Karate is kicking me arse.



I am LOVING karate, even though I've been flooded with so much information that it will take me a while to process and retain it. Still, I cannot tell you how awesome it feels to be in class barely scraping the barrel of what is in store for me.

Physically, I don't feel like I'm overexerting myself. Yet each time, beads of sweat form on my forehead letting me know how hard I'm working. In the days following a class my muscles feel like they want to shut down and I know that I'm using them in a way I never have before.

The other areas of fitness aren't going as well. I just don't think I have the physical aptitude (yet) to handle expending all this energy. So Karate it is for now.

I'd like to start my heavy lifting next. But since I'll be actually increasing my calorie intake for the first time in this journey, I want to make sure I do it right. I have to reread the information given along with the offered diet plan and see if I can work those meals into my lifestyle.

Sorry running, you're taking the back burner. Even though I already did week one of C25K, it's just not the season to start it up for a newbie like me. I'm not planning on dropping it altogether, but it's just the hardest piece to work into my schedule. I'll pick it the regiment in the spring (likely after we move) and in the meantime I'll just do a little bit here and there at the gym.

Whoa, wait, what? Where did the week go?

Oh yes. They were lost in a haze of exhaustion, poor eating, and wedding planning. Bloody wedding planning. It's been taking up so much of my energy. But that's a story for another day.

So unsurprisingly, I exhausted myself last week. Even as I was writing the blog detailing all I was taking on, I was worried that I was taking on too much. But let me tell you, I did not think that Karate would kick my butt as much as it did.

The classes themselves didn't seem that hard, but after class was another story; we'd get about three quarters of the way home and my brain would stop functioning. I fell asleep out almost immediately after class on Friday, and after a fantastic yoga class on Sunday, my body just shut down. I made it through work ok on Monday but was left with little energy and motivation to get out and do something at night.

On Tuesday I probably could have gotten back into it. Instead I caved and swung the other way: lazing on the couch and ordering pizza. And I paid the price. I could not fall asleep comfortably. My body was really angry at me for feeding it crap.

The rest of the week wasn't much better. With a few lunch meetings at work, and a festive celebration all day Wednesday, it was easy to give up on good eating habits. And eating crap does not give you the energy to get up and go.

But enough excuses. I fell off the wagon for five days, and I'm back at it tomorrow. I won't overdo it, and I plan on pushing forward at whatever pace I can.

I'd love to try running at lunch time, but winter running is hard without investing a LOT of money into gear. I will continue to run at the gym, but it's a lot more boring and not as easy to work into my schedule.

And I got far enough into the New Rules of Lifting for Women to realize that it's structured more on a curve. It eases you into the heavy lifting, starting you out with workouts that you're used to. This, in addition to three workouts a week vs. five, makes me feel a lot more confident that I will succeed with the program.

So, here we go (again)!

Tweaking the program along the way.

This past week brought me some little successes, but I want to ensure they continue. I'm continuing my research into heavy lifting with a book called The New Rules Of Lifting For Women by Lou Schuler and Cassandra Forsythe.

I ripped through the first half of it in a couple of days. Research, myth-busting, a ton of statistics to prove their points (but not too much, or else it would be way too hard to get through). A diet plan that mirrors the type of food I'm already eating (yay!), just asking for more of it.

More? Well, it makes sense. If you're putting your muscles through the ringer, they are going to need to be able to repair themselves. And they are going to need more than 1200 calories a day to do so. I'm not worried, for so long as I'm packing away nutrient-rich foods, I cannot be doing my body any harm.

I've just reached the part of the book that gets into physical excercises, why you are doing them, why you aren't doing the others, and the seven-stage fitness plan. Yup, seven stages. Now I haven't really gotten into the stages themselves, but I like knowing that this road is a long one. It is going to take some damn hard work to transform this body, and anyone that promises me they're going to get me there in three months isn't going to get my buy-in.

So tonight I plan on delving a bit further into how to get this process started. The three workouts per week seem a bit more acheiveable than the five workouts a week demanded by the BodyBuilding.com heavy lifting program I posted about last week.