We had our first weigh-in last night. I didn’t lose ANY weight. In fact, I gained .5 pounds, though I attribute that to water and the fact that I haven’t really pooped much in a few days. I also didn’t lose any inches. It also made me angrier at myself for splurging a little over the last couple days. I will not lie to you—I cried. The best way to cry while exercising in when you’re doing a plank because you’re head is down and the gravity makes your tears hit the ground and it just looks like you’re sweating. (Don’t act like I never taught you anything.) I think the worst part wasn’t necessarily that I didn’t lose, but that so many other people did. My friend who was weighed and measured before me lost 6 pounds and 6 inches around her waist. Plus, there were some of the super-fit girls comparing their marathon times (the Baltimore Marathon was over the weekend). Even though I feel like boot camp has given me a lot of confidence, all of a sudden I was the fat girl in the room again who couldn’t keep up. Tyler is having me cut my calories by 300 and if I don’t lose any weight in the next 3 days, we’ll have to re-think this strategy.

This is how I felt:

But I think today will be better.

~Anna

It was a rough weekend. After messing up my back and staying away from boot camp for a week, I just got really depressed. I kept up with the diet but far less stringently then usual. I cheated slightly at my two work meetings. Not with sweets or anything but I did have a tiny bit of pasta salad, a few bites of potatoes au gratin, and I’m not sure what kind of sugar was in the glaze on the meats. Then I went to a wedding and while I didn’t eat many of the cocktail hour snacks and avoided the mashed potatoes and dinner rolls, I still ate two pieces of cake. I couldn’t help it. Wedding cake. I love it. I also had two rum and diet cokes. I realize this is not a huge deal since I’ve been nearly perfect for two weeks but between the slipping up and not exercising all week, I feel like I’ve let myself down. Yesterday I had a few bites of food I didn’t need to eat (some of my husband’s lunch) but was fine otherwise.

Our mid-point weigh-in is tonight and I’m not feeling great. I have a feeling I will not have made much, if any, progress. I feel better which I suppose is what counts but it’s not really what counts to me. Looking better and winning is what counts to me and I’m starting to get discouraged.

But I’m back on the wagon today. Even if my mid-point weigh-in is shit, there are still two weeks left. The Zombie Run is Saturday…my husband was like, “I don’t want you to be mad if I leave you behind” and I told him that I didn’t want HIM to be mad when I left HIM behind. Which I will, because I’m scrappy. And I really would prefer not to be eaten by a zombie.

This is a picture of some cookies which I did not eat over the weekend:

And here is a picture of me when I was skinny:

~Anna

Milk chocolates from Amsterdam. I bet they’re DELICIOUS. Argh!

Last night at boot camp, we were doing the very last station which involved pushing a 75 pound weight (like the kind you put on the bar for a bench press) halfway across the room and back. I was having a lot of trouble and I was halfway back when my body was like “Oh no, fuck this!” and I stopped. Then I heard an unfamiliar voice yell “Come on, Anna! You got this!” and I realized it was coming from a woman I did not know, standing a few feet away at another station. And then I realized that I was the only person still finishing their station and the entire class was cheering me on to finish the last 10 feet, which I was actually able to do. Then everyone clapped for me and we went into our final stretches.

At first, I was completely embarrassed but I had to stop and realize that people were not making fun of me, they genuinely wanted me to succeed, even if it was just pushing a weight 10 feet, and that felt pretty good. It’s tricky for me to be in social situations like this but I’m getting used to it. I take things very personally and was already frustrated because I was having a lot of trouble at one of the previous stations—I couldn’t do a single pull up—and a lot of rollergirls were there. One of my reasons for doing the boot camp is because I knew other rollergirls would be there. I don’t know whether I wanted to prove I wasn’t washed up or if it was just because I had such issues while I did skate with not being the “best” or a fan favorite or popular or other crap like that.

Anyway.

Last night we had chicken soft tacos. My husband made some amazing pulled chicken to which we added black beans, cheese, sour cream, and salsa. This recipe came from the diet plan we were provided so I knew it was okay to eat! Check it:

I fell asleep on the couch this morning after waking up and coming downstairs. When I got off the couch, I felt something pop in my back. I’ve herniated a disc in the past and this is a really painful exacerbation. No boot camp for me tonight, which sucks. Hopefully I can stretch it out and go back tomorrow. Normally I’d have kickball but it looks like it’s going to rain so with any luck, I can get back tomorrow since Thursday and Friday I have evening work meetings and a wedding on Saturday…I won’t be able to get back until next Monday.

Chocolate covered strawberries and cream puffs.

Candy dish full of M&Ms that I sat in front of for two hours.

A variety of cakes and cookies, including my grandmother’s sugar cookies, which I love.

Ice cream. I watched my husband eat a huge bowl.

I didn’t realize that lunch today was actually something I was supposed to cook (I threw away my diet plan because I spilled honey on it). So I defaulted to the last “high carb” day’s lunch. The turkey sandwich on a whole wheat English muffin, hummus, cucumber, onion, spinach, etc. I really like this sandwich so it wasn’t a chore. I also splurged and had some sweet potato chips. They’re all natural and because I have no idea how to get so many carbs today.

19 grams protein, 68g carbs (39 from the sandwich plus 29 from the chips).

Total so far today: 30g protein, 93g carbs. I need more protein BAD. I might have to get a protein shake or something because that’s one thing I am really messing up on. And I have to say, after a “no carb” day, the “high carb” day has made my stomach really kind of bloated even though I’ve only had 678 calories so far, which is not unusual for 2pm. Then again, I’m all menstrual and shit. Just found out there’s no bootcamp tomorrow so I will have to really pull some willpower out of my ass and exercise on my own.

~Anna

“High carb” day. Whole grain waffles—which I’ve been looking forward to all week—and turkey bacon. I’ve never cooked turkey bacon and I don’t think ANY bacon deserves to be cooked in a microwave. But I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast at home so microwave work bacon it was. Not so bad, actually. I over cooked it because our work microwaves are like, 600 watts which is roughly equivalent to half the power of a modern day Easy Bake Oven (modern day because the ovens of yore actually baked and today’s are just lawsuit proof pieces of crap). Anyway, breakfast (I had already eaten one waffle before I remembered to take the picture):

8g protein, 25g carbs. Will need much more of both throughout the rest of the day. Luckily, I bring so much food to work with me that I’m being scolded for taking up too much room in the refrigerator.

~Anna

After bootcamp last night, I was pretty beat. We were also pet sitting for the evening and my dog plus his little friend is just insane. They require supervision at all times so I just didn’t end up making what I was supposed to have for dinner (which I cannot remember what it was supposed to be at this current time). So, it being a “no carb” day, I ended up with lettuce wraps. In each leaf of romaine, I put two slices of turkey breast, one wedge of Laughing Cow light cheese, and a tablespoon of this spinach and artichoke dip (NOT the creamy kind). I didn’t like the dip. It kind of ruined the whole thing but I was starving so I ate them. They LOOKED really good though:

Ah, whatever. They were satisfying and I wasn’t hungry any more. However, I did not realize that lettuce, cheese, the dip, and even the turkey all had carbs. I ended up with 23 grams for the day on what was supposed to be a “zero carb” day. But honestly, 23 grams compared to a usual of 150+ might as well be zero. I do have to figure out how to cram more protein in there. I snacked on edamame on the way to class which I thought would help but it really only boosted it by 6 grams.

Today’s totals: 74g protein (SO not enough), 23g carbs (too many!) and 1,055 calories (DEFINITELY not enough). Gotta work on these “no carb” days.

~Anna

Today is my high-carb day (despite still needing 150g protein too), and this was my lunch: wheat bread, two Trader Joe’s chicken burgers, 1/2 an avocado, and some greek yogurt. Oh, and some cheese. Did I mention I STILL need 150g protein a day?! That’s a lot of fucking protein. So far I’m at 104g protein and 126g carb for the day. Got a granola bar to eat after Sweat Performance! Then dinner. Ugh…

-Tara

I AM ACCIDENT PRONE. Anna may argue that she’s more accident prone than I am, and I can agree that she trips and falls more than I do, however the results of my trips and falls seem to be way more severe than hers. In true Cindy Lop-her form (and true Tara form too, I suppose), I royally fucked up my left foot at Sweat Performance on Monday night. Granted, the foot has been in bad shape for 2 years running, suffering from plantar fasciitis following a severely sprained ankle, which I rolled in a pothole while running 2 years ago. In the past two years the pain has been sporadic. It will hurt for a week and then go away for a month. This bout of foot pain, however, has been lingering since June and is about as bad as it ever has been. I can only attribute the recent severe flair up to my taking up tennis again this summer. The quick sprints and pivots significantly re-tore my plantar fascia, and it hasn’t been right since. Despite the lingering injury, I decided to sign up for the Sweat Performance challenge anyway and hope for the best. Honestly, I’m so fucking sick of just sitting, that part of me was okay with the possibility of reinjuring it if it meant I could be active in a fun environment for just a little bit. Enter Monday night. With a bungee cord strapped to my waist, I ran 30 feet out and did the running in place drill. Almost instantly I heard a pop and felt pain shooting up my Achilles tendon. Fuck. 

“I’m not doing this one again,” I told our trainer, Kyle, but unfortunately the damage was already done. That night I went home and decided to relax my sore muscles in a nice bath – something I hardly ever do but that Anna and I agreed was a good substitute for comforting night eating. If ever there was a bad decision… Take a fresh injury you should be applying ice to and slap a heating pad on it. That’s what I did. My foot became so swollen in the middle of the night that all the blood vessels on the side of my foot popped (a sight I hadn’t seen since the ankle sprain of 2009), and I could not walk at all the next day. I went into work but lasted only an hour. Between the electrifying pain in my foot, the intermittent crying sessions, and my dozing off at my desk because I took a muscle relaxer, I decided at the ripe old hour of 9am that I needed to take this freak show home. 

My day off led to an afternoon of wicked drug-induced dreams followed by copious amounts of internet research to see if there was anything else I could do so that I could keep on training while I was waiting for the plantar fascia tear to heal. The answer? Taping. I was skeptical at first that tape could actually support a muscle or ligament, but I was willing to give it a try. After much research and suggestions from derby girls all over, I ended up settling on KT Tape, and I watched their instructional video for taping the plantar fascia online.

Today I applied the tape for the first time, and I’ll be trying it out at Sweat Performance tonight. I’ll also be asking our trainers for modifications of certain exercises, so I can avoid the motions that overextend the plantar fascia: jumping, lunging, and doing anything where I’m being pulled backwards while doing it. It’s not the ideal way to be participating in this month-long boot camp, but at least I’m not quitting. I’ll keep pushing forward with the help of my wonderfully supportive partner, Anna, and I’ll work as hard as I can doing the exercises I can. Will update tomorrow on how the tape goes!

-Tara