Fitness Currently

It was 1 year and 3 weeks ago that I really got started on this fitness thing.  I didn't really plan it out in advance.  The fact that I thought I could start running is evidence of that ("running" lasted less than a month and never came to more than 4 miles at a time).

I didn't plan to start working out because it was a new year.  I started working out because I didn't want to be bored and lazy.  I didn't want to sit at home and mope.  I wanted to accomplish something.  My goal was "don't gain weight" and "have pants still fit in one year".  I was looking at a year of deployment ahead of me and during the last "deployment" (only 4 months), I gained enough weight to make my pants not fit anymore...thanks to a steady diet of french fries, brownies, and Doritos.

So last January, I started forcing myself to stop at the gym on my way home from school.  I would run a few miles a day and it did indeed feel like absolute torture.  It was my least favorite part of the day, but it was also the best part of the day.  It was the part of the day when I didn't have to interact with humans and/or get pity from those around me whose husbands weren't deployed.

Also, in January, I went to my first TurboKick class.  A friend dragged me there.  I wanted to go to the boring, yet predictable, spin class.  She wanted to try something new.  I went.  I kicked (barely).  I punched (a little).  I almost died.  I'd never  worked out like that before in my life.

I went back every Saturday, pretty much because I HAD NOTHING ELSE TO DO.  I mean, what would you do in the winter, in Alaska, by yourself?  Sleep, eat, and workout were pretty much my only options.

Since it's been awhile (I try to talk about fitness at least once a month), I just thought I'd update you on what I've learned works for me...and what I'm still working on.  Reading back over posts (accessed through my own about me page), it seems like my mindset/progress is always changing...as soon as it does, new challenges seem to present themselves.

A win:  Planking
I try to do a plank everyday.  When I'm sick, or when I'm pouty, or when I'm irritated, it doesn't always happen.  But I try!

I can hold a raised plank for 6-7 minutes.  An elbow plank? I struggle to make it to 3.  The best advice I have is to keep going, and that's exactly what I tell myself when I set the timer before I climb into bed at night....  30 seconds here or there is going to make a difference when all is said and done.  You can't tell by my baggy shorts and hoodie (uh, dude, it's cold here), but my abs didn't start developing (truly developing) until I started planking.  I promise it will work.  (Well, as much as I, the person who has no control over you and is not your personal trainer, can promise :)

Still learning: Diet
This is where we all flounder, right?  My issues stem from having TOO much self-control and over-thinking it.  I generally am not super-hungry for breakfast (coffee and cereal usually)...I snack my way through lunch...I don't eat enough protein.  Sometimes the only thing that gets me through my one-hour evening class at the gym is a protein shake.  Then, I generally eat a pretty healthy dinner.  I'm really bad at spending calories wisely throughout the day.  I either splurge or I hoard (kinda like with money).  I'm horrible at balance. What's your pre-gym snack??  Do you have any advice to share??

Anyway, that's my update.  If you can call it that.  I just needed to get these plank pictures up for y'all.  I've had questions about planking from readers.  Only took a month....(I'm a slacker).

It's okay that I have had a major revelation regarding body image (!)

It's okay that I've officially diagnosed myself with TKLS (TurboKick Leg Syndrome).

Last night, I was at TurboKick.  And it came up in discussion that there was a certain "TurboKick body type".  People of all shapes and sizes do and love Turbokick, but generally there's a commonality:
Giant thighs.  Giant muscular thighs.  Resulting in pants that no longer fit.  PANTS THAT NO LONGER FIT.

If you don't know what TurboKick is, you can refer to this post.

Let's review:
I started doing TurboKick last January... at least once a week and as many as 4 times a week, including other workouts (up to 8 total workouts per week over the summer...those were the days...).

In March-ish, I noticed my pants no longer fit.  My American Eagle Artist-style jeans were way, way too tight in the thigh.  I felt like I was being suffocated.  The waist fit well-enough and, at this point, the waist is loose even, but the thighs are still skin tight.

I waxed poetic (i.e. whined) about this problem.  You listened.  You commiserated.  I appreciated it.  Very much so.

But I still felt like something else was wrong.  I was working out every day and my jeans were not falling off of me.  Isn't that what's supposed to happen???

Last night, I learned that others had the same problem.  Giant-ass thighs, slimming waist, pants that don't fit.

Thank the good Lord it's not just me.

Apparently, everyone who follows TurboKick just sucks it up (errr, in) and deals with it.  And buys new pants.

I guess that's what all the kicking will do to you.  The process of muscle-building was so gradual that I didn't even notice.  My legs, in my opinion, don't look all that different...not bigger anyway.  But muscle isn't malleable like fat is.  My thighs are freakin' solid.  And cannot be stuffed into any of my bootcut jeans without making me feel all sausage-like.

My skinny jeans from the last 18 months (2 whole pairs, woot woot!) fit fine and I think it's because they are, obviously, designed differently than bootcut jeans.

But you know what?  I will TAKE those giant-ass thighs that I have worked so very hard for.*

Who knows?  Maybe I'm finally finding a balance.

Maybe.

Let's not promise anything.

*Please don't misunderstand.  I do not believe I really have "giant-ass thighs".  In relation to the rest of my body, they come off as "solid".  When I can put my waist, butt, and calves into a pair of jeans that I have worn for years but cannot squeeze in my thighs they "appear" as "giant-ass".  That is all.

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Oh.  And yeah.  I guess it's okay that my husband bought me a hat.
And I apparently still have a five-head.

At least he understands that I'm a brand-snob.

Oh, but look.  It's nothing more than bribery.

It better be a nice hat.

Health-ness revisited

I wrote Health-ness last winter.  It was a dark time.  Literally.  The dark in the winter here is no joke.  Winter mindset is much different than summer mindset.  So take what I had to say with a grain of salt.


Here's my current mindset.

Over the last 3 years, I've struggled with how I'm supposed to be as a healthy adult.  For some reason, it never hit me until I moved out on my own.  I mean, I struggled with jeans that got a little tight in college after a semester of too many Oreos and Doritos.  But I'd starve myself Special-K style, the jeans would fit again, I'd get involved with a boy, be busy with working and studying, and life would go on.  I NEVER EXERCISED.

Working out in my Pennsylvania life consisted of soccer (which is a bit torturous).  Working out was something I never really intended to do as an adult.  I don't know if I thought my metabolism would keep me skinny forever or what.  I never thought that far ahead.  Silly me.
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I worked out 6-7 days a week from mid-January to the end of May.  You can read what I did here, here, and here.

Once summer began, I had a schedule:
Monday:  Turbo Kick
Tuesday:  Power Pilates
Wednesday:  RIPPED (a.m) Turbo Kick (p.m.)
Thursday:  Abs and Assets (essentially pilates)
Friday:  Body Blast (intervals of cardio and strength training)
Saturday:  Turbo Kick

Sunday has been a "rest" day, not because I needed it or wanted it, but because there was nothing available and we know it's gonna take a miracle to get me back on a treadmill.

When Scott came home on R&R, obviously my schedule changed.  I still managed to work out, at least going to my Turbo Kick classes.  And we were more or less out and about and I didn't have to schedule my day around "when's dessert?".

My schedule, of course, will break into teeny, tiny sad pieces when school starts.

I'll update you on a routine as soon as I, God-willing, find one.  Pray for me, please.

Some things I've learned in the last 6 months:

1.  I get all twitchy if I don't do Turbo Kick for more than a few days.  It's a true addiction.  This is going to be a problem because the class I go to 3 days a week now is ending (read about that here).  So that means I'm on my own, doing TK at home, for the month of August.  Hopefully, my other gym brings it back in September.  No.  Seriously.  I'll quit and join another gym if they don't (Are you listening AT&T Center??)
(If you're interested, I'm certified.  So I'm allowed to "open up my living room and charge admission".  I'll give you the first class free.  Again.  I'm serious.)

2.  If I'm gonna work out, I'm gonna work out.  I want to be dripping with sweat.  "Bang for my buck" is what I'm after.  I've had a really hard time making it to those Tues./Thurs. classes because pilates doesn't make me sweat.   I mean, I know it's improved my muscle tone and flexibility, but I always feel like I'm half-assing it on Tues./Thurs.

3.  It is an awesome feeling to be the most in-shape person in the class.  Ah-MAZ-ing.  I can't even describe it really.  It's just awesome to know that I'm at the instructor-level of fitness.  I went from doing hardly any cardio a year ago to an instructor this year.  

If there ever was a spoken truth...

Source: pinkinmylife72.tumblr.com via Kristin on Pinterest

So what's up with you and your workout these days?  Inspiration and tips, as always, are most welcome!


(Seriously, if want to take some Turbo Kick, my living room is available..)

What do you do with a Turbokick certification anyway??

You may ask, "Well, Kristin, you talk about this Turbokick stuff an awful lot these days.  Are you going to teach it?"


No.  I'm not.  Not now anyway.  I'm going to keep taking classes, I'm going to practice at home, and I'm going to hopefully be a sub for some of the classes I go to.  I'm not good enough to teach my own class yet.  That's the honest-to-goodness truth.  


I was offered a job to teach.  Here's why I'm not doing it...


Last January, when I started doing Turbokick, I fell in love with it.  It is a 45 minute cardio-kickboxing  routine.  It's choreographed to music and was invented (and trademarked) by a woman about 15 years ago in California.  So the instructor doesn't make up the choreography.  I buy the "round"(routine), learn it, and teach it.  You do the same round with your class for about 2 months and then you switch to a new one.  You can go back and forth to favorite rounds, modify moves, combine parts of different rounds, etc.  There are 51 rounds out there.  You can't even buy them to do at home unless you are a certified instructor (this was why I wanted to be certified).  New rounds come out a few times a year.

Then, at one of the gyms I go to, it came about that the Turbokick instructors were leaving and needed to be replaced.  I mentioned that I was taking the certification course, and they got all excited.  And I kinda did too.  I mean, maybe this was just opportunity knocking at the door?

Then I found out that, along with my expensive little TK certification (which I was going to get regardless), I had to become a group fitness instructor to teach at this particular gym.  This requires textbooks and studying and a very expensive test *sigh*.  Alright, whatever.  We have the money right now, I can do it, I'll have my dedicated hobby x number of days a week and all will be well.  If the gym decides to hire me and if I don't freak out/pass out at the thought of leading a class with a microphone attached to my body and if the gym can find a two more instructors because I can't teach all the classes because I have that burdensome thing called a real job.  *sigh*

Oh, and then I'd have to study for, pay for, and pass this crazy long test.  Some people study for this test for a year.  It's their life-long dream to become a fitness instructor.  They go to college for it.  

I'd have to take this test by the end of July.

Plus, I need my CPR certification renewed.  I had it in high school.  It expired.  (And let me just add that I'm a bit appalled that school districts don't provide this as an in-service training.)  The military base also does not provide this service.  That's right:  They will not CPR-certify spouses or dependents, only active duty/reservist soldiers.  I can't even pay anywhere on base.  They won't do it.  I was told to go to Anchorage and pay $110 (on top of the fees I'm paying to take these crazy tests) in order to become CPR-certified.  No (freaking) way.  (I should also add that the gym looking to employ new instructors is on base.  But they won't provide any of the training.)

There were one too many variables for me to be comfortable.  I can't believe that, in the midst of deployment, I've decided to take the only supposedly relaxing time I have (June/July) and mold it into a giant ball of "what if?".  Because we all need more of that in our lives, right?

At this point, I was just angry with myself because I brought this on.  ME.  I can blame no one for this one.  And we were already hundreds of dollars into this thing, much more if you count all the trips to the gym and all the new workout clothes I had to buy.

Now I was at the point where I didn't need/want another stressor.  I know some stress is good for you.  However, while I may have the time on my hands now, I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose my mind once school starts again.
I messed up my favorite hobby.  I stole the enjoyment from it while trying to take it to the next level.  Dumb. While I think I could teach Turbokick, I don't think I have it in me to be a certified group fitness instructor right now.
It was made even more confusing by the fact that my husband was all, "Do it! Do it! Do it!".
Maybe he just wants to see me leave the house more often...

via

In the end,  I decided I don't need to do this.  Not now, anyway.  Sure, I already bought all those pesky biology/fitness manuals.  I can study them at my own rate and take the test at a later date.   Eventually I DO want to be a group fitness instructor.  I just don't think it's something I can decide to do and pursue in 6 weeks' time.

My plan is to have this as a back-up job so I don't have to get a real job in the next place we go.  Scott is definitely in denial over this.  He thinks I want to work.  ha.  Want to work?  I want to cook, eat, exercise, and peruse the internet all day.  (Don't we all??)