Curled up with my puppy as my little spoon, getting out of bed and heading to the gym seemed like the last thing I wanted to do. My "normal" life, I figured out really quickly, was no longer normal. But after making myself my sister approved breakfast of chicken apple sausage, egg whites, and avocado (as well as a side of strawberries I cut up for myself), I decided it was time to start the day. But come on, you'd have trouble leaving this face too.
I dropped the puppy off at the groomer for a haircut and made my way to the gym (boyfriend in tow). Before arriving in LA, I had made a new exercise plan for myself. One that now required exercising 5x a week. I figured while I was temporarily unemployed and had my days truly free, it would be the best time to go hard. I did a lot of research before deciding on a new exercise regimen - one comprised mainly of circuit training.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with circuit training, it's a series of exercises performed in quick conjunction (in a circuit, if you will). By only resting about 15-30 seconds between each exercise, it utilizes HIIT or high intensity interval training, which is the most effective in fat burning by combining quick spurts of maximum efforts with a short rest period to keep energy levels up.
On this new schedule, I would be circuit training at the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while doing cardio on Tuesday and Thursday. Leaving my weekends for total rest and relaxation. And by training every other day I would be able to give my muscles rest time to build strength. That's something I'm very excited about doing - building strength.
So, my leg circuit was up first. Monday morning. I had looked up a few beginner's circuits, and chose the one that seemed the most interesting to me. And though it was interesting, it was HARD. Good lord. I thoroughly underestimated how difficult a beginning circuit would be. By the time my hour was up, my legs felt like jello. I actually had to use my boyfriend as a railing in order to go down the stairs. He laughed at me, but understood.
He's in his own process of training, too. In fact, right before we met he had lost 80 lbs and so he is extremely familiar with the struggles I'm going through, and I couldn't be more grateful to have him as an inspiration, motivator, and teammate in this journey. After the loss of his father last fall, he spent time in Texas with his family and unfortunately lost some of the progress he had made, but now we're both at it and have double the motivation. We unintentionally matched yesterday. Don't judge.
After the morning workout, I was totally wiped out, but I remembered before leaving for my three week cross country sojourn that I'd made a doctor's appointment. Last year, I went to my doctor and asked her about my 50 lb gain. She chocked it up to being depressed and added an antidepressant that was also an appetite suppressor to my regimen. All in all she was pretty dismissive of my concerns with my weight gain, and never even asked me about the source of my depression.
Now 100 lbs later (well, 90 now!), I was more prepared for interacting with my doctor (a new one, thank god). He was great. We talked about my weight gain, my problems with depression, anxiety and overeating, my current medication and what my plan to lose this weight is. He was incredibly supportive, and ordered a thorough blood test to be done later this week to just make sure nothing is going on physically that I should be aware of. He said, "Most patients wish that something is wrong with them, something that they can treat and fix and explain their weight gain, but the truth is...you DON'T want that. You want your body to be working properly." He sent me back home feeling much better and confident in my journey. I would eliminate the option for anything else to be wrong by doing an extensive blood test (seriously, he sent me home with a paper that looks like everything is circled on it...not sure what they're NOT testing for). And in the meantime, I'd continue as I had been.
After that much adulting, I was anxious to head home, but I needed to do one more adult thing on my to-do list before calling it a day. Grocery shopping!
I took the meal plan V had expertly prepared for me a few weeks ago, and finally put it in action. I purchased everything I'd need for the week and headed home to do my meal prep. Dinner #1 this week was sauteed zucchini and mushrooms with meatsauce. Because I love pasta SO much, eating bolognese sauce tricks my brain into thinking I'm having pasta, even when it's just veggies. I portioned out 4 nights of the meal before partaking in this one (and topping it with 1 tbs of pecorino romano).
It was so incredibly filling and delicious. Plus...the nutrition facts were crazy. Only 277 calories, 16 g of carbs, 10 g of fat, and 30 g of protein. Totally sated, I decided that I could take the rest of the night off (even though I had plans to continue writing my spec script). And that was totally fine. After so much adulting (and still partially on east coast time), I was totally wiped out. Plus, I knew that I had cardio plans the next morning (an 8am hike with an old co-worker!), so I wanted to get a good night's sleep.
Luckily my old co-worker pushed our hike to 9:30, so I was able to sleep in a tiny bit more than originally planned. What I totally forgot is why he was so gung-ho about hiking with me, though. He is incredibly in shape, and brought his giant hiking dog with us. He asked if I wanted to try a new hike instead of doing Runyon, and I said sure! Excited to try something new, I was disappointed pretty quickly. The hike was HARD. Like...really really hard. More of a narrow path through the trees, my legs ached and burned merely 1/4 of the way up. I had totally forgotten how sore my legs would be after my hard day of training at the gym yesterday.
Needless to say, I did not complete the hike. We ended up turning around and attempting Runyon. But by that point, we'd already added an extra mile and a half to our hike, and my legs gave out somewhere near the third hill of Runyon. He was incredibly understanding, and it actually gave us time to really talk about our lives and everything that had been going on since we'd stopped working together (four years ago!). And though I immediately felt like a failure, he reminded me that our first and second hikes combined were way more challenging than just doing Runyon once through. And I should be proud of myself for waking up and making good on my promise to hike with him. My disappointment faded away pretty quickly, seeing as when we arrived back at my apartment I'd burned over 1000 calories in 90 minutes.
The rest of my day will include catching up on the writing I did not get to do yesterday, as well as enjoying my second portions of my meal plan meals. Though the routine is not 100% yet, I've only just returned to this new normal, and I am positive I will continue to persevere. As always, let's keep doing this!
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