Traditional Chinese Medicine

While in Puerto Rico last week, I emailed to confirm my appointment with the acupuncturist, Dr. Carr, for this past Tuesday. Free appointment (remember: it was another gift from boot camp), so I figured, why not give it a try? I'm all for Western medicine but there's got to be something to Eastern medicine, right? As a scientist but an open skeptic, I thought the experience would be interesting.

She asked me a whole bunch of questions regarding my physical well-being, if there were any aches and pains or anything significant from my head to my toes. Because I told her I'm not there for any physical reason (ie no plantar or carpal tunnel or anything), it was a pretty easy Q&A.

I did get a little emotional (really, just a LITTLE) when talking about the stresses in my life, like finding the balance between between a good wife and good mother, and keeping house, and work obigations. I mentioned I'd like to calm my anxieties and little distractions I find engrossed in that immobilize me when I'm stressed.

She went over the 5 elements in TCM (that's my title above). The cycle: Metal --> Water --> Wood --> Fire --> Earth then back to Metal. I can't remember the detail clearly now, but she said she's like to work on my Earth and Water elements. When you write the elements on paper in a circle, you can also draw a pentagon between the other elements, and they also work off each other, like a check and balance system. In this case, Earth and Water balance each other but Fire also balances Earth (and likewise, Fire also balances Water).

She related my kidneys to the Water element. On top of the kidneys are the adrenal glands, and they are responsible for providing adrenaline during stresses . If I have constant stresses, the adrenal glands are constantly working, overprocessing, and that's something that needs to be addressed.

The spleen and pancreas were related to the Earth element, which is a digestive issue. She mentioned something about eating the right foods associated with winter time, soups, stews, and drinking green tea or green/black tea chai teas which are calming and warming during the winter months. I guess by doing so, it will help balance the Water element.

And she said that because of these two elements, I could focus a bit on Fire too, which is the anxiety part, I think. She didn't really prescribe a treatment, though, that I can recall.

I agreed to two acupuncture sessions with her, and some herbal recommendations, an instant tea I can bring to work and not "cook" like so many TCM herbal remedies.

I feel better already!

Boot Camp: Day 6

The huge group was divided in 2 groups today. Our group was to run to the front of the school, and at the benches, do 50 Tricep Dips, then run back to the rear of the school, where we would work out with our weights. We did a circuit like this for the remaining of the hour, and not only did Tricep Dips twice, but also 50 Bench Pushups twice.

Those pushups weren't as polished as they should have been. When doing 50 pushups, your form is not going to be great. I don't know about the rest of them, but mine sucked. They were simply "bends". And most of the others were so fast! They must have not been doing perfect ones either. Funny, we had two ladies in the group, the older ladies I may have mentioned earlier. They were always the last to arrive at the benches and a couple of times they made us crack up and laugh because they'd come to the benches and start counting "one, two, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!". You can't do dips and pushups when laughing, I learned, especially if your body is to the point of exhaustion!

On our mini-runs back and forth between exercises, I befriended one girl, let's call her Jasmine. I think it may be her first bootcamp too, but she's doing a 3 day week. She has a couple of kids I think, but looks great! I think her youngest is actually older than Gabe, since she said that when her kid was 2 years old, she also felt it was a good time to start exercising more. She wasn't as fast as the rest of the group was, so it was a nice fit to be running next to someone who shared the same speed. I really liked her black pants with the small reflective strips at the side....her husband bought it. Ah, I wish!

I forgot about some of the weight exercises we did when we were at the rear of the school (I'm writing this 2 days later, and my memory is a little short!). I've now made the commitment to make sure I'm writing a new post before I leave for work, so that I can at least remember! Anything beyond 24 hours definitely gets pushed out of my mind! I do remember that we were doing quite a bit of arm work, since people were still apparently sore from Friday's workout. I just recovered that morning from Friday's workout, so working out the arms were fine with me anyways.

What will tomorrow bring?

Boot Camp: Day 5 - End of Week 1

Getting up this morning was most difficult. I didn't get up until 4:45am, and didn't get dresed until 5. It wasn't raining, so I didn't have to drive as far, so I took my time.

T'ai likes to ask us questions, and if we answer right, we get free gifts. But the multiple choice question he always gives us is posed so that "c" is the only real logical answer. Our free gift today was a bottle of Udo's DHA Oil Blend and an Iso-Flex protein powder sample. Yippee! Read my post on Nutrition regarding these products.

So for warmup today, we stood in three lines, "Fast", "Medium 1", "Medium 2", and the task was fartlek training. We run in a line, with the lead person holding a baton, and the rear person sprints to the front to grab that baton to become the new leader, and so on and so forth. Three times around the soccer field, go! Man, was that difficult! From the time I grabbed that baton and became the new leader, before I knew it, I was at the end of the line again and I had to sprint forward to become the leader again! I couldn't imagine being in the "Fast" line; I chose "Medium 1". I should've joined Lucy and Catherine in the slower group! But I persisted because I didn't want to be the loser in the group. We had a 1/2 lap to go before I got to thinking I couldn't go on any longer. But I did it, don't know how.

Today we were working our glutes and quads.....lunges and squats! Woo hoo....my love-to-hate exercises! We grabbed our 5lb hand weights and we did walking lunges, and walking squats. Also, stationary forward, side, rear lunges/squats too.

Oh, the burn! I'm writing this post the following day, and I'm in pain everywhere! My glutes feel perpetually tightened. (Yes, I'm now a tight ass.....LOL), my hamstrings are pulling, my quads are stiff, my back is sore, my biceps are aching, you get my drift. Good think I've got the weekend to recoup. But, got to love that burn!

Although we ran the soccer field a couple of more times during the hour, we still headed to the track for a lap. Liz, a girl who just joined the camp this morning (but she's no virgin -- it's her second time), met up with me halfway and we chatted about our half-marathons. Earlier, after one of the soccer field laps, I approached her and asked how she did in that half-marathon she said she just completed. She said 2:14, and she shaved about 5 minutes off her previous time. I had told her that I would love to run another half-marathon, but can't find the time to train, and well, I'm here at boot camp to just get some fitness, nevermind training for a run. So during the lap at the track, she was telling me that I should join the Running Room and train with them, that's what she did. I told her I would definitely consider it next time, because training for a half on your own is difficult and you have to be 120% motivated. Liz is super friendly. She reminds me of Clara Hughes, the Canadian Olympic cyclist and speed skater.

We did tricep dips at the stands of the track to end our hour.

Wow, I did one whole week so far! As difficult as it is to get up in the morning, I'm just loving coming home at 6:45 all energized. But Thank God for the weekend....I still need a rest!