Roller coaster Ninja

Hi.


Obviously things have been going on, hence the lack of blog posts (again). 
Uhh, remember the good old days when Gym Ninja blogged daily? Let us pray those days return as Gym Ninja's head is full of blog fodder ready to spill over into this area of online faffiness.


Thursday saw the return trip to see Vole, the Physio given the task of de-tingling Gym Ninja's arms and hands. The condition (most likely a trapped nerve) was brought on by heavy mileage driving the Blandmobile if you recall?  


Vole: "How are you getting on? Any better?"


GN: "No, in fact if anything it's even worse. More tingles that keeps me awake and affect my grip".


Vole looked back, with her non-responsive face.


Vole: "What about the exercises I gave you? Have they helped at all?"


Hmm, now you can all read back to the last post to see what they were. Effectively a bit of faffy stretching and some rubber band work. Of course, if Vole listened properly then surely having heard Gym Ninja's comment about the tingling growing worse, she'd realise that this in turn meant the exercises had not helped whatsoever?  Gym Ninja clarified this with Vole. Vole looked glum. 


"Oh".


Then followed some physio-waggling of Gym Ninja's arm. Gym Ninja had to say how it felt in certain positions whilst lying on her back like a Muppet.  After much waggling, Vole decided it was definitely upper back/neck muscular tightness that was compressing a nerve that was in turn causing tingles. Great. We kind of knew that before we came here.


Gym Ninja was asked to sit on the bed whilst Vole stood behind her.  Vole pressed Gym Ninja's neck and traps. At one point Gym Ninja mentioned something to Vole.


"I often press there as it kind of helps relieve the pain or discomfort when it flares up".


Vole continued to press on the trigger point silently as Gym Ninja sat in front of her. Gym Ninja felt as if she were posing for one of those Victorian photos-the ones where you sit/stand in a fixed position for ages whilst the camera  takes the shot. 


"What I want you to do, is press on this area and when the pain subsides, press a bit deeper, OK?"


Riiiight. So Vole wants Gym Ninja to do what Gym Ninja has already been doing? 
Fine. 
No problem. 


Then Vole waggled and twisted Gym Ninja's arm out to the side, flexing the wrist.


"I often do that when it gets tingly" Said Gym Ninja. "It seems to help".


Vole nodded. Well, Gym Ninja assumes she nodded, as Gym Ninja was sat in front of Vole  in the Victorian Photo position.


"OK, so the other exercise I want you to do is this..." And with that, Vole then flexed Gym Ninja's wrist in the EXACT SAME WAY Gym Ninja had already said she already did.


Great. 


Phyiso exercises for THIS week are exactly what Gym Ninja told Vole she does anyway, and Vole repeated back to her. Fan. Bloody. Tastic. 


Confessional Ninja.


Gym Ninja, has 12 days to a Secret Project,  therefore is eating clean with a vengeance. Everything is being focussed onto this project and Gym Ninja's meals and training sessions are super strict to reflect this. Saying that, sometimes the body just refuses to play ball and forces Gym Ninja to fall headlong, face down, into a bag of chocolate buttons. 
UHHH!
Why?


Firstly allow Gym Ninja to explain. She rarely eats chocolate and never eats sweets. Gym Ninja cannot eat sweets as it was SUCH a horrendous addiction that she once had, that the only way to recover and wean herself off the sugar and chemical roller coaster was to go cold turkey. No sweets/ Zero tolerance. This happened May 2009. Now Gym Ninja does not crave sweets. The chemical addiction has been broken. But occasionally, if standing near her Niece's chocolate button stash, she is tempted.....
Yeh. Her 3 year old Niece's chocolate buttons. Gym Ninja took chocolate off a child. OK, so not quite OFF the child. The child wasn't aware the chocolate buttons were in the draw at her grandparents' house. Gym Ninja knew of this.  Gym Ninja's body demanded she try one...and before GN knew it? GONE!


The trick to handling such a disaster is to draw a line under it, and get right back on track with what one was doing before. THIS is how you succeed. Do not use the chocolate button feast as a trigger to launch you into a day or week-long binge Or use it to stop with the healthy habits completely, declaring yourself a failure. Accept it happened. LOOK at why it may have happened? (Gym Ninja had been particularly stressed that day and was lacking in sleep-two factors that make the body crave instant gratification and energy). Then ensure it doesn't happen again. 
It will NOT Happen again. The reward you crave long-term regarding health, fitness and physically how you look and feel, is WAY more rewarding than a 5 minute scoffing of chocolate buttons. Use that focus and move on.


Finally, in this 'erratic' blog post, Gym Ninja would like to tell you all of something wonderful that happened today. It brought more than a few tears to Gym Ninja's eyes & has reminded her that people are truly wonderful and that we often forget it.


A few days ago, Gym Ninja had been on Twitter and posted a tweet asking if anyone had a copy of Lord Sugar's Autobiography she could borrow? The guy is inspirational in terms of how he built his empire out of nothing, how he recovered from major setbacks and pulled himself together and grew stronger because of it. Gym Ninja  decided she would learn much from such an inspirational man and as funds are currently dire, borrowing a book would be a sensible option.   Today, the Postman attempted to batter down Gym Ninja's front door.


SHUSH Postman! Gym Ninja is not sleeping as she has a major gym session planned. Oh and incidentally, why DO you call 3 hours earlier on a Saturday than a week day? THAT doesn't make sense now does it? Anyhow...the door was buckling under his ham fists. Gym Ninja yanked open the door.


There was a parcel. Oh. GymNinja hadn't ordered a thing? Was it an error?  Opening the parcel, Gym Ninja was stunned to see a copy of Lord Sugar's Autobiography.... and a note.  The note was from an online client who Gym Ninja has only known via the wonders of email for just under a month. The client had seen the tweet and bought Gym Ninja a copy of the book.


AMAZING!




Truly the nicest thing anyone has done for Gym Ninja for as long as she can recall. Completely out of the blue and such a thoughtful gift. Hopefully Gym Ninja can use Lord Sugar's book to assist her in working towards her own goals, which in turn, are helping others achieve theirs.....


So Gym Ninja is now off to read the book.......


PS


Maximuscle have extended their ever-changing Deal of The Day so you may want to click on a side link and go check out what money you can save today....see? It's all about helping others xx

Thank you

To all of those who have offered support & advice over Facebook and Twitter, Gym Ninja would like to thank you profusely.

To those who are unaware, Gym Ninja has been feeling overwhelmed lately (what is Gym Ninja saying? Of COURSE you are all aware as GN goes on about it constantly in this blog-sorry about that!) and it has all built up gradually until now, over the past few days, Gym Ninja has kind of lost the plot somewhat.

Not in a mental 'covering everything in tinfoil and only wearing custard yellow' kind of a way. More in a 'losing sight of the end goal' kind of a way... Trying to bottle up emotions and stresses is just never a good plan. There is only so long the lid can keep the contents from bubbling over. Gym Ninja has bubbled a few times this week. Then Gym Ninja feels a bit better. Then Gym Ninja supresses everything again, bubbles, feels better, supresses...and so the circle of stress continues. Possibly not the most fun time ever, nor fun for Gym Ninja's friends either. Sorry again about that! Normal service will be resumed at some point in the future....er....don't ask Gym Ninja for an exact day/date/year though eh?

So...Gym Ninja ensured that although her day today would be a Valentines Day free zone (!!) & full to bursting with study/revision/online tutorials/coursework, she would also make time for a workout. Remember, moving the body can often burn off a lot of the physical manifestations of stress, and distract the mind even momentarily...

 Just because life 'gets in the way', it does not mean you should abandon your fitness goals and regular workouts. At times like these we need to ensure we are in the best shape of our lives to cope with the additional pressures we are under.  So, Gym Ninja HAS To make sure that at least some of her workouts can be done even if pushed for time, and that healthy nutritious food and drink be ingested to ensure a strong body and immune system. Now is NOT the time to poison the body with nutrient-free junk food and/or alcohol.

However, Gym Ninja is off her food. What to do? Well, if you find yourself in a similar situation for whatever reason and your appetite dies a death, ensure you do not! Make time to pick nutrient-packed healthy natural foods. A small amount of these are better than nothing and will keep the body ticking over until the appetite returns. Gym Ninja is keeping protein levels high, ingesting complex carbs and fats for energy and of course supplementing with Promax protein powder mixed into porridge made with milk (for that feel-good factor).  Vitamin and mineral supplements are essential when eating is not as wide-ranging as it should be.  Oh and Gym Ninja is as ever, ensuring she does eat often (even if it isn't as much as she usually eats). It's not fair to take out her mental stresses on her body. What has her body ever done to her to deserve that eh? It's times like these that GN is using her Jack LaLanne Juicer to it's maximum. if yo cannot EAT the nutrients then drink them!

So...off to the Gym for an hour or so. Merely cardio and abs today though. Cardio to 'still the mind' and kick up the endorphins. Abs because Gym Ninja needs to work her abs!!! Once in the changing rooms, GN spotted this...

A jelly sweet cola bottle!
In the GYM changing rooms!
What next? A pie in the sunshowers? Spangles near the lockers? Chicken McNuggets in the sauna?

Why?

Gym Ninja pondered this whilst running (Fartlek training today with no pre-thought planned intervals as GN was too sketchy for that. Merely razzing up and down with the speed). Why spend time in the gym and then go and gobble some jelly sweets before you even leave the building?

Of course, Gym Ninja used to have a nasty evil sweet habit that she couldn't kick! Booze was eventually reduced to almost never. Chocolate Gym Ninja can take or leave (she once ate NO chocolate for 10 years!).  Cakes, pies and biscuits is something Gym Ninja NEVER eats anyway due to her wheat flour intolerance...but sweets? Mmmm, those lovely tangy fizzy Haribo that rot everything they come into contact with? Yep! Gym Ninja's Achilles Heel! Not a day would go by without some sort of sweet passing GN's lips. Yum! But it wasn't until she decided to enter the Maximuscle Body of 2009 competition that GN realised that in order to sort out her physique, she needed to sort out her addiction to those chemical and sugar laden (yummy) nasties! So...Gym Ninja quit. She now had a reason to quit as she had a GOAL. Maximuscle Body of 2009 and the best body she'd had!

Cold turkey!
Or cold Haribo.

NO sweets.
Cut down from a bag a day of whatever took her fancy to ABSOLUTELY zero! It is Gym Ninja's only way. She personally cannot possibly have them in moderation so had to cut them out completely.

Does she feel better now? HELL yeh!
Has she eaten ANY sweets since that day in May 2009 when she quit? No!
Was it hard? YES!
Has Gym Ninja been tempted t o eat them? YES!
But you know what? That moment eventually passes....now Gym Ninja doesn't have the energy spikes and dips she used to get from scoffing pure sugar! Now Gym Ninja has better abdominal definition (remarkable seeing as she rarely works her abs-but THIS will change Ninjarettes! GN will work her abs!!!). Oh and Gym Ninja has NO desire to eat sweets. The addiction (and that is what it is-a sugar addiction) has gone.

Hmmm..all of that from a cola bottle lying dead on the gym changing room floor.

So, maybe look at your addictions? See what you rely on at times of stress/boredom/lazy moments when you reach for the nearest thing. Are they really doing you good? Your body is made up of what you eat. Everything you eat and drink gets broken down by the body into its most basic chemical level and then these chemicals are used to rebuild and strengthen YOU!
Do you want to be made out of Haribo? You're gut will be made out of Haribo if you eat too many of them, mark GN's words!
Do you want to be made out of chocolate?
Vodka maybe? How strong will your body be to fight disease if you're fuelling up on Vodka? Huh?
How well do you think your immune system will be able to fight nasty bugs if it's partly made from chocolate?  How hot will your muscle tone be if your muscles are trying to rebuild out of substandard nutrients and proteins?
Yes, it's not strictly right OUT of chocolate in the chocolate form btw... Gym Ninja is simplifying it here, but effectively this is how it is.

So maybe today, you may want to stop and think for a second before absent mindedly snacking on that tube of Pringles crisps as you watch TV...??

Before Gym Ninja goes (what an odd blog today!), she'd like to suggest to anyone who is on Twitter, to follow  @RevRunWisdom. The guy from Run DMC? He is a wise guy! It's his tweets that often come at the right time to help Gym Ninja...

For instance...today as GN was in tears through stress and sadness, he tweeted this...

2 keys 4 those under xteme pressure:: #1) its ALWAYZ darkest b4 the light #2) Pressure is makin u in2 a diamon

See?

OK...so see you in the week Ninjarettes. Oh and a big thank you to @Ethel1977 and @martino_kernow for there support today. It meant a lot to Gym Ninja.

xx