Workout Archives - Blogging by Beth

The Universe Has a Cruel Sense of Humor…and It Makes Me Laugh

This morning I took my dog Madigan for a run/walk along the river. We had just finished the first 3.5 miles and a lovely breeze kept me from getting too overheated, which is good because it’s already nearing 90 even though it’s only April.

Madigan started lagging a little so I slowed to a walk. For a split second I was frustrated that we were walking more of the trail than we were running, but then I passed a sign that showed it was 1.1 miles back to the car. I realized that when I first started “running,” I was lucky if I did a mile. Now I can run the majority of this 4-mile trail and still do another workout later in the day.

I started running again and thinking about writing this very blog post. I was going to put something about how I never really walked much until I moved to Scotland and got used to relying on my legs as my main mode of transportation. How when I lived in Boston there were probably days where I walked at least 10 miles with no issue. And how those routines made it easier to consciously get more steps in during the day now that I’m back in Arizona with easy access to a car and no need to ever walk more than a few hundred steps in a day.

Britney Spears “I’m a Slave 4 U” started playing through my headphones and I picked up my pace a little bit because, let’s be honest, that song is awesome. I was excited about my blog idea and feeling good with my pace. With a new pair of running leggings and bright orange shoes, a baseball cap, and sunglasses, I felt like I actually looked the part of a runner.

And then I fell on my face.

It wasn’t just a light fall, either. It was one of those embarrassing ones where you can tell it’s going to happen before it does and may or may not say “shit” as you step into a hole and end up sprawled out on the ground. The kind where there are other people around who say, “Are you okay?” and make the entire situation just a little more embarrassing.

I stood up and was glad to see that my new leggings stood up to the task of sliding across the pavement without tearing. As I put weight on my left ankle, I realized it was in no shape to continue running. Ha ha, Universe. Funny joke.

Madigan and I hobbled over to a bench with some shade and I sat down to rest my ankle. This is not the first time I’ve hurt it and I know it won’t be the last. It has been weak ever since I injured it one summer in Boston. I wish I could say it was for a glamorous reason like running or playing sports, but the truth is that it was a really windy day and I had long hair. The wind blew my hair in my face and as I flipped my head to get it out of my way, I stepped off my shoe and rolled my ankle.

Not my finest moment.

Anyway, instead of immediately limping back to my car or deciding to forget about the blog post after this latest fall, I realized that this was maybe a sign that I should write the piece. Because no matter how far along you are in your journey, there are always going to be hiccups and trip-ups and all kinds of other “ups” that make you want to stop. But even if you have to hobble a half a mile back to your car, you’re still moving forward.

And it’s important to appreciate your effort and even the smallest victories so you can always laugh at the Universe and its cruel sense of humor.

And sometimes when you heed the Universe’s warning and take a breather, you see a pair of underwear hanging by the river.

Don’t Think

I have a problem. It is a problem that affects every area of my life. I think too much.

I’ll admit, in certain circumstances, this can be a good thing. I usually think through my route before I drive somewhere so I know where I’m going. I plan out my outfit in my mind before I even open my closet so I don’t have to try on eight different outfits (most days). In many other cases, though, this is a giant pain in my ass.

Thinking too much often makes me worry needlessly about things that do not need any attention. And might be why I have so many grey hairs on top of my head.

Anyway, one of the areas of my life that has gotten already way too much brainpower is my body. I’ve talked about my struggles with working out and eating healthy and not seeing any real results a few times in this blog, so I won’t bore you with the gory details on that one. Let’s just say, it was something that crossed my mind at least once a day.

But something amazing has happened recently. I stopped giving a shit about this stuff and I actually started to LOSE WEIGHT. Okay, that maybe simplifies it a little too much, but it kind of sums it up.

I got tired of working out so hard and not seeing anything happen to my body. In between bouts of frustration, I had a nagging feeling that I was eating something else that my body was not tolerating (I already had to give up dairy because it started giving me hives). I tried to quiet my mind and really listen to myself to decide what food was causing me problems and the answer I heard was: bread.

Like Oprah, I have always loved bread. Subconsciously I might have had an inkling that my body didn’t like it, but I never wanted to make the leap and fully give it up. And now that I have to live a dairy-free life, I didn’t want to become one of those obnoxious people who is dairy free and gluten free and literally can’t eat anything. Ever.

But my body had different ideas and literally a week after I gave up wheat, my sinuses instantly cleared up. I never realized just how stuffed they were on a daily basis until I no longer had a problem with them. I also felt like I had fluid in my left ear for years. YEARS. It was so bad that I had to sleep on my left side basically every night.

Isn’t it crazy the kinds of things we just put up with to avoid changing our daily habits?

As I was finally giving up wheat, I took a step back from my daily exercise routine of two hardcore workouts. Like a big break. I didn’t work out at all for a few weeks. And for the first time in a long time, I lost a noticeable amount of weight.

I know there were a lot of factors that went into finally being able to lose weight, but this whole situation taught me that I do not have to think everything to death. I can only do the best that I can do and make as much effort as I can make. Once I do that, thinking myself into a tizzy is not going to help me. With anything….except being able to use the word tizzy in a real sentence.

So, I could go on eating dairy and bread and build up another tolerance that allows me to kind of forget about the hives and the sinus problems. But I would rather feel good than just deal with feeling uncomfortable all the time. And that is something I do not have to think about for days to know is true.

Woopers (Workout Bloopers)

Working out has been a part of my daily (okay, okay…weekly) routine on and off for the past 18 years. Understandably during that time there have been some situations that did not turn out exactly according to plan. And now, dear reader, I will share them with you for your own entertainment:

What’s Your Density?

The University of Arizona campus recreation center is full of state-of-the-art cardio and weight lifting equipment that draws in all kinds of students to show off in front of one another…I mean to work toward their health and fitness goals and avoid the dreaded Freshman 15. During my own freshman year, my friend invited me to go to the gym with her one night.

Up until that point, my workouts usually consisted of Tae Bo or running around the track at my old middle school. I’m pretty sure that night was the first time I had ever set foot in a weight room. Anyway, my friend showed me how to use some of the intimidating machines and my discomfort about looking stupid faded away a little more with each rep.

We were about to finish up our workout when a good-looking guy with big muscles and dark skin walked across the weight room and right up to us.

“Hey. I’m Karl with a K,” he said extending his hand. At that point in my life, my experience with guys was about as extensive as my experience with weights, so it took me a second to realize he was waiting for me to shake his hand.

“I’m Beth,” I finally replied.

“Cool. Cool. I noticed you from across the gym. What’s your density?” he asked. I stared at him blankly for a few seconds trying to figure out if that was some kind of weight lifting term of which I was not yet aware.

“What?” I said after an extremely long pause and a lot of blinking.

“What’s your density?” he asked again. I looked at my friend to see if she understood and she shook her head.

“Sorry, I don’t know,” I said, quickly feeling like I was losing IQ points by the second.

“Are you Spanish?” he asked and I suddenly realized he was asking for my ethnicity. And that was the last time I worked out in the weight room at the University of Arizona campus recreation center.

Runner’s Delight

Later that same year, another friend and I decided to try some workout classes together. After sampling a few, we decided that our favorite class was kickboxing, which was led by Jason. Only he had a lisp, so he pronounced it “Jathon.”

We felt really good and strong after class one day. “Do you want to maybe go and run?” Micala asked as we walked out of the multipurpose room.

“Sure!” I said and we made our way up to the indoor track. Every track I had ever run on operated the same way: four laps equals one mile. Without any reason to believe this one was different, Micala and I stretched a little and started on our way.

We finished two laps and felt so great that we were able to have an entire conversation as we ran. Man! We are getting into great shape, I thought as we rounded the bend of the third lap. We finished lap four and decided to walk a couple of laps to cool down for the day. running-track-2-1528273-639x426

As we were reaching the very end of the second cool down lap, I noticed a sign on the wall that said, “Eleven laps equals one mile.” Eleven laps. And we had done four. That means we had completed about 36 percent of a mile. No wonder we felt like it was such an easy run.

Workout fail.

MacGyver Mat

Some workouts are really hard on your body. When I do home workouts in a place that does not have carpet, I tend to use a thick yoga mat to try to break up some of the force of jumping on a hard surface. Usually the yoga mat is all I need.

Enter Insanity Max 30. This workout is pretty much a jump fest for the full thirty minutes from the warm up to the cool down. And guess what. A yoga mat does nothing to help.

I struggled through the workouts for a few weeks and had to opt for the modifier version of more moves than I wanted. Each morning I woke up and my bones literally hurt. I guess that’s what happens when you do jumping jacks and burpees and tuck jumps on ceramic tile. I managed to complete the workouts, but I knew I wasn’t getting as much of a burn as I could be getting and that was making me mad.

Refusing to let a ceramic floor get the best of me, I started on a quest to find a solution. I tried to buy a thicker workout mat. It didn’t help.

“I know!” I said defiantly under my breath as I walked the aisles in Target…as soon as I made sure no one was within earshot “I’ll get an area rug!” With an I’m-so-smart smirk, I started toward the home décor section of the store. An area rug had to work just like carpet, right? This plan was definitely fool proof.

As I got to the rug aisle and my eyes excitedly passed over cute pattern over cute pattern, I got more excited about this idea. But then I looked at the price tags. Seventy dollars for an area rug that I would abuse with my sneakers and sweaty body? No thank you.

Sigh. Okay, back to the drawing board. I returned to the exercise aisle and looked more closely at the sport rubber tiles I initially decided against. Each package contained four tiles that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. I decided to try my luck.

After working out one time, I could tell that this was not my perfect solution, but I was getting closer! The rubber definitely helped to lesson the impact of the jumping, but the squares came apart and slid on the floor, which made me feel like a baby giraffe learning to walk…across rubber tiles that slid around the floor.

The next day I channeled my inner MacGuyver and decided that I was going to best this floor once and for all. I returned to the décor section of the store, ready to begrudgingly throw down more than I wanted to spend to get an area rug. Just as I was reaching for the cheapest rug I could find, I saw something magical out of the corner of my eye.

There, sitting nonchalantly on the shelf was an anti-slip pad that you place UNDERNEATH area rugs. As soon as I picked one up, I knew I found a winner. Not only would these stay in place on the ceramic tile, but they would also provide even more impact resistance. Huzzah!

I returned to the workout section one last time to pick up another set of the rubber tiles. When I got home, I taped the underside of the tiles together so they would not break apart and placed them on top of the no slip pad. My MacGuyver mat helped me complete the best Insanity workout to date. Victory!

But I’m not going to lie, I was way more proud of myself for figuring out the mat situation than completing such a hard workout.

Finding the “Why”

The other day a friend asked me how I stay motivated to work out. Even though I have been exercising pretty regularly since I was 14 (I’m now 32), I had to stop to really think about the answer. The truth was, in all the years of popping in workout DVDs, doing dead lifts at the gym, or sweating my way around a track, I had never once asked myself that question. But knowing why you work out is almost as important as actually doing it.

At first I said, “I just make it a part of my routine and it’s easy to keep doing it.”

“No,” my friend said with a shake of her head. “That’s not what keeps you motivated. I’ve started and stopped working out so many times over the years, but you have always been really consistent with it. What’s your secret?”

I looked around the dimly-lit restaurant and wondered what the people around us would think if they could overhear this conversation. My friend has four children, but she is slimmer now than she was before she started having kids. I am much more on the curvy side and I found myself scrunching up a bit as if to hide my body as I thought about my real answer.

“Well, I guess part of it is that working out gives me the chance to turn my brain off for a while. I overthink everything. Literally everything. And I can kind of escape that when I work out,” I started.

My friend nodded and took a sip of her drink.

“But I don’t think that’s it,” I added. She turned her blue eyes back to me, ready to hear the next part of my answer. “I think that a big part of it is that I don’t want people to look at me and automatically think that I don’t ever work out. Inside I feel athletic and strong. I know I don’t necessarily look that way, though, so working out is my way to prove it to the world?” It comes out like a question because it’s not really something I’ve ever admitted out loud.

I, like many women in my age bracket, suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). This complicated name basically means that my hormones are out of whack and that my body does not process insulin the right way. Because of this, my periods have never been regular, I sometimes suffer from cystic acne, and, the hardest side effect for me, it is incredibly hard to lose weight and very easy to gain it.

Compared to some women who have PCOS, I know I have a very mild case. I do not have excessive facial hair and the hair on the top of my head is far from thinning. I do not have diabetes and I do not weigh anything close to 300 pounds. But I also know that my PCOS isn’t as severe as it could be because I spend so much time exercising.

One of the only times I noticed a significant decrease in my weight was when I went to school in Boston. At the time, I lived a mile away from the train, which meant I automatically walked two miles if I went anywhere during the day. Although I didn’t have a step counter back then, I’d estimate that I usually walked closer to seven or eight miles by the time I returned home for the day. A few times a week, I also ran a mile and a half in addition to the miles I walked. To top it all off, I did two Jillian Michaels’ workouts in one day. Although no Jillian workout is easy, my daily routine consisted of two of the most advanced DVDs.

That is an unsustainable amount of exercise to have to do just to see some results. To be fair, I was not really modifying my diet at all, but most people start to see weight-loss results if they just walk more than they normally do. Even with that level of physical activity, I wouldn’t have considered myself “thin.”

Throughout the past few years, I have studied a lot about nutrition. I’m still trying to find the right balance between what I eat and how much I work out. I have made a big effort to cut out certain foods that are bad for PCOS. Like dairy, which I just discovered

I’m allergic to anyway.

The more I thought about why I work out, the more I realized that the answer has many layers. In addition to everything I have already mentioned, working out also makes me feel strong. This strength is not all physical, however. In fact, much of it is mental. When I can successfully complete a workout with crazy moves like burpees, scissor jumps, military-style pushups, and jump lunges, it makes me feel like I can complete other tasks in my daily life. I notice if I skip a few workouts, my confidence starts to slip in other areas.

So, why do I work out? I do it because it’s a part of me and it makes the other parts of me better. I do it because I don’t want PCOS to dictate my life. I do it because, as crazy as it sounds, I find it fun. But mostly, I do it because I believe that I deserve more.

Getting in some steps with my dog Madigan