Starting Saturday, I woke up with a chest cough. I’ve written it off to allergies since the Houston area tends to get me all crazy. Days later I still have this cough. It’s not an all day thing but when I cough it’s terrible and the tickle that’s at top of my chest is super annoying. None the less, I still work out. I can feel it taking a toll on me. I don’t get as deep of a breath as I would like and I’m not at 100%.

For real though, I don’t think I’m ever at 100%! I know I’m not a walking dinosaur but everything hurts. Not all at once, or all of  the time either… well most of the time. But if I sit too long, or stretch a certain way, something is bound to be sore and achy. Part of it, I suppose… part of trying to get back on track, part of getting “old”er, part of pushing limits.

But enough with the woe is me. There’s good news too. I’m still seeing the scale go down. Still very slow but it’s going down. But more importantly, the inches are coming off. In just a little over 2 weeks, I’ve lost several inches. Not super duper progress in all areas, but 1/4 inch here, 1/2 here there and over an inch in my hips. I’m digging it for sure. I haven’t hit any huge milestones, but that’s just me wanting bigger things to happen in a really short period of time. It takes time, I know! I just want instant gratification! We all do. Sadly, that’s not how it works 😦 I may have started my journey about a month ago, but I didn’t start taking the food so seriously until about 2 weeks ago. And I’m still slacking in being REAL serious about the food. But I’m lots better about it.

In general, I feel better mentally. I don’t crave as much of the bad foods. But the smells still get me! It triggers something mentally when I smell something yummy.

I may not even be hungry, but the aroma of certain foods, are to die for! Thankfully, I know better and the temptation isn’t as strong. I just smell the smells and keep on walking by. Ya, right. Well I don’t eat the terrible food. But I’m still sad that I can’t have the foods! Trust me, I’m not being super strict by any means and one day … crossing fingers… I will have certain stuff in moderation. But now’s not the time for that. It’s go time and I need put my big girl panties on and do some work.

The workouts. (If you’re ever wondering what some of the workouts mean, feel free to ask! I know some of it might sound like a foreign language. But it’s not scary. And all of the movements are scalable!)

Monday was insane. And it involved a lot of burpees. I can honestly say I did NOT bring 100% to the table. The cough thing had me and just the mental beatdown of it all. It doesn’t seem like it’s too bad but the point is to do AS MANY REPS AS POSSIBLE. So although 4 minutes isn’t long, it’s still a butt whoopin! We were out of “girl” 35 lb bars so I was using the normal 45 lb bar. And it truly does make a difference. The bar is thicker so it took a toll on my squatty Flinstone hands. I almost did this one RX but I didn’t always jump over the bar on the Lateral Burpees. Doh! Oh well. It’s not worth me tripping over the bar and hurting something else.

Tuesday was another shoulder burner. If I’m not queen of shoulders soon, I’ll be super disappointed. I worked up to a 90lb 5 rep Push Press. It was heavy but doable. Again with the honesty. I think maybe I could have got 95lbs, but I knew what was waiting for me in the MetCon and didn’t want to kill myself. Recurring theme: Not 100%!

For Handstand Push Up technique, I worked on handstand holds and trying to go down with out losing control. Still not “pushing up” but if I can get my head down without my heavy ass collapsing, then I’m getting somewhere!

For the MetCon, I did modified HSPU on the box, bleh, shoulder killer #1. I did the 75lb snatch which got hard around round 3. Should Killer #2. And then banded pull ups. Hand killer! I ripped on both hands, which for me is rare.

Because A. I never work hard enough to tear hands and B. I never work hard enough to tear hands. So I can tell you that for those banded pull ups, I was giving it my all! And now I’m in pain. Terrible sad pain.