Had my Well Woman today... ugh

 Ok so maybe it's not the worst thing ever, but ladies, I think we all know that the "scootch to the edge of the table and put your feet in the stirrups" just sucks, right?

By my scale I was up 4lbs 😡  But the doctor said I was actually down from my last weigh in a half a pound so I guess it's good I lost from 6 months ago, but I've gained back some. 

Had my lab work done yesterday, everything was good, or has vastly improved from 6 months ago.  My cholesterol and LDL is still just a little high but my cholesterol dropped over 50points and my LDL went down 60 so that's a great thing.   I still need to work on getting those numbers down another 15-20points to be in the healthy range, but it's a great start so I'm happy.  So is my doctor cause I did it without meds!

So I gave myself a "come to Jesus meeting" this morning.  I've been slacking and snacking WAY to much.  And sitting and reading which while is a great hobby to have, it doesn't burn a lot of calories LOL.   But reading also makes me happy, so I just need to balance being more active with my reading time.  And my gaming time cause I'm also a gamer.  I mean if given a chance, I'd happily sit and read half the day, and game the other half and only move enough to prevent bed sores by going to the bathroom and getting snacks and something to drink.  In fact, when I am in a big gaming splurge, I tend to lose a couple pounds cause it's hard to snack when you have both hands on a controller or you're using your hands on the mouse and WSDA keys moving your character.  I have gone all day without eating anything during LONG gaming sessions. 

But that's really not healthy.  Fun AF, but not healthy LOL.  To bad I can't get the calorie burn my Dragonborn gets while running up some mountain in Skyrim cause I'd need to eat 5000 calories a day to maintain during long gaming sessions😂

So today, I put my Cathe Live subscription to use.  Something I hadn't done in about 3 weeks, so it was time to get my money's worth out of it.

I did this.

And Mac here was my gym supervisor, soaking up the sunshine

He was a pretty lousy supervisor, but he's cute so it's ok

Tomorrow I'm planning on hitting the spin bike cause it's also been about 3 weeks since I did a spin workout.  Been doing more walking on the tread but I do miss my spin classes, so it's time to get back on the bike.

And maybe on Thur I'll do another Cathe.  I've got some of her leg workouts that it's been a while since I've done.  Probably time to do some of them. 

So maybe I'm cheating a bit to much

 

And maybe just maybe it's been a little more than one per week. 😕

My blood sugars have been about 10 points higher than I'd like them to be, overall. I mean I've had some readings under 100, which is great, but some fasting sugars over 110, which isn't good at all. 

And it all comes down to this.  Cheating with to much food, to often.  Sigh. The scale is also not moving.  Good it's not going up, bad it's not going down.  So again, cheating to much.

So time to have a little talk with myself, and get back to counting my macros.  I started today.  It sucks that I have to really pay attention to what I eat, how much I eat, what kind of foods I eat, but it is what it is.

I've also been having fun getting back into my Cathe workouts, and getting back into spinning.  Ok, maybe I've only done 2 spin classes this month, but I was late Oct since I did my last spin workout, so doing 2 this month, and the month isn't over yet, is good for me.  Now I've been using my Peloton tread quite a bit so I'm getting my money's worth out of my membership.  But getting back into spinning has been fun.  

Today I'm going to try and do Cathe's Leaner Legs, which has earned the nickname Meaner Legs.  It's been YEARS since I've done this one and I'm a little like EEK. It's from a program called Crosstrain Express, and it's kind of hard.  I'm just going to do lighter weights, do what I can without killing me, and maybe next time, do better.

I'd like to also do 1 Firm workout this week and one Cathe Live workout this week.  Plus a spin and maybe a walk or a walk with stretching/yoga.  

I'll keep you all updated. 

Back to Cathe, the Firm and Peloton

 

But first, I have these coming to my mailbox tomorrow.      I sometimes can't help myself with CVG LOL.  

I also found this 

I found it  And I read it, ok I read some parts of it, and skimmed other parts.  But reading this really made me want to get to using my Firms again.  I have used them off and on sine 1993, when I found Vo 2 in a video store.  Now, I had CRAVED them since I was a teen in the 80s, and saw the commercial for Vo 1 but well we didn't have a VHS player, my parents were "mean" and wouldn't buy one.  But after I had my first daughter, in 1993, we were out in the mall, looking at a video store, and I saw Vo2.  And I snagged it up right away!    Then a couple weeks later I found Vo 1.  I alternated the 2 with some walks outside, and lost all my baby weight. 

I now have a whole bunch of Firms.  Most of the older ones. I'm not as much a fan of the newer ones.  But the older ones, ones from the 80s and 90s.  I love them. 

I was going start Year One challenge for women with a friend.  She'd do her workouts where she lives, cause she's a few hours away from me, I do mine and we check in with each other.  But between illnesses and she got a little hurt, we're gonna have to put it off for a while.  Maybe in March or April. 

So my plan B is doing my Cathe, Firm and Peloton stuff for a while.  I think if I do a blend of the heavy weights from Cathe, pure cardio of Peloton, and the lighter weights of the Firm, that will be a great.

I ended my Wonder Woman rotation at the end of Jan.  It was fun sort of.  I liked the lifting, but well, it's supersets, doing one move, then immediately doing another move,  and in a smaller home gym, the set up between the two moves can be a PIA.   But other than that, I did enjoy getting back to lifting heavy again.  I probably would have had better results had my eating been better.  But well, winter makes me just want to eat all the carbs and nap all the time. So my eating wasn't the best.  But I do think the lifting helped my blood sugars cause they have been pretty good overall.   Thank goodness.

I'm hoping by mid March or early April my friend will be ready to lift and we can "do" our program together.  

I don't need another fitness planner...

 But man I think I want to get this.

I had this a 2-3 years ago.  And I loved it.  And even though I have a new fitness planner I've been using,  WANT THIS!

And I know I'd use it, but then I'd have another fitness planner I wouldn't be using.  UGH.  I guess I could get this and alternate weeks between the two.  

Man my love of Wonder Woman is going to be the bankruptcy of me 😂  If I see a Wonder Woman pair of shoes, I want them.  Wonder Woman notebook, I want it.   Get the picture.

So I'm going to think about getting this.  Its undated so I could get it, keep it any maybe start using it after a few months so I can at least feel like I've gotten some money's worth out of the fitness planner I already have.

My abs are still sore from my workout on Sat, and abs are up today. 😢  I'll push through and try to do as much ab work as I can.  A strong core is so good for everyone, me included.  I've ignored my core work long enough, so now I'm paying for it. 

I'll keep you all updated on if I get this planner or not.

Is it spring yet?

 Cause I swear this is the forecast for the next couple of days

I mean my area is in a winter storm warning or we will be shortly.   Expected to get over 8 inches of snow.  I'd rather get 1 in of rain with 50 degree temps, but well,  God didn't ask me no did he.  

My abs are SO SORE today.  Yesterday's workout, it had abs in, and my abs are weak cause truth be told, I've not been working them much for a few years.

Back in my Firm workout days, when a lot of the Firm workouts had abs in them, and I did the ab workout portion or as much of it as I could. my abs were pretty darn strong.   Same with my CrossFit days.  Lots of core work in CrossFit, but that's been quite a few years ago.  And my abs/core have gotten very weak. And a strong core is just good for your overall health.   So I just need to pick workouts with ab workouts built in and MAKE myself do them

I think after my Wonder Woman program is done, I'll do a couple weeks of The Firm.  I loved the Classics, ok still do.  They are just so good, even though they are outdated with their 1980s outfits, etc, but I LOVE THEM. I mean look at this woman

Miss Susan Harris, the instructor from the Firm Vo1.  That yellow leotard is just a classic in the home workout world.  I remember watching the commercial for this workout, back in the mid 80s.  I was a teen at the time. And my parents didn't have a VHS player, and I wanted this workout SO BAD!!!  I mean so bad.  I begged for weeks for it.  But VHS players were expensive at the time, and well, they didn't think they needed to buy one just so I could workout in the living room 😭

So when the early 90s came around, and I was a grown woman, with a VHS machine lol, I found Vo 1 and Vo 2 in a store.   And I did them so many times, and lost my baby weight from baby number 1 pretty quickly.  Now I have so many Firm workouts, and other workouts, but I will keep my Firm Classics until I die.   

Got to say, I'm kind of looking forward to a Firm Classics mini rotation in 4 more weeks.

Being my own Wonder Woman.

 I've LOVED Wonder Woman since the TV show, back in about what, 1976-77?  Something like that.  I mean I was a kid, but I loved that show.  So much so,  my mom got me a couple books that were compilations of Wonder Woman comics from the 40s and 50s, and I also had the Wonder Woman action figure. Played with her so much.  I even broke her foot off, cause apparently the Wonder Woman action figure wasn't destined to jump out of her invisible jet AKA the staircase at your grandma's house. I glued her foot back on, and it was mostly ok, esp, with her big red boots to hold her foot on 🤣

But I have always loved strong AF women since then.  Wonder Woman, Ripley from Aliens, Vasquez from Aliens, Xena,  you get the picture.

So I found a workout program that I did a few changes to, partly cause I don't have quite all the equipment to do it, and partly cause I don't want to work my already thick AF calves that much, and I decided to call it Wonder Woman.   It's a 5 week program, 4 workouts a week. 

Did week 1 this week.  It went pretty good.  I felt pretty strong. 

I also did measurements at the beginning of the year.  A little surprised I was down a little in my waist, navel and hips.  Esp considering I gained about 3.5lbs over the holidays.  I'll take it.  I'm also down half a pound since getting back on track at the beginning of the year, and considering I'm back lifting heavy which comes with some water retention, and I'm taking creatine daily, which also has a little water retention, I'm pretty happy with my weight loss. 

I'm going to leave on this note.

It should be illegal!

 I mean it really should just be illegal to have any and all metabolic blood work drawn during the holiday seasons.   Ok maybe if you have been very low and all the snacking and cheating would make it better.  But for the rest of us, it should be illegal.

Yes I had fasting blood work drawn today.   It wasn't bad, thank goodness.

My fasting blood sugar was only 100, which actually is pretty good.  My A1C was 6.1 which is the same as last time.  I really REALLY want to get it under 6.  But I've been cheating quite a bit in this last month. so I know that didn't help it go down.   

But I had a very wise dietician when I worked in a dialysis unit tell our patients more than once, it's less what you eat between Thanksgiving and the New Year, and more what you eat between the New Year and Thanksgiving.  So as long as my diet gets back on track in the next couple days, I guess it's all ok.  Or will be.   My next round of lab work will be in mid March so in about 3 months, I'll be able to see if my A1C is any better. 

I've been going through this book

I forgot how great a book this is.  I hear there is a new version of it out, and maybe I might just try to pick it up sometime.  But I forgot how many workout programs there are in this book.  I might just have to pick one and do it.  Last time I did one of his programs, I had great results, even if my diet at the time wasn't that great.

I also picked these up

These are the Rincon 3.  They are pretty dang comfy.  I'm planning on walking on my treadmill in the mornings 3-4 times a week just to get my blood flowing and my step count up a little bit.  Once winter finally ends, yes I know it has hardly begun, I'm going to walk outside with my fat beagle Odin, but for now, treadmill it is. 

Not much to say right now.  Just deciding what workouts to do for the next 4-6 weeks.