Fiddleman

Oh my, this Christmas has been a lesson in self control. And I chose poorly a number of times. Yikes. I am going to get back on track after these parties finish. Today, is our last "Christmas dinner" feast as a family. We get together for the social reasons, but my, there is so much tempting food around. I have to go even though I dread the eating. Why must we always have to have eating of rich food at family gatherings? Don't answer, rhetorical question. We had like 4 Christmas dinners between the different parts of my extended family and I am staying off the scale. no reason to affirm what I can already feel. Next week will be a repurposing week about getting back into the pattern of eating right. I still exercise like before (5 x this past week of intense workouts), but I think the holiday eating is tipping my body into store versus burn mode.

yes, the chills happens to everyone. I found it to be worse between month 4-8. Somehow my body got used to the change after that and now I am no longer wearing gloves when out at the grocery store or cold when everyone else is in a tshirt. Fear not, it will get better. This winter (18 months), I hardly notice anything. In fact, my body almost gone the other way where it is warm in cold conditions. It is specially true after exercising. I can be in sub freezing temperatures (eg 20-30 f), in shorts, and still feel warm. Lol. And I do not have any layering with a body weight of 180 @ 5'11"

Talley- how unfortunate and painful. It sounds like a long road to recovery. Best wishes to you.

Being 18 months out, I can say that the sleeve will always serve you well if you eat nutritionally dense foods (from both protein and veggie food groups), but will almost certainly fail you on slider foods. It is wise to develop good nutritionally sound eating habits during the first 6 months while you are effectively on " probation" as a new sleeved. Once a certain time period passes, your ability for the sleeve to help you on certain classes of foods (sliders, sugar, salt, fat, etc) goes way down, effectively to 0. And then it becomes a question of how well you built your foundation during the first few months for the house you now live in. There will be storms with hurricane strength winds and your house will only be as sturdy as the foundation you poured. Listen to your nutritionalist, read and educate yourself before your "honeymoon period" ends and what is left to guide you is your decision making process.

I hate the studies too because ironically you get very little quality sleep with all those wires attached and an uncomfortable bed, not to mention the ordeal of just getting up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. And then there is that sticky goo in your hair and the pain of ripping off the pads (for men). I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea a few months before surgery. Most of us have had this condition before. So I was on the machine nightly until surgery and admit it took some getting used to. I always wanted to rip that sucker off after 2-3 hours. However, insurance required a certain number of hours on average every night which is recorded on the little memory card. On surgery day, I brought the machine with me, but they never used it. It sat lonely at the end of my bed. Nor did I use it while in the hospital. My hospital stay was 5 days due to some O2 complications (in ICU for 2 of those days). By the time I returned home, I used it for a couple days and then discovered I really did not need it any more. The snoring was gone within a couple weeks so the machine went under the bed. Fast forward a year and I did a second sleep study, just to see if cpap machine and I could break up amicably for good. It turned out I was 100% cured of any sleep apnea. The expensive brick (1600 dollars) still sits under my bed today only slightly used. Eventually, I need to sell it or find someone who needs it because it is doing zero good gathering dust. You will probably have to do a second sleep study eventually as a post op to measure progress.

I did a huge donation last year to value village. Hauled some 12 full bags of clothes to the store. I have only kept 2 articles of clothing: a leather jacket and my robe. My leather jacket was my favorite so have not parted ways with it. I still wear my robe. I imagine I should just get rid of it, but it is comfy.

Red bean - how has the mma been going? What do your workouts look like?

Yup had a (single) day this season when I really lost the battle in terms of eating party food and paid dearly in comfort afterwards. However, I felt like I have won the war this Christmas in making good decisions about food even though surrounded my mountains and mountains of cookies, cakes, pie, candy and chocolates all the time. It is a tough part of the year, especially if you are maintaining. Kept within my range I wanted to stay in.

My wife and I do try and come to a consensus on what we order to avoid left overs and save on cost. I have found myself compromising quite often, but hey, that is what you do in marriage.

Be careful if there is any risk of ab work following the TT. If it is just soreness from unused muscles, it will most likely feel better in 2-3 days. I have also found glutamine (in bcaa powder) helps in addition to contrast showers. I am not sure how much a roller would help on your front. I know the roller helps me recover my traps, delts and lats faster as we do a lot of core and upper body work, day after day, month after month. Maybe the contrast showers would help you. An interesting thing happened today. I did a really hard upper body workout on Tuesday where my delts and traps were very strained yesterday and this morning. I was not sure if I was going to get through the hard workout today. There were lots of movements that required traps, delts and lays from knees to elbows, to push presses to wall ball throws. I also did 1000 m of rowing as a warm up before getting into mobility stretching. After the workout, the strain was mysteriously gone. I am thinking about why this could be. Would it be that the use of the muscles and ligaments today released their tightness that caused the strain? Would it be that the endorphins from the workout is masking the pain and I will really feel it tomorrow? Not sure. What are your thoughts.

I've never done acupuncture, but have done acupressure on a home mat. It really helps. How different would acupuncture be from acupressure (besides cost).

Well, it is the end of the month and today everyone got to choose a benchmark workout. Everyone did a different workout and naturally I did the filthy 50 (my December goal): To reiterate, here is the workout (in case you do not want to go back to the beginning of this thread): Do 50 box jumps with a 24-inch box, 50 jumping pullups, 50 kettlebell swings (54 #), 50 walking lunge steps, 50 knees to elbows, 50 reps of push press with 45 pounds, 50 back extensions (45 # bar), 50 wallballs using a 20-pound ball, 50 burpees (dropping all the way to the floor), 50 double-unders. My filthy 50 time came in at 21 minutes and 53 seconds (down from 23 min at beginning of month). That would mean I met my goal of being 30-45 seconds faster. However, I see there is still so much to improve that is not time related. I am thoroughly and unconditionally toasted. Maybe it is because of 12 days of Christmas WOD on Tuesday, maybe it is because of rich eating in the last week from holiday parties. Don't know. I blew through the workout until knees to elbows and then started to get upper body tired. By the time I hit #30 in wall balls, I was beyond body fatigued and fell over at around #40. Everyone else (about 10 others) picked shorter easier benchmarks so were all on the sidelines, watching me as I fell over from exhaustion. They were yelling and cheering for me to get back up. The last 3 exercises of 50 reps each are brutal in this workout. They really test your resolve. I go through the burpees and then my rope broke on the double unders so had to find a replacement quick. Luckily I picked out a good fast one and whipped out the 50 quick. I love when a jump rope makes the whirring sound when the cycles are quick. I had to modify by dropping from 20# to 14# on wall balls and my knee to elbows would have not counted in competition because knees have to touch elbows when hanging from pull-up bar for each rep. My knees got about and inch away. Next time I do filthy 50 I hope to Rx. I also like that one of the coaches was personally helping to correct my form and offering tips as I went through the workout to complete the exercises with less effort. The more I do cross fit, the more I realize it is being really smart about coordination sand conservation of energy. These are especially important on filthy 50 because it requires so much stamina and endurance in addition to movement skill and focus. I wonder what tomorrow holds? this month has been a challenge. Next month I am starting a pull-up and handstand push-up challenge (another thread in fitness forum) to get 50 each in a row. It may take a couple months to reach the goal as I have what seems a very high mountain to climb.

Christmas dinner last night with relatives actually posed a fair amount of challenge for me. I was good and stuck with a small slice of ham and some veggies, but I wanted the croissants, the blue cheese au gratin, etc. and the dessert table was the worst of it. More then once I was tempted by the coconut cream pie, the banana cream pie, the cookies, the chocolates, the frangos and on and on. There was quite a spread and coconut cream pie was one of my favorites pre sleeve. I was able to talk myself out of actually removing said food from the dessert table. It was hard! However, I feel better now that I walked through the valley of death and came out the other side. I hope that is the last of the Xmas food temptations for the season.

HW: 360 SW: 335 7-2-2012) GW: 180 CW: 172-177 (first reach: 2-27-2013) 5'11" Maintaining the current weight for about 8 months now.

that's awesome! Start whenever you wish. I will be starting after the new year.

Those mathematical patterns in the snow are spectacular. I think if I tried that, the pattern would look more like those spider webs created by a spider on caffeine. Lol. http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm I wonder if he uses a gps mobile program to help guide where he walks.

I think exercise and eating clean are great tools for anxiety and depression It was my sedentary lifestyle and consumption of sugar that led to many of my anxiety and depressive episodes pre VSG. And I had them in the worst way. I have not had any such episodes since changing these two parts of my life : daily exercise and eating small balanced meals throughout the day. I know it sounds crazy, but the wrong food (as a drug) really messes with your mental quality of life.

Protein bars are very close to being candy bars. And eating one leads to desiring a second due to, in my opinion, lack of satiety. If you compare the calories between a snickers bar and a quest bar, they are not all that different. There are also a lot of mysterious ingredients they pack into those bars from hidden trans fats to dangerous chemicals. For these reasons, consider eating clean whole food for a snack instead where you get a good balance of the macros and a full understanding of what you are consuming. For example, a few ounces of sliced chicken pieces with red pepper or apple slices with almond butter. I have found that whole food is much more satisfying and desirable then a protein bar with mystery ingredients.

I am the same way with unassisted full handstand push-ups. The strength is just not there in my shoulders to lift my head up off the ground. I am still working on the basic hand stand. That is, to support my body upside down with my arms in a locked out position, not worrying about range of motion yet. Tried again yesterday but still could not even lift head off mat a millimeter. It was sadly humiliating. In the meantime, I am working through a progression to get from 0 to 10: http://www.crossfitlondon.ca/wp/zero-to-10-handstand-pushups-hspu/ I am good at box handstand push-ups (step 3). Have been for several months now. In a few more months, I am hoping to do a full set of 10 handstand push-ups unassisted (step 10). In the meanwhile, I am going to practice the handstand push-ups on the side with this pull-up challenge so I can do my first unassisted handstand push-up in the same way you are working towards doing your first pull-up. Perhaps I should be working on practicing heavier shoulder to overhead presses because, according to my coach, the movements are the same except inverted from each other. A set of 10 shoulder to overhead presses are a challenge for me also at any meaningful weight (eg 95-115 lb) so doing a handstand push-up requires essentially a 180 lb inverted shoulder to overhead press. Yikes! I need some spinach right about now.

I use(d) my share of NSAIDs pretty consistently since month 6 for a degenerative arthritic condition (will be getting it officially diagnosed by rheumatology in January 2014). Started on the store strength stuff like aleve, naproxen, and ibuprofen after getting blessing from VSG doctor. None of it worked. I then moved to prescription strength stuff like 800 mg ibuprofen and 20 mg piroxicam (blessing of PCP dr). The diflenac (pill or cream) does not work for me. Flector patch does not work. The only stuff that even remotely gives my poor neck and back relief is the piroxicam, sometimes it takes 2 for a few hours of no pain. I've been dealing with this residual pain of inflammation, that no pain is completely foreign to me. I am pretty young at 38. I am going to tell my doctor this next week this information about the piroxicam and see if we can find something gentler, but still have the impact. I use home acupressure and exercises I have learned from 2x a week PT a lot too every day, but that is only temp relief. This whole arthritic thing I just recently found out a few weeks ago because I just so happened to get an X-ray for something else. So even though taking prescription strength NSAID seems fairly risky, it is completely worth it to be free of the pain. I also want to say eating low inflammation diet and eating food that fights inflammation helps. I take 4-8 g of fish oil a day from stronger, healthier faster. That helps also to fight inflammation caused by working out as often as I do. The whole pain caused by inflammation thing started years ago, before I got into working out after losing weight from VSG.

Just got back from this workout and had a blast. We only had a single class today so there were quite a few people there. It was so exciting to have 12-15 people together doing this workout, encouraging each other, in a single room. We had to watch out for rogue kettle bell swings and also jump over other barbells to move between station for toes 2 elbow and our own station. A little crazy, but worth it! The hardest part for me were the Turkish get ups on the step 12 after being thoroughly toasted and winded. I spend too much time looking at my legs, trying to coordinate them, and not enough time staring at the base of the kettle bell. Another one for me to work on. My finishing time was 29:59, which was 2nd. How was your workout today on Xmas eve?

It is all good. The coaches will ease you into it. Number one rule is not to compare yourself to others as there will always be stronger, faster or weaker, slower folks. It is about your progression and goals. However, I do admit I look up to a lot of athletes at my box, super impressed by what they can do. I make it a point to learn from others where I can and always remember that today is a day to improve in some way. Not every day will be a good day and some days you have to force rest onto yourself to avoid overtraining or rest because you feel broken. You listen to your body and do the best you can.

Yes, it is the people! I have made a lot of friends at cross fit because you see these people day after day and you are all in it together, sweating, screaming, gnashing teeth, even bleeding in some cases. Yes, I have gotten my fair amount of scrapes from power cleans, snatches, ripping your hands from a massive amount of pull ups or t2b or even falling after a failed box jump. Fortunately, you have your team cheering you on to get back up. It also helps to have endorphins flowing to mask any pain.

Cross fit is different from pdx90 and insanity because they (the pdx90 and insanity) are more about conditioning where your body gets really conditioned to a set of workouts and exercises. This is what I have been told at one point by a cross fit coach when asking the same question several months ago. Cross fit is different in that it is designed to prepare the athlete for the unknown and unknowable. I know it sounds a bit mysterious, but basically cross fit prepares the athlete in a general manner for a dozen or so set of core competencies described in my post above. It takes a long time (years) for the average athlete to get "good" at cross fit where they can compete and do well. I am still learning skills daily and trying to improve skill where I have a chance of competing, even at the regional level. Maybe it will happen this summer (2014), but probably next summer (2015). There is always room to get better at it as the months and years roll by. It is a long term commitment. However, if you are after a ripped or toned body, one should get a desired physique after a few months of doing the daily workouts ( and taking at least 2 days rest a week). It is hard. I am just starting to Rx the workouts as prescribed with good times. My box has a competitor program that is to prepare athletes for competition. It is a 2-3 hour daily commitment and much more advanced. As for standard cross fit workouts, you have to be mentally prepared to keep going when your stamina and endurance runs out. Every part of your body is screaming "stop", but it is at this point where you elevate a core competency. It is also where you make tremendous physical returns. You want to put close to 100% effort into each workout. For these reasons, I think cross fit will produce better results than insanity and pdx90 long term, but that is just an opinion. It is a lively debate if you Google the comparisons people give.

Tomorrow, being Xmas eve, is a good time for people to try a "12 days of Xmas" workout. There are infinite variations on it, depending on choice of exercises and position in list of exercise. Here is one such variation: 1 Handstand Push-up (12) 2 Pistols (Alternating Legs)s (24) 3 Push-ups (30) 4 Knees To Elbows (36) 5 Burpees (40) 6 Box Jumps (42) 7 Wall Balls (42) 8 Kettlebell Swings (40) 9 Deadlifts, 115/75 lbs (36) 10 Front Squats, 115/75 lbs (30) 11 Cleans, 115/75 lbs (22) 12 Turkish Get Ups (12) This is done like the Christmas song "12 Days of Christmas"... 1 HSPU, 2 Pistols, 1 HSPU, 3 Pushups, 2 Pistols, 1 HSPU, 4 K2E, 3 Pushups, 2 Pistols, 1 HSPU... I have added up and placed the totals of each exercise in parens. It will help with mental preparation as not to burn out too early, depending g on where your strengths lie. I will be doing this WOD tomorrow and am looking forward to it as a definite challenge. Ok, downright hard! I have never done this WOD before, but think it is about 25-30 m in length which makes it a fairly long for metabolic conditioning where you attempt to finish as fast as possible with good technique. You will burn off all your Xmas party food and then some! Try it out if you are up for a challenge and report back how it went. If you do not have equipment for certain exercises, you can swap exercises out for pure body weight exercises.