh-in. I am kind of dreading this, but at the same time feel oddly okay with it.

Official weight @ 3/16/2012: 211.2 lbs.

I know, I know.. you’re probably thinking: what is THAT all about?! At first, I wanted to blame my terrible eating from the past two weeks. But even though I was eating a lot of crap, I wasn’t really going crazy in calorie intake – yes, it was higher than it should be for weight LOSS, but not so high that I shouldn’t have maintained weight.

Here’s my theory on my weight gain: lifting weights and general strength/resistance training, can cause water retention in your muscles during the recovery period – anywhere from 3 to 7 days, depending on how much you’re pushing your body. Considering how difficult these workouts have been for me (the warm-up alone, geez!), I’m thinking my muscles are retaining some serious water and are actually considering turning in their resignation in order to go search for a new body to occupy. I’m really not concerned with the gain. I feel great, I can already see my tone returning in places (arms! Yay!), and the book gave me fair warning that the scale could be my enemy during this process. This weekend I need to remember to whip out those temperature jeans!

The other thing is, I’m not following the nutritional plan at all right now. I felt like with the amount of stress I’m under both at home and at work, this could be a terrible time to start feeling like I’m denying myself the simple pleasures in life. And beer. With this, I also understand that my results on this program may not come as quickly as they would if I were 100% on board with the nutritional plan. Right now I’m okay with that. A month from now? I may change my mind. But a month from now things at work will have at least calmed down a bit. I am working on making better choices when it comes to eating, but I’m nowhere near being 90% clean with my eating. I’m counting calories again, and that helps keep me in check with a lot. I haven’t decided whether or not to start posting my calorie goals yet. Stay tuned.