wednesday weigh in.

So I weighed in this week and I'm down 3% body fat, 4 metabolic years and up .5 lbs.  Even though my weight went up a half of a pound (which I'm sure was water weight, right?  I mean it can't help that I weigh in at night...), I'm pretty exicted that the other stuff went down (they're more important anyway, me thinks)!

I used to take Thursday mornings off from the gym, most likely because it's an interval class and interval classes and I don't like each other...but this article confirmed that interval classes are just what I need to be doing.  There are also lots of other good tips included in the article to help your metabolism.

How are everyone else's New Years Resolutions coming along? 

The good news is the attendance in the classes at my gym has gradually been dropping, so that's a positive.  For me at least.  Maybe not for those people who can't get motivated to go the gym...

sweat it out.

I love working out.  LOVE. IT.

Ok, there are those occasional days (er, weeks) where it's the last thing that I want to do.  But, for the most part, it's right up there with being one of my favorite past times. 

I mean, yes, I'd rather go eat some delicious food with you, or have a drink every now and then, but working out does so much more for me than helping me be physically fit, it helps my attitude too.

This past week was kind of a doozie.  I wasn't all that busy, but it was a draining week.  I'm afraid of how much worse my attitude could have been if I hadn't gone to the gym. 

Take yesterday, for example.  I was dog sitting my sister and brother in law's dog, Bella. 



Sweet little belly, chewing up an ugly Jayhawk... :)

She's a sweet angel most of the time but sometimes she's a beast.  The dogs didn't quite "get" daylight savings yesterday so they were trying to be awake at 4 AM.  I was having nothing to do with that so we all went back to bed for a couple of hours. 

We were up again around 7:30 to go to the bathroom and I just decided to let the dogs have free reign (instead of going back to their kennels) of the house because I wasn't done sleeping.  Laila decided that she'd take a little rest with me, but Bella decided she needed to do some exploring. 

I was half asleep and half not and noticed that Ms. B was being extra quiet so I decided to go and check on her...only to walk out to a big pile of dog poo.  I cleaned that up and decided to check the rest of the house.  This dog must have had a rotten stomach or something because she managed to poop on every floor of my split level house...that's 4 poo's if you're counting.

I was not a happy camper.  Needless to say Ms. B went back to her kennel for a little bit after that episode.

Later that morning (ok, it was like 8 by this point), I went downstairs to watch some TV, aka-take a nap, and the dogs were going crazy and trying to lay on top of me on the couch.  Both of them.  Finally, they decided it was nap time too. 

This is how they like to be when they are around each other, always together and hovering over one another...well, Bella likes to hover, and Laila likes to sit on top of Bella, but you get the picture.

Everything was going fine until Bella's mom and dad came to pick her up and she decided to pee in the basement right in front of my brother-in law, just as a little "welcome home dad" gift. 

I was a little annoyed, but, I do need to point out that my dog also loses all of her manners when she goes to their house (they occasionally find little rabbit turds hidden in only places that Laila can get to, oops).  Dogs are silly sometimes.

Anyway, after Bella left, I decided that I needed to get out of my PJ's and go to the gym. 

Maybe it was the fact that I was kicking and punching the crap out of a bag that made this workout extra good, or just the fact that I made it out of the house and to the gym on a Sunday.


Either way, sweating seems to always make me feel better.  If I feel like I'm getting sick, I tend to go to the gym instead of taking meds because I think that I can sweat the toxins out of my body.  I'm weird, I know.  But I don't like taking medicine.  AND, if I'm having a horrible day, going to the gym to sweat usually makes the day seem 10 times better than what it started as. 

What do you do when you're having a bad day? Is the gym your go-to place to get out of a funk?

 

Four forty-five.

That's what time my alarm goes off every day (except for Monday).  4:45 AM. 

It's such an icky time of day.  I should really still be sleeping.

I mean the moon is still out, every one of my neighbors are still sleeping, my dog doesn't even like having the lights on that early.  But I do it.  (Most of the time.)  Some days it's really, really  hard to get out of bed.  Like when it's freezing cold out, or when it's raining.  But I make myself do it. 

I get up that early to go to the gym.  Most of the morning classes that I go to are either boxing or kickboxing and I get to wear my pretty pink gloves when I go.


They, however, are really only pretty when they are new or before class.  After class is a different story.  The stench that comes out of these puppies is something else.  Like whoa.  BAD.  A few of my friends have attended a couple of classes with me and while they love it and sometimes feel like barfing afterwards, their hands reek for hours, sometimes days. 


I mean even if you typically sweat zero when you work out (which is totally me, I don't sweat at all...), your hands are still going to smell like rotten butt.  No joke. 


There have been occasions where I'll leave my gloves and wraps in my car after class and on a really hot day the smell engulfs my entire vehicle. 


Regardless of the stench, most of the classes are some of the hardest workouts I've done in a looooooong time, and I've been going to this gym for over a year.  Most of them take me back to high school sports and doing those workouts that leave you gasping for air like sprinting, wall sits, running suicides, planks, pushups until your arms want to fall off, and crunches.  Not to mention the crazy stuff that we sometimes have to do in the weightroom. 

The boxing and kickboxing classes really make me feel like I could beat the crap out of someone if I had to.  Apparently I get this look on my face when I'm hitting the bag like I'm envisioning taking someone's head off.  I'm not.  I swear.  But I could.  Watch yourself.



This is not me, but we could pretend that it is.  She's wearing pink gloves, has long dark hair, she looks focused and she looks buff.  It could totally be me....