Oooohhhhh, my aching body! This week has been a rough one for me. Not in a bad way. Last week I took a few days off of work which led to me taking a few days off from working out. Four days to be exact. I didn’t think much of it until I hit the gym on Monday. Wow, was I surprised! I was exhausted and not as strong as I was the week before. I had no idea skipping a week of excercise could have such an extreme consequence. Tuesday was much worse. Lauren (my trainer) not only worked me hard, but gave me some new excersises on top of my regular workout. Core and arm excersises. I thought I was going to drop dead right there in the gym. Can’t say I didn’t deserve it. She also explained to me that it only takes the body four days to lose muscle mass! I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!!!! No wonder I woke up feeling like I was hit by a truck. But, again, it’s all good! It’s ALL sore, but it’s all good!

Since starting with a trainer I’ve learned many new excerises. Almost to the point that I forget about some and don’t do them. So I think what I have in mind is to bring a gym journal with me. I will list all of my excersises, reps, and the days I’ve done them and keep track of my progress. Lauren has a journal on me that she keeps to monitor my progress. But I think having one for myself to take on the the days I don’t train with her will keep me motivated and also help me remember which ones I haven’t done in a while. I think I will get on that project this weekend!

As for my nutrition, well, that’s still a bit of a challenge. You see, during my week off I partook in a bit of alcoholic debauchery. Being a beer blogger as well as writing this blog, there are many new beers out now that I have wanted to try. Living in the PNW (Pacific North West) it’s also very easy to obtain. So I consumed far too much beer, and far too many calories. Not a good plan. So back to basics. I have not logged food as much as I would have liked this week but this is a learning process. I would like to think everything will go swimmingly on my journey. But I’m realistic enough to know that it won’t. I will suffer through some bumps on the road but how I react to those bumps is what will dictate my success. I can either 1) beat myself up, or 2) dust myself off, learn from it, and move on. I choose the latter.

Liz