Hello friends!
Well the past week and a half(ish) has been pretty crazy and stressful. I started school and, man, I didn't realize how painfully unprepared I was for the experience. Logistically, I am apparently a collegiate dummy. Financial Aid and everything that goes along with it just totally blows my brain and I've been having a lot of issues with it. Aside from that, lingering emotions from the Branden situation has had me kind of down this week but I'm working on getting back up and staying there.
Beyond the emotional/stress issues, my new workout plan has, well, worked out! Here's the schedule I set up for myself:
Sunday: Weights (Biceps and Triceps) and 30min higher intensity Cardio (short ab session)
Monday: 60min Cardio and long ab session
Tuesday: Weights (Chest and Back) and 30min higher intensity Cardio (short ab session)
Wednesday: 60min Cardio and long ab session
Thursday: Weights (Legs and Butt) and 30min higher intensity Cardio (short ab session)
Friday: 60min Cardio and long ab session
Saturday: Active rest day
This week went well, I just have to work on taking shorter rest periods during my strength days so I can make sure to fit everything in! I get to the gym at 5am and have to be out of there no later than 650am so I have to bust it! I swear, if I had the availability, I would easily spend like 5 hours in the gym everyday! I freakin love it.
I've been lifting in circuits, which has felt good and I've noticed my strength increasing. If you're not familiar with circuits, essentially I choose a group of different exercises (usually 3) and rotate through them. So, for instance, for one circuit I do Tricep Pushdown, Chest Flye and Rear Delt Flye.
So it goes like this:
Circuit 1; Rotation 1:
Tricep Pushdown: 20 Reps
Chest Flye: 20 Reps
Rear Delt Flye: 20 Reps
Circuit 1; Rotation 2:
Tricep Pushdown: 15 Reps
Chest Flye: 15 Reps
Rear Delt Flye: 15 Reps
Circuit 1; Rotation 3: (repeat twice for total of 3 rotations at 10 reps)
Tricep Pushdown: 10 Reps
Chest Flye: 10 Reps
Rear Delt Flye: 10 Reps
I like doing it this way but it has posed an annoying issue: interruptions. If the gym is crowded, it's pretty much guaranteed that someone is going to jump in and interrupt my circuit without realizing it. Whether it's jumping on a machine I need, changing the grip on the cable or whatever... it's an annoyance and slows me down. I'll usually wait for a minute to see if they finish quickly, otherwise I try to 'adapt and overcome' and just use a comparable machine or I'll move on with the rest of my circuit and come back to that particular exercise later.
I've noticed that since getting back into the strength training, I've gotten a lot more disciplined with it. I always finish the total set, even if I have to take a break before that last rep... I don't move on until I do that last rep. I think part of the reason I enjoy weight lifting so much is that it kind of feels like therapy. I love strength and muscles and my brain just feels like it's in the right place when I'm lifting weights. I've always felt like that, which is not the most common thing for girls I guess. When I was a sophomore in high school I tossed around the idea of getting into pro weightlifting... but cheerleading won the coin toss, so I stuck with that.
Speaking of cheerleading, I just received word that our Alumni night is coming up! Anyone who knows me knows that I look forward to this night all year! Every time I mention it my sister just says "Glory days." and I'm totally okay with that lol. I am really excited, mostly just to stunt, of course. I'll be sure to post some pictures :)
Nutritionally (up until yesterday) I've done pretty well. Yesterday was kind of a carb free-for-all so I can't say that I'm 100% proud of my choices. Aside from that, I've been having my banana sandwich for breakfast, snacking on almonds while at school, grilled veggies/rice/quinoa for lunch at home, something a bit lighter for dinner. Unfortunately, I have to pay for my school books out of pocket so I don't have a big budget for groceries right now and I can't do the work that I want with lowering my carb intake slightly, but it's working in my brain. I want to start replacing carbs with other clean options, but we'll see.
So I thought that it would be easy to jump back into my blog or that I was in better control of my emotions, but that's not the case. The whole marriage separation/on-going situation with Branden has proven to be the hardest thing I've had to handle. It's kind of like a roller coaster of fuckery and I'm just having a hard time trying to stay level-headed. I get depressed, I get angry, I'm sad, I'm tired... and then I feel better about things and then I realize how lonely I am and it all goes back to negative town. I'm trying to just stay busy with homework (not much of a problem there) and just focus on the present. I never really considered how much mental health plays into the pursuit of physical health. I always thought to myself that I could just push that shit aside and, if nothing else, use it to fuel my gym fire, but it doesn't always work that way. My goal is still the same: get healthy(er), not just for myself but for my little girl. I'm just trying to build strength of mind... mind over matter, right? Something like that.
Anyway, I know this has been kind of all over the place... that's about where my brain is right now (or always?) :)
Keep on keepin on, friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment