The Slow-Motion Crisis of an Early Start

Getting ready for gym in the morning can be the most embarrassingly sluggish thing for me. Long ago, back in high school, I could be out the door in no more than 20 minutes. Now, four years later, it takes me at least an hour and a half.

How is that? For a normally pretty darn efficient person, such as myself, this should be considered ridiculous.

Thanks to finally getting used to my 5:30AM starts, I no longer need to stay in bed for a minimum of an hour scrolling through my phone. Now, I'm out within the minute washing my face, making myself a quick breaky (natural yogurt mixed with vanilla whey protein powder with berries and yogurt -- get onto it). Then, I just wait an hour to digest the breaky so I can go to gym without feeling bloated. All in all, I'm not driving into the gym parking lot (FYI. a two minute drive) until 7:15.

I reckon it's because in the morning whatever you normally do is turned into a slow-motion act. While washing my face, I'm entranced by the deadness of my half-asleep face and wondering why my pores always look so invisible only ever in the morning. While making breaky, I also have to turn it into the "Breakfast With Ashley Show" and make sure my bowl looks completely aesthetically pleasing before toddling back to my room, and I have to simultaneously watch a movie like "She's The Man" while I'm getting ready. Where did it all go wrong, Amanda?

I'm like a toddler before nap time: I'll find every excuse to take too long before starting.

Sometimes, however, I do find little tricks on how to actually get my ass out of the house before the gym starts filling up...

• Instagram
  Nothing gets you motivated out the house like a gym bunny on Insta flaunting her abs and pre-workout like she's got her entire life figured out.

Image Credit: Madalin Giorgetta

Image Credit: Brooke Mullen

• A good song
  Dancing wakes you up, even if your moves are incredibly white and dorky. At the moment, "Mambo No. 5" really has me rocking out. Nothing better than getting into a song about a dude having countless women in his life. It's surprisingly empowering (if I pretend I'm the guy in this scenario, anyway).
  
  
• A breaky worth fighting for
  Unsurprisingly, a bowl of oatmeal, honey and seeds really doesn't do it for me. Yogurt and fruit, however, have become my entire life. Having a whole bunch of vanilla ice cream protein thrown in there as well really helps the meal feel like a kick-start. 

• A lush new gym outfit
  Obviously not a day-to-day recommendation, but it's always good to change it up once in a while with something different for your wake-up routine. 

Image Credit: Lorna Jane

Image Credit: Cotton On Body

• Stick to one alarm 
  Or two, if you're like me. Having multiple would usually give me the excuse of going back to sleep. My mind is astonishingly good at holding a persuasive argument in the first few seconds of morning. But having one at 5:30AM and then another a minute after is usually wake-up call enough to send me whining out of bed.
  
• Get out of bed as soon as possible
  This seems obvious, but the longer you stay in bed the more you'll probably debate even leaving the house. So, ideally, wait till breakfast is served before browsing through social media. Avoid breakfast in bed as well. 

Gyming Your Ass Off is a Blessing and a Curse (for Your Skin)

Getting into gyming is a blessing for anyone. Like, you’re not going to enjoy it at first, probably not after a while either. But, eventually, you start craving it like, say, a Maccas cheeseburger. The thing about gyming is that it’s the best addiction to have: a healthy one. All you want to do is obey your body’s needs and make it better. You become your body’s bitch, and it’s a great sort-of-messed-up relationship to be part of. You treat your body well by working out and suddenly you’re getting eensy beensy muscles popping up everywhere, you’re staying more hydrated, you’re making better snack decisions (knowing damn well a bowl of chips is going to kill you on the treadmill later), and your skin becomes increasingly smooth and glossy like a good-quality magazine. However, there is always going to be too much of a good thing.

With me, it’s my skin. My damn, sensitive, crybaby, ‘ooh, I don’t feel like it’ skin. Working out is a joke for skin like mine. The rest of my body absolutely adores a good ol’ workout, but my face: absolute chaos. My skin is that kid from primary school that cried during thunderstorms and faked sick to get out of Phys Ed (okay, I did that). You kind of hated them, even if it was just how they were.

Two years back, when I used to gym every day, my skin had taken it as a personal insult. From what was originally just left-over teenage acne, become full-fledged pizza-face and people coming up to me on the street asking if I ever washed my face. For the record: I did and still do. My skincare routine is so damn developed, I could host a three-hour lecture on it.

Let me recite it to you:

·       Following the resulting chaos gyming had caused my skin, I completely admonished junk food from my diet. I was as healthy as it got for someone who could barely cook. I was constantly looking up what antioxidant-rich food there was out there to save my skin. My shopping cart was loaded every time. I even tried getting rid of dairy for two months, figuring it might be secretly aiding the hormones that were causing my acne.

·       I woke up every morning with Benzac’s dermatologically-tested face wash, proceeded then by a tiny dab of skin serum (Estee’ Lauder’s skin serum), and then finished with a pea-sized amount of Benzac’s dermatologically-tested face moisturiser. This is repeated at night as well. In addition, I also exfoliated my face once a week and applied a face mask twice a week.

·       I absolutely detested people touching my face and would wash my hands immediately if I was ever to touch my own.

·       I would change my pillow-case every week.

·       I would wipe my face immediately after every meal I ate.

·       I would shower immediately after gym.

·       I would eye the shower head, nervously wondering if maybe the water was polluted.

·       I avoided makeup like the plague, only wearing it on particularly bad days when I knew I couldn’t handle people asking about my face.

Taken back in 2014. One month on Isotretinoin.
Lips are swollen and acne has
intensified into clusters from pills.

Absolutely none of this changed the way my face looked. Eventually, a miraculous change that saw my face go from millions of pimples to none was seeing a dermatologist for a shot at Isotretinoin: a hardcore pill that dried the holy berries out of my face and eventually had the skin completely change in a matter of six months. It was then I divulged myself into the world of junk food and absolutely zero gym. God, it was bliss. And my face, for the next entire two years, did not change back to its formerly dotty state at all. Not even a single zit.

Taken in 2016 after gyming (hence redness). No filter.

Moving back to the future, I start gyming again. I remember how much I loved it. The beauty of a good sweat came back, and, wouldn’t you know it, I started breaking out again. Nowhere near as bad as it had gotten before, but a few pimples did arise. Luckily, this time I was able to narrow down the causes with a simple question typed into Google:

‘Why have I started breaking out now that I work out?’

And, oh, the answers came. It wasn’t that I was dirty and not washing my face well enough afterwards. It wasn’t because I wasn’t thoroughly cleaning the equipment before use. What finally occurred to me was that my breakouts were radicalised… by heat rash.

Ah, yes, heat rash.  

For some people, gifted like me, you have been blessed with the good ol’ skin condition known as ‘heat rash’. What this basically means is that when you work out, you get so damn overheated, that you’re literally suffocating your face from air (often, your body too). The rush of heat causes the sweat to get in your pores and then clog them, making them itchy when you workout. Lovely. Dovely.

Taken immediately after working out. Evidently,
I have become a tomato.

Now, I won’t say this is the sole reason behind my previous skin problems. Really, heat rash was just aiding and abetting it. Most of my acne problems were just related to hormonal issues. This was obvious when, after finishing my Isotretinoin treatment, I never saw another breakout again — no matter how poorly I ate. And I was eating Maccas and HJs up to five times a week. Sorry, health gurus.

After one month of gyming, little dots began to show up

A week or so into changing up my routine to
combat heat rash.

For anyone else who might suffer from heat rash. Here are my tips for preventing breakouts:

1.       Bring a spray bottle filled with cold water. I felt a little dumb at first spraying myself while running at the gym, but the effects were almost immediate. They toned down the redness in my face as well as helping to even out my body temperature.

2.       Splash face with water immediately after a workout. I go to gym for about an hour every day, but I find my face only starts to itch when on the treadmill. Possibly because I get a little too competitive with myself and keep going even when my breath begins to struggle. I’m not washing my face after every workout I do, only the ones that have me going so hard that I can feel my face begin to itch and redden like a diseased tomato.

3.       Wash face towel after every use. If you sweat profusely during a workout, you don’t want to be wiping your face with yesterday’s dried-up sweat. For all I know, that could be intensifying the effects of heat rash. Get a clean towel.

4.       Don’t just wash face after coming home from the gym. Have a shower. If you get heat rash, it’s likely not just happening on your face, but on your chest area too and maybe your back. To prevent yourself from breaking out in these areas, it’s best to wash yourself immediately after. Including your hair. 

A Decent Protein Source or Four MAC Lippies?

When a guy approaches you in the health store, and he's as built as a family Christmas tree, you listen to him when he tells you to buy the 100-dollar, barbell-sized protein powder. Legit, the container was the size of a small child. How?

According to him, it was the best protein powder on the market and it had all these random ingredients that make it top of the notch. As he ran my items through the checkout, he told me it makes you sweat more, and it fills you right up before a workout without giving you that bloated feeling. I'm someone who typically does her workouts straight-after breaky, so this sounded like something I needed. The sweat was just an added bonus.

He admits that I could find protein a lot cheaper in places like Coles or Woolies, but says that they're often loaded with more sugar (and the dreaded fructose) to help the sales of the product. And I thought the health aisle of the grocery store was expensive. In Coles, it would've been like 30 bucks for 18 serves worth of protein; here, it's 100 for 50 serves. With basic maths, that figures out to be two dollars per serve (equivalent to half a smoothie-worth of breakfast).

Unfortunately, I've always been entirely too trusting in the visual sense of the word. So, when an inverted-triangle of a man and his equally built coworker tell me this is the best product worth my while... well, damn, I'll listen. I felt like stick-figure walking into that store. Last time, it was this gorgeous chick that was built enough to make me feel like a weedy teenage boy. I was helpless: please, help me, superior Gods of fitness.

I was damn excited to try out the protein powder the next day. It cost me the same amount as almost four MAC lippies, so it was either be excited or regret my entire life (typical after any big shop of mine). I got up the next day and, just like I thought, the directions insisted on barely a half-filled shaker cup. Fab. So I coupled it with strawberries, figuring I might as well still get some carbs in there.

I chose the vanilla ice cream flavour. True to it's word, the shake tasted like vanilla ice cream  — but with a heavy dose of protein imploding through it. Luckily, each sip had me feeling fuller by the second. It did feel slightly bare, however, like downing liquidised vitamins with a teensy bit of flavour. My best thought would be mincing the strawberries with the protein shake next time for a more fruit-infused flavour.

I will say that buying the Gold Standard Whey was definitely a good choice. Coupled with fruit, the powder helped provide a great start to my day. While working out, I felt neither bloated or famished. It also gave me enough energy to commit to working out at an above-average pace. I worked up a bit more of a sweat — the health-store guy didn't lie.

They also chucked in a free sample of C4 Ripped pre-workout powder (of the cherry limeade variety). It was so violently sherbet-flavoured I felt it kick in almost immediately.

My favourite protein shake still forever stands though as Biofurnace Banana Protein Powder 💗

I have it as a snack straight after my workout. Banana protein powder reminds me there's still some good in the world — plus it tastes fine on its own. Definitely something I look forward to whenever I get back home.

5:30AM Starts

5:30 – alarm sounds. Ignore. Obviously. Stamp out with finger and enjoy a few more seconds of peaceful —

5:31 – second alarm goes off. Sleep time's up. Remember you have yogurt in the fridge (it’s your sole motivator). Bound out of bed. Wash face. Let yourself still be asleep in your mind. Are you in Perth or Bunbury right now? The world feels disorientated.

5:40 – gobble down breaky as quickly as possible. The quicker you eat, the earlier you’ll arrive at gym. This way you won’t have to say hi to anyone.

6:00 – watch Gossip Girl while getting ready. Wonder why Serena even pretends to be relevant anymore. Wonder what Blair’s skincare routine looks like.

Image Credit: Katie Meili Messersmith

6:40 – rev the car over to gym. Feel half-ashamed, half-smug you’re the only one there. Gym people apparently still have social lives at night. Write for ten minutes on phone while waiting for pre-workout to kick in.

6:50 – reluctantly leave car after deliberately taking too long to write. Glare at treadmill as you set your stuff down on an empty shelf. Feel relieved no one walked to the gym either. You have the entire place to yourself.

7:05 – die a little bit inside when people start trickling in through the doors. Feel unreasonably annoyed that out of the eight treadmills available, someone sets up next to yours. Hope they enjoy your red-faced, sweaty struggles on the treadmill. Remind self they're probably focussed on their own workout.

7:20 –  collapse on treadmill into a puddle of your sweat. Choke on own breath. Blame the person next to you. Wash face in bathroom and continue focus on legs. Curiously eye other gym equipment and wonder if you'll ever be game enough to try working out chicken arms.

8:00 –  head home. Down banana protein shake like it's the elixir of life (it is). 

8:30 – mentally prepare self for day ahead. Go forth. 

To Cheat Day or Not to Cheat Day?

Image Credit: Dee Jae

I take my food as seriously as I would a major life decision. Rectifying my eating habits has seen this fact become increasingly true. I’ve been struggling lately to fit in a good ol’ shovelling down of chocolate cake now that I’ve banned myself from takeout, rice, and bread. So, I went for the classic decision: one cheat day a week where I can divulge myself on all things oily, sugary, salty, and carb-loaded. As I sit up in my bed with an aching Buda belly filled to the brink with hot chocolate and sushi (as well as, shamefully enough, half of my friend's cake), I suddenly regret having a cheat day.

 Three months ago I could inhale five cheeseburgers in one sitting, now I’m considering an ambulance van for a simple one-night-stand with junk food. I should see this as a good sign that I feel full way quicker now, but, maybe, because of how rarely I get to chow down on something carby, my weekly tummy ache should tell me I need to handle this differently. 

Image Credit: Dee Jae

Thanks to the way-too-many fitness pages I now follow on Instagram, I have been made aware of an interesting part of the healthy life known as ‘counting your macros’. In this, your daily calorie intake is divided into three categories: carbs, protein, and fat. Depending on what your fitness goals are, the amount of carbs, protein, and fat you should be consuming daily can differ. For example, my goal is to drop down a dress size. For that to happen, I should be consuming no more than 1,500 calories per day, and, macro-wise, this should be broken up as 50% carbs, 30% fat, and 20% protein. As you can see from the images encompassing this post, this might be hard to do if I’m treating each cheat day as an apocalyptic event (i.e. a kind of leave-no-carbs-uneaten type of set-up).

Image Credit: Madalin Giorgetta

 



What the macro life suggests — and while it might sound slightly more unforgiving than the option of a cheat day — leaves you more open to consume what you want when you want. For instance, if your macros are open enough that day, you might be able to squeeze in a slice of pizza. This comes from whether you’ve given yourself enough leeway to consume a bit of junk. For example, something with a high fat content might be manageable if your fat count is low enough to squeeze it in. It’s just all about knowing where your grams are at on the day.

I'm not mentally calculating all this. Right now, I'm working off 'My Fitness Pal', which is a free app I downloaded onto my phone. Here, I am able to scan my food in advance to know whether or not I'm getting enough protein in my diet, as well as whether or not I should grab another serving of peanut butter and celery. Frequently now, I am glaring at the app as I withdraw my hand slowly from the milo tin at the back of my cupboard. I'll admit, however, that it's an absolute blessing knowing I usually have a bunch of calories left to spend at the end of the day for carbs or fat or protein. Now that I know about macros, I can figure out what my body is craving and how to satiate those cravings without reaching for the wrong foods.

Image Credit: Dee Jae

Trying My Hand at Bikram Yoga

Image Credit: skeene

My first mistake was not taking the time beforehand to appreciate water.

I’m more sweat than anything else right now. My arms and legs tremble over my yoga mat as the instructor encourages the class to move into Chaturanga Dandasana (basically a plank, but with more exhaustion behind it). There’s a guy beside me swiftly moving into the pose. I’d seen him a few minutes before class twisting himself into a knot and walking across a mat. He was making us all look bad, but I was happy to see a few other newbies, like myself, faceplant into their mats with defeat.

 I’d probably equate this moment to filling up your car tank a week ago, and seeing it so full that you forget it needs to be constantly maintained. I, apparently, had forgotten to keep the tank maintained for my big yoga trip: one hour and a half of pure, unrelenting, 40-degree torture. I definitely did not drink enough water beforehand. That’s not to say, however, that I didn’t enjoy it. Hell, I plan on going again, just maybe next time with a better-equipped tank. Before the first half-hour interval had ended, I was already on the ground like a bug dying in a puddle of pesticide.

I’d read up on all the details beforehand: drink water like you’re paid to, wear nothing overly loose, bring a towel, and (while it’s not actually mentioned) wear your cutest gym outfit on the possibility of running into yogi dreamboats. Nothing says dedication like a light dash of mascara — and your tightest gym pants to conceal the fact you haven't worked out in months. I even did my hair up in a cute, preppy ponytail… of course now it hangs down my face like a wet 9-tail whip.

Backpedalling a few steps, my roommate and I arrive in a seemingly free-flowing and peaceful yoga centre where the two front desk girls greet us with big white smiles and the most magnificently glowing skin. There’s flower wallpaper, beautiful men and women walking in and out — also smiling and glowing — and a sign written in a ‘dance-y’ sort of calligraphy: Please remove shoes here. If you’re walking around barefoot, the place must be semi-peaceful, right? — wrong. Not if you’re a McDonalds-loving woman who spends more time watching Sex in the City than making wise decisions. I’d entered a place of hell for unfit wrongdoers like me, and I was about to pay for it.

At the start, my roommate and I are pretty cocky about the whole thing. I mean, look at us: were so urban. We’re just a couple of cool cats taking a casual yoga class at 7AM. Maybe we’ll go to some unheard of hipster-café afterwards and Instagram our pleasantly aesthetic drinks. Who knows? We walk barefoot into the room like a couple of proud parrots. Everyone else is already lying down, even five minutes before the instructor has walked in. Some, like pretzel guy who stretches in front of us, close their eyes and move from pose to pose. I, meanwhile, stare up at the ceiling and dance my naked toes until the instructor walks in.

Originally, I think this isn’t so bad. It’s hot — but it’s like being in a spa, and I relax into the warmth. Then a sharp clap from the instructor’s hands quickly sends me reeling into seven layers of lava-sweat hell. Even my gym-bunny roommate looks slightly wild-eyed from the strenuous demand of movement. It begins with deception: a simple Ardha Chandrasana with Pada Hastasana, which is basically just a much needed stretch for your chest where you lift your arms up and bend from side to side without moving your legs. I’m thinking, God this is great. I feel like some health maniac already. The heat really makes you think you’re getting a strong workout into your weekly routine. But when the class hit its first 15-minute mark that’s when time really starts to slow and bite down on my muscles.

I was the first one to collapse onto my mat mid-pose and take a breather. I must’ve been the envy of all my fellow newbie yogi’s because as soon as I was down, so did one, two, three — four others! We were like soldiers of war all plotting some sort of get away as we eyed off the glass door exits like a safe haven. I even began fanaticising about leaving: just picking up my mat, brushing off my hands, and looking at my fellow yogis like “yes, I am the weakest link. Good day.” But I didn’t! And the reason why isn’t because I chose to stick it out, but because suddenly our positions changed to lying-on-the-floor poses.

Thank. God.

My favourite floor pose was probably the one where you hug yourself side-to-side in the fetal position — the screaming, wailing McDonalds child inside of me really thanked me for it. Pavanamuktasana, it’s called. During this, our instructor coddled us newbies with little sentiments like how all of us did very well for our first time and that yoga isn’t about competing.

Afterwards, I almost didn’t feel like leaving. I’d grown fond of myself sticking to the floor and somewhat crying on the inside. My roommate, at the very sound of the first person out the door, fled the room. My gym bunny roommate. Fled.

I, however, despite being the first poor bastard to hit the floor, stare up at the ceiling for a while before slowly hopping up. I am an ethereal goddess of fitness. When I catch up with my roommate out by the lockers, I talk about craving yogurt and wanting to sip on coconut water. If anyone else had heard me, they would’ve rolled their eyes.

But, putting aside the pain and heat, who doesn’t love being the newbie?