Wow! 'Sbeen a whole week. I don't think I'm gonna be able to remember it all...

Stuck pretty much to diet (ended up with more starch than I ought to have, but not a terrible lot) until Saturday. I always blow it on the weekends. 

Ran a few times with my youngest siblings around 10:00 at night. One night ran 200 meters in my socks. The first several steps were GREAT! I felt free-er and lighter than I have in a looooong time. I think I LOVE shoe-less running, but I had to quit because it felt like the balls of my feet were getting sanded off. Also noted: Running on my own, I feel breathless almost immediately, trying to find a breathing pattern. Running with other people, I don't feel breathless as soon, because I'm not even thinking about breathing, but about beating my younger brother to the light post or something.

Left knee has bothered me all week. I have to make sure my leg is aligned in a straight line, nothing twisted pointing a slightly different direction or anything, every time I step or my knee really hurts. My right knee is starting to hurt today. I guess I'll take it easy on the running and possibly walking this week.

Got to the chiropractor Wednesday to get my wrist fixed. I went then because I wasn't supposed to have to work for the next two days, but had to work the next day anyway. I wore a brace though, and was very careful not to do too much with it. Still ended up hurting at the end of the shift. It is a lot better now. I'm being cautious, slowly adding the amount of weight I put on it. I REALLY don't want to have to do that again!

The weather is starting to cool down, and it was cloudy yesterday. I think it's only supposed to be in the 90s this week. My ankles, especially the left one, get very achy when the weather changes. I'm hoping the exercises I've been doing will have helped, and they won't be so painful this year.

Worked on knees to elbows this week. Yeah... not even close. At first I was trying to do them from a dead hang. I can get farther (I think) if I hang with my arms bent.

Also, did a little light pushup work. I had read about how squeezing the glutes can help with alot of stuff. Sure enough, they make my pushups easier somehow, like I'm a little lighter or something?

Really, really, really looking forward to October 3-10. It's family camping time! Outside all day, every day, with lots of hiking, running, etc.! There's bear lockers to jump on and off, and fire pits to precision on... I can't wait! Only problem for me: I ALWAYS get poison oak when we camp. Always. Nothing I do as preventive measures seems to work.  Last time I work two long sleeved shirts, and long pants tucked into two pairs of socks all the time. I STILL somehow managed to get a little, plus a lot of heat rash. 

Most exciting this week, I measured myself. We don't have a working scale. We have two, but one says I weigh 160 lbs, which can't possibly be right. The other says I'm 250 lbs., which, I certainly hope is not right!! I wrote down my measurements in April, but I lost the paper. If I remember those right, I've lost 3 inches from my waist, 8 from my hips, and 2 or 3 from my thighs and chest area. I'm so happy!! I have noticed that my sleeves are getting looser, and my skirts don't stay up so well/go on easier.

Hey first off, i am very impressed with your logged improvement.  It is kinda nice when you can read back and see improvement.  good job with the improvisations. I definiatly understand you on the need to do that.


I started this stuff about 2 weeks ago so i am by no means an expert in the Parkour side of things, but after spending the past 5 years in the army and another 4 before that at a Military College i can give you some work out advice, as i have had to do it myself, and have had to train others.

I just spent the past 33mins reading your entire log so i am sorry if some of this advice is outdated.

on the diet thing, something to remember, the key to any diet is moderation.  you shouldn't feel guilty every time you have a unhealthy snack, it will only drive your morale down.  I am often limited to my choices of meals because of where i am, but the trick is finding a diet that meets your needs and something you can live with.  Over here food is considered a comfort, not "over indulging" in bad things is key.  I do a pretty strict diet of a full breakfast <light on the greasier things...but god do i love bacon!>, salads for lunch with tuna or ham, and i try and eat a small snack every two hours <either a protein bar, or a healthy granola bar, and drinking plenty of water with each snack. you will be surprised how much it will fill you up and how much smaller your portions will need to be for the bigger meals.  stick with it, and keep yourself accountable.  you are doing this for you.

The negitive pullups are a great way to build your pullup strength,  count to five as you lower yourself,  figure out how many you can do w/o stopping.  take that number divide by 2.  now throughout the day, when every you get the opportunity <at least 3 times a day>  do that number.  it is called greasing the groove.  you will be amazed at how easy they become.  when i first started College i could only do about 5, we had a pull-up bar at our barracks between my room and the bathroom.  so every time i had to walk outside to go, i would do some pull ups, i don't have a small bladder by anymeans, but it was enough that by the end of 4 months i had increased to 13 and by the end of the year i was at 18.  now 8 years later i can do the 30pullups required for the APK warm up with no real problems.  but it takes practice and time.

for the pushups <I know Alot about these>  doing drills is one of the best exercises for improvement on them.  one of the ways i improved was the 2 minute drills  for example if you can 30 you would break that number up into 3 parts:  15,10,5  during the commas you rest shake out your arms whatever you need to do to loosen them up.
if you can only do 10 try this break down,  5,3,2  once you can complete this drill no problem move up to 15 total  8,5,2  and keep progressing by 5 <this may take several days  once again it works best if you do this drill at least 3 times throughout the day.  if you can only do them on your knees do the same drill, but once you can do 50 knee push ups,  go to regular push ups.


you had a question about distance... the best thing to find distance is to get a pace count.  if you have a football field or the ability measure 100 meters or yards. walk that distance twice <there and back>  count each step. take both those numbers average them together.  divide it by 100 and you will get how many steps you take will equal a meter.  you can do the same thing running. but you have to remember running pace count is only good a light jog other you will tire yourself out and slow down and take smaller steps.


Dont worry about being able to do everything from the start.  You will show more progress if you focus on conditioning your body first, and then attempt the "cool stuff" later.  this is not saying dont work on the basics, but slow down on the vaults that could get you hurt, or handstands if you are still working on basics.  when i tell people that look at me crazy because of the exercises i am doing <after explaining to them for about 5 minutes what parkour is> they say well show me climb up this wall, do a back flip or something like that.  I explain to them asking me to do something like that is like asking someone who jsut started training for the Boston marathon to run a full marathon.  People train up for a reason.
I hope some of this helps

Well i've really skipped around through here, but I've read quite a bit. Good luck with the pull up's, i'm trying to do muscle ups right now so I know the feeling of being stuck in a place and not being able to move more.

Also, not too sure if this is your outlook but thought i'd give a bit of advice. Try and look at body composition(body fat, how it looks) rather than body weight. Some girls think they're out of shape because they weigh too much, but they don't consider that it's good weight.

Good luck with all your training, by the way, where are you located?

Thanks to Codygman and Carolyn!

Yeah, I understand about the weight thing. I am getting thinner. I really must remember that! It's just so embarrassing when mom acts all surprised about how heavy I am when she finds out what my weight is, then has to tell her friends about how much I weigh. It's not really any of their business.  I really want a nice, low number to tell her!

And, I'm located in Northern California. North Redding to be exact.

Thank you so much Carolyn! You're welcome to come and share the job!  ::hugs back::

Agreed. Although self-esteem is IMO a major load of BS, you have a right to privacy for certain things, things like this.

Woah! Lot's of comments since I was here!

Thank you Grayson, but I have to agree with Spencer. Again  . Anyway, I think that high self-esteem just inflates a person's ego until they're impossible to work with. Or for.

Lol, Chris! I guess that could work!


Weekend of September 20

No workouts. Just drudging through work.

Diet was good Saturday, but I crashed again Sunday. On the bright side, I only messed up one day this weekend!!


Monday, September 22

Sleep: OK. Dreamed I was working all night. 

Diet: Craved carbs like crazy. Got some good helpings of vegetables in, but also a lot of bread and cereal.

Finally got some fish oil supplements. Today was my first day taking them. I'm interested in seeing if they do anything for me... Also going to make it a goal to remember to take my multi-vitamins every day, not every few weeks when I remember.

Exercise:

No structured workout. Did a few negative pullups. They're feeling like an old book. You feel nauseous just thinking about reading it again because you already know how it's going to end, and reading it again isn't going to change anything.

Also did some Leg-lift work. I found out if I can set a chair near the piano and talk someone into sitting in it, I can hold myself up between the piano and chair.

Gonna have to be more careful about staying "under the radar" with my running and such. Dad wanted to know what I've been doing that's making my knees hurt so much. I finally told him I think maybe it's because I'm trying to get running into my life. You know, if I'm trying to get from here to there, I might as well run it. I just thought maybe I'd overdone it or something. Got a nice fatherly lecture about how girls aren't built to run and do things guys do. I'm a woman, I'm supposed to be lady-like, and if I want exercise that bad, just take a nice long walk.  Problem is, I'm not supposed to leave the house on foot without a brother or two as escort. Sooo, how am I going to get those "nice long walks" in? He also recommended I try MSM/Chrondoitine (sp?) to help my joints.

You could get your brothers to run with you! IDK if this is actually a plausible suggestion but I may as well put it out there. Or you could invent an imaginary brother and hypnotize you father into thinking he is real.

You never know if it'll work unless you try it!

David

Another "Thank You" to everyone.

Chris, I do have a pillbox as you suggested, but it's a little too small. I can fit three pills in it: 1 fish oil, 1 multivitamin, 1 MSM/Glucosamine. I now keep it on my desk, and for three days in a row now I've remember to take my pills! Yay for me! 

David, I tried a few times to run with my brothers, but they're like 5 times faster than me and can run probably 10 times longer. They either get irritated because I'm dragging them down so much, or just leave me behind. But Joseph is willing to try it again, if I can manage to drag him out of bed early in the morning to do it.

Grayson, Thanks for the advice! I'm going to try exercising in a different place, with different scenery. Like, outside on the back driveway or something instead of my room. I dunno if that'll help...

Tuesday, September 22

Diet: Moderately good.

Sleep: Slept in. Was very sleepy all day.

Knees were OK today. Worked, but rode in the van each way.

Today was an awesome day for us! The boys bought a pickup!! Woohoo! They own the pickup, but I'm the only kid (at home) with a driver license! We'll see how it works out, but this means we may be able to have a little more freedom to go more places...
There's a Fitness19 gym not too far away. I'm thinking, if it's not too expensive, I could get a membership there, and, with the boy's permission, use their truck to go? If I can find Crossfit, maybe I could even work that out? Anyway, pretty excited about that!

Ok, back to serious stuff.

Workout:
3 rounds:
10 knee pushups
11 situps
10 squats First round on these was terrible. Couldn't remember how to balance. Second round, a little better, but ended up hanging onto a table for balance at the bottom of the squat. Third round, much better form.
The ladder agility workout stuff from APK warmup
4 burpees. Terribly slow and awkward.
Did a little frog planche work, but after a few seconds wrist pain kicked in, and I quit from fear of damaging it again.
1/2 hour of stretching. 

Not to step out of bounds but does the name FLO-JO mean anything to you in regards to the whole women not being built to run?  <Florence Griffith-Joyner>  Wiki her.  Also tell that to the 9000+ women who completed last years Boston Marathon, give yourself a little "ammunition" next time the topic comes up and you are told women are not built to run.  It's a matter of Heart, Desire and Commitment.

As for Self Esteem, don't completely knock it we are Social Creatures and therefore fall prey to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  While it is not as important as Physiological needs, the need for a secure environment, or the need to be love and accepted,  it is still a need.

A perception of ones self based on reaction of how one sees themselves in their environment.  Same reason abused children tend to have a low feeling of self worth.

I will leave my two cents there, if you want the full nickel. message me and i will be glad to finish.  If you don't like what I am saying i guess you could always give me bad karma points or ask me not to post anymore and i will respect that also.

Good Luck and Keep Training... Progress is Progress no matter how small, Rome wasn't Built in a Day

Hmm. I'm loving the self-esteem arguments. I've never really thought about it before. Something to think about!

As for the whole women thing, our family is very... traditional, I guess you could say. It's Ok. I don't mind, mostly. I even think in some ways it's better than some other ways we could have been raised. I just have to be cautious. Besides, "Stolen water is sweet." Maybe if Parkour was an approved activity, and if my parents didn't care if I did it or not, I wouldn't be so  into it.

Wednesday, September 23

Diet: Moderately good. Too much bread again. Must remember moderation!!!

Got a special call-in to work to assist with a "Purple-Heart Veterans Luncheon." Walked to work, was a rover there, doing anything and everything that no-one else had time for, meaning the two hours was extremely hectic. Walked home. Knees were hurting again my end of work.  But not as much as before. Had some issues with wrist pain. The problem I had before is back, albeit in a milder form. ERK! BUT, it was so amazing to walk and type and everything, because since I started taking fish oil and MSM, my joints are greased! Or something. It's so cool!  They almost feel like they could move on their own! I spent the evening just wiggling my fingers and rotating my ankles and stuff, just because! I don't really know how to explain it, but it's like I've lived my life with sandpaper in all my joints, and now it's been taken out! Really loving it.

No workout. The time I was hoping to spend on workout was spent giving Gideon a driving lesson. He's not bad. He's driven tractors and bee trucks around the farm since he was 7, but never up to speed on a real road with traffic. Just drove around the block a few times, reviewing the basics, and trying to correct his steering techniques and stuff. I think I did a good job not freaking out, remaining calm, etc., but I think every muscle I own was tensed to the max. I felt like I'd had a good workout after that!