Hanni sent me a picture sporting her tank she won in the Danskin Tank Giveaway!
Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog,
Jerome and I are headed to the gym later today- first gym workout! Wish us luck!
I hope no one is there so I can take some piccie pics.
Off to catch up on commenting. And drink lots of water cause last night’s show was a long one!
Don’t forget to enter Strawberry Shortstuff’s giveaway!
And the Weekly EGN Giveaway starts tomorrow. If you want an email alert of the weekly giveaway, email me at kelly@everygymsnightmare.com and put Giveaway Alert in the subject
Blehhh….I need to hydrate….
Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog,
I did something bad yesterday.
It could have been worse, though.
As I mentioned, I’m overhauling my apartment, and I knew this day would come.
I went shopping.
However, I am the master bargain hunter and got some awesome stuff for unbelievably cheap.
Plus, I bought a ton of groceries. Grand total: $130.00. Yeah. That’s right.
if you looked at yesterday’s post, I did explosive pushups. What I didn’t say, was I did them on the bench press bar, on the lowest rung, about mid-calf height. You just fall foward, grap the bar and do a push-up, but on the up movement, you explode through the arms back up to standing.
Well, halfway through the day, my thumb started to hurt. I couldn’t figure out why, but it continued to spread, and now its my pointer finger, too. Took me a while to figure out, but it was from grabbing the bar with the force of my body weight- Im pretty sure i stretched out some of the tendons and bruised it as well. Sucks. So if you try those, be careful. Right now i can;t grip anything- I have to pinch it like a crab.
To Dave from Write in My Journal for helping me with my blog issue. I totally blacklisted those fools.
Can you tell I just discovered headings?
Jerome, who has been commenting recently (GASP!) and who did his at home workout last night (good boy) has a show tonight. His band, Trip Like Animals, is playing at Fuel in downtown Seattle. How awesome would it be if some local EGN readers came? Pretty awesome. I’ll probably have video for ya’ll tomorrow.
What are your weekend plans?
Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog,
The 2 winners of this week’s giveaway of the Nuru Exercise Anywhere decks are….
and
Winners- may I suggest tossing the whole deck up in the air (attached by the keyring- Im not insane) and doing whatever exercise it lands on? I did that with mine and it made it interesting.
Can I also say how suprised I was by how many of you workout in the bathroom at your work?
Congrats! Email me (kelly@everygymsnightmare.com) your mailing addresses and Ill get your cards in the mail!
Next giveaway starts Sunday, so be ready!
And don’t forget to sign up the Every Gym’s Nightmare Newsletter!
Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog, giveaway, contest, win, free
Does anyone know how to block a spammer? I get about 30 spam comments a day from a partcular site under different names, and it keeps filling my email box.
Little help?
So we got about 1 inch of snow this morning, and in true Seattle fashion, the entire city shut down. i was supposed to have 2 sessions this morning, starting at 6:45, and when I got in, they both cancelled.
It was pretty, though
I had the enitre studio to myself.
I LOVE working out at work, when no ones there. I have free reign.
So, I warmed up on the treadmill for 2 miles, then hit the suite. I did 2 sets fo each of the following:
and then I had a mad stretching sessions. Its 8:30 am and I’m all done working out. I love it.
Down side: I have to go back for 1 session at 6:00pm, and in the mean time I have a ton of writing and cleaning to do.
I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but thanks to Lisa, from Workout Mommy for passing along my name, I’m going to have an article published in the Summer issue of Breathe magazine. It’ll be my first publication in print. Exciting!
Every time I sit down at the computer, porkchop insists on crawling up into my lap. So everytime i write, this is what I see:
Don’t forget to enter the giveaway! It ends tomorrow!
Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog,
Even the skinniest of models are just like everyone else. (Don’t click if you are offended by high-fashion butt crack)
Can’t airbrush a runway.
Eating disorders are full of all kinds of contradictory feelings. You hate yourself, but you are consumed by yourself. You think you are fat, but you know you are the smallest person in the room and love it. You hate food, but you love it- its all you think about, its all you care about. You do everything in your power to lose weight so others will notice, but you get uncomfortable and mad when people comment on it. You do everything for other people, yet you are so self absorbed, you can’t see beyond your body and the fridge.
Recovery is no different. You want to put yourself first and get healthy, but you are still so used to living for what other’s think. The hardest lesson to learn is that recovery is all about being selfish. You have to be 100% on, all of the time, constantly making sure you are checking your ED feelings, thoughts, actions and motives. That’s a full time job: you don’t have time to worry about other people’s thoughts or motives.
You have to stop caring what other people think of you.
I remember one specific time, a few years back when I had just started to really take recovery seriously, my parents invited me over to dinner.
A little back story: I haven’t lived at home since I was 18. I mean, the second I turned 18, I got the fuck out of there. I moved about 30 minutes away. My mother has never seen my apartment. She’s never asked to. She’s never made an effort to. So the only time I see my mom and dad is when I go over to pick up my mail once a weekend.
There were so many times I would go into a therapy session and have to admit that I had slipped up. I binged and purged. I always felt so ashamed, but my counselor never judged me: he barely even blinked when I would tell him I had given in. All he would say was “why?” This was always followed with a ton of “woe is me” responses and how tired I was of fighting and blah, blah, blah. He would politely tell me, yet again, that’s not why I did it, those are the feelings I get AFTER i did it. So what caused it?
Usually, when we got past by usual crap-canned answers, it stemmed from a visit to the folks. I was ignored, or told I wasn’t good enough in one way or another, or I was told I must not be doing well in my recovery because I looked just as skinny.
So one day in session, my counselor straight up asked me, “why do you go over there?”
“To see my parents.”
“But why? You always slip up when you see them- they aren’t good for your recovery right now. They still can control your feelings. Why do you subject yourself to that?”
“Because I have to go see them. They are my parents.” (I wasn’t very introspective back then)
“You don’t have to do anything. Why do you feel obligated to subject yourself to that? You don’t deserve that. No one does. So why do you keep going back for more?”
“I don’t know.”
“What would happen if you didn’t go over?”
“My mom will get mad and I’ll have to hear about it over and over.”
“So don’t be around to hear it.”
“I have to- she calls.”
“Don’t answer the phone. Why do you have to talk to her?”
“I’d feel bad.” I wasn’t allowed to say bad, because bad isn’t an emotion, so I had to reanswer. “I’d feel guilty.”
GUILT.
The magic word.
My life up until that point had been ruled by guilt. I felt guilty for not being a good daughter. I felt guilty for having an eating disorder and putting everyone through the stress of worrying about me. I felt guilty for being a bad girlfriend. A bad friend. I felt guilty when my mom would call and make passive aggressive comments about whatever the topic of the day was and I felt guilty for leaving my dad with her. I was always feeling guilt.
“You know what guilt is?” he asked me. “It’s when you let other people control how you feel. If you really want to get better, you need to put yourself first from this point forward. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. Say no. Don’t be scared to hurt anyone’s feelings. Do what is going to get you healthy, and don’t give it a second thought.”
So, back to dinner at the parent’s. I came, made chit chat and waited for dinner. I don’t remember what we had, but I remember it was something I specifically told her I could not eat. She knew what I was and was not allowed to eat at that point in time, and purposefully made it anyway. Or she just didn’t find it important enough to remember. Either way, I was not considered.
She set the food down. I immediately stood up, thanked her for making dinner and for them inviting me over, but told them I cannot eat this food because I’m in recovery and it will trigger me, and I need to leave.
And I did.
I walked out.
Guess what happened? Nothing. Well, actually, I had to endure a lot of phone calls, some silent treatment, and it getting brought up over and over again (notice no apology) but honestly, I didn’t care. I learned to look out for me, and finally, FINALLY make a decision with only my best interest at heart.
I always thought being selfish was a bad thing: one of the worst personality traits a person can have. But being selfish is a neccessity when you are trying to get your life on track. Letting other people rule your emotions and thoughts is the surest way to give into self destructive patterns.
Stop living for what other people think of you,because at the end of the day, you are the only person you have to report to. Take pride in putting yourself first.
Hey- who’s planning on doing the Rock ‘n Roll Seattle marathon?
I think a blogger meetup may be in order….
Missy Maintain’s is giving away some Country Bob’s BBQ Sauce
Hangry Pants is giving away some Zoes’ Granola
I’m giving away 2 packs of NURU Exercise Anywhere cards
Enter, Enter, Enter!!
So I’ve been telling you guys I had a suprise, but I think its more exciting for me than its going to be for anyone else.
If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that my boyfriend hasn’t worked out a day that I’ve known him. Up until a little over a month ago, he was a smoker (I think he passed a month last week- go Jerome!) Anyway, in addition to his newly healthy non- smoking attitude, I have convinced him to let me train him.
GASP! I know. My boyfriend. In a gym. With me. I think I might have a heart attack.
For the record, I think my boyfriend looks awesome, wouldn’t change him for the world. We’ve obviously gotten along well enough so far- so our difference in lifestyle’s isn’t an issue with me. BUT, that being said, of course I would love to share my love of fitness with him, and if it turns into something we can do together, I will be the happiest woman alive. I love fitness, I love him- why not combine the two?
So last night, we did a mini assessment.
I asked him: On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest, how do you rate…
Your commitment level? 7.5
Your motivation level? 3
Your stress level? 6
The quality of your sleep? 5
Then I asked him his 3 main goals, in order of importance to him. He replied:
1. Breathe better (from smoking)
2. Gain Physical Strength
3. Increase Flexibility
Look at that- I didn’t even have to prod him, and picked goals in all areas of fitness: cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength and flexibility. Smart boy.
Then we took his measurements:
Push-up Test (Full push ups in 1 minute): 41
Crunch test (crunches in 1 minute): 48
Sit and Reach Flexibility Test: 8 inches
So what’s the plan?
Based on his goals, the main thing that we need to do is hit the weights hard. For him to breathe better we need to focus a bit on cardio- but since he’s no longer smoking, and due to his previously mentioned hatred for cardio, it doesn’t need to be a major focus. Stretching after our warm ups and at the end of the workouts will be sufficient enough to increase his flexibility.
Since his motivation level is low, it tells me that if I try and make him workout on days he has something else to do, or (since we will be at my gym and he lives pretty far away) if I try and make him make an extra trip out to see me every week, its not going to work and he’s going to get fed up- I have to make it fit into the schedule he already has.
So- we always see eachother on Mondays (cause it’s Heroes night) so Monday is a mandatory gym day. On Wednesdays i wrote him a super simple at home workout he can do with no equipment and very little time to ease him back into it.
Once we get further along and I can teach him some new exercises, I’ll make it more exciting. Then, one day each weekend we will workout together- at the gym if scheduling permits, or do something else. Its up in the air, but just as long as we get it in.
I wrote these down and had him sign, promising to stick to the workout plan.
In 8 weeks, I will reassess him and see how he improves. Since he has very little body fat, and weight loss isn’t a concern, I have zero doubt that we will see improvements IF he does what he needs to do.
He seems pretty into this though, and I know that when he puts his mind to something he gets it done. And he’s also a good sport, letting me turn it into blog fodder.
I’ll keep you guys updated on his progress and workouts weekly, and let you know how he’s doing!
I just hope he starts to love it and it turns into something he keeps up forever.
But first we’ll have to make it through these 8 weeks.
Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog,
