Fit Geek

You know, I expected today to be uneventful for the most part.

I was planning to blog about not being able to get to 40 lbs with dumbbells (80 lbs total) on the incline press, when I can easily knock out 3 sets of 10 with the 35 lb dumbbells. (I couldn’t even get the 40s up once.)

The 40s pwned me.

But aside from me totally failing to get the 40s up in the air, something noteworthy actually happened at the gym.

So, I was on the last exercise for chest day. I decided to end easy on the incline press machine. Then a guy approached me. The conversation went like this:

Guy: Hi, do you mind if I pick your brains for a minute?
Me: Sure.
Guy: Why do you do so many chest exercises?
Me: I don’t only do chest exercises. I work every part of my body because I want to be balanced.
Guy: Well I’ve seen you doing a lot of chest stuff. I saw you doing flyes over there. And I’m not sure if you know, but working your chest too much can reduce your breasts.

*Oh. Hell. No.*

Me: I’m not really worried about that.
Guy: Oh, I wasn’t sure if you knew, ’cause that happens. I’ve seen women whose breasts have gone down from working their chest too much.
Me: I’m not trying to get to a bodybuilder level. And personally, I don’t think working my chest is going to reduce my breasts.
Guy: Well you know with men, they don’t have much fat on their chest. It’s more muscle. But women do have fat there, and it can go away if you work it too hard.
Me: Yeah, exactly. Breasts are mostly fat tissue. And for me, the only way I’m losing breast tissue is if I’m losing fat. And right now I’m not really doing any cardio and I’m not reducing my calories so I’m not worried about it.
Guy: Ok, I wasn’t sure if you knew. I run the PT department here and I put together all the programs, so I just thought you should know.
Me: Thanks, but I’ve been doing this a long time and I’m not worried about it.
Guy: Yes, I can tell. Well, sorry to interrupt your workout.

WTF. Dude. Am I overreacting or was that super inappropriate? In my mind, I don’t care if you’re a trainer or not, you don’t go up to a stranger and tell them that their tits at are risk for deflation. He doesn’t know what my goals are. It’s one thing to help someone with their form, but another thing entirely to comment on their physique.

And as you can tell by my response to him, I don’t think what he said is true either. Granted, everyone is different, but from my experience simply lifting weights for your chest isn’t going to reduce your breasts. Will you build muscle under the breast? Yes, but that alone is not enough to shrink your boobs. There has to be fat loss involved, and I am certainly not losing any fat right now. In fact, when I first lost weight I did lose a cup size or two. But when I started lifting seriously, and consequently gaining muscle and fat, my breast sized increased again. I think there is a stronger correlation between body fat level and breast size than there is between muscularity and breast size. BUT THAT’S JUST ME.

I was so offended it ruined my post-workout Mexican salad. Instead of guacamole, all I could taste was HATE! Well, hate is a strong word. I was pissed, but it would sound weird if I said all I could taste was …piss….yeah.

Have you had any offensive experiences with ignorant and rude trainers at the gym?

Ps. I posed the question on Twitter, but since I only have like, 30 followers, I didn’t get any responses, lol. That being said, add me on the Twitters at MsFitGeek!

Damn. It’s been a while.

Where to even start…

Oh yeah, the no sugar bet. David and I both made it through the week without ingesting any added sugar. (We were still eating fruit and dairy though.) We even withheld at a party that had these treats laid out before us, begging to be taken like wanton lovers.

But we resisted! Honestly, the whole no sugar thing wasn’t really a big deal. I liked that I didn’t eat any sugar, but I can’t say I felt much of a difference. Maybe it’s because a week isn’t long enough to feel the effects, or maybe it was because we were still having a small amount of natural sugar. Interestingly, when I ate sweets again after that week was up, I didn’t feel any different either. Granted I didn’t eat a large amount. But still. A few chocolates here and there didn’t upset my stomach or change my energy level at all.

Although I will say that it felt really good to go to that party and not eat any sugar. In situations like that I usually go overboard, and as Louis Ck says, “the meal is not over when I’m full. The meal is over when I hate myself.” Yeah, that’s totally me at a party. David and I only ate shrimp and olives and drank wine.

For once I didn’t feel like a bloated whale at a party. I was happy and sated without being stuffed. I like that feeling. Perhaps I should adopt a strict no-sugar policy for social occasions only.

Then some stuff happened. I started up the boot camp again. These two were the only ones to show up. I didn’t have one this weekend because of Christmas and all, but plan to resume after the new year.

Speaking of Christmas…

Spent it with family.

Then I went home for a workout.

One of my gifts was this Jillian Michaels resistance band set. “Cool! I can use these today since the gym is closed,” I thought. I attempted to do shoulder raises with the lighter resistance band and it broke on the first rep. Great. Good thing I have dumbbells at home. I did the following shoulder workout:

One arm DB shoulder raise – 3×8 25 lbs

Arnold press – 4×8 20 lbs

DB upright row – 4×8 40 lbs (20 lb DB in each hand)

Deltoid lat raise – 4×10 with level 2 resistance band (I held the band instead of the handle so it wouldn’t break.)

Bent over rear delt raise – 4×8 with level 2 resistance band

Front raise – 4×10 level with level 2 resistance band.

I still prefer dumbbells over resistance bands, but they get the job done when your options are limited.

Then…I went for a run! I hate running!

Then…I went out for sushi! I love sushi!

So yeah. That’s a very abbreviated version of what’s been happening, and stuff. I will be back on the regular posting bandwagon soon. Until then, be good and have fun!

Just wanted to check in and let you who ever cares know that I’m alive!

I’ve been busy with the Christmas madness. New posts soon, promise!

Some days, the force is not with you.

This morning, for example.

I was at the gym by 6:40 a.m., intent on doing a biceps/triceps workout. (I have a case of string bean arms that I’m trying to remedy.) So, I do some curls with an EZ barand super-set them with rope pulldowns for triceps. Normally, that would be fine, but last night this guy in my self-defense class pulled a sweetheart move on me by getting my arm in a variation of a hammerlock.

It was something like this. My left arm was pulled across my back so that my wrist was next to the right side of my hip. Fun times.

My shoulder and upper arm were throbbing for the rest of the class. I’d forgotten about it by this morning, but was promptly reminded when the stabbing feeling returned to my shoulder after that first super-set.

I may have been a sado-masochist in a past life. The masochist part, because I kept trying to lift weights despite my shoulder pain. The sadism I’ll get to in a minute. After two sets of dumbbell curls super-set with dumbbell skullcrushers, I threw in the towel. My shoulder was not having it. Defeat number one. I figured I could at least get some cardio in, so I hopped on the stair stepper for HIIT (high intensity interval training). After two minutes I decided I wasn’t in the mood to bring myself to the brink of puking, and opted for a leisurely walk on the treadmill. Defeat number 1.5?

With no ipod to distract me, I was subjected to the annoying clucking of a hen walking on a treadmill behind me, i.e. an older woman who speaks like she just inhaled helium. I didn’t really mind it up until she started talking about politics very loudly. Let’s just say she and I do not share the same opinions. Her shrill voice and political exclamations were getting on my nerves. Cue my sadism. I’m not going to repeat my train of thought because it wasn’t very nice. I tried to make up for it by telling myself that it’s okay if people don’t think the same way I do, and that the thoughts I was having were bad juju. But geeez!

Agitated, I moved to the farthest possible treadmill from her, and could still hear her loud and clear. Man, someone really doesn’t want me to workout today, I thought. But I know that’s just an excuse. I wasn’t going to let this be defeat number two, so, amped up with annoyance, I got back on the stair stepper to do HIIT again. Did it. Kicked its ass. Actually, I think it kicked mine, but yeah. I was glad I at least did something despite several things not going my way.

Day 5
Still no added sugar. Still not craving it. In a way, it’s kind of disappointing. I was expecting a more dramatic change than just, uuuh I feel the same? Maybe I need to give it more time.

Today was the holiday luncheon at my job. Another instance where I could say the force was not with me. But I FORCED the force to be with me. There was a buffet of salad, bread, something like five kinds of lasagna and chicken francaise. I figured the pasta stuff had to have sugar in it (and would undoubtedly give me a food coma), so I had salad with vinaigrette and a small piece of chicken francaise. Not too bad, considering the temptation. I looked up the ingredients and there wasn’t any sugar in any of the recipes for the chicken francaise. Of course I can’t be 100% sure, but I feel pretty confident about it.

I’d say today was a good day for willpower, but then I came home and ate a ton of almond butter. I love almond butter. *sigh*

I know I’ve extolled the virtues of being an unprejudiced eater, but even I have my aversions. One of which was unknown to me until last week.

In my last batch of produce from the co-op, I received 3 persimmons. If you are as inexperienced with produce as I am, you may be asking yourself, “What the hell is a persimmon?” I thought they were some kind of weird tomato until I read the label.

A persimmon is a little, round fruit usually orange or reddish in color. According to Wikipedia it was originally harvested in eastern Asia. The flavor reminds me of an extremely sweet yam, and the texture is slightly softer than a pear. I ate one raw and the saccharine flavor was too intense. The meat of the persimmon also had fibers (or something) in it, like when you eat too close to the core of an apple or pear, only it was in the entire fruit. I didn’t like it at all.

David’s sister-in-law told me that she used to feed them to her sugar glider, and after that I associated them with squirrel food. This wasn’t helping.

Fortunately, I really hate letting produce go bad. So I asked Sylvia wtf to do with these little overly-sweet demon balls, and she led me to this recipe.

Sauteed Persimmons.

Whaaaaat?! Dude. This stuff was good. Like, real good. Like make-you-say-whoa good.

And it was so easy to make! Sometimes all you need to do is give food a new spin to really enjoy it. I loved the way the salt and thyme complimented the sweetness of the persimmon, and sauteeing it until it was browned did wonders for the texture. I also added parmesan cheese. T’was excellent. I will rejoice the next time I receive persimmons  in my share!

And if you’re curious, Day 2 of the no (added) sugar challenge went swimmingly for me. Surprisingly, I’m not craving sweets at all. David, on the other hand, texted me saying he wanted a cookie. As much as I’d like to tease him for losing the bet, I actually would like it if he were successful. Stay tuned to see what happens.

I feel compelled to mention this because this place is supposed to be a fitness blog: I have not been to the gym YET this week, so I am sleeping in my workout clothes and setting my alarm for 6 a.m. The chances of me making it to the gym are much greater when I’m already dressed to workout.

A couple of weeks ago I bet David $100 that he couldn’t go a week without eating any added sugar. This was while he was in the depths of a pastry and candy binge fest that must’ve lasted at least a fortnight. Ashamed of himself (not really), he accepted.

I was originally not participating in the bet, and because of that he didn’t have to pay me if he lost. I don’t know what my (lack of) logic was to agree to that, but so it goes.

In typical David fashion, he started talking crap. Saying things like, “I’m gonna win that bet so hard. I can’t wait to buy candy with that money. You might as well just pay up now. It’s hopeless for you.” Okay, so that’s not what he said verbatim, but close enough.

Crap talking makes me nervous. I realized that I did not want to pay him that money. But I couldn’t back out of the bet. So he said if I do the no sugar thing with him, and I go the week without any added sugar, I don’t have to pay him. However, if he loses he still doesn’t pay me any money. Which doesn’t really make any sense to me, but whatever. Why did I agree to this again?

Oh yeah. Because I want to cut down my sugar consumption, and this is a good, albeit not exactly fair, way to get me started. And if you think about it, I have more incentive to win, because the fear of loss (of money!) is a bigger motivator than winning something. He doesn’t have anything to lose. I do.

So the rules are that we can’t have anything with added sugar. Obviously that means no cookies, cakes, brownies, candy or desserts of any kind. Fruit is okay, juice is not. David is a milk junkie, so I told him milk was fine since it doesn’t technically have any added sugar.

Grossss.

You’d be surprise how many things have added sugar in them. Bread, dressing, soup, marinated meats and so on. David works at Whole Foods and always eats lunch from the prepared foods section. It took him a few days to find options that fit the guidelines of our bet.

Today was Day 1 and all went well. I almooost slipped up and ate a butterscotch candy, but that’s only because I forgot about the bet for a second. Good thing I remembered before the candy bowl at work got the better of me.

I’m feeling pretty good about the bet so far. I’d say luck is on my side, but I don’t need luck for this one. When I really want something, my resolve is solid as stone! Too bad I won’t get any money out of it though

My Festivus pole.

Oh yeah, and Festivus was a success. I had a blast. However, somebody decided to jump on the pole with a running start, and it was knocked out of place and put this little dent in my wall. But hey, that’s how you know it was a good party

This is a hole in the wall.

Ps. On a completely random note–I made beet burgers the other day and I couldn’t help but wonder if it’d be possible to make a variation of red velvet cake with them. Hmmm…

Remember that song Flag Pole Sitta by Harvey Danger?

The song came out when I was about 12 or 13, and while I was never crazy about it, one line from it always stuck with me:

“If you’re bored then you’re boring.”

Lately I’ve been wondering if that’s true. You see, I have issues with boredom. I get bored incredibly easily. I also feel like I’m becoming increasingly boring.

There are days when I will lament the loss of my youthful pizzaz and the colored hair, cute outfits, make-up and ‘tude that went along with it.

My thought process goes something like this:

Man, I used to be funny. I used to actually care about how I looked. Why did I stop dying my hair funky colors? When did my outfits become based around what was clean and closest to me when I rolled out of bed instead of things that are cute and fun? I should start wearing make-up to work again; I look scary. Sitting in this chair all day sucks. I need more interests. BLAH!!!

Back when I used to color my hair...and drink Goldschlager.

Not very good. That was kind of the state of mind I was in yesterday when I decided to bitch slap the Negative Nancy who occasionally likes to squat in my brain. She can be a real Chatty Cathy.

While every hour of my day may not be filled with blood-pumping excitement, there is plenty of pleasure and entertainment to be found if I bother to look for it. It just requires a shift in perception. So here are a few things that were like an adrenaline shot to my sedated brain yesterday:

-Kicking ass at the gym on my lunch break.
I don’t care what anyone says–there’s nothing dull or ordinary about testing the limits of your mental and physical strength. When I’m rowing barbells and doing chin-ups and squatting I feel like a badass. Pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and squeezing out one more rep is pretty inspiring stuff. I did a bent over row with an overhand grip (a more difficult variation and one of my weaker points) and surprised myself with the amount I was able to do.

-Lolling at TV censorship dubs for movie profanity.
Warning, this one is sooo NSFW:

Aaand:

I couldn’t find a video for this, but my favorite one is from Silence of the Lambs. On the TV version Buffalo Bill says, “Would you marry me? I’d marry me. I’d marry me hard.”

-This song. Good music always gets me out of a funk.

-This site. Ummm, yeah. I know people who really talk like that.

-A SUGAR-FREE cup of coffee.
I know that sounds boring as hell, but dude…I got a sweet coffee buzz. The coffee had cream and vanilla extract in it…and it was like, actually drinkable. This is good because I’m trying to cut down on sugar consumption, and yet I was still able to teeter on the edge of Cornholio territory.

-Battle wounds from my self defense class.
Bruises on chicks are hot. And the fact that I know how to do a rear naked choke is cool, too.

-Realizing that I actually love my hair.
Sometimes I feel boring because for the past year and a half I’ve been letting my natural color grow. I haven’t cut my hair in that long either, and I never style it. But I still really like my hair. I like that it’s so long and healthy (‘cept  for those ends. They’re looking a little raggedy) and that I don’t even have to blow dry it for it to look nice. Nothing wrong with au natural, although one day I may go back to having colored hair.

This is how my hair air-dries. Seriously.

-Anticipation of the lulz to be had at tonight’s Festivus party.
We are using my stripper pole as the Festivus pole. And the feats of strength should be interesting.

Alsooooo, I will probably be starting up my boot camp thingie again. I don’t think very many Miami people read my blog (who am I kidding, hardly anyone reads it, period), but if you’re interested in joining a session shoot me a line!

So, how do you make your life interesting when things are feeling dull?

Then try this move out the next time you’re at the gym:

It’s some kind of burpee-chinup hybrid dealie. Sure gets the job done! Wish I could have gotten better footage of it, but my camera died right when I turned it on, so we had to resort to using my phone.

Anyway, have a great weekend!