Day of rest today. Hideous food choices which im sure will reflect on the scales tomorrow but hey what's done is done. For me tomorrow is the start of my fitness challenge and after having a severe talking to myself about this little pity party I have been having, I am ready to give it a red hot go. For now I will work within my means and as the injury improves I will stretch myself. Tomorrow is the fitness test and then showing me a few things in my program im not sure of and then i'm starting say one over again with cardio and arms. I'm thinking i could go close to 2 hrs at the gym tomorrow. Remembering that sweat is fat crying. I'm back on point with my meals. I have a weeks worth (and probably a bit more) prepared and will be eating lean and clean.

I finally got around to buying my 2nd kettlebell and two hand weights today. the kettlebells are 8kg and the hand weights are 4kg. I can do stuff in my office now of a night but this time I will remember to warm up first, stretch and stick to low impact exercises. Its all about learning and making wise choices.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend doing what you love with those you love.

The test went well. It wasn't very involved at all
300m Treadmill
20 squats
20 pull ups on TRX
200m Row
Time for week 1 was 7mins

Slower time mostly because I couldn't stride it out on the treadmill. Everything else was not a problem. I will smash that by week 6

After that I did my day 1 program of cardio and arms. It hurt so good. My arms were jelly afterwards and I must remember not to wear a white singlet to the gym unless I want to star in my very own wet t shirt competition. I got quite sweaty and white becomes see through So 90 mins all up in the gym yesterday, I was really pleased. Today is a shorter functional day but I have also just finished 30 mins doing a bit of a workout and getting sweaty between calls at work.

I lost 1.2kg (2.7) pounds this week which i'm really stoked about, especially given my wayward eating the last few days.
And just for you @50extra I have included an image

Had a bit of a further scare this week which did my head in a little bit. I mentioned my "good" leg being sore after my PT. He had a feel around and then said he was reluctant to touch it because he felt I may have a DVT (Blood Clot). It wasn't behaving typically like a DVT but had some characteristics. This did my head in a bit as my mother had a 40+ year history of blood clots and Pulmonary Emboli (Blood clots in the lung) and was quite sick with it. A DVT is quite serious and whilke i'm too much of a nurse to be too worried by it, all I could think of was that would be the end of my training and I would be fat forever. I got a little depressed and comforted myself with coke and chocolate. I cave in to my head hunger so easily. This is something i really need to work on. Sometimes I can be mentally tough but when it comes to food i'm a big marshmellow. Anyway I went to the doctor the next day and after a thorough examination i do not have a DVT. It's more likely i have given it a bit of a strain. It definitely settled down with a couple of days rest and I went back to the gym today

I had a good session with a functional day consisting of

Part 1)
400m fast row
10 ball slams
As Many Reps as Possible (AMRAP) in 12 mins

Part 2)
12 Kettlebell swings
9 pushups
AMRAP 10mins

I thought this was going to absolutely kill me but it seems I have a little bit more fitness than i give myself credit for. While I did find it challenging I certainly wasn't falling all over the place with fatigue. Kept my heart rate up at a healthy 145-150 and got very very sweaty. If it wasn't for the fact that I was a bit pushed for time I would have probably done some more.

Anyway how is everyone going? It's been pretty quiet around town lately. I hope everyone is well

Do you ever have those days where you just don't want to? I had one of them today. I woke from my post night duty sleep early to let in my cleaner and she never came. This put me in a grumpy mood to start with. I waited for her for over an hour and no show and while I was waiting i went through the stages of exercise bargaining. First it was I don't think i'll train today, then it was maybe i'll just go for a walk. I was looking at Facebook as I was doing this and came across a post from my trainer about how well all of us in the fitness challenge were doing and so i thought "well damn now I have to go to the gym I can't let her down!" Got my butt in gear and went down. Warmed up ok then started my functional training. Was so not into it and kept thinking i'm just going to do a short session today. Then something happened. I got into my routine and before I knew it i was smashing out PB's all over the place and had done my 25mins. I felt so good afterwards and was really happy with myself that i overcame the head talk to do a really good session.

I am also fighting the head hunger demons. Normally I can squash them down pretty good but the last couple of weeks I am craving junk food really bad. It is taking a lot of work to resist and a couple of times I have caved because it got so strong. This week has been a good week I have managed to resist for most of the week. I am having Chinese tomorrow night (with a lot of water to counteract the salt) and hoping that with satisfy my cravings. I really want to show a good loss at the scan on Wednesday.

Tomorrow is arms day. I'm planning to go as hard on the arms as I did on the legs. It's going to hurt but it will be good hurt.

After a pretty hideous weekend last weekend, I have had a pretty awesome week. Granted i didn't get to train until Thursday but I also had some other pretty interesting things going on.

On Wednesday I had my third body comp scan. I won't bore you with all the details but I have lost 3% body fat and gained 1.5kg (3.3lb) of muscle since 11th April. I was totally stoked with these results and so was my trainer and nutritionist. It really puts things into perspective given on the scales I have only lost 1kg (2lb). I'll take it as a massive NSV.

After last weeks epsiode with my knees, it really started (as you may have noticed) bugging me that the Drs feel this issue is cause by me being fat. It's amazing what entering the phrase "my knees swell every 10 days" into google can do. I had an epiphany. The first thing that happened is I found a forum of other people who had the same issue as me. OMG its not in my head and there are others!!!!!! Most of them were having trouble finding out what was happening too. Someone posted on the forum about the possibility of it being something called Intermittent Hydrarthrosis. So i researched this. Again OMG it was like reading a chronical of what is happening with my body every 10 days. The only thing I found was the articles i was reading were all written in the 50's - 70's. However another term kept cropping up so i researched that. Palindromic Rheumatism. After looking up more articles that were very recent i realised it is the same thing. I can't explain how awesome it was to find validation of what I have been going through every 10 days for the last 2 years.

Basically Palindromic Rheumatism is an Auto immune condition where the body flares in different places (in my case knees). For some people it can happen every few days, others every few months or years. It is characterised by swelling, heat , (sometimes) redness and pain in the affected joint(s). It starts slowly and builds up then fades away exactly the same as it starts. In between flares the joints are quite normal. There is no destruction of the joints. It is sometimes a precursor to Rheumatoid arthritis with about 50% of PR sufferers going on to develop RA.

To me this all makes sense. It's exactly what happens to me every 10 days. I already have an Auto immune history as well as a family history of Rheumatoid Arthritis on both my maternal and Paternal sides. I have made an appointment with a Rheumatologist and am keeping a diary of all my symptoms so the Dr can see what happens. I mean it may not be this but it seems very much like it and for now I will be treating it as though it is.

The plan is to train as much as I can in between flares and when I have a flare I will completely rest so as to minimise pain and potential damage. In the meantime the ice pack is my friend and we will be having quite a close relationship

My Fitness challenge is going pretty well considering injuries and flares. I did a half way mark fitness test yesterday and was able to shave 47 seconds off my time. I'm really stoked. I'm hoping to shave a further 15secs off by the end fitness test.

So a pretty productive week all in all.

I was very despondent after the second one but after I worked out the reason or my nutritionist did I kept going. If this one had of been the same yeah the towel possibly would have been tossed. But I've pretty much been sticking to my nutrition plan and working my kitten off and it's paying dividends.
As for the watch and HRM I love them. When I'm training I'm constantly looking at my watch to see what my heart rate is. Depending on the numbers I know if I'm going hard enough and try and keep at that level or if I need to push more. For me it's a great motivator. As I have a fairl sedentary job it tells me when I've been sitting to long and need to move. It also tells me how long I've spent in the day either sleeping sitting standing moving or raining and again it's a great kick in the kitten to do more. It's all very individual and you need to find what works for you