Week 38 runs from Monday 14th September — Sunday 20th September, 2020.
For more information on what, why and how I’m tracking everything, including my health & fitness goals, please click here. To skip to the end of week summary, please click here.
The Week in Fitness & Food
9/14 – Monday. Completed 16:53.
Videos completed: MadFit 5min Warm Up, MadFit 15min Love Handle & Muffin Top Abs, MadFit 30min Low Impact HIIT, MadFit 5min Cool Down.
Today’s set was hard. Well, the abs workout was really challenging for me. I definitely felt the burn, but I also felt myself taking shortcuts and losing form because it was so difficult. There are no breaks. I think this video is probably too advanced for my fitness level right now, but I would like to keep at it to see how much I can get through next time.
The low impact HIIT wasn’t too bad, but I could still see that my form wasn’t great. It could be because I was already tired from the previous set, and before that I also did my weekly pushup test for my end of previous week pushup update, so that wore me out even more. Or, it could be because Jacky joined me today and so we were limited on space and trying not to bump into one another.
That’s right! Jacky joined me haha. He did well! It really is surprising to see just how much my endurance has improved in the month that I’ve continued exercising where he’d stopped. He struggled hard, but I’m super proud of us!
I must have been really tired in general though because within 30min of completing the workout I walked myself over to the daybed and fell asleep for 1.5hrs.
Last night I, again, slept late and also woke up once to use the bathroom. Having sleep disruptions really messes with my energy levels. I promised myself I’d sleep earlier so I can be well rested! Come on, Crystina. Sort yourself out.
On another note, I took some proper physique update photos at last, yey! I think the difference is really noticeable, even with the bad lighting. It is really cool to see these changes in my body and see my muscle definition become more pronounced as my body fat decreases. Please ignore the circle shaped bruise on my left leg; I’m ridiculously clumsy so I ran into furniture… again.
Weight-wise, I dropped down to the 120’s again, which is very cool. I’m aiming to have my median weight be around 120.8-121lbs this week – that’s the pattern I’m seeing at present and it’s something I’m very happy with :)
| Sleep Time | Wake Time | Hrs Slept | Restful Sleep | Disruptions | Awoke Feeling | Weight |
| 01:45 | 09:30 | 7hr 40min | 4hrs | 1x | Somewhat rested but tired | 120.8lbs |
9/15 – Tuesday. Completed 17:38.
Videos completed: Natacha Océane 10min Warm Up, MadFit 15min Leg/Butt/Thigh Workout, MadFit 30min Flat Belly Round Booty Workout, MadFit 15min Cool Down.
Today’s workout kicked my butt. I don’t even have the words to describe how butt-kicked I am right now. Oh my gosh. I don’t know if I’ve overtrained today but I do know I’ll be taking a rest day tomorrow. I haven’t felt this level of dead after a workout in a long time. I wasn’t even energised; I just felt exhausted. I was basically so exhausted I almost didn’t have the strength to complete the cool down video.
I feel like even during the 15min legs video I was already tired but I kept pushing. I had to pause a few times because the lack of built in rest time was still too much for me. I felt a bit sick during the 30min video but I couldn’t tell if I was genuinely not feeling well or if the shaky/constantly moving camera was giving me motion sickness. I had to not look at Maddie for the majority of it.
I am very proud of myself for pushing through though because it still felt like a great workout overall. I do genuinely enjoy getting my butt kicked so that I can go harder and grow my strength and endurance.
My form actually wasn’t terrible but I think I could have improved mind-muscle connection half the time, but that requires energy, which I was very low on today.
I am pretty sure I had eaten enough throughout the day so my lack of energy was probably due to poor sleep again. I did actually go to bed early last night; I just could not sleep, which doesn’t even make sense because I didn’t have any caffeine in the afternoon. Either way, I’ll continue to try to sleep early.
Finally, I probably should have taken longer breaks between videos so my body could rest and keep pushing hard… I will do that next time if I’m feeling this tired again. 45min post workout – still dead face:
My weight dropped again today. My scales have an app that registers your weight (among other data), which also connects to my Apple Health app so everything can be tracked. I figured I’ll just put a screenshot of it so you guys can see any additional changes :)
It provides more details like body fat %, water %, resting metabolic rate etc. but I’m pretty sure those are not that accurate. For example, it says my basic metabolic rate is stupidly – unhealthily – low. I know that my metabolic rate cannot be that low because I eat more than that per day and still lose weight even if I did no exercise that day.
I do still look at the BF% and muscle growth % figures because it’s good to see the changes, even if the figures themselves may not be entirely accurate, but I don’t stress over them. In fact, I don’t stress over my weight at all these days – I’m eating well every day and I’m enjoying exercising regularly.
It’s been about 2 weeks since I started eating intuitively and I am still losing weight from it. I am currently at a point where my body naturally craves healthy, balanced meals and knows when to stop eating. I still eat pastries, donuts, chocolate etc. whenever I want, but I tend not to want them very much, even when I see others eating them in YouTube videos. Thus, I’m able to eat as much of it as I want and be satisfied, whilst still being on a caloric deficit overall. Since it’s working well, I’m just going to keep going :)
| Sleep Time | Wake Time | Hrs Slept | Restful Sleep | Disruptions | Awoke Feeling | Weight |
| 01:00 | 09:20 | 8hr 15min | 4hr 40min | 1x | Somewhat rested | 120.4lbs |
9/16 – Wednesday. Rest.
Today I had actually intended to go for a walk but that just didn’t happen. Lol. Mostly because I made the greek chicken gyros again after small group, and put together my own little recipe this time.
The gyros recipe usually takes a while to make but Jacky was my sous-chef so it was much faster. However, by the time we were done eating and my stomach had rested a little, it had already turned dark.
I also considered doing yoga but again I’m pretty tired due to not sleeping early last night either (which, I’d stupidly decided would be fine since today was supposed to be a rest day). I do feel well rested today though :) My body isn’t aching at all.
My weight increased again, which is just fine. It’s still normal fluctuations for me, if even lower than I was expecting. What else can I say? I read, I small grouped, I cooked and ate and it’s been a very good day today haha.
| Sleep Time | Wake Time | Hrs Slept | Restful Sleep | Disruptions | Awoke Feeling | Weight |
| 01:40 | 09:10 | 7hr 25min | 4hr 30min | 1x | Decently rested | 121.0lbs |
9/17 – Thursday. Rest.
I wasn’t planning to rest today, but it just happened. I don’t want to say I went too hard the past couple of days but who knows. My body just wasn’t feeling up to it today. I woke up just feeling a bit weak, a bit lethargic, a bit headachey and generally a bit bleh.
I’ve been quite moody this week and craving chocolate. Yep. You know what that means. Jacky and I realised it a couple of days ago when I was snippy for no reason; I noticed I was getting upset or emotional over things that normally don’t bother me at all, and then I thought about it, suggested that it may be because I’m at the week before my period… and suddenly everything made sense.
This evening I was lamenting about being tired so not being able to work out, and Jacky reminded me my hormones are probably out of whack and causing it. That immediately helped me to stop feeling guilty about not working out today.
Given that I’m at the week where I tend to retain more water weight and bloat, I’m surprised I’m still losing weight! Really expecting that to increase tomorrow but we will see.
| Sleep Time | Wake Time | Hrs Slept | Restful Sleep | Disruptions | Awoke Feeling | Weight |
| 01:00 | 09:15 | 8hr 15min | 5hrs | None | Somewhat rested | 120.4lbs |
9/18 – Friday. Completed 14:04.
Videos completed: MadFit 5min Warm Up, MadFit Folklore Dance Party Workout, MadFit TikTok Dance Party Workout, MadFit 5min Cool Down.
Videos incomplete: MadFit 2000’s Dance Party Workout.
I’m feeling weaker today, or just more tender this week in general. It was difficult for me to get through the Folklore dance party workout, which last time I enjoyed immensely after a Natacha Oceane workout! I wanted to do 3 of Maddie’s dance party workouts but decided to call it a day after the second one.
I was almost too tired to exercise again today but in the end I decided I really wanted to work out, but didn’t want to do anything too strenuous. So I chose these for the cardio haha. I struggled through it but I felt much more energetic and alert afterwards.
This week is my hormonal week anyway. It’ll be better the day after my period starts. For this week, I’m just going to take it easy and do as much as I can.
My weight did increase as expected, but actually not by nearly as much as I was expecting. Not sure what’s going on but I’m glad to see it being fairly stable. I guess I’m at my maintenance calories now, and perhaps this will be the start of a plateau? We’ll see next week.
My diet hasn’t been great lately; I’ve been eating more sugar and simple carbs (pastries, ramen, chocolate etc), but I’m still being careful to stop eating when I’m full. Last night I slept better as Jacky and I were both in bed by midnight-ish! No disruptions, and I just woke up naturally before 9am :) I definitely need to sleep before midnight more frequently.
| Sleep Time | Wake Time | Hrs Slept | Restful Sleep | Disruptions | Awoke Feeling | Weight |
| 00:35 | 08:50 | 8hr 15min | 5hrs | None | Somewhat rested | 120.6lbs |
9/19 – Saturday. Rest / cleaning the apt.
Today I didn’t do any workout videos, but we did our major apt cleaning session. In total it took me something like 2.5-3hrs, an hour of which I spent in varying degrees of squat since I was deep cleaning both of our bathtubs. I think that counts as exercise for the day! I actually felt it in my glutes and legs afterwards haha.
Last night I had a bit of a mini-binge in that Jacky and I finished off the rest of our Habit Burger fries (we had Habit Burger for dinner) and then I also ate 3 macarons from the pack we got at Costco. My body was at a weird state of hungry but not hungry at the same time and I just wanted to eat. After the macarons, though, I was done.
Very unsurprisingly, my weight increased. Not a big deal to be honest – I was actually expecting it to increase by more. Either way, I just really wanted to eat Habit Burger yesterday and so did that. I’m probably PMSing because, looking at our previous Habit Burger orders, it seems I crave it once a month. I also typically don’t like junk food except during this time. Well, I’m definitely not going to deprive my poor PMSing body of the food it wants, so I have absolutely no regrets from eating it. Plus it was so yummy! We bought the family meal again (4 burgers, 4 fries, 1 salad) and finished the other burgers and salad today.
We both went to bed not too long after midnight again, and I woke naturally at 9ish. I’m feeling decently rested, but still a little lethargic. In general I’ve been feeling tired, a bit down and emotional this week. Bleeehhh let my period start already so all these stupid symptoms will go away please.
| Sleep Time | Wake Time | Hrs Slept | Restful Sleep | Disruptions | Awoke Feeling | Weight |
| 00:45 | 09:00 | 8hr 10min | 4hr 25min | 1x | Decently rested | 121.2lbs |
9/20 – Sunday. Helping friends move.
I am beyond exhausted! We went to help our friends move today (not the same friends we helped with moving a few months ago). I packed for something like 2.5hrs, and helped move stuff into the truck for 30min-1hr too. Jacky did more heavy lifting than I did so I’m pretty sure we both got our exercise in for the day!
Our friends treated us to the yummiest hotpot dinner after, so we’re very grateful! I ate a lot, but thankfully most of what I ate were vegetables because I love vegetables. My body already aches from the moving.
I had a couple of sleep disruptions last night, which, whilst annoying, I’ve resigned to accepting is normal for PMS. I was still tired and my body still tender but I’m glad we committed to helping our friends move because it gave me a reason to ‘exercise,’ and I got an adrenaline rush from it so stopped feeling tired until much later haha. I really enjoyed helping our friends and seeing them again!
My weight increased again today, which does not surprise me at all. Period starting soon, I’ll continue to be bloated for the next few days methinks. Anyways, I don’t care. I exercised, I ate, we saw and hung out with old friends (all masked up, don’t worry), I am a very happy bunny right now. My median weight for the week is still 0.8-1lb lighter than the week before so I’m thrilled. Weight loss goals will continue after shark week :p
| Sleep Time | Wake Time | Hrs Slept | Restful Sleep | Disruptions | Awoke Feeling | Weight |
| 00:10 | 08:25 | 8hr 5min | 4hr 40min | 2x | Somewhat rested | 122.0lbs |
End of Week Summary
Days Exercised: 3-5 (3 for workout videos, 2 for other forms of exercise)
Pushup Count: 3 very good form elbows-in knee pushups, 1 more decent form elbows-in knee pushup. I did not test elbows-out pushups.
Median Weight (Tues – Sat): 120.6lbs
Weight Change (if any): -1.0lbs
Days Slept 7.5hrs+: 6
Days Slept Before Midnight: 0
Workout Summary
Weight Summary
Diet Summary
Sleep Summary
Date | Sleep Time | Wake Time | Hrs Slept | Restful Sleep | Disruptions | Awoke Feeling | Weight |
| 9/14 | 01:45 | 09:30 | 7hr 40min | 4hrs | 1x | Somewhat rested but tired | 120.8lbs |
| 9/15 | 01:00 | 09:20 | 8hr 15min | 4hr 40min | 1x | Somewhat rested | 120.4lbs |
| 9/16 | 01:40 | 09:10 | 7hr 25min | 4hr 30min | 1x | Decently rested | 121.0lbs |
| 9/17 | 01:00 | 09:15 | 8hr 15min | 5hrs | None | Somewhat rested | 120.4lbs |
| 9/18 | 00:35 | 08:50 | 8hr 15min | 5hrs | None | Somewhat rested | 120.6lbs |
| 9/19 | 00:45 | 09:00 | 8hr 10min | 4hr 25min | 1x | Decently rested | 121.2lbs |
| 9/20 | 00:10 | 08:25 | 8hr 5min | 4hr 40min | 2x | Somewhat rested | 122.0lbs |
Muchos love,
