Day Fifty-One (Thu., Apr 23rd) – Please Cut Off My Left Arm!

APOLOGIES FOR BEING LATE....MY SHOULDER "INJURY" HAS PREVENTED ME FROM WRITING FOR A FEW DAYS. I MIGHT HAVE FORGOTTEN SOME DETAILS

Thursday’s Workouts:
• Beach Walk/Jog (2 ¼ miles, 1 ½ hrs)
• Get Dunked (i.e, Body Fat test)
• Abs/Core (1/2 hr)
• 2-on-1 session (1 hr)
• Amy – Butts & Thighs (3/4 hr); Donna – Acupuncture
• Cardio & A Movie (2 hrs)

Amy and I went for breakfast at the gym after I had another mostly sleepless night (thanks, in part, to my shoulder). I was looking forward to the beach walk/jog because it doesn’t hurt as much and I was eager for Amy to see the beach. She agrees that Bermuda beaches are still the prettiest. And can I just say that Amy kicked butt for the three days she worked out with us? There’s nothing she can’t do – hiking, jogging, cardio, abs/core, butts & thighs…you name it, she does it -- even the Dunes and getting dunked. I was really happy for her to be here to share a little bit of this experience with me, and I was so proud of her for doing so well. I have to admit I didn’t know if Amy would be able to keep up or if she was fit. Well, she kicked MY ass! My trainers were impressed with her, too. Thanks for coming, Amy!

We did the usual beach walk/jog, this time with Schuyler. Schuyler pushed me to jog more than usual, which I did. It was chilly this morning but I was sweatin’, baby! Whew, it wore me out! But we had to get back by 9:30am ‘cause I was getting dunked. We get dunked every two weeks to check our body mass index – i.e., to see what percentage of our weight is from body fat and what percentage is from lean muscle. I’m happy to report that of the 29 lbs that I had lost as of Tuesday, 20 lbs were from fat and 9 lbs were from muscle. I’m satisfied with that. Last week I had the mantra of “no new muscle” so I didn’t do any exercises with increased weights (this was before my injury). Percentage-wise my body fat percentage has decreased by just over 3%.

Typically on Thursdays I go swimming, but Dr. Chen recommended that I not do any swimming or any upper body work for that matter for a few days so that whatever is wrong with my shoulder can work itself out. Instead, we did do the usual abs/core class with Marco, then Amy and I had a partner-training session with Jason. He also obliged with lower body workout. One of the exercises was doing very deep squats in which we had to squat, in proper form, down to the bench press seat, then back up…at this deep of a squat our thighs were horizontal to the ground. Our butts better be good and tight after all this. In fact, with all the lower body work I’ve been doing, I don’t expect to lose many pounds but I sure do hope that I’ve lost significant inches in my abs, butt, and thighs.

After this workout Amy joined the “butts & thighs” workout while I went to the acupuncturist. Amy said the butts & thighs workout was killer but good; she said it reminded her of the Jane Fonda exercise videos from ages ago. At the acupuncturist’s office, Dr. Chen inserted the needles first and in a few different places, including my thumb and between my index and middle fingers of my left hand. It didn’t hurt! She also stuck one right in the center of the top of my head to help me relax during the 30-minute relaxation period. Again I dozed off a bit under the heat lamps….you know, I think I could do this every day ;-) This time she used cups again, however these were cold cups so Dr. Chen used some device that manually sucked the air out of the cups to create a vacuum. These didn’t stay on as long and didn’t leave new ‘hickey’ marks on me. We scheduled another appointment for Friday.

Amy and I were happy to hear that the movie for our cardio night was “Burn After Reading” (with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Frances McDormand – a Coen Brothers film), which neither of us had seen. I won’t spoil the ending or anything, but there were a few surprises, and I found that there were a lot of loose ends or bits which just didn’t make sense. After the movie we headed to my apartment to catch Survivor (for me) and Grey’s Anatomy (for Amy…I don’t watch it). Amy gave me a very brief synopsis of how Izzy was having sex with Denny’s ghost….. Seriously????? What crazy person thought of that plotline? When a show starts doing something like that, I lose interest ‘cause it’s just too fantastic. It’s fine if there’s some humor built into it, but not if they’re trying to be serious. Anyway, we wanted to get to sleep early because Friday meant THE DUNES and Amy was going to do them with us. What a good friend, eh?

I think Friday’s through Sunday’s updates will have to wait. The pain is back and the sleep aid (tryptophan this time) is starting to kick in. Please please please let me have a good night’s sleep!