Wednesday night was my last night on shift. It was a busy night, and I didn't sleep all that long during the day, so it was a little rough. It was the last one though, and the business at least kept time rolling for the most part. It's a lot easier to deal with slight sleep deprivation when there's plenty to occupy your mind.
I had my dinner.
Salmon, rice, broccoli. Pretty standard.
I did some work.
I had a snack.
I have to eat red peppers every day.
I'm vaguely obsessed.
Did some more work.
And since Thursday was my transition day, instead of coming home and going to bed I made myself some breakfast and prepared to go to the gym.
Eggs, spinach, mushrooms, and chevre for pretention.
The workout was rope climbs, these weird jump lunge thingys, and jerks. I went light because no sleep + overhead movements = badness. I made it to the beam on every rope climb, and felt good about most of them. I can get the ceiling in 3 pulls 95% of the time. I think if I could convince myself to jump up on the rope I might be able to do it in 2. Maybe someday. The jump lunges were supposed to be with a 15# dumbbell in each hand. I used 10s, because tired. Holy BALLS did those things suck. They were exhausting and somewhat difficult to execute and Friday morning? My legs were totally fucked.
After the WOD I realized that I'd managed to rope burn my shins. Again.
I do CrossFit because it makes my legs look
so fuckin' sexy.
There was an exciting development in home fitness this past week. I said "fuck it" and ordered a flat bench, a squat rack, and some flooring for our basement in order to make myself a home gym. I've been telling fantastic husband that I wanted to clean up the unfinished part of the basement and make it a gym. He's been insisting that we need to finish that part of the basement...for *ahem* a while with no progress. So I cleared the area, ordered my shit, and told him after the fact. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission amirite?
So I built the stuff and he helped me secure the pull-up bar across the top. Voila. Home gym.
FUCK YEAH, SQUAT RACK!
And mismatched flooring, but whatevs.
I took a short nap, which was probably a bad idea, because I felt like a zombie when I woke up. I couldn't even tell you what I did in the afternoon or what I had for dinner. Something? I think? But fantastic husband made yonanas, so I had some of that. I haven't eaten bananas in 12 weeks (they're not on the approved foods list for NH because of the high sugar content-serving size is like 1/3 of a banana), and I didn't really miss them. I'm kind of over bananas, but this was good. Tossed on a few cocoa nibs for crunch and chocolatey flavor.
Just a little bit.
The kids wanted to go for a walk after supper and I was all "HAHAHAHAHA no". But my wonderful husband took them out, and by the time they came back I was in bed. Where I slept like a corpse for about 13 hours.
Before my BIA I can't workout for 12 hours, eat for 4 hours, or have caffeine or alcohol. Most of that isn't a big deal. My main challenge is hydration. I've been drinking water like whoa for the last 3 weeks, but I was concerned that not drinking for 13 hours before the test would be problematic. I did NOT want my final result to be skewed. So I pounded water all day while I was awake and 2 liters right before bed.
I woke up at 2am to pee (surprise!) and pounded another 40 ounces while I was in the bathroom before going back to bed. I had asked fantastic husband earlier to remind me to drink water whenever he saw me without my water bottle. I came back to bed, he rolled over and mumbled "Did you remember to drink water?"
Is he a great husband or what?
So I woke up, got dressed in exactly the same clothes I wore to my first appointment (I want my datapoints legit, bitches), pounded 2 liters of water and headed out.
And my final results were...fucking incredible.
While I was having my weight and measurements done, Kirk the Nutrition Guy and I were chatting and he mentioned that we would be reviewing my labs. I said something like "Oh, I'm looking forward to that, I love numbers" and he got all "Spoiler alert-they're awesome" which made me smile.
My final weight was 157# on the nose. 8.2 total pounds down. Whatever. Weight loss wasn't the goal. He measured my waist at 28.75". UNDER 29 INCHES?!?!?! What the actual fuck? I have been fighting for years to get my waist below 30, and I have once or twice, but it never stays below 30. And now it's UNDER 29?!?!
I did a little dance.
This means I lost 2.25" off my waist over the course of the program.
Next we measured my hips. 39.5". UNDER 40"!!!!! For a total loss of 1.5" off the hip. I may have danced again. Maybe.
Then I had the electrode dealiebob and Kirk recorded my numbers and put them in the whiz-bang machine.
Over the last 12 weeks I shed 5.6% body fat. I hit 21% on the dot, which was my goal. 21% body fat. Holy shit. I cannot believe I lost 5.6% body fat in TWELVE WEEKS. That is RIDICULOUS. In other numbers, I lost 11lbs of fat. Remember how I said I was down 8.2lbs? Yeah. It was ALL FAT. The difference is extra muscle and better hydration. You will never see shit like that on Jenny Craig, yo.
That number was pretty fucking exciting, but even moreso for me was my percentage of body muscle. When I started I was at 19% which is pretty damn good for an old gal like me. Yesterday? 20.3% I made it OVER 20% muscle mass!!! That's the target for dudes.
Now I wonder if I can make those numbers intersect. Because apparently I am never satisfied with anything ever.
Perhaps even better than all this shit is my labs. They were basically fine when I started with a slight irregularity in my thyroid and insulin numbers, and a very low Vitamin D. At the end? All my numbers were fucking perfect and my vitamin D went from "Do you even go outside, bro?" to "Hey, you're scraping the bottom of the normal range!". That was pretty cool to see. I'm so shit with compliance on vitamins and stuff, so even with my spotty consumption of my vitamin D supplement I was able to make a substantial difference.
As an aside, fantastic husband has informed me that he'll "give me the D" whenever I want. How kind.
So what does all this look like? I don't have a "before" picture really, since I didn't really feel like a "before" when I started. Here is the after as of this morning.
I swear there are abs there.
There are.
Not exactly competition ready,
but not too shabby.
There you have it. My final results. This whole thing has been amazing. Eye opening. All this? During this entire process I took only fish oil and vitamin D as supplements. I think I had like 2 protein shakes the whole time. This was all food. My activity level was precisely the same as it was before I started. I will repeat: THIS WAS ALL FOOD. No shakes. No pills. No powders. No special drinks. JUST FOOD. Two thousand four hundred calories of food. Errrryday.
It was so hard at the beginning. It seemed impossible. But it is clearly not. I ate out. I had the occasional alcoholic beverage. I had a few pieces of Easter candy. I wasn't perfect, but I stuck as closely as possible to my checkboxes and I never wrote off a day. If I went out, I made the best possible choices. If I drank, I kept it moderate. If I caved and had some chocolate I didn't let myself slide into a sneaky hate spiral-and I never cheated myself out of the food I needed because I slipped. I learned that my body needs food. Good food, wisely chosen and mindfully eaten.
There is no miracle, no gimmick, no fad. The results I got were from excessive, relentless self care. I have no intention of stopping. Why would I? I feel great, my clothes fit, and I've been making gains like fucking crazy in the gym.
I would like to sincerely thank the staff at Nutritional Healing, in particular Kirk who was my nutritionist for the last 12 weeks. Everyone was so nice, and I looked forward to my visits every 2 weeks. I'll be back in 12 weeks to check my continued progress and keep myself honest.
Here's a picture of my brunch after my 15 hour fast. It was delicious, it was almost filling (seriously, what a difference from 12 weeks ago), and it was all on plan. I considered "rewarding" myself with something shitty after my appointment. But you know what? That's stupid. So instead I had this.
And it was awesome.
Friday night I celebrated with a concert. Mumford&Sons. It was a great show. I even had 2 beers beforehand, because beer is delicious.
The encore.
And now if you'll excuse me, I need to make a huge breakfast so I can be fueled up enough to perform 3 of my least favorite CF movements in about an hour.
Fucking thrusters.
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