life has been quite crazy over here. ever since i got back from home a little over a week ago, i've been catching up on all the work i failed to do over thanksgiving (a girl's gotta get a break sometime!), catching up with all my friends, and most importantly, catching up on sleep.
recently i've been getting headaches a LOT more frequently than i used to. as in, every day kinda deal. i knew something had to be wrong and i started keeping a journal of possible triggers that could be causing the problem - workouts, food, caffeine (aka coffee), stress, sleep. i tried to fix the first three in the beginning, but when it came down to it, i discovered that i just needed more sleep. period. my body was used to having anywhere from 8-10 hours of sleep a night before i came to college and i just expected it to adapt to only having 6 or 7 without any problems.
i think it's crazy that it took me until 9th week to figure out the cause of the problem, but hey, at least i did eventually! ever since i've started going to bed earlier (i made a rule of 8 hours sleep minimum. don't care how much work needs to be done, going to bed is more important) i haven't had a single headache in over a week. big stuff, people!
in trying to figure out the cause of my headaches i've also tried to clean up my diet a little and eat more foods that energize me, and don't leave me in that post-meal slump. most of these eats are comin' your way tomorrow for a WIAW food dump post. haha :)
on the workout side of things, last week i took things easy because i was nervous that doing high intensity workouts might have been part of what was causing my headaches. i went on quite a few runs with girls in my bible study, did the elliptical, and took a few rest days.
**just wanted to throw in a note here that if i wasn't able to figure out the cause of my headaches on my own, i was going to go to a doctor to make sure there wasn't a bigger problem**
but today i went back to my IFT class and did a totally kickass workout that i wanted to share with you guys! it was probably one of the hardest workouts i've done so far and it. was. awesome.
i used a 60# bar for my cleans, 2 15# dumbells for the thrusters, and the thickest resistance band for help on the pull-ups.
you could easily do this workout at home if you have a jumprope and kettlebells or dumbbells - just leave off the first exercise (cleans) and last exercise (pull-ups).
after the workout one of my instructors came over and told me that my cleans were looking really good (YAYYYY! i've been working on my form for so long now!) and asked if i was going to the competition tomorrow. IFT is very similar to CrossFit (not speaking from my own experience here, just what i've heard) and they have competitions here at UCLA at the end of every quarter to see how much you've improved since the beginning. if i'm not too sore from today's killer workout, then i think that i'll go tomorrow and see what i can do! i'm really excited for that.
post-workout fuel today: chicken caesar salad, milk, and a fruit cup. you gotta make do with the food to-go and this lunch was pretty good!
on that note i better get off to studying. 10th week = death week. quarter system peeps, ya feel me? i'm drowning in work over here and studying for finals is scary and overwhelming. i'm doing my best to not stress like crazy, focus, and get things done. but if i don't resurface until i'm home for christmas break, you'll know why! 11 more days of busting my butt and then i will be home and truly enjoying the christmas season. until then, michael buble will have to do ;)
what's the best workout you've done lately?
No sleep usually makes me feel crappy as well. I usually need a good solid 8 hours to function properly. Glad you are feeling better! Good luck on finals - I feel your pain!
ReplyDeleteThat workout looks so intense! I hope I can stay as active as you when I get to college. And I'm sure you'll get through the rest of the quarter just fine :) I'm so looking forward to Christmas break too. The best workout I've done lately is probably The Lean Green Bean's Triangle Workout and PB Fingers' 1000 Rep workout--phew those ones are tough! Love em though!
ReplyDeleteI love hearing from you! glad you really took care of your health and figured out what was causing it, it def could have ben worse. good luck, this part of school is always the worst
ReplyDeleteLove Michael Buble at Christmas time!! He's the best!
ReplyDeleteI am proud of you for making sleep such a priority! You definitely know yourself best, and that's awesome that you figured it out on your own! Hope it stays that way!
ReplyDeleteI had the headache problem in the beginning of the year too. I'll probably get them again this week since it's finals week, but getting more sleep makes a huge difference!!!
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