Day Seventeen -- My First Sick "Hour" (Fri., Mar. 20th)

Today’s Schedule:
• meeting with counselor
• Group workout
• Lunch & nutrition discussion with gym’s owner
• 60-minute cardio
• 1-on-1 training session
• home to bed ;-(
• Calories burned: 1034

On Friday I woke up feeling less than good. I usually feel pretty good every morning but not this morning. I promise you it had nothing to do with the fact that I was scheduled to walk up “The Dunes” for the first time. I had hoped that having breakfast would make me feel better. Every Friday morning we have a fresh omelette station at the gym, so breakfast was an hour later than usual. Despite the yummy breakfast though, I was still feeling nauseous. I chatted with Arleigh about it…she said she had a back up plan just in case I wasn’t ready for The Dunes; I felt like I needed to be very close to a bathroom, so I was happy to stay in the gym to workout. I thought maybe I needed extra sleep and I was considering going back home then returning for lunch, but I’m glad I stayed and worked out. I also had my counseling meeting with Claire since we missed it yesterday (because I went to get an EKG). The sessions with Claire are very helpful. Most of it is very personal stuff that I will not share here, but one thing that I can share is that I need to listen to my body and to my instincts and not second guess myself so much. My body was telling me that I wasn’t well, just like it did on Day Seven, when I hit my first wall.

We have hot lunches in the gym on Mondays and Fridays. Friday’s meal was a delicious grilled chicken, walnut, lowfat blue cheese, and spinach salad. For dressings we use the Paul Newman Low Fat salad dressings which are delicious. I particularly like the Asian Sesame dressing. During our lunch, the owner of the gym, Eric (not the same Eric who does volleyball) spoke to us about nutrition and eating meals when we’re back in the real world. Following this I had an hour of cardio on my own and then a 1-on-1 session with Eric (the volleyball player). I love all the 1-on-1 sessions with each trainer. Some work with the machines and weights, others work with non-weight equipment, and others use your own body for resistance. Each session is educational and a tough workout no matter how it is done. On Thursday I did these “travelling yoga” poses with Amber and I tell you, they were exhausting! With Eric, even though I was feeling yucky, my body parts were actually OK (the tingling in my left hand is diminishing), so we worked a little bit of everything…upper, lower, and abs. I promised myself from the start that I would not complain nor moan and groan because, for crying out loud, I’m paying a shitload of money to attend this camp, but I do like to joke around with the trainers and give them a hard time. I hope they all know that I’m just kidding when I call one of them “evil” or “ruthless” or “predictable” or “you bitch” (I was REALLY kidding about that one!). There was one machine in which I saw Eric put the weight around 340 lbs (!!!) and I cried out in surprise, “Are you insane?!” – I wasn’t joking around THAT time. What he was doing, though, was creating an exercise in which I held onto the handles, leaned back a bit, and then did deep squats for a minute. The 340 lbs (or whatever it was) was there as a counterbalance. I’m pleased to say that I’m doing stuff that I couldn’t do when I arrived. I’m doing the planks on my knees now, I can last longer without getting too winded too quickly, I’m going a bit faster on the treadmill and stationary bike, and I’m doing pushups against a raised bar (can’t do them on the floor yet!). It feels great to see the progress.

I had an hour break before the final workout of the day, but as I still wasn’t feeling myself, I rested for a few minutes in the lounge, with the intention of working on my posture exercises and then participating in the final boot camp of the day. When I stood up, though, uuuuuuullllggh, the nausea was in my throat. I waited a minute or two, hoped it would pass, took some breaths, but, my body was talking to me and this time I was listening. I went to Amber to let her know that I was feeling worse and would miss her group workout. I went home, showered, and was in bed by 6:30pm until about 8:30 when the meals for Saturday and Sunday were delivered. I definitely needed the rest as I was feeling better by then…well enough to get a meal down, but too tired to write a journal for the day. I think I was asleep by 10:30pm (on a Friday night in Los Angeles…sad, ain’t it? ;-) But, I have awakened on Saturday feeling much better. Admittedly I’m a little anxious about today’s (Saturday’s) boot camp workout, since last Saturday was when I felt chest pains and felt so scared. I have a new heart monitor & watch so I will keep an eye on my heart rate. Oh…this new heart monitor and watch also counts calories, so going forward I’m going to note the calories burned every day. I better get a move on…..hope your weekend has started nicely. Spring is here!