Day Thirty-Five – Ladybugs and Scales

Today’s Workouts:
• Cardio Beach Walk (2 ¾ miles, 1 ¼ hrs)
• Measurements
• Abs/Core workout (1/2 hr)
• Swimming (64 laps (1-mile), 1 hr)
• Cardio (1-hr)
• 1-on-1 session (1 hr)
• Boot Camp at THE HELL OF SAND (I mean, The Dunes) (3 trips up, plus other shit, 1 hr)

I am not sleeping as well as I should be for some reason. I keep waking up in the middle of the night, usually at least once and always at 4:40am. What’s up with that? I do take either Advil PM or Tylenol PM to not only help with the muscle aches but to help me sleep. The bed is deliciously comfortable and I’m neither too hot nor too cold. So, I just don’t know why I can’t sleep a straight 7 ½ hours. I usually go right back to sleep, but still, I would rather not wake up after nearly 6 hours of sleep and then try to get at least 90 minutes more. I thought exercising would help me sleep deeper and longer. I can’t help but wonder if this is contributing to me getting fatigued so quickly. I’m trying a different routine tonight. Dinner and shower as usual, but not taking the powder supplements with my water (as that seems to be causing another “digestive” issue from which I will spare you the details). I think I’ll try a sleeping pill and some regular Advil instead of Advil PM. Let’s see how that works. The only thing, however, is in the past, I have strange dreams whenever I take a sleeping pill. I don’t remember hardly any of them, but I do remember waking up thinking “that was weird.” Not scary or bad, just WEIRD. Has that happened to any of you?

Nicola paced me on the beach walk this morning and thus I made it to the pier in under 30 minutes…a personal best for me. She said, “keep going.” I guess another 100 yards or more there are “the rocks” forming a barrier of sorts on the beach, so I had to go to them. That took another 10 minutes but as Nicola had turned around to pace Belinda, I probably didn’t go quite as fast as she had me going. On the way back I did try to keep my pace higher than usual. During the walk, however, I saw a ladybug. Ladybugs are significant to my Mom’s side of the family because her mother, my Granny, loved them, as well as daisies. Granny’s name was June and so we’ve always thought of ladybugs as Junebugs. Since she passed away over nine years ago, we’ve all encountered a ladybug at the most unusual, odd, unexpected places, sometimes when we’re gathered together and other times like today when we’re on our own (the “we” is made up of my Mom, her sisters Janey and Ellen, my sisters Kitti and Arlene, Janey’s daughters Kelly and Kim, and Ellen’s son Josh). I was delighted to see this teeny, tiny, little ladybug in the sand…that means that the red color of its wings had to catch my eye at the precise moment. I stopped ever so briefly to pick it up, but it wasn’t enough to capture it in my hand. My intention was to take the ladybug along, because we’ve always felt that if a ladybug was near, then Granny was really watching over us at that moment (‘cause when she’s not watching over us, I’m pretty sure she’s playing Shanghai or Cribbage with the angels). I explained the significance of ladybugs to Nicola, and as we kept walking, we noticed lots and lots of them on the beach, mostly dwelling in or near bunches of seaweed that had washed ashore. I didn’t know that ladybugs were sand dwellers ;-) When I was alone, returning from the “rocks” I stopped quickly to take a photo, but also to capture one and put it on my shoulder. It stayed with me almost to the beginning of the beach. Thanks, Granny!

Before jumping into Marco’s Abs/Core Workout, I had my usual Tuesday measurement. I was hoping for better numbers than last week, as always. Once again, I had good results in inches….6 ½ inches down, with my abdomen and thighs losing an inch each. I was especially thrilled about my thighs getting smaller ‘cause they are just so frickin’ BIG. But the scale – THE SCALE!!! It is NOT MY FRIEND! Only 3 lbs ;-( I don’t understand it. I am working my ass off – literally! – and yet the pounds are not coming off. I was inconsolable. Seriously…I even cried a bit into my swim goggles later on! I need the pounds to come off so that I have less weight to carry when I’m doing these outdoor workouts (i.e, the beach workouts, the bike rides, the swimming). I also want them to come off because I get out of breath more quickly than I would like. I have improved in that area, of course, but I still have a ways to go. I’m impatient as hell as you can see. Anyway, I really am thrilled with the inches that I’ve lost…41 inches in 5 weeks. I noticed that some of my track pants were slightly loose around my thighs. Woohoo! As far as pounds though…only 18 lbs. That really sucks and it made me so sad for the next few hours.

As I was pooped from yesterday’s workouts and the faster pace of this morning’s beach walk, I was thankful that swimming was coming up. It’s such a great, low-impact way to burn calories, get in my cardio zone, and have a long, steady workout. It turns out, though, that my legs were just busted. I still managed to get 64 laps in. 10 of them, however, were done with arms only. There’s this funny foam thing shaped like a figure-8 which you can put between your knees. This forces you to use arms only. I was pleasantly surprised to do those 10 laps without getting exhausted too quickly. I do still use the exercise flippers because of the resistance that they provide in the water. Marco says that I should stop using them. I don’t know…when I didn’t have them last week I only did 50 laps, although more of those laps were freestyle. We shall see on Thursday. Hopefully the weather won’t be bad; I think we’re expecting rain for a few days. I’m sure Evil Marco will make us swim anyway as long as there’s no lightning ;-P

So, back to the gym for lunch and I just lost control of my emotions and wept about not losing enough weight. I told Karen, the nutritionist about it. I’m on 1544 calories now, with increased proteins. I don’t know to what she’ll adjust it yet. As I said before, I was inconsolable. I just don’t believe it’s going to get any better. I’m stuck at 3 or 4 lbs a week. That’s not going to get me to my goal. Michael tried his best to cheer me up and give me hope, but nothing he or anyone said would change my mind. All I could think was that all this hard work was going to waste. I KNOW it’s not going to waste, but it felt like that today especially after I had stepped up my game in the last seven days. I still had an hour’s break before doing 30-minutes of self-cardio, but I just went ahead and started so that I could do an hour alone while almost everyone else was still on break. Whenever I need to erase negative thoughts from my head or just shut down my brain for any reason, I have to watch TV. Happily, Cash Cab on Discovery Channel was on so I cranked it up on the treadmill and went at it for an hour. And had I been in that cab I would have won lots of money! Ben Bailey, I love you!

Following a quick trip to Walgreen’s to get an elbow wrap (my right elbow is still bothering me a little bit), I had a 1-on-1 session with Marco. As I’ve said before, I really like the 1-on-1 or 2-on-1 sessions because the trainer watches you every second, and he or she will push you more than when there’s a group workout. Marco knew that my legs were pretty tired so we started with upper body. I wanted to do some bench-pressing so he obliged. I still can’t press that bar with any weights on it, but the bar by itself is damned heavy! I managed a set of reps but it was tough. During the workout, I think it was Nicoletta who asked Marco if we were going to The Dunes for the afternoon boot camp. HORRORS! Great, I was now dreading that while finishing up Marco’s workout. I guess to get me prepared for The Dunes, he put me on the treadmill with some VERY steep inclines and quick walking speeds. You know, I have to do whatever it takes to convince myself that I’m going to get up the Hell of Sand, so as my next hour was free (Claire out sick ;-( ) I dashed home to get my sand socks, have dinner, and take a shower. I hoped that freshening up like that would help propel my ass up that damn hill (can you tell by my description that not much changed?). OK, here are a couple of POSITIVE things about that hill. First of all, it was nearly 6pm so the sun was going down and the temperatures were cooler for the climbs. That was actually OK. And, I did the first climb in 10 minutes – on the previous Friday in the morning I did the first climb in 15 minutes. So…that’s pretty good…even after walking 2 ¾ miles on the beach, swimming a mile, doing an hour of cardio and another hour of 1-on-1 training, I still managed to get up that hill, as tired as I was, in less time than I had on Friday morning when I was fresh. OH, I can’t forget…After the first climb I had to do 50 bicep curls. Then climb again. After that one I had to do 50 reverse dips. And then climb again. Finally the hour is nearly up so I knew that this would be my third and final climb. I forgot to time myself, but I descended in time to do a final 25 squats, 25 reverse dips, and 25 pushups. Keep in mind that not only did I do all that after an already full day of workouts, but I did that in ONE HOUR whereas on the previous Friday it took me TWO hours to just get up there FOUR times. Put a fork in me ‘cause I’M DONE. Marco seemed very pleased with all of us (by the way, the “young’uns” went up and down the hill several more times than I did). I mean, EVIL Marco is pleased ‘cause I just know he knows that he got me ready for that damn hill and he knows he’s right. Well, crap, I know he’s right, too. Damn that Evil Marco for being right ;-) But I still don’t like that hill!

It started to rain so some of us were dropped off at the apartment complex directly. I don’t like to ride my bike on wet roads (just like it scared me to death to ride my motorscooter on wet roads in Bermuda – that’s why I ended up with an 8-inch scar on my knee!) so I jumped right out, baby. I hope that if it is raining tomorrow we don’t do the bike ride. I’m icing my knees as I’m writing this and also watching Biggest Loser. Holy Mackerel…did any of you see it? Did you see Sione balancing on the yoga ball one on knee while the opposite hand and leg were extended? Good Lord! Now…that’s what CORE is all about. Finding and solidifying your core is what keeps you steady and strengthens your abdominal muscles. I’m still struggling with that. I generally have good balance but I can see where the weaknesses are whenever I have to balance on the Bosu Ball (which is basically half of a yoga ball with a hard, flat bottom). Hmmm, I think I have just been inspired to work on that this week.

Time to post this, shower, and get to bed. Wednesdays usually end at 5 pm for me but they don’t start any later. Hope you’re all getting enough sleep and will have a good Hump Day!