I took a whole week off!

My hubby is away for about 10 days.  I don't mind. He was military and gone sometimes for months after 9/11 and I'm very use to both being alone, and my introverted self is happy being alone, with all my book boyfriends LOL.  I keep getting more and more book boyfriends the more I read. And I read a lot.  Like over 120 new books this year alone 

At first I was all like "I'm going to do this and this and this, and workouts all the time and get so much stuff done"

This is what happened

Yep I've not done much of anything.  But read.  I've done a lot of reading.  A couple rereads of favorite books and like 5 new books have been read in the week hubby has been gone. And watched A LOT of horror movies. It's scary movie month, don't you know.  Oh, I've still taken care of our animals, cause they still need fed, let out to potty and looked after/  And I've done laundry and basic stuff like that.  I did also manage to declutter some of my lipsticks and lip glosses cause that needed done.

But I've not worked out in a full week.   And to be honest, I'm fine with that.  Tomorrow I'll get back on track after enjoying my time off.  

I think every so often it's not a bad thing to just take some time to do literally next to nothing.  It's been very enjoyable.  

Maybe I'll plan for another week to do nothing or next to nothing, sometime in Jan of next year.   Maybe I just need to plan for a week off every 3 months or so.  

Tomorrow I'll get back on my walking and weight lifting.  Maybe I'd better get my log book set up for the next week. 

Well that sucked

 So I went on antibiotics for about 10 days due to an infected cat bite.  My own fault for getting bit.  Anyway, I had a 10 day course of Bactrim and Clindamycin.  I finished up on Wed.  Noticed a bit of a rash around my right forearm close to where the bite was.  Nothing much.  Thought I rubbed up on something taking care of my horses or the fly spray I sprayed the horses down with got on me.  No big deal

WRONG

I woke up Thursday like this

And the rash didn't just cover my back.  Oh no.  On my chest, belly some down my legs.  I even had a few hives on my toes. And on my face as well.  Thank goodness not much on my face cause well, having facial hives was making me a little like "am I going to start getting throat swelling?"  

So itchy  I literally wanted to scratch my skin off cause if my skin was off, maybe it wouldn't be itchy anymore.    It got worse, and worse and worse as the day went on. 

Finally I went into the doctor on Friday and well. I'm on Prednisone now.  And Benadryl, and Pepcid cause Pepcid also has antihistamine properties.  and to double up on my Zyrtec for a week.  

I am SO DRY now.  My mouth and lips feel so dry.  And I still look like some sort of runaway from a leprosy colony.  But it's fading.  And it's no longer itchy.  Thank goodness.  I hope in a few more days I won't be covered in a rash cause it does just look bad.   And sweat still makes it feel itchy, so I'm going to reduce my intensity of workouts for a few more days.   Cause I'm finally getting better, and I don't want to go backwards.   

Here's hoping that my rash goes away really quickly and I can get back to crushing my workouts again really soon. 

This was me on Friday

 Yep, I did a leg day on Wed.  Now Thus I was plenty sore, but man on Friday I was MEGA sore.  And I kind of liked it in a weird way.   

Silly thing is, I'm doing leg day again on Monday.  I'm going to bump up my weights to 4 days a week with 2 leg/glute days.  So I'll not be able to walk at all all week long LOL.  Oh well.  You don't build a booty without doing leg/glute work a few times, right.

My walking challenge has been going great.  I've walked at least 20 min everyday this month.  And I've doing some sort of workout for 9 days in a row.  I'm feeling better, sleeping a little better, and overall just feel really good.  

I've been also working on getting in one more serving of fruit/veggies every day.  Just one more cause I want to make it a habit.  And I'm working on getting a little more protein in my diet and cutting out sugary snacks.  I need to get back into the habit of eating a higher protein breakfast.  I tend to have way less "I want a snack"  in the evenings when I get a good amount of protein at breakfast time.   So maybe tonight I'll make up some hard boiled eggs cause they are a quick easy breakfast staple for me. 

I need to really decide what reward I want to give to myself when I finish this walking challenge.  Cause I'm going to do it!

I think in Oct I'm going to try a Soft 75 challenge.  I mean, why not, right. 

We're in the "ber" months now!

 

My favorite months!  It cools down, Halloween, the bugs all die and go to hell, Halloween, scary movie month, Halloween, Christmas. Halloween LOL  I like Halloween, what can I say.  

I officially started my Walking challenge yesterday.  Two days in the month and I've walked more than my 15 min for both!  YIPPIE.

I also got back to lifting heavy again today.  Man it felt great!  Chest shoulders and just a bit of booty work.  It's time to start building that booty. So I'm tacking on a little booty work on after upper body days. 

Now for the month of Sept, I'm only going to lift 3 days a week.  It's a break in period. Then I'll take a week off, do some of my DVD workouts, and then my plan is to go up to 4 days a week of lifting.  2 leg/glute days and 2 upper body days.  I'm also planning on sticking with walking 15-30 min every day, minus days I'm sick of course.  But I don't get sick very often so that's a good thing.

I also got this book out.  

I read a big chunk of it a couple years ago. So I got it out and decided it's time to really read it.  I'm only on chapter 2 but me and my highlighter have hit up a few phrases that spoke to me.  

It feels good to get back to really trying to take care of myself.  I lost 24lbs, and regained 7.5.  Which pissed me off.  It just feels good to work on getting that 7.5lbs I regained off, and then I can focus on losing the 25-30lbs I want to get rid of.  I want to be a fit and healthy grandma for all my grandkids, and for me as well. 

Project "Build a Booty" will be starting soon

 After a summer of wishy washy workouts, not being able to decide what I want to do, what I want to accomplish as far as fitness goes, and TBH, just sitting around and reading to much (is there such a thing???)  I've finally decided what I want to try and do with myself.

I want to have a butt.

Oh, I physically have one, I mean, it's hard to not have one, but I've been a founding member of the Flat Booty Squad for decades now.  Back in my CrossFit days in the early 2010s, I was starting to build a little bit of a round booty.  But then cause I changed jobs and it was much harder to get to CrossFit, I quit going and started working out at home more, and it didn't get any rounder or nicer.

And then these last 4 years I've slacked WAY off and now, that little bit I had went on vacation.  South.   And I'm sick of it.  

I've been watching a lot of videos, reading some programs, and on some fitness groups dedicated to growing your glutes, and I'm trying to come up with a program that works for me, and what equipment I have in my home gym.  I have quite a bit of equipment so I can do quite a bit.  I've been thinking I'll lift weights 4 days a week, 2 days for lower body both with heavy emphasis on glutes and hamstrings, and 2 days for upper body and abs.  

Every 6 weeks or so, I'll take a week to do other types of workouts, like my DVDs and YouTube workouts cause I have quite a few of them, and I still want to do them from time to time  So if I can schedule a week to do them every 6 weeks while taking a mini break from lifting heavy that's a good thing.  

I'm also doing a challenge in Sept with a group of ladies on Facebook, all of us are 50 and older.  It's a walking challenge.  I'm going to walk a minimum of 15 min everyday in Sept.  Working up to more, but 15 min minimum.  I'd like to start walking outside with my fat beagle Odin, but it's gonna have to cool off a bit for us to go out and do that.  But it looks like maybe in Sept the temps will go down a bit and I could start walking out with Odin a couple days a week.  Do us both good to get some extra steps in.   He needs to lose weight himself just like I do.

So for the rest of the year I'll be like this

Followed up with this

Twas my birthday yesterday

 

I turned 54 yesterday.  A pretty good day too.  I sat and read a book, the whole book.  I also watched some Mystery Science Theater 3000, which was great cause the movie was just awful!     OMG I just love MST3K.   They always make me laugh.

And I've decided to just relax a little this weekend.  I've got my youngest grandchild's 1st birthday party tomorrow.  We share a birthday so she's just a little extra special in that way.   Then on Sunday my hubby and I are going to go see

And it's federal law I get movie theater popcorn and candy when we go to the movies.  Which is only about 3-4 times a year so I can have it and not feel guilty about it.  And this movie, I've been waiting for SO BAD. Little mad I have to wait until Sunday but it is what it is,

Then Monday, I'll get back into my workouts.  Get back to walking on the treadmill while watching an episode of TV.  Back to lifting weights, I think I'm going to do the PS series for this first week, and back to eating healthy again. And prepare myself for getting in a much better state of health and fitness for when I hit 55 years old.

Well that was depressing

I decided to take my measurements and actually get on the stupid scale.  I was feeling a lot like this

It was rather depressing.  I'd done so well losing 24+lbs only to regain 7.5lbs officially as of today and over an inch back in my waist 😢  I mean it was a gut punch.  And a kick in my pants as well.

I can't allow myself to get back to where I was.  Super duper unfit and unhealthy.  I mean at my weight I'm still unfit and unhealthy but far improved over where I was.  I need to get my crap together and restart my health and fitness journey, or rather get moving in the right direction.

I've been enjoying the Peloton treadmills ability to stream a few streaming sites on the screen.  Been watching TV while I do longer walks, as a lot of shows without commercials, are in the 45 min range. 

And I need to get back to my weight lifting again.  But I think I'm going to use my Cathe DVDs for a while cause I bought them and I need to use them.  STS Meso 3 is a good lifting set, STS 2.0 is pretty good.  I also love the PS series, and of course the Gym style series.  Then after that, start lifting on my own.  

That's about all I have for today.  Gonna spend a nice long weekend mostly alone in the house.  Hubby went off to a GI Joe convention.  Yes, GI Joe.  The doll, err "ACTION FIGURE" LOL.  He collects vintage GI Joes and he's there with my blessing.  I'm going to read my smutty little books, play some video games, mop in the laundry room cause it really needs it. and make some action plans for me getting back on track with my health and fitness. Oh, and pick up some groceries. Cause I'm about out of fruit and veggies cause man, that stuff doesn't stay fresh as long as I wish it did.