View from the Ledge

I've always been drawn to the mountains. My early years were spent in northern Indiana, a fairly flat place, but with its own cool stuff like the Lake Michigan sand dunes rolling along the inland sea. But my family criss-crossed the country on vacations as I grew up, visiting relatives, exploring far-off places. The oceans, deserts and plains all have their unique appeal, but it's been the mountains that have always blown me away. I will never forget the first time, at age 8, that I was faced with the unbelievable scale of Mount Rainier hanging over the landscape, as though a second behemoth moon were rising from behind the horizon. That awe truly has never faded for me. There are so many options for mountain exploration in the Pacific Northwest. When my family moved here, I landed in a bit of paradise.

I have struggled with my health and weight all of my life. But my love for the mountains and my burning desire to explore eventually pushed me out there as a young adult. When I worked at a daycare and A worked in fast food, we saved our pennies, bought a run-down Ford Econoline van from a dude in a Safeway parking lot and started driving off into the wilderness. At first we just drove to pretty places, but we did begin to hike, occasionally, in a few settings that called to me such as Sunrise trails on Mt. Rainier. My general health issues, arthritis and obesity did not allow us to get far very fast, but we continued to push and push. It might take hours and enormous effort to make it to the top of the trail, and we might be the last people off the mountain, but we went anyway, and saw the most amazing things, even if what I could do was limited. We walked back in the dark, exhausted, in pain but triumphant, seeing things that other day hikers usually didn't get to because they were always off the mountain before twilight. You can see pictures of me doing this at my heaviest, right here on this page.

I am much more capable and enthusiastic in my exploration, these days. This year has been the most amazing, so far. Though I am currently heavier than my lightest, I'm guessing by 12 or more pounds - I'll talk about that more below - the hiking has been mostly easier than ever before. We have been doing a conditioning hike of some sort every day for the past month, with the goal of getting in good enough shape to be able to qualify for next winter's Alpine Scramble course at The Mountaineers so that we can make Camp Muir safely next summer. 

According to the brochure: "A rough measure of adequate conditioning is the ability to hike Mount Si, from the trailhead to the base of the Haystack with a full pack (20-30 lbs.) in 2—1/2 hours or less." I have never even attempted Mt. Si, to date. Mt. Si is a 3150 foot elevation gain, 8 mile round trip, and relentlessly steep. A tough goal, but I believe this to be doable, in this time frame, for the first time in my life. Camp Muir is at roughly 10,000 feet, halfway up Mt. Rainier from the Paradise visitor's center, and you must cross a treacherous snowfield to get there (which is why the Alpine Scramble course training is essential). You can see where it should be from the top of the Skyline trail. I have always dreamt, figuratively and literally of being way up there on the shoulder of Rainier, but the only way to get there is to hike, 4,000 feet of elevation gain in 4 miles. So we are conditioning, little by little.

This last weekend we hiked to Rattlesnake Ledge, another nearby beautiful Cascades hike, less steep but a decent challenge at 1200 feet elevation gain in just under 2 miles. The reward at the end is to step out onto a bare rock "ledge" that is more like a needle, 1500 feet up with views over the lake that you start out at far below, green pine valleys and the snow-dusted peaks beyond. We took that hike last July for the first time. It was a muggy hot day, so that may have  slowed us down. But it took us a few hours, with lots of stopping, and we were WRECKED. This year, admittedly on a slightly chilly but sunny day, it took us an hour! We played tag with a group of twenty-something kids while we took turns resting, (way less this time, though!)  and made it up in the same amount of time as they did! We passed other people who looked younger and thinner, struggling along the trail. This has NEVER happened for me before. Never. 

We ate our apple and almonds snack while admiring the vast landscape stretched out below the ledge. Afterwards, we attempted to go further up the trail and see how far we could make it up Rattlesnake Mountain, toward the East Peak, which is a much steeper climb. But just a few yards past the ledge the trail was covered in a deep mushy sludge of snow, impossible to walk in without crampons and freezing without proper gear. Here's me on that section looking goofy and cold:

I'm glad that we didn't continue much farther, actually, because while I wasn't feeling any pain at the time, I was disablingly sore for several days after in the hips. I still haven't discovered what the problem is there. I've decided to try taking digestive enzymes with and outside of meals, as some people have suggested may help if the hip problem is bursitis. I'll let you know how that goes.

All in all, that hike was glorious and really made me feel good about my progress and what I'd like to accomplish. I think a steady diet of weight training and walking has done me worlds of good. Especially doing the Occam's Protocol (from the 4 Hour Body), with super-heavy (but calibrated) lifting to failure. My legs are so much stronger, which apparently makes a giant difference in pushing myself up that mountain. It makes all kinds of sense, yet I never thought of that! I thought hiking was all about conditioning. Now I'm realizing that the benefits of lifting heavy things are much much more than getting giant biceps.

Yesterday we completed Occam's Protocol week 5, with the chest and leg press workout (B). We'd had to push workouts back in the past few weeks due to travel and post-hike soreness. It turns out that it had been 2 weeks since the last workout B. I only upped my inclined chest press 5 pounds instead of 10 as suggested, and I still UTTERLY failed to get minimum reps in, 3.5 instead of 7, but I held the failure and am hoping for better next week. However, I KILLED the leg press again. I got up to 150 pounds, for 15 reps to failure (5 past minimum). That's 50 pounds more than I began lifting 5 weeks ago, for a fifty percent increase in strength! Yaaaay! So, I'm making great strides towards functionality. I'm getting to do the things I've always dreamt of doing. These are thing that make life good.

I haven't been losing weight. I'm fairly sure I've been gaining. Yeah, some muscle, definitely. Also some fat, certainly. My clothes are not fitting right. I can't wear my fanciest duds that I just bought a few months back. I have to eat a lot of protein for the heavy bodybuilding routine, and just have NOT figured out how to make it happen without getting fatter. I'm trying not to freak out. I can't let myself gain too much. I won't go back to obesity. But I'm going to have to hit the brakes. 

This particular routine is over in a week. The plan is to switch to a fat-burning protocol with more functional free-weights, specifically the kettlebell. So I'm hoping that my metabolism picks up and I can keep stepping up the conditioning hikes, tighten the diet since I won't be bulking.

Why don't I know what I weigh? What I don't want to do is walk around in a state of neurotic freakout. A year ago, I would have. I would have weighed myself obsessively. I would have freaked out and let it get me down. Right now I have plenty of other stressors on my plate. But I also have a plan. I am active, and I am not going crazy with the eating. So I've decided to back off from the scale until I switch routines. Spending my mental energy to take care of and enjoy myself in the meantime.

Lastly, I am thinking that I just may be entering Peri-menopause. Yeahhhh. It's kind of hard to believe. You're soldiering along, finally getting a handle on life, and suddenly, boom, you're old. But I have a plethora of symptoms cropping up, everything from hot flashes, night sweats to the fact that my period is 5 days late now. Which NEVER happens. And uh no, not pregnant. There are other details, which I will spare. But also...the growing belly fat is another sign that LOTS of women complain of. There is a chance that this is the case with me, and that it has crept stealthily in during this whole weight-loss process. This is really bugging me, in case you can't tell. I'm trying to get zen about it. It happens to all of us. It's not the end of the world. I guess it just feels like an uphill battle at times. I had a nice figure, for JUST a second. Hopefully I will get it back again. 

If not, well, the world is big and beautiful. And there are still mountains to climb. The view from this ledge is pretty great. But I will go higher.

The Fingers You Have Used to Dial...Are Too Fat

So spotty this week! Just busy...including ups and downs.

Downs, I think, include my weight. I have not actually weighed, because it was getting neurotic. Clothes are BEGINNING to look a little better though.

Also downs include mood, though that was temporary. I am struggling on how to deal with alcoholic borderline/narcissistic personality close relative. They call me out of desperate need for emotional support every once in a while, though we used to be very close. For an hour and a half, we'll be having the best conversation, reconnecting, where I actually think I see a breakthrough in attitude. Suddenly, they seize on to some neurotic crazy notion that puts the locus of control back outside of themselves. This becomes a way to blame their problems on somebody else. Then they say something horrible to me, putting me on the defensive. I say something I am unhappy about (but is the truth), they get mad and hang up on me. Par for the course. I know that this can happen, any time I pick up the phone for them. I can't bring myself not to pick up the phone every once in a while. Still sad as hell, and brings me waaaaaaaay down, no matter how hard I try to tell myself that it's not my fault and I'm not responsible for the crazy. I do need to work on not becoming defensive in the face of it. That was yesterday, and it hurt a lot. Ah, well. I am starting to feel better again.

Power button broken on phone, an original Droid, which is also malfunctioning in 8 different other ways. Just passed my 2 year minimum on this phone, eligible for another upgrade. Of course the one I just NEED is $300 freaking dollars. A needs one, also, and he NEEDS one like the one I need. His phone is an embarrassment, now that he's going to be representing his company in tech demos and such. And we are paying for another person's phone, and they need a replacement, also. All the research has taken a LOT of time. I want a physical keyboard, but I want really great battery life and 4G LTE Android...so I think I need to give up the physical keyboard idea because the best thing out there for me is the Razr Maxx. But virtual keyboards slow me down and drive me crazy. Either I emanate a static force field the likes of which has been yet unimagined (possible), OR my fingers are too fat and I need a dialing wand. Thank you, Simpsons, for permanently placing that image in my head. A is forcing me to march down there and pick one out today, in any case.

Session 3 of Workout B, Occam's Razor, complete (as of Tuesday)! Again, JUST missed my minimum 7 reps for the Inclined Chest Press, 5.5 reps to failure at 40 pounds, but CRUSHED the leg press for 18.5 reps to failure at 120, with the minimum reps being 10! My legs are a teensy bit sore, but really not bad. Just like my workout A this time, my weakest muscles did NOT gain 100% in strength in two weeks flat, shockingly. But almost!

I am very convinced that if your lift starts at 20 lbs, then tiny kitten muscles that they are, you are NOT going to be able to double that muscle size in two week's time no matter how much protein powder you shovel in your piehole. And I have stopped shoving so much into my piehole! I just couldn't sustain it. I cut those beans out, cut my intake to 1 gram of protein per lb. of lean body weight, and my bloated belly seems to be receding quickly. I plan on weighing tomorrow to check on that. I do think that 1.25 grams was what somebody with testosterone and already a decent muscle-y build can really do something with, but for me it's so excessive my body can only try to shove that and all the calories that come with it into fat cells and sigh.

But look what my legs/glutes did with that! I am going to up my weight by 15 pounds next week, because I shouldn't be able to get more than a few past minimum.

Anyways, relieved to be going back to eating in a more normal fashion, for me. A little less fruit and cheese than I would normally eat, and no alcohol all week since Sunday. I am trying to be a good weight crushing kitty.

Planked!

Got busy, but weekend went differently than I had previously imagined.

Occam's Protocol, Workout B number two...Crushed! Another 10% strength gain for both lifts for both of us. Woohoo! I did 1.5 reps and 2.5 reps past failure on my two lifts, again, just about perfect. I am lifting the right amount. We added planks to our ab routine this time! They are tough and I LOVE them. Fun! Weird! I felt like a superhero or something. My whole body shook with effort, but I could do it - 30 seconds each time, front and both sides. Happy times! Brand new muscles accessed, for sure. The leg press, man I tell you. I can see new definition in my calves, I swear it!

Our friend talked us into going to a comedy show , The Humor Program at The Naked City brewpub in Greenwood, rather than sushi post workout as we had planned. The comedy shorts that were part of this show were really excellent, and the show was fun. We had a great time with our buddies. As for food...this was carby cheat day, so...we did! Legitimately. But it was JUST post massive leg-press weight-lifting-to-failure workout. And everyone at the table ordered fries. And I was so hungry. So very hungry. Ate toooooo many fries. Had a great brisket sandwich, baby greens salad, aaaaaand three beers.

Ok, I was supposed to eat carbs and many more calories than usual. So it's not like I was off plan. But we felt really really yucky the next day. Not used to eating like that. At all. And I am still bloated and feel...fat.

However, we eventually pulled our shiznit together and went for a hike on Sunday. A baby-hike, but a hike nonetheless. Wallace Falls State Park, with a series of amazing waterfalls cascading down beautiful craggy and rounded snow-capped mountains. It was, however one of the coldest days here in a while, and it was snowing on us. Oh well! We decided, because of our late start and sore thighs to go up as far as was prudent. We made it up to the middle falls, 4.2 miles round trip, about 800 lil baby feet in elevation. And my hips and knees still hurt on the way back down. Mind you, last summer we were doing almost three times that elevation gain. I am looking forward to hiking without having just crushed my lower half on the press the night before. That's the plan, moving forward. It was so peaceful, though, and beautiful. The trees were covered with a spring green moss that glowed in the sunlight. The river wove back and forth under bridges that the trail crossed over. The snow dusted mountains above framed every view.

In any case, proud of us for getting out there and starting our conditioning hikes, for sticking to the lifting plan, and for being flexible enough to change our plans to include friends and some decent entertainment/art.

I am still struggling with how much/what to eat. In the meantime, eating a lot to get all 150 grams of protein in a day for muscle growth. I think it's working, but yeah...I'm seeing fat gain too. Tomorrow I get to go grocery shopping. I am going to pick up....drum roll please...BEANS! They have been historically problematic for me. But I want to give it another shot, to more closely adhere to the Slow Carb diet. I haven't made it all the way there yet. I should probably cut all fruit, nuts, cheese except cheat day. Eat veggies instead, and lower fat meats. Or not care about the fat gain. Guess I'll keep see-sawing in my attitude until I make up my mind. :)

But overall, I'm happy to be where I am right now. Happy with where I'm heading. I know I'll figure it out. I can't have gotten all the way here without continuing on.

Peg-Leg Update

Okay, no longer peg-legging my way around town, so even though there is still soreness in my left thigh, it is well within manageable post-workout soreness levels, the third day after the overuse injury now. Will still probably bump back leg presses for a day or two to make certain that the muscle is fully recovered, but that's totally fine. Pleased with my speed of healing, based on how painful that was even just yesterday, to be sure!

Going to do Workout A (upper body only) for the second time in a few hours, and I'm really psyched, actually. It will be fun to see if I netted any strength gains since last week. By the monster growth I've seen in my arms, I'm guessing yes! This is the acid test...does this heavy lift to failure minimum rep thing really really work? Can't wait to find out!

Eating protein like a crazy carnivore. My hunger levels have been through the roof. I wonder if my healing overuse injury is begging for more protein than usual. Think I'll go drink another protein powder shake to see if I can quiet the beast for a minute. My weight is slightly up, but Tim Ferriss predicts a 2.5 pound muscle gain per week, minimum, no matter who you are, girl, boy, hard-gainer or not, by following Occam's Protocol, and this gain is just less than that. I am not gonna let the scale freak me out right now. It's not about that. My clothes seem to be fitting the same, except I can see massive muscular gains in my arms, which is crazytown! So time to keep chilling...will re-measure in a week, halfway through the protocol, to see what's happening all over, body composition wise. If the scale is edging up and it's all muscle, that's great. If not, we'll have to revisit diet - see below.

My mood is back up again. It's been mostly crazy up (as has been my libido!) since a few weeks after going back to eating normal amounts of food, taking the AGG/PAG/CQ stack (see previous posts for more info), taking vitamin D again and getting exercise. It's very hard to tease out exactly what is helping, but I'm glad something is.

I know this morning's rant about angry people seems...angry. I think I overloaded on the toxicity of so much of it at once. It made me kind of nauseous. And again, don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with being angry, even if someone is angry with me! Especially with me. I get angry, everyone does, it's important. It's all in how you deal with it. Do you stew in it, rage with it, take it out on other people? Or do you use it to see something is wrong, state your case, stand your ground calmly and try to negotiate a better life? At least my mood bobbed back up pretty quickly. I just needed to vent and move on. One more thing to remember about how your problems do not magically disappear when you reach a normal weight. In case you didn't know.

Tried on clothes for a second whilst running errands. Simultaneously awesome and depressing. Skinny-fat sucks. I am now so amazingly small, overall, but so...bulgy. I ended up buying nothing. Sometimes clothes look so freaking hot on me, but they really have to be the right ones. I know that now is the time to be patient, gain the muscle that is going to give me more definition and shift my metabolism more to fat-burning. Patience now is key. I may have to stay out of dressing rooms a little longer...

Lastly...I feel a little at sea about my diet right now. I know I need to be taking in 1.25 grams of protein/pound of lean body mass during this massive muscle gain phase. Do I need to be limiting my fats to keep from gaining? So much conflicting information. I'm supposed to be limiting my carbs to near nil except one day a week, and I am, though I am reluctant to completely give up fruit 6 days out the week as Ferriss recommends. I like an apple and almonds as a snack, but it's against my religion, apparently, right now. I am NOT limiting myself to lean protein at all. Eating roast chicken with skin, ribeye steaks, shrimp, salmon, butter, cream, occasional goat cheese. Some people seem to think that will work better for me, some think it's a recipe for disaster. This is kind of hard. Also, tired of severe restriction after many years on and off of that. Guess I just have to experiment and see what happens. Again, starting in April, cutting/functional fitness/more cardio-oriented phase may help tremendously.

Edit - one last thought for the day: I am not a religious-type person, so I was puzzled when I first saw this middle-aged lady crossing the street with what looked like some kind of junk smeared across her forehead. It was the second one that I saw in Target that produced my startling realization that it was in fact, Ash Wednesday, and these ladies were taking it quite seriously, which is cool by me, just not accustomed to it. Right after my revelation, I overheard this kid one aisle over: "She has ice cream on her head!" I totally busted up.

Happy Ice-Cream-Head Wednesday!

The Sorest Loser

Okay, so my last post on super-heavy lifting was a bit...enthusiastic. As was the workout.

I have a bit of an overuse injury in my left leg. A bit, meaning agony in my thigh muscles, both on top and the underside of my left thigh when I walk, especially down stairs, though today this is a little better. I believe it is partly a result of the excessive amount of lifts I did trying during calibration testing to find what my lift to failure in 10+ reps would be for the leg press. I started too low, not believing in my own strength, and as a result, did probably 40+ lifts, including the 8.5 to failure at 70% of my highest weight to failure. And strained my left thigh.

This is not a "true injury". I didn't tear any muscles/ligaments/tendons, damage a joint. I know because besides being incredibly noodly-weak right afterwards, I had no pain. It wasn't until I woke up in the morning that I felt really sore, and it got worse during the day, especially when we foolishly tried to do some hiking uphill. We turned around and went back about a mile and 500 feet of elevation or so into the hike. But I think it was too late not to have exacerbated the situation. I started to walk like a pirate, so I don't think that's good.

My left side is my weak side, and since your legs lift together on the leg press, I forced my left leg to do the same amount of work as my right, over and over. I'm pretty sure that's how that happened. So, since we're following "Occam's Protocol" from Tim Ferriss' "4 Hour Body"', I want to put a caveat in here. Ferris has a whole chapter on "Prehab", things to do BEFORE you start seriously training, including identifying body imbalances and correcting them. Did I do that? NO. No I did not. Because...it involves some very complex maneuvers, again, that probably require a personal trainer's input to master. At least for me.

But lifting weights...I already know how to do that relatively safely, I THOUGHT. Now I know I need to be a bit more careful. I do plan on doing the imbalance correction in the future, when the personal trainer becomes an affordable option (which it should, barring any more emergency trips to the Midwest.)

However...the calibration phase of the workouts is over. I should only be doing one set of 7+ reps per exercise (except 10+ for legs), 2 exercises per session plus abs. Each individual workout of the two is only done about once a week to give adequate time for muscle repair. So I don't fear the overuse injury so much for the next 5 weeks.

And pain is just pain. I know that the best idea is to stay off the leg today, so I am. I will probably do my upper body only workout as scheduled tomorrow, as I am not sore there. And I will bump back Workout B if I am not pain-free by next Saturday, as Ferriss himself suggests. I don't mind muscle training pain, but I do not seek injury.

So today is walk like a pirate day two for me, that's all. If I say "Arrrrrr" from the soreness a few times, that will just add to the magic. As long as it's getting better, I won't be too concerned. Onwards and upwards. Cautiously.