Headaches Come in different forms

Well over the last week or so, I've been fighting off migraines. I've had them all my life, but can count on one had how many I get in a year, but over the last week its been crazy; I've got a Dr's appointment to ask some serious questions. Anyway, I went to work out with Rocky this morning, headache and all and it was painful- the lights, the noise, the motion, but I fought it out and finished, but I think Rocky was being kind because it just didn't seem like he pushed me that hard- or it could have just been that I was so focused on not banging my head on the weights equipment to kill the pain I just wasn't focused on the workout. Needless to say I didn't make it to work, so I'm at home(late afternoon now) resting up for tomorrow-group workout with Rocky. Come what may I'm gonna push hard.

Only 1 more week and even though people are telling me they can see a difference, I don't, might just be paranoia speaking. I know I will continue this once I am eliminated, if eliminated, but the contest, lets face it, is in all our heads. Its hard not to think about it, but I'm trying- really need to focus on just living better for my family and my students - that's what I got into this for.

I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Mathew 17:20

Start by doing what's necessary;
then do what's possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible. - St. Francis of Assisi

The three qualities necessary for training
Great faith. Great doubt. Great effort. - Anonymous

The Gym-It's Not just for Exercise

With my new goal to keep my blogs short..er, here goes. Went to the gym yesterday after work. Tuesdays are hard for me to squeeze gym time in because we have church on Tuesday nights so time is tight - but I used Monday (holiday) as my day of rest and didn't want to miss 2 days in a week - oh and by the way Missy, I agree with you 100% , down time is the hardest-God Bless my wife for stocking sugar free jello and tons of fruit!! Anyway(so much for shorter), I squeezed in a workout yesterday and I saw a friend in there and we got to talking about God as we worked out-which is a a work out in itself for me because there is the obligatory gasping for air between "God is great" and "Amen". Now this is the 2nd or 3rd time this has happened and as I was thinking about it last night, I had to ask myself "how many people around me and my friends heard us talking about Jesus?" So now I have a new addition to my prayer before going to the gym - "Oh gracious and heavenly Father, please don't let me die on the elliptical, or at least not fall off and whack myself with a rotating pedal, but if I do, give me the opportunity to tell someone about You between gasps of breath and whacks of the pedal....Amen"

Rest is good

I thought I was doing good; working out everyday, burning calories, watching what I eat etc. I was sore as I mentioned, and tired, but not so much that I didn't think I was doing well. I've struggled with the eliptical, I just couldn't seem to stay on for any continuous length of time longer than 5 minutes, so a 30 min. workout took 45 min, then of course there was hitting the weights. Then Tuesday came and that's the day of the week for me that if even 1 thing is off schedule, workout isn't going to happen, and guess what? Yep, about 3 things went long or got added and I couldn't work out Tuesday, so I got an unintentional day of rest; so come Wednesday, I'm ready to get back at it so I get on the eliptical and the most amazing thing happened--I did my 15 minute warmup non-stop and I could have kept going!!! It was amazing! Next is Thursday so I go in about 15 minutes earlier than planned because I'm gonna test myself, see how long I can go before rubbery legs and sore knees hit...30 minutes and I can still keep going!! Well of course I don't, I go into the weight training that Rocky (Our Trainer) set up. I had been hitting the eliptical at home also, trying and trying to build that endurance with just no luck, my legs would burn, knees would hurt, lungs would suck in air...then BAM! I'm cranking out a full 30 minute warm-up. God gave us a day of rest for a reason...use it.

I had a couple of people comment to me about the length of my last post so when I have xtra stuff to post, I'll post them in the comment section of the post so you don't have to read them if you don't want to...like this post is an awesome recipe my wife found and made for us...problem was not eating all in one sitting :)

Decisions Decisons

I have a dilema...how often to work out? Right now I'm fired up and want to work out whenever possible, but in the back of my mind I wonder if I do that, will I burn out; so I only work out 1 time a day at the gym for an hour and then do stuff at home...we have an eliptical and a Bowflex (insert circled R here for trademark). What I really want to do is go to the gym 2 times a day but I just fear burning out and then not going at all which would be worse. So at this point, like I said, I'm going 1/day to the gym and doing stuff at home.

The food lifestyle change is going good. Haven't had anything but water in over a week now. Friends and others keep telling me about these things called....oh what was it...oh yeah, "Diet" drinks. Sweet drinks as I think I mentioned previously, are my downfall. Pepsi (another circled R here) especially, and fruit juices (speaking of devious things...you'd think fruit juice would be healthy...I mean in the back of your head you know it really isn't but you grasp at anything to justify eating/drinking something you shouldn't) are really dangerous for me, I should have been in a program for Soda recovery...what I'm trying to say is that I don't even want to drink Diet Pepsi(circle R) or Crystaly Light((R)) etc. because I won't stop at just one, or I'd go back to justifying fruit juice once and then since I know fruit juice isn't really healthy then I can just say "Oh well, I've already blown it might as well go all the way" then you find me in the minute mart with my head under the Pepsi( (R) ) fountain like Pauly Shore drinking Slurppee ( (R) ) in the movie Encino Man. Not pretty.

I'm keeping my calorie count right around 1200/day and I'm going to try that as long as I can, but it's getting harder, the workouts have really boosted my metabolism and I can feel myself getting hungry more often...oh, I guess I should explain. Rocky, the Porterville trainer, has me eating 5 - 7 SMALL meals per day instead of 3 and always, Always, ALWAYS!!! breakfast. I was good about 3 squares/day, but of course they were very large squares. So now I'm eating smaller, healthier meals more often daily example for those that might need a bit of help:
Breakfast ( 7:30): 1/2 cup oatmeal and water 130 calories (can do light oatmeal for 100 cal)
Snack (9:30): 6 oz fat free Yogurt & water 100 calories (there are brands that are 80 cal)
Snack 11:30: 1.3 oz cereal bar & water 130 calories
Lunch 1:00: Turkey sandwich, ( use low carb whole grain bread and read label on turkey)
veggies (1cup) 1 med Orange
& Water 210 calories
Snack 2:30 6 oz Yogurt & water 100 calories
Dinner 6:30 (recipe my wife made not
sure ingredients) but 2, 2 oz hamburger patties (called Oriental Salsibury
steak) Green Salad with vinegreete or Balsamic dressing & water
500 calories

Total Calories for this day 1220

you do this and you keep hunger at bay and you are eating way healthy. And maybe for some people the "Water will fill you up" may be true, but it doesn't keep me from being hungry. This does, eat small and more often...and KEEP A JOURNAL!!! it really does keep you honest; and you need to right everything down...if you have a cracker as you're walking by the counter...write it down! its amazing how fast it adds up.

Anyway, this is where I'm at as of this post...Do more exercise? Drink diet drinks? I'm gonna go with what the Holy Spirit seems to be telling me...Slow and steady wins the race...push where and when you can, but don't burn out, its a long race.

Wow!

The previous post I did from work on a break. After work I went to the gym and as I was checking in here comes Rocky. He asked me how I was doing, what I've been doing at the gym and so I told him the treadmill and the Re-Shape circuit. He said good, but he'd like me on the eliptical instead of the treadmill because it burns more calories for the same amount of time spent...well there is a reason for that...ITS HARDER!!!! 30 minutes on the eliptical ( a post all its own *gasp*) at an rpm, for me, of between 65 and 70....Wow! Then I did go to the Re-Shape circuit and after that, Rocky wanted me to start working on the lat machine...that's the weight machine where you sit on a bench facing the weights and the bar is over your head and you pull down either behind your head to your shoulders or in front down to your chest.

Lets just say it was a much harder workout today, trainer gloves came off, and it was a long, slow, tiring walk back to the truck....but there was a smile on my face...I feel good

Praise God

But it's a dry heat!

Well, I'm a little behind but here we go. I made it to In-Shape on Monday, congested and all and hit the treadmill first. I put in 30 minutes with my heart rate (HR) up around 140 for that fat burning cardio workout. The treadmills are nice at In Shape because you can set it to a cardio workout, plug in your info (weight, age, etc) and it will adjust the incline of the machine to work you harder or easier depending on where your HR is, so you just keep plugging along.

After that, and drinking plenty of water, I went to the Re-Shape circuit. It's a 29 minute workout that has that has strength and cardio intervals, followed by flexibility/stretching training; and what is the importance of each of these you may ask?

• flexibility for fewer aches/pains
• cardiovascular training for increasing energy expenditure
• resistance training for preserving and/or increasing lean muscle tissue

If this is fewer aches and pains, then I'm glad I flex'd. It has only been 4 days but I really can feel a difference - by cutting out sodas and drinking only water, I still have a low energy level but I don't have the dramatic dips, the sudden energy crashes that I used to have, and whether its me tolerating more or making progress (we'll say both), each day I can do just a bit more, push myself a little bit farther than the day before.

I'm still waiting for the intense craving for something sweet, but so far I'm good, and in the past I would have been thinking about it, waiting for it and probably caving into it, but now...not so much. God has always wanted me to take care of this temple but as I said in a previous post, my mind wasn't right; it wasn't ready to submit, now I am ready and I am submitting.

So you may have wondered about the title. Well there is the joke that talks about an area being so hot and we quip, "But its a dry heat"; meaning it could be worse, it could be humid also. Well this is hard, I spent years neglecting my body and its going to take time to repair the damage, but its a good work; so it is hard, but its a good hard!

Slow Start

I've been fighting a cold for the last 4 days but I've been pushing through. Yesterday was our orientation and weigh in for the challenge and today was the first official day of the contest - and I was laid up in bed sick - the cold hit hard. Good news...I got lots of sleep and didn't eat much, bad news I missed the first day of working out :( I will meet with Rocky tomorrow morning, he is the Porterville team's trainer, and he will work out with me and give me what he wants me to work on for the rest of the week. I did work out last night, did some simple cardio so I did get a little tiny exercise. Anyway, it begins tomorrow, I'm a day behind, but I've got to be careful not to push to hard with the goal of making up time, I just have to focus on the day, work out with Rocky in the morning, keep my eating journal, and ask the Holy Spirit, to keep showing me His Love, when I want to feel sorry for myself. Many of you that are reading these blogs, applied to this contest and I owe it to you too, to not focus on what has happened, but to focus on today

Math. 6:34 - "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Casting Crowns
"God Is With Us"

The skies don't seem to be as dark as usual
The stars seem brighter then they've been before
Deep within I feel my soul a stirring
As though my hope has been restored
The shepherds say they've heard the voice of angels
Confirming rumors spread across the land
That a child protected well from Herod's anger
Is our Father's Son, and the son of man

Love is raining down on the world tonight
There's a presence here I can tell
God is in us, God is for us, God is with us, Emmanuel
He's the Savior we have been praying for
In our humble hearts He will dwell
God is in us, God is for us, God is with us, Emmanuel

I feel compelled to tell all who will listen
That peace on earth is not so out of reach
If we can find grace, mercy and forgiveness
He has come to save, He is all of these

You're the Savior we have been praying for
In our humble hearts You will dwell
You are in us, You are for us, You are with us, Emmanuel