Saturday, July 17, 2010

Discoveries

As I have been talking about in my past few posts, i'm finally finding something I enjoy again and being active is about finding things you enjoy. Someone was asking me about what do I 'do' to be fit and active because they wanted to take some 'tips' from me. My first answer to that question always is: what do YOU enjoy doing? Being fit and active needs to come from enjoyment. Sure there are times when I'm in a training plan and I'm not enjoying how I'm tired or that a particular workout is killing me, but underneath it I enjoy it. Hence why for awhile I am putting multisport training away. I know many people claim they don't like to do anything active, but I think some of that 'aversion' is born out of fear. Fear of learning something new. Fear of worrying what other people will think. Fear of being bad at something new. We all like the comfort of the familiar, but sometimes we all need to branch out and grow and try to figure out what it is we like. I usually feel like i'm making a total ass out of myself when I'm first learning something and in truth... typically I AM...so I've learned to laugh at myself too. But I have found that with practice that awkwardness and self conscienceness does goes away...i promise.

After my foray into cross fit I discovered: I like lifting heavy weights. Give me a heavy deadlift and I am a happy camper. I think this kettlebell thing I'm doing now which will also incorporate some powerlifting and olympic lifting in a setting that is designed more to what I need as an athlete might be the perfect fit for me. Although I'm sure the first few weeks might be a lot of complaining about how sore I am. After all I'm really out of shape right now.

And as of late my biggest concern with my lack of activities has been more around my pants becoming too snug. So I made a date with my sports nutritionist and got my %bf tested. The good news, compared to March of 2009, my lean body mass has only gone down 2lbs. Not bad considering how horrible a spring and how inactive I have been (and for me putting on LBS is easy...so I actually wouldn't be surprised to see those 2lbs back on me pretty quickly). I know I had lost some strength, although this is a comparison from over a year ago. I kinda wish I knew what my LBM was in January...although that might depress me. So let's pretend that Jan 2010 I wasn't that much different fitness levels than March 2010. Granted I was, but I think if I knew I had lost much more LBS i'd be depressed so let's just leave them as close to being equal. And then the truth of the %bf. Looks like i have 10 pounds to drop to get to March 2009 levels. So let's start there.

My nutritionist and I discussed finding activities I might like and that it doesn't have to be swim bike run. It's nice to be reminded I SHOULDN'T swim bike run unless I WANT to. I know this, but it makes my aversion to running and swimming of late almost a relief. Wanna know a secret: i still pack my running stuff and swimming stuff hoping that if the urge to run or swim overcomes me I am ready. I guess i'm not ready yet. ;-) And yes running with friends and swimming with friends I will go and do...but it's being able to enjoy it on my own that I am waiting to come back to me. I still believe that one day it will. I ran 2 miles on my own a few weeks ago, and every part of that run was wonderful...but it was born out of a desire to run and I'm still waiting for it to return. Until then I will try to be 'ready'.

I know there are times to push through some things, but right now is not one of those times. I know that if I am too harsh on myself or force my self into any swim-bike-run that I'm not keen to do the long term consequence of the short term calorie burn isn't a good trade off. But I'm not going to lie when I say I might push a wee little bit and try one swim and one short run this week. There are also realities in life like those 10 pounds that I really would like to go away so that my jeans aren't so snug.

Another discovery I made today was white flour. I know it's not good for you. I know stay away from it. I know...I know...but sometimes we don't always do what we know is best for ourselves. I had some pancakes at lunch...and an hour and a half later I could barely keep my eyes open. A solid 1.5 hour nap later I'm finally awake. And the crazy part? I have dramatically cut back on coffee to the point that a cup of coffee makes me super alert these days and I EVEN had a cup of coffee during my drowsy period before I succumbed to the nap and it did NOTHING. So...bye bye pancakes. I heart you, but you don't heart me. I might actually try this experiment with wheat pancakes and see if it is wheat causing the power nap desire. I did have the pancakes with protein and some fat to try to slow the insulin spiking, but apparently not enough.

So...lots of discoveries made today a bit of a rambling post, but I think right now I'm trying to sort through some stuff in my head that I haven't been able to for the past few months. If I have the energy I hope to be here a bit more in the future.

3 comments:

Kathleen @ ForgingAhead said...

Discoveries are a wonderful thing! I was just saying to my husband last night that maybe I want to learn a new sport - like surfing. Learning new stuff is scary and fun. Sad about the pancakes though.

RubyDragon said...

...So you've managed to make a full recovery from the overtraining syndrome? Wonderful! What do you think helped, and when were you able to start being more active? I'm going crazy here! This is the longest I've had to hold still in a long time.

rocketpants said...

RubyDragon, drop me an email. My email is in my profile information under 'view complete profile'. I can go into it a little more. But as far as 'timeline' I probably 'came down' with Over training syndrome in early March...and only in the past few weeks have I started to feel better. So 3.5-4 months it has taken me to *start* to feel better. Yoga did help. It was the only thing that kept me active because it was the only thing that didn't hurt. I actually had little desire do much because I was so tired all the time and when I did do something it then would wipe me out for days.

As far as weight training, i think if i were to embark on what i'm about to do back in April (actually I considered it then), it would have been bad. Drop me a line and I'll email you my story. My OTS was probably that life events made my body more suseptible to OTS. I had a good schedule and I don't think it was from over reaching...i think it was my body was depleated from other things and 8-12 hours/week of training just was too much for it.