Injury derailing my fitness goals

     So, at the end of January, I was a major clutz. I was getting ready to leave for work when, either my knee gave out and caused me to stumble or my ankel gave out which caused me to roll my right ankel. It looked pretty horrible. After going to the doctor and determining that it wasn't broken, I was off work for a whole week and I was on crutches for two weeks. I was supposed to wear the moon boot for several weeks, however it actually hurt more to wear the boot than it did to walk on it . So after a day of wearing the boot, I just stopped. My ankle still gives me some trouble but I think after almost six weeks of no activity I'm ready to start hitting the road again.
     I'm just a bit lost in figuring out the best way to proceed. Am I going to have to start all over in my training? Is there away to gague how much progress tue lost due to this injury? I'm very confused. My hope is that I won't have to start completely over, but I know that I won't just be able to pick up when I left off either.
     I am going to have to do some research on the best way to wrap an injured ankel, and with what type of wrap would be the best suited to my injury. I most definatey don't want to make it worse than it already is. I worry that my ankel is still too weak to handle anything more strenueous than walking. I suppose that i will just have to take it one day at a time. It hurts more to sit on the couch,  than it does to be injured.

Changes for the new year

     Well, I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I got pretty much everything i had asked for, including this new gadget that i'm typing on. My Samsug Galaxy S10 Tablet. I absolutely love it. And Sir got me the case with the built in keyboard too! How awesome is he? I think I got a good one. Plus this will come in super handy for school which starts on the 5th. WEEEE!
     I have been spoiled silly the last several weeks. I got my hair done, I've gotten my nails done twice, gotten all mannor of leave from chores and took a short break from the gym routine.
     However with the new year looming, Things have got to get back to a normal schedule. Back to the Gym, and back to eating better. No  Soda, and No junk food. As of January 1st, Sir said that there will be no more eating out except for special occasions. That's a big chang for us, because we tend to get kinda lazy and not want to cook which results in a bunch of money spent that shouldn't be spent. Also, he just ordered the Thug Kitchen Cookbook. So it looks like we'll be phasing meat out of our diet. The food in this cookbook looks awesome. Today i went out for a run and got half a mile in and the outside of my right foot started screaming at me. So I'm currently home and have it elevated with an ice pack on it. I have no idea why it could be hurting. Kinda worries me becaue I haven't had a pain like that in my foot since I had the stress fracture from skating as a kid. That broken foot required a cast for 8 weeks. Pray that I haven't goofed it to that extent. I have a list 10 miles long of races that I'd like to do this year. I don't want a bunch of injuries slowing my progress down.
     This next year my goal is to get my 5k time down below 40 minutes. I'm hovering around 55 minutes now. So I have a lot of work to do. And By the beginging of 2016 I'd like to be able to complete a 10K. By 2017 My goal is the Disney Marathon. A Dream with a Plan is a Goal. I'm working on the plan portion of it, so We'll see what happens. I'll be posting updates as we go along. So you all can help keep me motivated. :-)
     Anyway,  I suppose that's all for now. Catch ya later.
Kajira Panda    

Yoga and Enlightenment

     So today I ended  up staying home sick from work. I suppose that I've been going too hard, too fast and not allowing myself time to decompress from stress. Anyway, while I was home, half way comatose on the couch, I was watching Netflix and came across a documentary called, Yoga Is.
     I had been interested in the practice of yoga for a long while now and up to this point, I had always viewed it as more of an exercise than a spiritual practice. However this documentary just made so much sense. I mean how could grounding your body through the practice of yoga not lead to some sort of spiritual connection with the earth, with God? Paradigm Shift!
     A few Christmases ago, I remember that I had asked for and received a new yoga mat, a set of yoga blocks, and a strap for helping me in the practice of yoga. On my own, I went out and purchased a sling for carrying my mat and yoga pants and a book that i never really sat down and read. But as I was watching this documentary they were interviewing a guy that looked vaguely familiar and I couldn't figure out where I had seen him. Then it dawned on me that that book I had purchased was written by him, Baron Baptiste. The title of the book if you want to know is 40 Days to a Personal Revolution: A Breakthrough Program to Radically Change Your Body and Awaken the Sacred Within Your Soul. So needless to say I will be going back and reading that book
     I have been feeling recently that my life has been careening out of control, that the path I am on, is not where I am supposed to be. I'm sure that I am not the only person out there that has these feelings. I can't be. Isn't the human condition great? Oi So in an effort to figure out what path I am supposed to be walking, I am going to start really looking at yoga as more than just exercise. I want that deeper connection, the spiritual side of it all.
      Now I feel like I'm turning into a crazy health obsessed hippie... O well there are worse things I suppose. Like being over weight, plagued with chronic health problems, and being perpetually depressed and unhappy. I'm so tired of being sick and tired, that I need to make these changes for me.
I guess this journey that I am taking is really just getting started. I thought before that if I just lost some weight that it would be enough. I am quickly discovering that health and happiness is going to take a lot more than simply losing a bit of excess belly fat to achieve. Dedication, hard work, and balance. Do you yoga? Where is a good place to start? How does it make you feel? What would you tell someone who is just starting out?
     
     

Two Days Off

So, After not feeling so great Wednesday night, I woke up Thursday morning and had no voice, my body hurt all over, and i was having the chills. Not a good way to feel at all. So I texted my boss and told him i was sick and that I didn't think I could make it to work. He said no problem. Then later that evening, about 5:15 he texted me and asked how I was doing. I said I was feeling somewhat better and that I had slept practically all day. He was like well why don't you take tomorrow off just in case, and recoup and that he'd see me on Monday. So I rested more today and watched The Secret and Happiness. These were two really great documentaries on Nextflix. I enjoyed watching them immensely. It definitely gives food for thought. 
     I stepped on the scale today and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw, A drop of three pounds! Woot! All of my hard work is starting to pay off with results. Awesome! Now just to keep this momentum going. 
     Did a little bit of cardio to help make up for the fact that I completely missed my workout yesterday due to being sick. I didn't go hard or fast, but I completed 2 miles & burned 310 Calories, in 52:58. 

Okay well, Sir and I are going out with some friends tonight for a little bit, so I need to get off here and go get ready. I'm still in my workout clothes. Ewww. Can we say shower? Yeah... Ta Ta For Now.

Wednesday December 3rd 2014

Today was actually a fairly good one. I had a good day at work. I got to go to an event hosted by one of our business partners from 10:30am until about 1:00pm. Then I had to leav early to go to the bank and do the deposit.
     I came home and changed then promptly headed out to the Kwik Shop to get Sir some soda. By the time I got back home Sir had dinner made and ready to eat. After we ate we kinda snuggled down on the couch and just cuddled. It didn't take me too long to pass out. Sir tried to wake me up and i was not feeling well at all. However my gym partner was already in route to the house so I went anyway. We made it an easy day with legs, a little bit of Abs, and we didn't really do cardio so much as just a slow walk on the treadmill.
     So now I'm home and just plain exhausted. My head is feeling like it is going to explode everywhere and my body aches all over. BAH So work is going to be fun tomorrow.Joy and Rapture.

A Road to a Better Me

O my, where to start? So many things have happened over the last couple of months that it's hard to know where to start. Without going into too many details, let's just say that it has been rough in the relationship department. For a good month it looked as though a divorce was iminant.the good thing is I came to my senses and we decided that we were going to try and work things out. We have been going to marriage counciling and I feel that we are making good progress & that our lives seem to be returning to what I would consider normal, for us.
     Let me just say this much... COMMUNICATION!!! It is so so so important. I don't care if you are vanilla, kinky, or somewhere in between. A relationship in which you cannot have open lines of communication is doomed to fail. Simple as that. It is amazing to me, even now, how blown out of proportion something got, all because we didn't communicate effectively. Of course there were other factors at play in this situation that exponentially increased the perceived size of the problem, but the problem would have never occurred in the first place if we had both been better at having an open line of dialogue in that moment.  But,  that's not really the main goal of this post, I just felt that I had to get that out there. Too often we neglect to communicate our needs, or how we are feeling about certain things to our loved ones, and we need reminders that it matters. They are not mind readers.
Okay I'll get off my soap box now. Anywho...
    So in the middle of all of this going down, I had decided that I had gotten complacent about my health and my weight. It got to the point that I didn't recognize the person I saw in the mirror, I wasn't happy with how I felt and I defiantly wasn't happy with my body. 
     So I decided that it was time for something to change. I started going to the gym three days a week, making  better choices when I came to my food options, and drinking tons more water.
     At first it was hard to just make it to the gym. I was so tired and so unhappy that just getting out the door was a chore. However, after about a month solid of going three days a week, I have come to really look forward to that time I spend working on me.
      Last week I started lifting weights. I have started a program mostly centered around building my core strength,  and exercises to help tone my arms and legs.  My week has been looking something like this...
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Monday- Gym day: Core,  Arms, Cardio (Arc Trainer, 15 min)
Tuesday- Treadmill workout at home. 30-40 minutes
Wednesday - Gym day: Core, Legs, Cardio
Thursday - Treadmill workout at home
Friday- Gym day: Core, Arms, Cardio
Saturday- Gym Day: Core, Legs, Cardio
Sunday- Rest day
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Next week,  I up my number of reps by 5 and my number of minutes of Cardio by 5 as well. So on weights I'll be doing 3 sets of 17. Arms will go up to 40 lbs, Legs will go up to 100 lbs. Core will go up to 50 lbs.
I'm psyched to document my progress. Woot!

The photos are May 2013 @ 245 lbs.
Not a pretty sight!  Since then I had dropped to 217. So, a 28 lb loss so far.
My over all goal is 140. It'll be a long road to go but it'll be so worth it.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead

My friend John called me Thursday and told me about this documentary, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. It can be found on Netflix and Hulu. This film changed the way I look any food. It is the journey of an Australian man named Joe who seeks a new way of life to help him get healthy. I think this could become a revolution. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Joe's results are amazing but he takes another man under his wing and gives him the tools he needs to turn his life around. There are no words to describe his results. Total life change!
So inspiring nd motivating. I've been talking to Sir about allowing me to do this and help keep me motivated. If I do I will do daily updates and such. I hope he says yes!
Hope you have a great Sunday!
Go watch Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.

Kajira