REST IS UNDERRATED

On Saturday, I did something I've never done before at Pherform. Or any other gym, for that matter.

I signed myself up for THREE. FREAKING. CLASSES.

No, I'm not suicidal yet, but it was because the gym was celebrating International Women's Day and we could bring a friend for free to any one class we were doing. So because I had three beautiful girlfriends to share some class love with, I had to do three classes. 

(Well, to be perfectly honest, we wound up having two of them do one class together, but Saturdays are my boxing days with Ari, so I'd never skip that for the world.)

All in all, I survived a really fun boxing class, a killer lower body hypertrophy class, and then (mercifully, in OTOT style) worked on banded pull-ups and deadlifts for Barbell Club.

Also nourished myself with this program-compliant carrot cake smoothie bowl. Lots of protein and good fats ftw. 

So I was feeling quite fine for the next few hours and since Sundays are my rest days, I thought I'd be good for the home stretch.

But no. 

I crashed on Saturday evening. The full effects of the triple workouts, coupled with a stressful Friday at work (if a mogul like Li Ka-shing chooses a Friday evening to announce his retirement, you can bet us journos would still be at work at 8pm) all culminated in me feeling this unbearably depleting exhaustion I haven't felt since the start of the program when we were suffering through the transition to ketosis.

While I definitely don't regularly overtrain, getting proper rest is something I find very challenging to achieve. Life gets in the way so much of the time and yeah, we live in Hong Kong, where there is always something to do, someone to see and some other to-do list to check off. And I'm also that moron who refuses to sleep by 10pm because I'd just feel like my whole life was just gym-work-sleep (and cook, of course), so I stay up doing inane things like fiddling with my cellphone or watching 10k calorie challenges on YouTube.

But rest is so completely underrated. Leslie, one of my trainers, once passed me this golden nugget of wisdom:

Rest is part of your training.

She cannot be more right about this. Neglect rest and you essentially miss out on the time your body needs to recover physiologically. Overtraining or prolonged periods of continuous working out can actually lead to the overworking of our bodies, leading to us becoming more susceptible to injuries. 

And lbr, us ladies train a heckuva ton here. We completely fatigue our bodies and go through oxygen deficit during metcon and HIIT trainings, our muscles are put through the wringer when we do hypertrophy classes (speaking of which, I can't even move my arms after today's Sculpther class), we have to grapple with neurological stress when we lift and cardio sessions take so much endurance out of us. It's a lot.

T-Rex arms, anyone?

And without rest, well, that's just a complete recipe for disaster. I'm taking my current depleted state as a sign that I need to just get some good ol' resting into the equation.

This week, I'm cutting down on my training sessions by a bit and the only doubles (no. more. triples.) I'll be doing will consist of a chaser in the form of a nice, slow yoga class. It's really nice to do something much slower than the usual intensity we chase, like take an easy hike or a lazy bike ride out into the burbs. Or to just veg out good on the couch with a spot of Netflix or Youtube, a Quest Bar and a good book. Absolutely no shame in that. 

It's really not easy for me to just take a chill pill and do nothing (ask anyone on my team), but I really have to lengthen my rest cycles, especially after the last crazy week. I'm still feeling spent now and will probably need a couple of days to feel 100% again.  

To take it easy, I took the weekend to chop off my locks and get a well-deserved hair treatment in. Three hours in the salon (with my eyelids falling more than my lopped-off hair was) and I was ready to call it a night. 

Of course when I style my own short do, it looks nothing like the pristine version my hairstylist did up... When will I learn?

Spent the night and most of the remainder of the weekend in PJs at home and just lazing languidly at the Vitkuns'. 

And it was exactly what the doctor ordered. 

So hubs, how about that foot massage date tonight?