#250KChallenge - Week 4

We are a third of the way through this challenge. This week, I had two rest days, have been waking up earlier so I can get 45 minutes of cardio in, I have lifted heavier, walked a whole lot because of visiting Super Bowl City, worked out two hours on Saturday and have been working thru the soreness.

I haven't been keeping track of how much water I have been drinking or tracking what I've been eating. I do need to take that seriously and I have noticed that I do give into alcohol and sweets when I am stressed out.  It has kind of been an emotional week. I didn't take a day off from work, I'm tired, I can see the exhaustion in my face and I'm realizing I need to shift some of my focus to my personal life. I have had troubling discussions consisting of negative statements that I continue to replay in my head. They're effecting my mood and my energy. I do use the gym as my way to decompress and although using pain and stress as fuel to go harder in the gym, I need to stop covering up the issue and make changes. I already love going to the gym and my life overall, but there are  goals I need to make time for and shift my priorities a little. So we shall see how life changes in the next few months. But let's stay in the present for now:

Monday - rest day. Sunday was hiking 8 miles and working at night. I needed to rest. 

Tuesday - cardio and back day. I had to buy a second pair of gloves. I couldn't find my other pair so I bought ones for $17 at my gym, 24 Hour Fitness. It's always good to have a back up.

I did 15 minutes of warm up on the stationary bike and hit the lat pull down machine for 130 reps, bent over flies, seated rows, standing rows and single arms rows.

I also got to start my MuscleTech chocolate protein powder and it was delicious. I might not go back to vanilla ever! My shake was just with milk and frozen raspberries. So good! I got some love back from MuscleTech via Twitter so thank you! I won this cannister thru one of the challenges from bodybuilding.com. I don't mind it at all! Who doesn't like free?!?

I also got some love from CaliMuscle! They reTweeted and mentioned this blog to follow me on this fitness journey. Shoutout to @calimuscle ! It's great to see a local company pay attention and give props to their customers via social media. I do this for DW and I love hearing that our FB, IG and Twitter accounts are doing well, they're active, that guests get an immediate response, even while they're dining with us! So kudos to CaliMuscle. I promise I'm going to shopping soon. I love new gym clothes. 

One of our hostesses turned barback is a Gold Rush Cheerleader. She was hanging out with me Tuesday night. She is definitely in much better shape than me but I like this picture of us. Go Niners! 

Wednesday - my roommate offered to make me one his shakes in the morning. Hell yes!!! It's made with MuscleMilk and a whole lot of fruit and milk. Delish! And my pre-workout stack of Shredz supplements also went down the hatch.

It was lower back and bis day. The back has so many muscles in it and I need to focus on upper and lower back on separate days because I get burnt out. I up'd my deadlift weights from 70 last week to 75.

Then more booty work on the floor. I joked around with my fellow single lady friends and people that know me the best that perhaps I should use this pic as my online dating profile pic. What do you think? By the way, there is no dating update. That's a challenge in itself.

I get to work and it turns into a bad day. It happens. And so does Hibiki 12-year. This tasty dirty water helped me cope come 4 pm at a neighboring restaurant. Sorry, Goals, I needed this that day.

Then I had an event that evening and I haven't seen this girl is ages! She has lost 45 pounds and does yoga moves I haven't even attempted. Looks like we've known each other for 10 years!

Thursday - shoulders. I was so sore from the last two days. I had to send this picture to Albert. He always makes fun of me for my shoulders. And my best friend, Christy, worked for a police department and she looked at my Week 1 posting while at her desk and her colleague, a male, asked who that was in one of the pics. "That's Bernadette?!?" Christy keeps joking around with me that she wouldn't be able hang with me at the gym. Oh please. That girl is on some crazy training session. She'd kick my ass.

Here's Bevo photo bombing and happy about it. 

And my MuscleTech delicious shake and taking in my view in Hayward.

Then I headed off to work and I recruited Annie, our hostess turned Server, to go with me to Super Bowl City to distribute some DW coupons. There was a lot of walking involved but also a Goose IPA at the Levi's bar.

Friday - unintentional rest day. I had a really vivid, bad dream and I just wanted to lay in bed longer. Maybe to sulk a bit. I don't sleep well and usually don't remember my dreams if I do dream as it's difficult for me the relax. My FitBit tells me I am restless more than a dozen times at night. Because I'm so wound up, yoga is also challenging for me to give in to. Also, though some people may not believe in this but when I have these sort of vivid dreams and it's about something that has been troubling me, it's usually telling me something true. 

For instance, I was traveling in Europe and had these vivid dreams that the husband I was going to counseling with was doing something bad. I had two vivid dreams! When I got home, two girlfriends of mine confirmed it was true, I confronted him about it, he didn't deny it, I took more stuff from the house and served his ass papers.

This dream involved getting some kind of explanation I have been waiting for for a long time. Obviously, I wasn't too pleased with the discussion and for some reason it involved Germany. Perhaps that detail will be explained eventually.  So yeah, I slept in. I head out to walk the Beeves and my roommate left me a surprise before he headed down to Santa Barbara.

Yum! Thanks, Will. Friday morning wasn't a total bust.

Like the Hibiki, Sunshine and I weren't feeling great about the work situation and I gave into her constant request for donuts. So I bought the staff a dozen. And Chinese food. Let's be real here.

Then Courtney and I headed to Super Bowl City to meet Ann so she can film us handing out coupons. Check out her videos at Lucre's Wine World on Facebook.  We are not camera shy whatsoever. 

Saturday - I was so exhausted I slept thru two alarms. I had to go pick up Courntey from Bart so we can go to Femme Fotcamp's bootcamp. And then we used our Groupon's to go to Boxing for Health's in Oakland for a cardio boxing class and it was great!!! Loved it. And for $29 we got 10 classes. Score! Sweated a lot and had a lot of fun.

Courtney and I were starving and went to a Greek restaurant on Grand Avenue. We needed protein. Everything was delicious. We then went to Emeryville to go to Sports Authority. Court wanted boxing gloves and wraps and we both wanted ankle bands.

I parked at Sports Authority and told her about ShopKick, which my friend, Megan turned me onto. You get points for walking into stores, scanning product codes and making purchases. Earn gift cards and products like an iPad or even a scooter. They used to have a cruise around the world but I'm ShopKicking for Hyatt gift cards. Court decided to sign up and we got quite a few steps walking a total of four more blocks and within the stores to find the products we needed. I logged about 26,000 steps. She kept saying it was 'so much fun!' It was! Sign up HERE!

Sunday - I woke up so sore and it hurt so good. It was Super Bowl Sunday and I already knew I was going to make terrible diet decisions and drink. Little did I know that there were going to be MANY bad decisions made that evening. I didn't get home until almost 3 am. But first, I made it to the gym.

I went with CCC - Chest, Core & Cardio. One thing to mention was that I up'd my side bends to 35 lbs. The heaviest dumbbell I have at home is 30, thx to my Cousin Nolan leaving them behind at my grandparents house. I hit my 45 mins of cardio and could have lifted more but my body was tired. And I was looking forward to hanging out and having a day off.

Sunday Funday indeed.

Week 5, coming right up!