Unburying the Abs Update

Back in December, I posted this about trying to work on my core and staying accountable for healthy food choices. Since then, there's been some ups and downs. I never did manage to go sugar-free for very long (the siren song of dark chocolate proved too strong), but on the whole I've moved from eating pretty darn healthy to eating much healthier.

Most of my focus has been on getting my carbs from nutrient-dense fruits and veggies instead of from nutrient-sparse grains and trying to eat more protein, which keeps my blood sugar stable and keeps me from feeling spacey every few hours. It has the added benefit of reducing packaged foods (which tend to be mostly grain-based) and bringing my eating ever-more-local, which is always a goal of mine. All of our meat, eggs, milk, and most of our fruits and veggies are bought locally, and in the summer all of the veggies come from the garden, so this also saves money, packaging, food waste, etc. As with so many things, what is good for the body is also good for the environment, local farmers and merchants, and the community as a whole.

Also, I committed to working out my core every day, via a challenge over at TriFuel. I haven't been as religious about it as some over there, but making it part of my routine has really helped. Between adding Crossfit and keeping my karate training going, now at a brown-belt level, I'm working my core muscles more anyways. My back feels a TON better than it did over the winter, totally recovered and stronger than it was before.

With all of this, I started noticing that everything was fitting looser, and lo and behold I've lost about 4 pounds, and about 2% body fat. Not something you really notice on a day to day basis, but it all adds up. So I took an updated photo and wow, I could really see the difference.

Photo #1 is from December 2008, Photo #2 is from April 2009.

It's Just Not the Same

My house is missing one big and important thing these days: my husband's laugh. Now let me preface that by saying that of all the laughs on the planet, his is absolutely the best. You can't hear Wayne laugh and not at least smile. He's got this great big infectious laugh. Any funny movie you might see is ten times funnier if he's sitting next to you, the theatres ought to pay him to come to their comedies, I swear. As you can see, he's quite the joker around our house.

But the poor guy had hernia surgery last week and he's still not anywhere near being able to laugh (hurts too much). It's horrible to see someone you love in pain, and recovering from surgery is all kinds of pain. Add on to the fact that he's a very active guy, and recovering just isn't easy psychologically for us active types. And he's had this great running group this year that he loves to run with, can't do that. He started swimming with the Masters group at the club this Fall (and by all the accounts I hear, he's kicking some booty in the lanes and getting faster by the workout) and can't do that either right now.

I was able to share with him my post-partum workout secrets, which considering that I tore all of my abdominal muscles apart at the seams (there is a downside to having tight abs after all) I can remember both the pain and how hard it was to get those muscles back in action again. I had to start my sit-up routine by lying on my back, holding both sides of my stomach muscles together, and lifting my head a scant inch off of the floor.

So for anyone who goes through abdominal muscle issues, be they pregnancy-related, hernia-related, or injury-related, there is definitely a path to getting those muscles functioning again, it just takes time and patience and an ability to take it very slowly at first.

As for my hubby, he's sleeping right now and I'm hoping for those muscles to heal up fast. Not just because I want to see him happy and active again, but because I miss that laugh.

Accountability

Some folks over at the Trifuel forums are on a 50 Days of Core quest, working out the core muscles every day for 50 days. People are posting before and after photos, so I went off to take my "before" photo today. I have to say I'm a bit horrified. What I noticed is not so much that my abs are in bad shape, they're not. I do a lot of ab work for karate and do it on my own most days too. But it's that they're buried under about 8 pounds of extra sludge. Most of that padding came all at once, when I had a thyroid medicine issue about 10 months ago. I'm missing half of my thyroid, so my metabolism is never a simple issue of "calories in/ calories out". My doc figures I got a bad batch of my prescription meds as my weight shot up, my body temperature fell and my hair started falling out, all familiar symptoms to those of us who struggle with thyroid issues. The big bummer is that when I've had these issues in the past, the weight fell back off after I got my meds under control and this time it just didn't. Part of that was due to the fact that I was struggling with my tendon injury in my foot at the time and not running at all and not swimming or biking hard. Part of it is undoubtably due to the fact that I'm 42 now and my metabolism is just slower in general. Part of it is also probably that I can't seem to give up my morning chocolate habit.

Whatever it is, I first resented those 8 or 9 pounds, and now I've more or less gotten used to them, until of course seeing this photo and being forced to confront them. So now I'm actually posting the photo for accountability's sake, and not only will I be participating in that 50 days of Core thingie, but I'm vowing to give up on sugar for those 50 days as well. I may be sipping a tiny bit of caffeine in the a.m. to make up for my lack of chocolate, and we'll see if we can unbury those abs before the spring sprint triathlon season hits.

After all, I can look at this photo from right before the Ironman in 2006 and be inspired to have this kind of fit body again. The sad truth is that with my metabolism as naturally slow as its always been, with the added loss of much of my thyroid and dealing with meds all the time, it's never been easy for me to get or keep a lean body. It's always a struggle. It's never felt quite fair. I was the chubby child, the plump teen, it shouldn't take training for an Ironman just to get down in the high 150's weight-wise, but that's the way it seems to go for me. So I can rail against the unfairness of it all or just buckle down I guess.

When I hit post in a second, that will lend some accountability to all of this. Wish me luck!

They're Killing Me! But It's Okay....

So Saturday was my first day back to running after my ankle injury. We had a Team in Training group run, and I figured I would hang out with the run/walkers and give it a good trial to see how it felt. My running coach though had different plans: hill repeats! Up this hill that overlooks downtown. Fortunately, the ankle feels fine, but oh my aching quads and hamstrings now. That's probably not the best way to "ease back into" running.

Then today our karate sensei hammered us with an abdominal workout from hell, somewhere over 300 reps of various ab exercises. I know really strong abs are imperative for karate, and I actually try to do ab work about 5x a week anyways. But taking a class that's used to doing 30 - 50 reps and ramping them up to 300 in one day is a bit of a shock.

Still, I am impressed with what my body can now do. I was remembering how with both of my pregnancies my abdominal muscles split apart right down the middle. You could lay a chalkboard eraser in the trench down the middle of my stomach where they're supposed to meet up after each of my babies was born. I have a very short torso, so my babies just stuck straight out when I was pregnant, and the ab muscles just separated to accomodate that. I had to start with very slow crunches - one or two only - supporting and holding together my abs with both hands. To come from there to being able to knock off 300 reps with the young people in the karate class feels just great.

I was also reminiscing with our Team in Training crew about how I couldn't run a mile after my 2nd kid was born. It really is true that with incremental improvement, we can do amazing things. Just running a bit farther each time, walking a bit less - it really does all add up. I just know our whole team will do great on race day, because I know they can do it. I've been from there to here, and I know they can too.