Day 11 of My 30 Day Countdown - AWESOME!!

Hey everyone!! Today was one of those days that I will remember for the rest of my existence!! You know, this journey has opened my eyes to so many new, wonderful things! I've been able to try so many new things!! Things that I never dreamed that I would be able to do! It's been incredible. Today was such a fantastic day for me.

Started off this morning, feeling great. This was after all my "rest" day! When I say rest day - I mean a rest from weight training....not from exercising. Tuesdays and Thursday are the days when the only form of exercise I do is my Jiu-Jitsu (JJ)class. It's a one hour class of the martial arts technique! DON'T GET ME WRONG, it's not like this class is easy, it's tough and at the end, I'm usually drenched in sweat! Some days we have a very vigourous workout with a stronger focus on cardio, however, most days it's a light warm up and straight into learning the techniques. It's awesome. This is one of the things I would have never imagined that I would even attempt in the past!! Anyway. This class is always taught by Sensei Derek (I've mentionned him in previous posts - he teaches some of the kickboxing(KB) classes as well and he takes pleasure in inflicting pain! :)

Anyway, Sensei Derek has been reading my blog including all of the things I wrote about him, specifically, the "he worked us so hard, I almost puked" part! So today, he started the class by mentioning that he was doing some "reading" on the computer last night and read all I had written about my experiences with KB and JJ classes!! Then this huge grin appeared on his face. I knew at that moment, that this class was going to kick my ass....real hard!!

He set up 8 different stations around the dojo (gym). Each station represented a different exercise that we would have to perform for 30 seconds each, then rotate to the next station and repeat! "How long will we be doing this for?" someone asked. His response, "As long as it takes for Joania to puke!!!!" OMG!!! I was so scared y'all but I had my game face on!! Not even, I think he saw the fear in my face!! LOL!!!!

These stations were no joke y'all. I'm talking dips (triceps), medecine ball squats, kettlebell swings, crunches, step ups, knee on belly punches and my least favorite of all - running and jumping over a high stack of blocking sheilds, landing on a mat!!! I was DONE, y'all!!!! After one round of this torture, the sweat was just running down my body, my heart was in over drive, my lungs were screaming, "WHAT THE F*%K ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO ME?" It was nuts plus we had to this 2 more times!!!!!!!!! Sensei Derek walked around pushing us to get it done!! It was intense!! When we were done that part, I went for a couple of sips of water...it did not go down right and feared that this would be the day that I puked!!! This would be it!! I could feel it! I was really pushing myself and the crazy thing is that after all that, we weren't even a quarter of the way through the class!!

We were called back to the mat where the torture continued, kicks, squats, lunges, lunge-kick combo's, knee-ups, OMG he threw everything at us today...EVERYTHING!! At this point, and I'm sorry to be so graphic here, but the vomit was sitting on my chest and moving upwards..I grabbed some water and just chugged it!! It was awful, but great at the same time (I'm I nuts??)LOL!!! We were now half way through the class!! :)) We learned a lot of cool JJ moves and techniques today and even grappled (wrestled) a bit - which I really enjoyed! My partner pinned me with a head lock type submission move...IT WAS AWESOME!!! (Therien Martial Arts offers grappling classes as well, I think I might just take it! :)) I had an awesome partner as well, which I think helped - she was giving me tips as we practiced, it was great.

NOW, HERE'S THE BEST PART OF MY DAY....

We finished up and knelt to the mat as normal as we listened to Sensei Derek ( this is normally where we cool down, perform a quick breathing/meditation exercise as well as where he makes any announcements etc..) before he officially ends the class. He then started talking and called me up to the front for a presentation of my very first stripe on my belt!!! I was so thrilled and proud. I walked up, bowed and he proceeded to affix my stripe on my belt as the class applauded - it was awesome!! I wanted to just hug him and do a happy dance - this, the same guy who just made me swallow my own puke!!! Anyway, this is something I never thought I could ever do especially when I weighed almost 300 pounds!! And here I am doing it!! Crazy!! So I now have my first stripe....I need to get 3 more stripes before moving up to a Yellow Belt!! It just felt awesome (I will take a pic and post it soon)!!

So this totally made my day today! That class was insanely nuts!!! It was such an awesome workout - just thinking about the amount of things we did in that hour is crazy!!

Food was on point today ( I ate very well - pretty well the same as yesterday but instead had some of the frittata for lunch!) I consumed about 3.5 litres of water today!!

Oh, I almost forgot...I had a comment on yesterday's post that asked, " how do you keep your energy up eating so little?"

I'm actually eating quite a bit of food throughout the day, just smaller meals and frequently. I'm eating every 3 hours. I don't usually feel hungry after I eat however if I do get hungry, I have another snack - but it has to be healthy (like a boiled egg, some cucumber slices, sometimes I grab a chicken breast, cut half and eat it - that's why it's good to have it pre-cooked and just ready to eat)!

Anyway, that's it for today. Signing off a very happy girl today. Tomorrow back to the weights for some Rob Lagana-style pain!!! :)

Until next time...
Joania (2KMINE!!!)