Where's the balance?

This next week I know is not going to be kind to me on the scale, I’ve been weighing myself every day since Sunday and my weight is a 2-3 lbs flux where it’s been going up and down daily.  Even though I’ve taking enough water, and my diet hasn’t change.  It’s almost like my hormones are in flux, or my metabolism is some type of shock trying to figure out whether or not it’s starving.

My body is beginning to feel run down, couple that with the difficulty I’m experiencing getting up in the morning tells me that a much needed rest period may be in the near future.  I’ve already scheduled two sessions with Liz next week at Crossfit, which I really want to do which is back to back days of Crossfit, yet I might need to slow down and take the week off.  It’s possible I may just take Monday off as a third straight day off in a row, and still finish a four day week before I move into the following week doing just 3 days of cardio and core.

Trying to find a sustainable threshold is difficult.  I’m always trying to push myself to achieve a new level of physical performance, so when I do start to feel this way I’m never sure if I’m experiencing the kind of tiredness from “I’m getting sick of this shit” attitude or “I need to rest” condition. 

In trying to constantly work through the mental exhaustion, or those moments of wanting to quit, I question myself when I reach a point of physical fatigue.  I can’t distinguish which is which.  I’m sure there is some objective test or matrix I can use to tell me that my body needs to rest.  I don’t want to be mechanical about, I would like to reach a point of autoregulation of my rest, but the reality is when you don’t trust yourself you have to have a method which is outside of yourself tell you its okay to take a break.

This lack of personal trust stems from the fact that it is my own personal decisions that put me in this state of poor health, so I don’t want to start back peddling now when I have made so much progress.  At what point can I make a decision which may on the surface seem like a counterintuitive conclusion, yet when looking at the overall bigger picture it’s should be the intuitive one. 

I often ask myself how long, do I need to push this hard.  I think the real question I have to ask is how fast do I want it? 

I know I could lose weight at a slower pace, and do it with less vigor but when you have a big wave coming your way do you stop to take a picture, get out of the way, or try and jump on it and ride it out in style…  I need to ride this wave as far as it can take me, but I am vigilantly aware of the possibility of burnout, which I want to avoid.

Finding the balance is turning into a bigger challenge than I could have ever imagined.  I’m so amped up with the emotional high, and the feeling of success that I can’t help but think my present state of fatigue is more mental.  If I start tempering my actions every time it gets mentally difficult I would have never gotten to this present state.  

I also believe that work related stress is starting to rear its ugliness into my weight loss evolution, at work I find myself doing more physical work than I have done in years, which may be adding to the feeling of tiredness.  This is an “x” factor which I did not anticipate, and realize today that I have to work harder to interview more people and find the right candidate. 

After writing what I have so far, I haven’t reached any conclusions about understanding at which point I need to rest more, in fact I think I’m further confused about where the proper threshold of pain reward exists over the continuum of my weight loss evolution. 

How do I stay on the edge of physical failure without actually mentally failing?

Daily Recap

06/28/2011

Daily Recap

I was in a good place this morning before my Crossfit Session.  I had a good night’s sleep, I was feeling good, and I had a snack before my workout.  It was a good thing too, because the warm-up was an ass kicker. 

On the surface it appeared to be easy, 10 Hang and Cleans, 250 meters on the rowing machine, and 5 push-ups, instead of being done for time, Liz wanted me to go for four rounds.  My thought process was as follows:

Following Round 1: Oh this is easy, I could do this all day long.

Following Round 2: My legs are getting loose, shit I have to do assisted push-ups now.

Following Round 3: I’m starting to get winded, my legs are getting tired.

Following Round 4: No thoughts…just dripping Large Asian Man.

We followed up the warm-up with some stretching, all of which focused on the shoulders.  Not being too dense I realized that at some point we would do some motion which resembled a press.  Today Liz introduced the Hang Power Snatch.  This is another of the many Olympic moves in Crossfit. 

Similar to the Hang Clean the Power Snatch starts from a similar starting position, but involves getting the bar above your head in a position similar to the overhead squat.  See video below of Hang Power Snatch, and Hang Power Snatch Squat.

Liz broke down the motion into several parts and had me practice each piece before linking all of them together into a single movement.  When linked together it’s a swift powerful motion which requires quite a bit of focus on the technique, as I can imagine the more weight you add the higher the risk of injury.  It took me most of the hour to get the motion down to the point where I felt comfortable.  Once I felt good about the Power Snatch, Liz prescribed a workout, 10 Hang Power Snatches, 15 single jump ropes, and 10 sit-ups. 

When she initially asked me to jump rope, I told her I couldn’t, but I would try.  I am happy and amazed to say I Louis Kim can jump rope, I never thought in my life that I would find pleasure in the knowledge that I could jump over a wire rope.  Add this to my new lists of thanks, Fat Guy can jump rope, if you want to see watch video below.

With my session over I decided that next week I would go two session with Liz.  I am ready for more Crossfit, and will have reduce my work with Ali next week, but I think I want to have workouts which are more intense like Crosffit.