Fitness Log #4

If pain is weakness leaving your body, then put me in line for the worlds strongest woman.

The Stats:
Down to 208.5. Diet is... uh... still there? I've been eating what I'm supposed to... and then adding snacks lately. Something I hadn't done before, but suddenly, protein drinks aren't quite cutting it. I'm working on it. Oh, and my new trainer has changed up my diet... giving me new numbers to work with, but not a new menu. He upped everything except carbs; considering I wasn't hitting my original levels, I have no idea how I'll eat that much food healthily. Exercise wise, my cardio has been upped to 45 min 3 times per week. I'm trying to push it to an hour.

The new trainer pushes me a lot harder; I actually like it. The only big problem right now is that my right shoulder is all out of whack. So on Tuesday when we were trying to do do arms, my right arm just wasn't keeping up. This is strange b/c my left arm is usually weaker.

I don't have anything else particularly fitness related to talk about today... I'm waiting to see how much changes in the next week.

Fitness Log #3

It's my Friday fitness long once again... but unfortunately I don't have great things to report.

Well, that's not entirely true, I have managed to hold my weight at 210.5; surprising as I've blown off the diet and exercise for the last week.

The accident has been the kind of stupid small blow that for unknown reasons seems to have totally broke me. I know I posted these sentiments on Monday, but that was 5 days ago... when everything still hurt, when I still couldn't see straight, when it was all very fresh. But here I am today, and I don't want to get out of bed. I'm tired of people telling me I need to be neater and that I need to clean, and I need to stop e-mailing and study. I'm tired of sleeping horribly, and w/ in 10 minutes of being upright getting massive headaches. I feel so staggeringly behind on trying to study for the Bar, that I can't help but wonder what the point really is. I'm tired of people who volunteer to "help", and do things you don't ask them to do (my laundry, making deviled eggs for me for a party tomorrow, appreciated to an extent, but not what I needed help with), and then get irritated w/ me when I do actually ask for something I need (rub out my neck and shoulder for the first time since the accident to try and get it to not be a painful knot of tension any more). And now i just don't wan to get out of bed, and I know that will only make the situation worse.

I think that having the fitness goal has been a major part of me being able to cope with life in general lately. A goal, a minor distraction. Besides blogging, its been how I've been able to physically channel all of my frustration. That sort of got taken away from me this week. For some reason, doctors don't like the idea of you running when you have a concussion... go figure. So the most frustrating event that's happened since May's lump in my neck, I can't do anything to physically to take my mind off it really. And then, I've turned to comfort foods. Little snacks that make me feel better... so basically this week I've blown off the diet. Everything just seems derailed and off track; I keep telling myself that next week I'll be back on a schedule and feeling good, and back to the diet and the trainer, and everything will be better. But today, when I need to be on track today... this sucks.

Actually, it's almost amusing strong enough to fight cancer but totally thrown by a fender-bender.

Fitness Log #1

Fitness log?!?! Wait? What?! What happened to talking about the thyca?

Well, it all sort of ties in together, and at the end of today's post, I'm thinking of issuing a challenge. But first I need to talk in long, convoluted sentences until I actually hammer out the details in my head of what exactly I want that challenge to be.

The basic role of the thyroid is this: control metabolism. I'm not going to tell you all the science involved. If you've made it to my blog, you've probably already taken a fairly active role in investigating the thyroid for yourself, and not being a doctor I would literally be regurgitating all the information that I've found over the years, which isn't what I want to do.

What I do want to do, is tell you what happened to me. I didn't just steadily gain weight, it came in waves, and not knowing anything about thyroids, I just contributed it to various things. I'm about to do something terrifying... reveal my weight... dun dun duuuuuuuuuun.

In 2000, I weighed 132lbs and would jump to 145 depending on the season. Between January-June 2001, I gained weight to be 160 lbs. In the fall of 2001, I dropped all the fattiness, to be 162 lbs, but fitting a size 9 (US)... normally 145 puts you in about a 10-12 size range. I was a lot of muscle. Then 2002 there was a creep up to 170, and then between February and May 2003, I suddenly jumped to the 190s, not muscle. I dipped below the 190's in 2004 when I was running around Europe, but overall I've been on a steady increase, usually gaining about 8-10 lbs during surgeries or radiation, dropping it back, putting it back on, but always seeming to add a little more. Until this year where I went from 204-215 in about a 3 week period. My all time high for weight was 218.

In 2002 there was an overwhelming synchronization of events, all of which have probably contributed in no small part to me just gaining a lot of weight, but also convinced me that it was sort of normal.

1) I was a soph0more in college... I've labeled my tummy my beer baby
2) I stopped playing volleyball competitively, so no more 2-8 hours of running, jumping, etc on a daily basis
3) I went on birth control shots (very bad idea)

Then one day I went and saw my doctor about it, and he ran tests on my blood work because we all thought it was weird, and it turned up nothing. About 2 months later my obgyn asked me if I knew I had an enlarged thyroid.

I can't say that my thyroid made me a fatty. Like I said, there were a lot of things going on. But I know my tumor was fairly large and had spread, sort of indicating it had been there for quite some time.

The biggest problem I think about having a thyroid condition and dealing with your weight and fitness, is in fact the mental stigma you create out of it. You have no thyroid, how are you supposed to jumpstart it to start metabolizing better and faster. How do you raise your metabolism when it is controlled by a pill? Its another one of those things that make me just generally feel helpless about dealing with the whole cancer issue as a whole. And even worse it makes me feel like weight control and general fitness is an uphilll battle... in the mud, at a 90 degree angle.

Has cancer already affected my self-image, confidence, etc? Well, yeah. Then I moved back home. My step-dad did this total body fitness challenge from January-May; he lost 61 lbs. Staring at someone who was able to drop the weight for a week is enough to motivate just about anyone to get out of their funk.

So I have signed up at Any Time Fitness, and I'm working with a personal trainer. Just for two months right now. 1 hour twice a week. She's changed my diet, has me running, etc. I started working with her on my birthday (June 1) and have dropped 3.5 lbs. It isn't a lot, but it is a start, and I already feel my muscles getting back into their groove.

Its a good time to do this for me. It breaks up studying for the bar exam, and is helping me not snack on comfort foods 24/7 while studying. I'm also in a major transition point in life where I have nearly half a year in limbo. What better time to make myself better. And mentally its cool too. I look at what happened at the end of my time in Pittsburgh, and what I've learned over the last few check-ups, and I'm realizing this might be the best way for me to stick it to the thyca, and regain some basic control over this small thing in my life.

I think each week, or everyother week I'll throw up a fitness log to show my progress. Not so much for bragging rights, I swear, but for other people struggling with their weight, having the mental block w/ thyca, etc. It provides motivation for me to keep up with it, but I think if you are like me... seeing someone in your position doing it, might be the boost you need. (like my step-dad is for me).

So my challenge, should you choose to accept it, is this. Take control of this part of your life, whether it be losing those extra pounds or getting into better shape (ie building up and toning some muscle). I'm not saying go get yourself a trainer. Thats mad wicked expensive. I got the trainer as a birthday/graduation present, and threw in graduation money. But there are enough free resources online, and basic common sense to start off with. If your interested, maybe we can build a little support group; maybe let people do some guest blogging if they do well? Thoughts?