A quick update, since the last post 4 days ago I’ve been keeping up the consistency and I’m starting to feel really good. My last rest day was 2 days ago and I’ve kept up the 2 days on, one day off cycle. Now that my month at Orange Theory has rolled over and the monthly class count has reset, I’m going to have to switch things up a bit, that or just go for the unlimited plan.

With the Chicago Bears 5k coming in 3 weeks away, my current plan is to try to keep up the pattern of 2 on, 1 off. Only I’ll do OTF/Run outside/Rest and repeat. Of course, that leaves things up to the weather, and this summer has been the rainiest in a really long time here in Chicago.

But in the end, it’s all excuses. Perhaps I shouldn’t shy away from a rainy run.

Adapting to Higher Frequency

Surprisingly, my body had held up with this increased frequency. I mean, it’s only been a week and a half, but I already feel better in day-to-day activities. The extreme fatigue I mentioned last post has subsided, so seems like that indeed was a “push through it” situation and not a “it’s too much, scale back” moment.

Always interesting to treat the body like a science experiment, but also to know that perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to do this in the past and may change in the future.

I find it interesting that even though my weight is still higher than the beginning of this blog, I don’t think I was doing consecutive days until I was 40-50 pounds lighter than what I am now. So perhaps the duration of this journey has given me a base to allow me to be able to do what I’m doing now, despite the restarts/shortcomings/relapses.

Real talk for a second, I’m SO happy that my energy levels have increased, because I was mid-key scared that I had some underlying condition (namely diabetes or cancer) which is what was causing the fatigue. But seems like it was just the increased activity and my body has now adjusted.

The Ever Present Elephant

Of course, the elephant that’s always in the room on this blog. I’m usually able to get my but to the gym, the problem is nutrition. Especially with the increased frequency of workouts nutrition is imperative to my success as a whole for two main reasons:

1. I need to be able to fuel my actual workouts so I don’t get sloppy form and risk injury.
2. I need to fuel the recoveries, again avoiding injury, but also building muscle and keep the body primed for activity.
3. Fight my urge to “reward” myself and have the nutrition outpace the increased activity.
4. Eating right increases the likelihood of dropping water weight, and even though it’s not fat, it still makes things easier on my joints and muscles!

So, I’ve really started to make sure I’ve started cooking. I got some free No Yolk noodles at this Ribfest near my apt last week and my mom always used those to make butter noodle stir fry. So I decided to do that!

Not pictured, the noodles and chicken. I cooked this pretty late because I knew myself, and if I didn’t have any food prepared I would think, “well, guess I’ll order lunch from somewhere.”

At least I’ve been doing this long enough to know that I have to outsmart myself sometimes.

But I’ve been nomming on that the past few days and really have felt better having plenty of fresh veggies to match the HUEL shake supplement.

Half a Decade

Finally, stumbled across something interesting yesterday. On Facebook’s “memories” it showed that I first attended Orange Theory 5 years ago.

And what a journey it’s been. Who would have guessed that one day a co-worker dragging me to the gym with him would set off me finally taking my health more seriously. Even though the results aren’t there yet (I mean, again, went the wrong way as of right now), I have documentation of this whole crazy journey.

Back then I had never run a mile without walking, never thought I’d be doing 5k races and planning on more. There’s a very long road ahead, but I’ve learned so much about myself in what I’ve been through.

Thanks for tagging along so far and hopefully you’ll stick around, and I’ll stick to it!