I was thinking about some of my old workout videos the other day. And no, I’m not referring to Jane Fonda or Cindy Crawford, though the logo I came up with would suggest otherwise. (the lazy thigh lift, obviously.)
No, I’m thinking more along the lines of Jillian Michaels and 10 Minute Workouts, circa early 2000’s.
I’m going to start with my number one pick: 10 Minute Solution Knockout Body with Jessica Smith. I will post the review in my next blog post because I’d like to take the time to actually learn WordPress and post some media to accompany. I was obviously just anxious to blog for the first time.
You can expect all kinds of things here, though, not just workout videos. I imagine I will talk about my day, or what I’m cooking, or what my husband and I talk about when we drink. Hopefully none of that sounds too boring. Just so you are all aware, I take requests. If you want me to write about anything in particular, just ask.
Anyway, this box arrives, filled to the brim with shakes and superfoods, supplements, a blender bottle, and a tape measure. One look at that tape measure and fear rose up from my stomach to my throat. I did NOT want to know how many inches of fat were coating my midsection, but I had made a vow to lose this weight and if I had to fill out a tracking sheet with measurements and mood and sleep quality, plus take horribly embarrassing before pictures, then that was what I was going to do.
I feel like I’m getting too detailed here and so let me (finally) get to the point.
The point is, I changed. I didn’t just make a small change or work some baby steps that, yeah, might help a little, I changed everything.
I completely eliminated processed and packaged food.
I gave up caffeine. That was HARD. I was a six cups of coffee a day, plus a sugar free energy drink before a workout type of girl. Caffeine and me? We were close friends. The headaches from withdrawal had me seeing stars for a few days, but once I got past that, wow! So much better. I don’t need a coffee to get me from beyond exhausted to extremely tired anymore. I wake up with energy and I feel awesome.
Alcohol went out for 30 days. My husband and I were going on date nights once or twice a week prior to Covid, and drinking at home 3 nights a week once we couldn’t go out anymore. I like my beer, wine, and martini’s, but I figured I didn’t need it for 30 days. And I didn’t. Now we only go on a date night once every three to four weeks. We save major calories from not drinking, plus the bad snacking that comes after intoxication, and we save a ton of money by not going out.
I’m a pescatarian, and was vegetarian for about 20 years prior to adding fish back in 3 years ago. Part of the diet involved being plant-based only, so this wasn’t anything difficult for me.
Maybe this doesn’t sound like THAT many changes, but to me it was. I was not eating as badly as someone that does fast food all the time, I NEVER eat fast food, but I was eating more than I needed to and lots of it came out of a package and cooked in a microwave. And no matter how much I knew I wasn’t doing the right thing, I certainly wasn’t doing anything to stop it.
I stuck to this diet for those 30 days, to a T.
It was WORTH it.
I lost 18 pounds in that first month. And I decided to keep going. So I took one day off when I finished the first box, it happened that my birthday was the day after day 30 so I celebrated with a few cocktails and some healthy food. And then another box showed up after that.
Four months later, and I’ve lost 30 pounds. Which is great. I look much better. I’m not back to my fighting weight yet, I have 20-25 pounds to go (scale weight is so subjective, though. I’ll be happy to be slender and muscular again, no matter what weight that may be.)
But best of all is how I FEEL.
It’s incredible. I have almost NO symptoms of my IBD anymore. Can you believe that? A gastrointestinal autoimmune disease that caused me all the pain, and just by changing my diet I damn near cured it. Ok, I’m not cured, but it seems that way, and that’s good enough for me.
I’ll be continuing my journey here, and sharing it with you. Cheers!
It’s me, your friendly neighborhood Couch Tomato. I’m sorry I abandoned you. I’m going to go ahead and blame it all on Covid-19, because what else is it good for other than horrific chaos and scapegoatery? Is scapegoatery a word? The squiggly red line that’s appearing underneath it in my word editor tells me that the answer is no, but I like it. I’m going to go with it.
Anyway, I thought I’d share a little bit about what kept me so busy that I seemingly had no time to keep up with my fledgling blog when I was furloughed from my job for three months, Yep, that’s right. I was home all day, everyday for three whole months and too busy to write a single blog post.
Actual picture of me being too busy to write.
For starters, I’m proud to say that I did manage to come out of the jobless fiasco relatively unscathed. You might even say that the time off did me a lot of good, and not in the eat-bags-of-chips-and-binge-watch-everything-on-Netflix-and-Hulu type of way. Not that I didn’t do any of that, because I did. In fact, I wallowed in my self-pity for a good month after I was first furloughed from work. Being home for a few months sounds great, sure, but the uncertainty of returning to said job and the knowledge that there are few other work opportunities out there if I was truly laid off led me into a bit of a downward spiral. I ate, I watched, I drank.
I earned my badge of, uh, honor, otherwise known as The Covid-10.
Yes, I gained close to 10 pounds in the first month of being home. I was depressed and lacked motivation. So, on top of already being overweight thanks to severe IBD, I was now even more out of shape and couldn’t fit into anything other than leggings. That’s fine if you never again have to leave your house and wear your work clothes, but I knew that eventually, one way or the other, I’d have to go back to work in some capacity. And as lovely as it was for my husband to tell me that I looked beautiful whenever I complained about not fitting into any of my clothes, I knew what I looked like.
Time to really do something about it. No, really this time.
And do something about it, I did.
Now, I used to be in fantastic shape once I got over my fat childhood years and started falling in love with exercise around age 20. And I kept that large amount of weight off for almost twenty years. The last few years, I’d been in the best shape of my life. I entered Crossfit competitions regularly, for crying out loud. I looked and felt GOOD. So, I know what I’m doing with diet and exercise.
But IBD took all the wind out of every sail there ever was in my life. I mean, it was pathetic. I let that disease take over and I started to make every excuse in the book.
And put on 50 pounds in 2 years.
Yes, FIFTY!
So combine that with my Coronavirus gain, and the situation became dire. But what could I do differently that I had failed to do in the last few years? I wasn’t being my usual disciplined self. Why would that change now?
You know how sometimes things just happen and they were meant to be? You don’t know why or how they are, they just are.
I was looking online one day, about a month into being a stay-at-home-dog-mom, and I saw a social media post from a friend of mine that had been diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer the year before. Right after giving birth to her first child. She posted about how she too had fallen into the throes of depression after Covid rendered her unemployed. She lost her health insurance and could no longer continue her treatment or get scans, Luckily, she had just completed Chemo for the time when this hit, but still. Anyway, she said that she was down and she started to sit at home and eat. She was the heaviest she’d been in her life. (She’s never been a big girl, like I was, so it must have been an even bigger shock.) But then a friend of hers told her that nutrition was the best healing cure for anything and that she could help this girl feel better and get healthier. I’m sure my friend was skeptical, who wouldn’t be. But I”m so very grateful that she took a leap of faith and said yes to getting healthy, because when I was reading her story, I just knew this was going to be the one thing that worked. The one thing I actually stuck to. I had no idea why I thought this way, I just did.
And so I forked over the money I didn’t exactly have (Unemployment wouldn’t last forever), and waited for the box to arrive that was going to turn my health around.
And turn it around, it did!
I leave you here for now, as this is getting to be way long-winded. Part 2 soon. I promise.
I have an auto-immune disorder. I tell you not because I need sympathy, I definitely don’t, but because it will better help you understand me and my somewhat uneasy journey through fitness endeavors. So that you won’t think I’m a hypochondriac or a major whiner when I talk about the issues I face, or that I’m just making excuses.
Not that I never make excuses. I do. But life is not easy when your own body is attacking itself.
What does this have to do with running? Everything, really.
Look, I’m an athlete. I have always loved sports, I have always played sports. Since high school, anyway. My love for physical activity sprouted when I made the varsity soccer team my sophomore year and just exploded from there. I got into running and lifting weights in college, and I even played a few years of pro women’s football. Tackle, not lingerie. I’ll have to see if I can dig up that picture.
When football wasn’t a great fit for me anymore because breaking an ankle and getting a concussion were not conducive to waiting tables in my 20’s, I found a sport that was just as violent, but the roughness was self-inflicted and I no longer had to worry about being tackled. Cross fit will punch you in the face, let me tell you, but man did I fall in love. I even entering local competitions, looking for some extra punishment.
Wow, talk about making a long story,well, long.
So, running. Yes.
I love it. I hate it. I can’t wait to run. I am super sad on the days that I’m in too much pain to run.
A few weeks ago, my husband and I watched Brittany Runs a Marathon. It’s on Amazon Prime, I highly recommend it. I’d been in a fitness rut, my stomach has become so bad that I have trouble even getting up everyday, let alone trying to be active. But we watch this movie and it’s fantastic. It was funny and sad and just great. And man, did I want to run a marathon after I watched it. Never mind that a few months ago I had to transfer my bib for the Marine Corps 10k because I developed Achilles tendinitis during training, or that I have a bad knee, and that a week prior I started to feel the WORST pain in my right hip. Brittany ran a marathon, and so would I.
Nike has a running club app that I have used for years, but I’ve never been able to consistently stick to the coach guided run routines. You can choose any length of training with the coach guides, 5k, 10k, marathon, etc. Or you can follow a plan just to get healthier. I decided this time I’d follow through with a routine no matter what. I didn’t want to set myself up for failure, though, so instead of creating a plan to run a marathon, I chose a smaller goal that I felt was attainable. I’m following the 10k program. I set a training length of 11 weeks because I’d like to sign up for the Rock and Roll 5k here in DC at the end of March. What I’d really like to do is run the half, but I’m just not there yet.
(Are you still with me? Do you wish I’d just get to the point already? I’m sorry, my mind goes in a thousand directions and I have trouble organizing my thoughts so most of what I write ends up being a random stream of consciousness.)
Here’s where the title of my blog post comes in. Running sucks, people. It hurts, it’s hard, and it makes you want to rethink your life choices. Running is also one of the greatest joys in life. Have you ever finished a long run and thought it was awful? Sure. But have you ever regretted doing that hard thing and succeeded at something that is so physically taxing? No. Nine times out of ten you will feel like a million dollars. You’ll feel like you could go on American Ninja and Jessie Graff the hell out of that thing.
So, does my hip hurt? Yes. Do I struggle to do half of these things because my body sucks? Sure do. Will I stop? No way.
Thanks, Brittany. I’m actually loving following the Nike running plan.
Does anyone have a particular app they love? Please let me know in the comments. I can look up the ones you mention and compile a list of free vs. paid and the pros and cons. I’m about to start looking at Strava.
I promised I’d review this workout video a few days ago, but I figured I should actually do it again before I tell you about it. Plus, you know, holiday weekend.
It’s one of my favorites because I love kickboxing and the instructor is not annoying. Actually, she’s great. Jessica Smith is her name and she’s done quite a few of these old school videos. few other 10 Minute Solutions, a Look Better Naked, and a few others that I cannot recall.
Anyway, on to the review.
The DVD (or Amazon Prime video, like I used) is broken up into five 10 minute segments. You can do them all, or pick and choose what suits your mood and time schedule. If you were like me and you had a disgustingly large DVD collection way back when, then you also had this on DVD and it came with 1 pound weighted gloves. That are pink. I’m not a fan of pink, but okay. The workout is meant to be performed wearing the gloves, though it isn’t a requirement. You can still purchase weighted gloves on your own if you do not have these, though. I bought two pounders later on to kick it up a bit. I think they are made by Reebok, but I cannot remember.
Knockout Body Blast:
This is the first segment and it’s probably tied for my fave with section four, which we will get to. Jessica starts out by introducing the basic kickboxing punches that you’ll use throughout the whole experience. Jabs, Cross punches, Hooks, and Uppercuts. You move through to some squats and kicks, some jump rope simulations, and then she puts some combos together. I love the combos; they are good cardio and toning, and they are easy to follow.
Fat Attack:
Easily my least favorite, only because it’s the hardest on my knees (which are pretty bad from many years of extreme workouts and running), but it’s great cardio. Bonus, it has some toning as well. Look, I don’t believe that you’ll gain any serious muscle from videos like this, but it doesn’t hurt, right? And if you’re already in pretty good shape, doing workouts like this in addition to your regular routine will only give you that much extra. Anyway, this is a cardio segment that incorporates a lot of side shuffles, squats, jumps, and punches.
Ultimate Upper Body:
I really like this segment. Gets the heart pumping, definitely, but the toning moves from all the different punch combos is the best, especially with the weighted gloves. Jessica starts you out by putting some simple punch/step combinations together, then you move into a longer set of combos, finishing up with some specific toning moves.
Kickbox Cross Train:
The fourth section that I mentioned loving is this. It’s similar to section one, in which she takes you through the basic punches, but this time she focuses more on the intention behind the movement. Where section one is going to get your cardio up more, this one concentrates on toning. Especially in the legs. She throws in some really good dancers moves, and there are some lunge squat combos that felt good and did not bother my knees.
Fierce & Fabulous Abs
It’s right there in the title what this section covers. It isn’t all just boring floor work, it starts in a standing position for the first few minutes with lots of twists and turns. I like the moves she uses, a lot of them feel fresh and they do seem to hit the abs from all angles.
So, there you have it. A good video to add in to a more rigorous routine if you’re looking to get into amazing shape, or just a great workout to keep you moving and fit.
