Welp, I’m definitely fighting something that seems like maybe strep? Ear infections? Major chest congestion & headaches. Insomnia. Here’s the really great thing about it: it creates so much appreciation for how good I feel most days!
To those of you who listen to tomorrow’s podcast (4/1), you’ll wonder who the dude on the show is…yeah, that’s me. Haha. Sorry about it!
Even though I’m still struggling, I’m going to gut it out and go to the gym. Don’t worry, I won’t be going full throttle at the workout but I need to move my body and get my blood pumping. I’ll be sure to take it easy and avoid heavy lifting, but I’m still going & going to do the scheduled workout, albeit slower.
I’ll scale those chest to bars to ring rows and keep the weight light on the power snatch, just to make sure I’m not adding stress to my body while I feel like garbage.
My goal is to consistently move at a moderate pace. I’ll finish when I finish.
I can’t lie – it wasn’t an easy workout. I felt every single step pounding in the back of my head and I was coughing throughout, but you know what, it felt good to sweat and now I’m taking it easy (and working) for the rest of the day.
On the food front:
After being restless most of the night, my wifi went out this morning. That’s always awesome when you run an internet business from home!
Instead of getting all huffy-puffy about it, I saw it as a great excuse to enjoy an Americano from Starbucks before my workout! I packed up my stuff and spent a few hours working from there.
I picked up almonds while standing in the interminable line, but, the sloth-like pace gave me enough time to realize I wasn’t even hungry. It was a convenience grab. I set them down and just enjoyed my Americano.
After the workout I went over to Whole Foods and picked up a container of pre-shredded cabbage and spinach to make my super-salad-mega-meal.
I put it in my Oxo Salad Chopper with avocado, cilantro, jalapenos, hard boiled eggs and some cashews. Oh it makes me so happy!
Note: chew well when you’re eating!
Seriously. Most of us tend to chew a bite of food only 4-6 times before swallowing. We really should chew closer to 20 times before swallowing. The amount of chewing we do has a big impact on bloating, metabolism, bowel movements and satiety.
I’m not suggesting you should count. Don’t overcomplicate it. Just chew more.
That salad keeps me so full for so long but I was feeling a little hungry around 6pm so I made a 2 egg omelet with tomatoes, spinach and goat cheese.
Happy Friday to me! I think this is the first Friday night I’ve been home in quite some time & it’s wonderful!
Enjoy your weekend, guys! I’ll see you on Monday and hopefully I’ll be back to my normal, healthy, vibrant self! I’ve got a massage scheduled for Saturday & an anti-gravity flotation tank session scheduled for Sunday!
Well, the lack of sleep thing makes more sense this morning. (Insert sad trombone…)
After struggling to sleep all night (again), I woke up with a sore throat & chest congestion.
As much as my ego is screaming for me to go workout (which is absolutely what I would normally do), I’m not going to.
Can we pause for a second and celebrate what a huge self-care victory that is for me?! Yay!
But, I am determined to work with my body during this year of push, not fight against it. After all, we’re on the same team.
I have a lot of work to do today and when I’m not working on hosting my Masters Club workshop, I’m going to be drinking water and trying to create some down time.
—–
One question that keeps coming up is about the journal I’ve been sharing over on my Instagram stories. (If you follow me on Instagram and see my picture in a circle at the top of your app, that means I’ve shared a story: a real time picture or video that displays for only 24 hours.) The past few days I’ve been showing morning & evening pictures of my journal.
It’s called the 5-minute journal & I absolutely love it! I was chatting with one of my clients this morning and she shared that seeing my Instagram stories of my journal encouraged her to get back to using hers and she’s really excited about it.
Here’s to hoping I wake up bright eyed & bushy tailed tomorrow, ready to crush a strong workout! I’ll tell ya – not feeling well makes you really appreciate your health and value taking great care of yourself to preserve it!
On the food front:
Let me be very honest for a second – I actually don’t love sharing what I eat every day & here’s why:
I think many folks don’t understand the intense variability in food & nutrient needs based on body size, metabolism, activity level, body composition, etc.
I know that many people look to eat the same way every day. I’m not that way. I really strive to listen to my body which means some days I eat a lot and some days I eat very little.
Right now it’s 2:34pm and I’m still not hungry. So, I haven’t yet eaten. I’m not surprised by that – I’ve been very sedentary and I’m really congested. I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t eat at all today and I think that’s completely fine.
My goal is to listen to my body & give it what it needs. I don’t just monitor hunger but also energy & focus. What my body needs most today is water & rest.
When people get hung up on eating every few hours or making sure to get 3 meals each day, I think they forget how humans evolved.
We didn’t have predictable access to food and we were lean & highly active.
This constant eating and snacking is much more about access and habit than biological need.
If I don’t eat today, I’m totally fine. I’m at zero risk of starving or damaging my metabolism.
#rantover #fornow 🙂
…But then you go to Whole Foods…
Haha.
I went to Whole Foods for some cold brew coffee and sage (you can see how I sage’d my mattress on my Instagram Story) and that trip triggered some hunger.
I didn’t buy food there but I came home and finished up the leftover steak in the fridge (from the another night) with 1/2 an avocado and some Primal Kitchen Chipotle Lime Mayo.
I don’t even like mayo but I use that stuff for everything! I mix it with canned salmon, I dip veggies in it, I absolutely love it!
Between now and the end of the night I’ll just be sipping on tea and drinking lots of water to help me power through my Masters Club workshop and hopefully getting a great night of sleep on clean sheets, a refreshed mattress and a peaceful heart!
Let me wrap up by sharing with you a powerful thought my sister texted to me today:
Today you’ll meet one of my male clients as he shares the hard work he did to set his ego aside and pursue growth beyond his comfort zone.
He joined the Fat Loss Fast Track once he decided to stop focusing on what was wrong & all his past failures. He wasn’t comfortable with the idea of journaling or taking a look at his emotional eating patterns but he did it anyway.
He realized he had been quite comfortable in his patterns but deeply unhappy. He made the choice to get uncomfortable so he could become happy.
His story is a powerful one. Don’t miss it! I have no doubt that he can encourage you to find growth beyond your comfort zone.
A second night of crappy sleep! What gives? I had the TV on while I was doing some accounting stuff until late (for me) last night so tonight I’m going to turn the TV off earlier. As I explain in one of the podcast episodes I did on sleep, the particular type of light emitted from electronics can suppress melatonin and make sleep more challenging.
I had trouble falling asleep, staying asleep and I had sad dreams when I was asleep. But, today is a new day and there’s a lot I can do to set myself up for better sleep tonight!
I’m slowly overcoming the whole ego hangup about being up super early. What I’ve noticed is that I’m much more efficient in the AM when I wake rested than when I force myself up at 4:30a. Alas, I’m a work in progress! I’ll keep working at it.
One of the absolute highlights of my morning was a quick call I had with a friend/client. Few people make me smile like she does.
She was recently struggling with insecurities going into a weekend with her girlfriends. She was down about the fact that her body wasn’t where she wanted it to be.
After a couple of voice notes back & forth, I asked her how it went. Her response was profound:
“I realized how quickly I let my emotion tell my story. And it’s not even the truth”
“It’s wasn’t worth letting something so small steal from something so rich”
I reminded her that those truths from that weekend are truths in her every day life.
Where & when do we let emotion tell our stories?
Where and when are we letting something so small, like food guilt or body shame, steal form something so rich like the gift of our day?
#deepthoughts
Today’s workout is done as a team of 3 people:
“Barbell Cycling” Teams of 3:
AMRAP 25:
100 Cal Bike
50 Power Cleans (115/75#)
100 Cal Bike
50 Power Cleans (135/95#)
100 Cal Bike
50 Power Cleans (155/105#)
100 Cal Bike
Max Power Cleans (185/135#)
(The first # is the weight in lbs used by men and the 2nd # is the weight in lbs used by women.)
Essentially, as a team of 3 people, with only 1 person working at a time, you complete as many rounds of this workout as you can in 25 minutes.
So, team member 1 hops on the evil airdyne bike and goes all out until they need a rest, and then person 2 hops on, continuing until 100 cals are reached.
Then, you move to the power cleans in the same fashion, moving as fast as you can & letting the next teammate take over when you need a rest.
I don’t like group work. At all. That all stems from being a student and feeling like I worked harder than everyone else (though I’m not suggesting that will/would be the case in this workout, I just don’t like it depending on others.)
In fact, I heard a funny joke about group work…
When I die, I’m going to invite everyone with whom I ever worked on a group project to my funeral. I want them to be the ones to lower my casket into the ground so they can let me down one more time.
Hahahaha.
Okay, the workout is behind me & I am SO glad it was a team workout!
First, there were only 2 people on my team (me and 1 other person), which meant shorter rest periods because you’re going back and forth between each other.
Here was the great thing about it:
I saw how hard she was trying on those power cleans and it pushed me to work harder.
Had it been a solo workout, I probably wouldn’t have pushed myself as hard.
I had a tremendous respect for watching her push on something that was tough for her and it motivated me to push just has hard or harder.
We can leverage this in our every day lives. Who can you observe working hard or being disciplined or making progress towards a goal?
Now here’s the thing: it’s only powerful if it moves you to action.Otherwise, maybe you’re just a voyeur. #justsaying
I used to find pictures of fit, beautiful women on Pinterest. I thought they inspired me, but they never moved me to action.
Now, I look to surround myself with hard working people who’s actions move me towards more action & harder work.
On the food front:
I was just hungry enough this morning to want to eat something before my 12:30 workout. I had a few slices of leftover steak from last night & half an avocado. I absolutely could have done without it.
After my workout I had a large spinach & raw cabbage salad with the rest of the leftover steak, avocado, herbs & jalapenos.
I’m going out to dinner tonight but haven’t yet decided where so I’m not sure what I’ll have. Probably either a salad or meat & veggies. I’ll post an update tomorrow with what I decide on.
Have a great night, guys! Find a way to make the rest of your day the best of your day!
I love a fresh new day but I definitely wish I had slept better last night! I struggled to fall asleep and woke up every hour or so. Sleep is a huge priority for me right now so I’m going to try to get in a nap after my workout today. (Update: that didn’t happen)
I got a new chalkboard to help me stay productive in a more “life” than “task” way. (We won’t talk about how on the first day I had it I wrote on it with permanent chalk marker. 🙁 I went back to the store to buy a new board…)
I’ve always been great at knocking out tasks, but I don’t just want to check tasks off a list. I want to make sure that I’m improving my life and not just trudging through it, efficiently.
I want to be super happy, not super efficient.
It’s easy to focus only on task management and end up being productive but not creating a life you love.
Anyways…
I checked my blood sugar upon waking and it was 83 mg/dL. I’m planning to check it before & after my workout to see if and how a workout has an impact.
Before the workout my blood sugar was 82 mg/dL
I warmed up for about 30 minutes (light rowing, some body weight stuff) and then got into the workout.
The workout today is a good one – I love rowing!
50/35 Calorie Row – cash in
5 Rounds:
10 Burpees
10 hanging knee raises
50/35 Calorie Row – cash out
Basically what this means (for the ladies) is you do a 35 calorie row and then 5 rounds of the burpees & hanging knee raises as fast as possible and then another 35 calorie row as fast as possible. The guys do the same but a 50 cal row.
Immediately after the (fasted) workout, I checked my blood sugar. 133 mg/dL! Wow! That’s a heck of a difference!
Ready for me to geek out a little bit (while keeping it super simple)?
When I posted it on Instagram, a few people commented or private messaged saying, “Hey! What happened? Why in the world did your workout increase your blood sugar?”
I think my body was doing exactly what it should have done. First, it’s important to note that it was an intense workout. The goal was to move as fast as possible.
These are the exact situations that require muscle & liver glycogen. As I have mentioned in the podcast, we have short term sugar storage in our muscle & liver tissue. It’s stored in the form of glycogen.
When needed, the glycogen gets broken down to glucose to help fuel the body.
In this situation, my body is going to tap into those stores to provide fuel for the workout. That’s what they are there for.
In addition, this workout certainly increased my adrenaline, which also encourages the liver to generate glucose.
Since I checked it immediately after this intense workout, insulin probably hadn’t responded yet. My body was releasing/generating glucose during the workout.
An hour later, insulin had responded and my blood sugar was right back down to 82 mg/dL.
You might be wondering, “does that mean you weren’t burning fat during the workout?”
Maybe. Maybe not. First, it’s important to note that my body’s metabolic requirements stay elevated beyond the workout itself, due to the intensity. So the immediate blood sugar reaction doesn’t tell the whole story of what fuel my body is burning.
I may very well have been burning fat during that workout, however.
Remember that the stored version of fat in our fat cells is a triglyceride. What does the “glyceride” part of that word refer to? The glycerol backbone that holds together 3 fatty acids. And that glycerol backbone can be used to provide sugar as fuel to the body when needed.
Ultimately though, I’m not looking to pinpoint what fuel my body is using during the x many minutes of a workout. I’m looking for fat loss trends over time.
I hope that makes sense 🙂
On the food front:
Can we talk for a second about water? I shared that after my 5-day fast I realized I need to drink more water, and I have been. But, I don’t drink tap water.
This harkens back to my product development days. I remember sitting in a product training and hearing a man talk about the importance of water filters. He talked about how city water supplies aren’t able to filter out toxins and drugs that enter the water supply through sewage systems.
I’ve done a full episode on it here, but suffice it to say, I’ve had a drinking water and shower water filter ever since. I worked with different water filtration companies in my last corporate job, and Aquasana is the company I love. I use their counter top and shower filter.
About an hour afterr my workout, I had a large spinach salad with hardboiled eggs, veggies & almonds. (I ate right after that blood sugar check.)
Dinner was my primary meal and it was a delicious one! I treated myself to a homemade meal of brussels sprouts and a ribeye!
But wait, there’s more!
I told you guys I’m trying to incorporate more leafy greens to help with anti-inflammation so I took some Halo Top ice cream and put it in the blender with several handfuls of spinach and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. It was dang good!
There’s not really a recipe. I just put a few scoops of Halo Top in the blender with a few handfuls of spinach and a handful of cashews. Yum!
Love you guys! I hope you’re enjoying these posts!
