Day 630: Growth
🖤 Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤It's day 630 of Nutrisystem. If you go by a 30 day month it means I've been on Nutrisystem for exactly 21 months !! Did I expect to still be on the program and so close to my goal weight at this point ? No .. not really. I went into the program with no expectations. I just had a whole lot of hope. Today's quote is mostly about my struggle with fitness. I can't tell you how many iFit trainers have said "get comfortable being uncomfortable". When I started my fitness journey I gave up as soon as it got uncomfortable. It took me a long time to start pushing myself instead of giving up. It took me forever to push myself hard ! I've really only started doing that in the past month or so. Today I can say I'm comfortable being uncomfortable. For many months I thought I couldn't do incline on the treadmill, especially at 10%. When I finally tried it I did just fine. Sure, it was hard but it wasn't impossible. I thought I couldn't jog either, but once I finally tried it I found I could do short intervals. I chose not to pursue that because my treadmill isn't really designed for jogging or running and after all the years of carrying 300 pounds I worry about my knees and ankles. The August iFit challenge forced me to do a ton of incline and I believe that boosted my endurance enough to take on several of the harder options in the September challenge. The meditation series I already completed was enough to finish the challenge. I could have stopped there and went on my merry way. Instead I completed another series that pushed me to work hard. That led to a third series that has pushed me harder than anything I've ever done, namely these long intervals at 3.4 mph. For a jogger or runner 3.4 mph is child's play but for me it's a big effort. It's a get out of breath and drip sweat kind of pace. With any luck I will complete this last series tomorrow and prove something to myself. It's really the biggest challenge I've given myself. I'm starting to see why some people look at fitness as an addiction but you don't have to worry about me - I'd still rather sit on the couch ! I look at exercise as a necessary evil but it's showing me that most of the limitations I've placed on my life are in my mind. As much as the long intervals are challenging me I'm already thinking I'd like to repeat the series. I've raised the bar on myself pretty high now and that's a good thing. That is growth.
There was no change in Tommy Rivs status today. He remains stable but still very ill. Chemo is going to beat him down but I have no doubt he is prepared to fight his way back. All we can do is continue to pray for him and his family. Rage on Tommy !
Breakfast was a 2.1 ounce 160 calorie cherry cheese roll and a 5.3 ounce 80 calorie Light & Fit toasted coconut vanilla yogurt. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake. Lunch was a 3.8 ounce 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt and a chef salad. Afternoon snack was a honey crisp apple and a 1 ounce 110 calorie chunk of maple bacon cheddar cheese. I logged this snack as a total of 200 calories. Dinner was a 7.5 ounce 220 calorie calorie chicken fettuccine alfredo over riced cauliflower. I also had a bowl of roasted veggies. Evening snack was a 2.2 ounce 140 calorie lemon zest cake. Total calories for the day are 1140 and I got 80 ounces of water in.
It was another struggle to get out of bed this morning but I managed to squeeze a workout in. Fortunately I had an 18 minute TED talk on my schedule. It was titled "How to Tame Your Wandering Mind" and appropriately enough, my mind wandered to the point that I couldn't tell you what the advice was .. lol ! The speaker was Amishi Jha and I actually enjoyed her presentation, even if I didn't get the message. This was programmed with a 2.5 mph walking pace but I did intervals it as intervals. 6 minutes at 3 mph, then 6 at 3.2 and the final 6 at 3.4 mph. I also set the incline at 3% for the duration. My lunchtime workout was 28 minutes of intervals at an Arizona park with iFit trainer John Peel. I went with the programmed speed of 3.5 mph for the pushes and 2.8 mph for the recoveries. Some of the intervals were 45 seconds and some were 1 minute. I set the incline at 3% for the duration of this workout too. After work I took on a 38 minute HIIT intervals workout with iFit trainer Gideon Akande. This is a beginner series and I wanted to work harder so after a short warmup I set the pace at 3.4 mph with plans to maintain a steady state for 10 minutes and then switch over to the programmed intervals until there was 10 minutes to go, and then switch back to a steady 3.4 mph. I ended up going 3.4 mph for 15 minutes at both ends of the workout ! I won't lie .. it was hard and I wasn't sure I could make it .. but I did ! What made it really hard was the incline. The incline gradually increased from 2% to 4 to 6 and then to 8%, which was the hardest. This pattern repeated twice and it's no surprise the 8% is where I struggled the most. The 5 minute "break" between my two 15 minute intervals is probably the only reason I was able to get through it. The speed for those 5 minutes ranged from 2.3 to 2.7 mph. I'm still not 100% sure I can maintain 3.4 mph for 32 minutes straight tomorrow but I'm going to give it my best shot. It's the final workout in the series and I'm looking forward to seeing the finish line ! I logged 84 minutes, 4.4 miles and 507 calories. After dinner I did my usual Total Gym routine.
I had some extra time at lunch so I decided to bring the patio furniture into the garage for the winter. I wanted to bring the table to the front porch but it wouldn't fit through the door, so I ended up taking it apart and then reassembling it on the porch. Fortunately it was just a matter of removing 4 wing nuts and then popping them back on. Now I need to pick up a couple of round vinyl tablecloths for it. It looks nice out there with the 2 chairs I had already brought in and it's much more comfortable to have my laptop on the table instead of perched across my chair on a lap desk. It also makes it easier to sit out there and eat. I still need a floor lamp and carpet but I'm going to hold off on carpet right now. I might just put down a couple of area rugs. It warmed up enough today to work on the porch most of the day. It's so nice to be able to draw a curtain and stay out there when the sun hits at 4 pm. Looks like cooler wet weather is heading back our way next week. I'm really hoping the forecast changes so that my brother's wedding day is warm and sunny !
On that note it's time for a shower and bed ! I need to be up super early tomorrow as I only have a 1/2 hour lunch and need to get a longer workout in before work ! The trade off is I get to log off work at 4:30 !
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