I think I need to take another day off of exercising this week… my shoulders are so tight, despite stretching, they actually hurt and feel a bit uncomfortable as a whole… and yet they’ve been awesome recently, thanks to the chiropractor’s amazing adjustments.
Yeah…
Nonetheless, I attended my 61st class as a member today at the gym… which is since we signed up in early April…. not too shabby, eh? ;P
Post-a-day 2019
Today, I went to work out, even bough I really didn’t feel like it…
Starting in the middle of the warm-up, I felt like puking, but I took it easy and did the whole work-out, anyway…
I rested consciously immediately afterward, and ate two snack/protein bars to take care of myself…
Immediately after that, after I bicycled back, I didn’t want to put forth the effort, but I rearranged my plans a bit so that I could make myself an appropriate dinner and snacks for attending the show at Miller Outdoor Theatre tonight… to which I walked the two and a half miles with my friend’s dog…
Everything seems to be a bit achey going to bed right now, but I can tell I did a good job with taking care of myself today, all while staying in alignment with what I want for myself and my body and my health in the now and in the near future…
So, even though it looked way different from how taking care of myself usually looks (i.e. resting and relaxing), I took care of myself today, and on many levels.
I very well could have canceled all of it and stayed home, watching movies and resting and eating easy food, and avoiding interacting with unknown scenarios…, but I didn’t, and that’s the point.
So, I thank you, God and Universe and All, for giving me the encouragement I needed today to take care of myself in the right kind of way that I needed and wanted for today. 🙂
Post-a-day 2019
I was just invited to a swimming party.
I realized that I was feeling a sense of anxiety, and I asked myself its source.
I discovered it was about being seen in a swimsuit (of any kind, really), which has been frustrating for me in recent recent years, due to my poor physical fitness level.
I quickly evaluated my body, to verify the reason for the concern.
I then chuckled silently, as I recalled that I clearly don’t have that same problem anymore, especially considering the fact that I almost ditched my shirt during our workout today (It was just so hot and humid today, and the tank top felt like it was holding warmth in!).
It’s a new feeling for me to be back to swimsuit ready at the drop of a hat, and to be fully comfortable with the thought of swimsuits and whoever might be around while I’m in one.
And it is a very good feeling. 🙂
Thank you, gym, and thank you, God, for getting me to this gym where beautiful magic is happening, at long last.
Post-a-day 2019
The music is playing on my head again… the music from our routine, I mean…
Is it because I want to do the routine?…, because I want to be that clean (in my dancing)?…, because I want to be the professional I know it would lead to being in the dance world?…, or because I want that body shaping I had at the time?…
In the past, it was all about the first several reasons, but I think it is, this time, about the final reason: the body.
I watch videos from then, and I am surprised at how slim my legs are, how flat my belly is… and that surprise really drives home how unfit I had become in the past couple years.
I get it, though – a lot of stress in a certain kind of way can do this to me, especially with how I was emotionally and psychologically until this calendar year.
Now, however, I want to be done with it all, and move forward as the person I want to be, physical body and all.
We’ve been doing this exercise for two months, now… I was worried to look at a scale, because it doesn’t feel like the fat has been rolling off or anything… and I didn’t want to imagine I had been as bad off as I would have had to have been, if it has been rolling off, and this is how I look right now… (hope you understood that)…
I have so much muscle showing up, it’s almost funny…, but then it’s also a bit sad that the only thing left to complete the visual picture is food – the food I have done a terrible job at managing these past several months with my in-and-out circumstances with my home (which continued with a sudden water issue that kicked me out again last night, after having had only five days back at home since the last necessary departure)… so, in a way, I’m not fit yet, because I don’t have a stable home…
How crazy an idea is that?… really makes me wonder about people who generally have no stable homes… hmm… it’s so dreadful, even knowing that I have somewhere I could stay (most of the time, anyway)…, I can only imagine not having that, and trying to be healthy… even good emotional health would be troublesome to come by at that point, I think… man…
Anyway… so I’m back at home again, and I’m clearing out things, cleaning up and tidying, slowly taking on the KonMari lifestyle for realz – I want this, and it definitely feels like the world has been asking me to do it lately… perhaps a crazy and spectacular move is in the mix in the near future, and this has all been necessary to prepare me for it… only those in the know know, and I do not seem to be one at the present time… if only future self could hand me some words of wisdom. 😛
Actually, perhaps this clearing out is due to inspirational words of wisdom from my future self… we shall see what comes, I guess, and that is all we can do about the future, really.
And so I will make way for what is to come, and I will be better prepared in doing so than if I had stayed unaltered … for life is change, and nothing is ever stagnantly the same, so let us change willingly and wholly with life, embracing it as we go… that’s my present intention, anyway. 🙂
Let’s do it.
Post-a-day 2019
I went shopping for some jean shorts today… and it was kind of a total bust.
I ended up having a sort of miniature breakdown afterward, and had to keep reminding myself during it that I actually was fine.
None of the shorts fit – shorts with the same size on the label as one a other would prove to be way too small or way too big, and sometimes just a little too small…, but nothing fit me, and I felt so fat, especially in light of the fact that I’ve noticed the muscle building but the fat going nowhere since joining this gym.
I moved to the bluejean pants, because some of them are the same price, anyway, and I can cut them off easily to make shorts.
That, too, was rather busty, – think C’s instead of double D’s, though – though I tried on loads of them.
At one point, I was preparing to try on a pair of jeans that were the same brand as one of my favorite pairs of jeans during childhood… I wondered in I might be about to reclaim that relationship with the brand and jeans… I actually had duct tape all along the inside of the jeans, in strips and patches to seal and secure the many slits and holes that kept showing up throughout the crotch and butt area (because the fabric was just too thin).
I wondered if that rekindling was about to happen… and dropped that idea when they totally wouldn’t even go all the way on me…
Oh, well…
In the end, I enjoyed trying on shoes I ended up not getting (which I also enjoyed), I bought a pair of jeans (as pants/capris) that don’t necessarily look amazing on me but that make me super happy and fill me with joy whenever I see them, and I bought another pair of jeans that I plan to turn into shorts tomorrow, at which point I expect I will love them and be filled with joy at the sight of them, too. 🙂
I wore the real pants tonight, and French tucked my dress into them… I even got compliments on my outfit, it apparently looked so good to others… personally, I enjoyed it and I felt happy and comfortable and confident in it, and those are what I’m really looking for in an outfit, anyway…, but it is still nice to have that added bonus of praise from time to time. 😛
Totally.
Anyway… oh, I went dancing tonight – first time in probably eight or ten months… or 11 months, actually.., so, yeah… that was a good thing.
And I enjoyed myself doing that, too.
But it also reminded me that my plans to lose this excess fat are a great idea – despite all this exercise, it was still really tiring hauling myself around all evening, dancing. 😛
Anyway,.. goodnight!
Peace
Hannah
Post-a-day 2019
Can we just talk for a minute about a certain type of character in men: that of the overweight male who manages the alcoholic beverages for everyone?
I’m not sure how I feel about this character, but I tend to notice that I frown or bold my face firmly blank rather often when in the presence of such a person.
On the one hand, he can do whatever he likes – he has the freedom to choose.
On the other, I feel so sad and distraught and, even, angry and annoyed that that is the way the man chooses to be.
You see, it comes across to me as a man who couldn’t find himself valued physically – fitness lacking immensely – and, quite possibly, therefore, intimately, and so he has discovered/chosen his position as drink expert, because he gets to be valued and appreciated by preparing and providing alcoholic beverages for everyone – in a way, he gets all the pretty girls, and, from each, a version of love, appreciation, and intimacy.
Add onto that the often-present obsession with drinking games and their rules, and I can hardly stand to be around this man… he is so adamant that he is the expert on this drinking game or that drinking game… and his skill levels are quite high in just about every drinking game…, as is his alcohol tolerance…
He goes around to the females of the party, and developed special codes with each of them regarding their drinking preferences… he understands them like no one else does…, but only in the sense that he knows what alcohol preferences they have…
And he seems to exude importance and appreciation of himself…
But do these women truly love him as he wants, needs?… or is the situation only getting worse and worse for this man who feels so unloved (outside of the alcohol stuff)?
Every time I cross this man, I have a sense of outrage at his ignorance – meaning that he ignored it – of doing anything valuable with his time and effort, and his misled focus on improving his skills at those two areas.
I mean, Really???!
And I know this is just my view and my opinion… I just wanted to share… the whole reason I am even upset about it is that I don’t value alcohol almost at all in life – I see it mostly as an unnecessary and not-so-valuable distraction for people… it used to be the safe beverage to drink, due to germ issues back in the day, but it seems to me to be utterly abused and somewhat unnecessary in modern-day society.
There are so many better ways a man can spend his time than focusing on alcohol tolerance, combinations, and games… he probably could have picked up a foreign language in all the hours he dedicated to those three things… let alone exercised and gotten loads more fit… 
::sigh
Just a thought – I’m not aiming to be rude here; merely aiming to say what I see and feel about this… but do you know what I mean?
Post-a-day 2019
The gym owner did the class with us this afternoon.
He does it every day, I think, but I haven’t paid attention as to whether he attends the same class time every day or not.
Nonetheless, he worked out with us today, right?
Right.
Okay, two things.
Firstly, he verified that he intends fully to do the Murph workout next week using strict pull-ups only, no kipping – “Murph didn’t kip…” – and so expects to have a terrible time (of it, and literally, I suppose).
Secondly, at the end of the workout today, I hear someone walking behind me say, “Who picks stupid shit like that?”, clearly referencing the intense and exhausting workout we’d just finished in the crazy heat and humidity that make their appearances this time of year in Houston.
I turn, and, as I had already suspected, I see that the gym owner, himself, the fittest person I’ve ever known or seen in person, was the one who’d spoken.
I laugh a casual, “Ha,” and agree, “Right?”
After a brief pause, during which I consider many possible scenarios, but still settle on the original one as the most likely, I add, “You do pick out the workouts, though, right?”
He looks right at me and nods morosely, breathing through his mouth, and I crack a smile as, shaking his head slowly, he says, “Still stupid shit…”
And then I got to experience the beauty that is my abdomen at this point, flexing wonderfully in giggling laughter. 😀
Gotta love when people can speak honestly about the pains of doing a quality but extremely exhausting workout, especially when they know it’s because of them that everyone is suffering, you know?
And also that the one who puts us through the misery always makes sure to put himself through it, too.
I love our gym owner – he rocks on so many levels, and today was just another one of those levels shining brilliantly through.
Post-a-day 2019
(It kind of makes me think of slipcovers and slip dresses…slip-thoughts)
Do you ever notice yourself making a sort of Freudian slip in your mind?
I know we have them all over the place in our spoken, verbal language, but what about before the spoken part, before the words leave our lips… does it still count then?
Today, while driving to check on my friend’s lovely cat, I was considering a piece of a conversation I’d just had, one which has repeated often recently.
I live in a yoga studio.
When people discover this, they often ask if I do yoga there just all the time.
The answer, of course, is, “No.”
Why would my life be so predictable?… we know me well enough to know things are never quite so simple in my life.
Anyway, when this happens, I tell people how I actually prefer practicing a different type of yoga – there are certainly aspects of this one that I love and that I love doing, but I don’t love doing the typical class of this type of yoga… it’s just not my style when I’m looking for yoga.
Usually, when I’m looking for yoga, I’m looking for stretchy yoga.
And, if I’m looking for stretch practice or help, I think of stretchy yoga.
So the two ideas, yoga and stretch, usually go together for me.
The yoga where I live is a bit difficult to do, at times, and you never know if you’re walking into a really tough class or an easy one.
They’re great – don’t get me wrong – but a work-out is not what I have in mind when I’m thinking about doing some yoga… I’m thinking about stretching… a lot.
So, anyway, I explained this in the conversation, right?
Right.
Thinking about it in the car, afterward, I ended up pausing to focus on traffic and maneuvering through it with care, and I sort of held my place in the conversation analysis by repeating one particular phrase over and over again.
It became a sort of mantra, as often happens when I need to pause a mental analysis briefly.
I continued repeating it rather passively in my mind, not paying much attention to whatever was going on with the words inside my head, trusting that they’ll spark the right memory, whenever I return focus to them…
After a few blocks of driving, I was able to refocus on my inner dialogue.
… And I couldn’t quite figure out what on Earth I was talking about inside my head… it made no sense to me… what could I have been thinking about that gave me this particular thought.
“I always prefer the super sexy…”
What???
I quickly began to analyze how I could mean such a statement… and I also quickly discovered that such a statement is not really true in any general sense – I don’t usually prefer the super sexy anything … unless it’s men around me… in which case, I suppose I might just prefer the super sexy…
… so that could have been what was going on regarding thought process: I was thinking of having sexy men in my life… except that I wasn’t… it didn’t sound familiar at all…
So that had me thinking about that in the first place, I wonder?… where did sexy men come from?
And then it hit me, how I got to such a phrase.
“I always prefer the super stretchy yoga.”
That’s what I had said aloud earlier, and that is the phrase where I had paused in my mental review of the conversation… the phrase that had been out on repeat…
And so, I suppose my relaxed mind made easy associations and relaxations of words, as I passively repeated my bookmarked phrase, as has happened plenty in the past… “yoga” and the following phrase dropped off the end… “stretchy” turned slowly into “sexy”… and there you have it: I always prefer the super sexy.
It had me wonder: is that a Freudian slip of sorts?… Was my subconscious mind telling me something within my conscious mind?
Why bother with speaking aloud, when the brain can handle the whole thing on the inside, right?
I don’t know.
But it did make me laugh a whole bunch, when I discovered what had happened… I mean, how often does yoga turn into sexy stuff, eh? 😛
Haha
Post-a-day 2019
I entitled this “Fitness”, but the phone decided to change it to “Fatness”, when I went to click on the writing section, and the phone offered/suggested alternatives to what I’d written… it still somewhat applies, so I’m leaving it… it’s like a Freudian slip for the technology age. 😂
So, after class today, I was talking with one of the coaches about when I might expect to see visual results with my body from these workouts.
We talked briefly about my diet, and then he requested to speak honestly.
“Of course(!).”
“When you first came in here…[…], you looked kind of sedentary…[…] Now, you already have definition in your body… in your legs… in your – you look like an athlete…[…] before, …” (makes faces) “… Now, you look like an athlete.”
It’s been a month of these classes, and I’ve attended 23 of them so far.
I checked my activity log for running, walking, and biking – and I only log my bike ride to and from the workouts, as well as any runs of a mile or more in the workout, not the actual workouts themselves – and I already have almost half the number of activities and half the distance covered that I had in all of last year… and I’ve gotten almost all of that this past month.
I had one activity, a 3-mile hike/run through the hills in Redlands, California, when I went with a friend who was moving there, logged this year otherwise… nothing else.
So, in one month, I’m already almost halfway to all of my official exercise activities last year.
Pretty cool, huh?
I mean, totally bummer that I had so few last year, but we can’t change that, nor can we change the mental struggle that kind of ran the show regarding all of that…, we can, however, embrace the freedom that is the new state of affairs, where I am now governing my fitness and my fitness activities (not some mental freak-out), and I am actively pursuing genuine and somewhat intense physical fitness.
So, woohoo!
Yay!
And, though I’ve felt that my progress visually is slow – aka my belly and haunches and inner thighs still seem so ugh – it is nice to have the positive encouragement from the coach today, as well as my sneaky shoulder muscle for when I brush my teeth. 🙂
Yay, for mental and physical fitness! 🙂
Post-a-day 2019
I never did do a ‘before’ photo for my workouts… and I’ve been a bit bummed about that this past week and a half or so.
You see, I’ve felt as though I’ve not really made much progress in my fitness… not visually, anyway.
I have no full-length mirror to access at the moment – flea situation still, you see – and so I only get to see my stomach, really, on a daily basis.
And it doesn’t seem to have altered much since we started CrossFit classes.
Perhaps it has, and I haven’t noticed the ever so gradual change…, but it seems slight, if it has, indeed, changed at all.
I almost have a sense that my arms really are more defined than before, but I can’t be sure about it… when I flex my tired muscles, not much shows up still…
So, it feels like I’ve no visual results with all of this… and I’m definitely half in it for visual results – bikinis and swimsuits and awesome outfits are in my future, so my body needs to get into shape, literally.
And I’ve been getting a bit down and out about this all, wondering morosely if it’s all worth it, anyway, if I’m apparently doing it all wrong and not getting any actual positive results.
However, tonight, while brushing my teeth – of all things, right? – I noticed something…just past the outside edge of my collar bone, there is a semi-deep indention… on the other side of the intention is an extremely solid-looking shoulder muscle(!).
I mean, I couldn’t have flexed that muscle if I’d tried, but there it was, flexed, shining casually in all of its toned, 3-D shapeliness…
So now, at the very least, thanks to CrossFit, I look like and extremely fit and BA individual whenever I brush my teeth. 😛
Not my long-term or short-term goal is, but I’ll take it for now. 🙂
Thanks, CrossFit!
Post-a-day 2019
hannah ananas 