Army Strong ...Eventually.

After years of talking about it (10.5 to be exact), I now am officially a commissioned officer in the United States Army. Hooah!

I am honored to report that I was selected for the prestigious HPSP (Health Professionals Scholarship Program) award, meaning I will be a "selective reservist" for the next two years, defend my dissertation, go to BOLC (Basic Officer Leadership Course), [hopefully] pass the EPPP (licencing exam), train in specialty courses, including SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape), and continue my  minimum three-year commitment as an active duty Clinical Psychologist. Enough acronyms for you?


Amidst all the celebrating (this really is a life-changing type of deal), my recruiter informed me I'd be doing a new type of physical they were testing. Instead of push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups, I did functional tasks like throwing a medicine ball, long jump, dead-lifts, and sprints. The first tasks were no problem. I even had a one rep max of 190 for DL, which isn't too bad considering I hadn't been doing any serious weight training.

Then the sprints.

Need I say more? Pathetic. Fortunately, it was "research," not for qualifying, but yeah, I would've failed. Hard.

I will beat it of course. The task of running back and forth, trying to beat the next beep... well it got me this time, but I won't be had again.

The problem is this "fat skinny" girl is no longer living up to her name. I have to admit I'm pretty much just an overweight girl now, logging in at 170, and less of it is muscle than I'd like to admit. 4 doctoral classes, practicum applications, creating a 150 page binder of death proving I've learned something this year, no sleep, 20-24 hours a week doing diagnostic work at a in-patient psychiatric unit, doing research one day a week at a local hospital, and trying to you know, eat or be social ever, all combined to create the perfect storm of an impossible, survival-mode semester. There are some other very serious things going on in my family too (f cancer).

In short, I don't blame myself.

I do, however, put some blame on this one company who I will not name since I'm associating myself with the Army in this post. Now, I am not usually a product basher, and I will gush over products I like (looking at you Coldeeze), but I have no problem criticizing this company. They are marketed as a meal delivery service that provides healthy options of protein and veggies in individually wrapped portions. It was recommended to me, and as a single grad student struggling to find time to blink, I thought it may be worth a try. Using a promotion I got a very good rate and even got free breakfasts thrown in. All and all I was saving time, money, and getting healthy options in the process. Win-win-win.

Wrong. I noticed I started gaining weight, but of course with so much going on it could easily be stress. Yet the weight gain did not stop, even as the workouts increased. So, I did what I should've done from the beginning: I looked up the nutrition facts. One tiny little mini omelet and sausage (surely turkey healthy sausage right?) contained 400 calories and 35g of fat. In context, that's at least half of my daily fat allowance. And it's tiny! They gave me specialty butters, which I naively assumed were like "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" and didn't think much of it. The instructions said I could have as much of them as I wanted! Notice the lack of carbs here (I was supplementing carbs on my own). This is the Adkins diet. 100%. No thank you. I was probably getting over 100g of fat ON A DAILY BASIS. No wonder I gained weight.

So now I'm back, as I often start, doing Jamie Eason's Live Fit training schedule. It simply works for me. Focusing on lifting, then introducing cardio, then more dynamic work outs just makes sense for my body type and what I like / can realistically commit to. When I'm in a hurry (ha, aka every day), I can manage to squeeze in her hour-long plan in as little as 30 minutes. I like that I don't have to plan what I'm doing, and I know that I'm hitting every area.

This time I'm using Body Space (2014dawn) to track my workouts, instead of a journal, to hold myself accountable. At most, I can only do 4 days a week because of my three 15 hour days each week this semester. I may not be doing the calendar exactly, but I'm doing it all the same.

When I'm done I'm going full Navy Seal training, using their integrated program to include sprints, endurance, HIIT, and strength. It's a solid layout, even if modified for my impossible schedule.

I'm also using my fitness pal (lisadisa) to keep track of general calories / macros. I made the settings based on what I know to be realistic for me, especially now that they let you set grams instead of percentages. No plan calls for 30% 30% 30%, but that's basically what mine is. I should probably cut down on fat, but this is about starting consistent, not depriving myself. Plus, my body will probably be on withdrawal after all that fat courtesy of the product that must not be named on this blog.

I'll be back on here too. It amps me up and motivates me to press on. With hard work and perseverance I am confident I can be the fat-skinny girl once more, and maybe, one day, really be what I would consider Army Strong. 💪