Exercise Goals for 2008

Nope, the most I'll do is walk. When I worked at the hospital, I walked 2 mi at lunch every day and 3.5 miles home and I loved it. I also used to work out with weights and do aquafit but the chlorine totally wrecked my hair (despite all the products I put in) so no more of that. But... that was long ago. Nowadays I'm just not in the mood to walk in the crappy, damp, wet weather here.

Anyway, I have an excuse - I'm studying for my First Aid and I want to pass with 90+%, dammit!


[size=7][and that's my story and I'm sticking to it!][/size]

The weather is as bad as advertised.
I stayed in and cross-trained.
Pretty good workout, but no points toward the goal.

I am upping the ante - pretty good at my 30 minutes a day. 5 days a week walking/running or stair climbing and weight training 3 days a week - going to 45 minutes aerobic activity....I ain't getting any younger. And I've eaten a bit too much chocolate over the haulidays and seem to be hauling around an extra 10 lbs...yikes.

one more slice
A walk before, or after dinner, every other day.

Hey, Mame, my apologies if I put you on the spot.

And -- thank you to my new claque.

Weights stuff done already (this machine takes forever to boot up, which right now is proving to be a kinda useful chunk o' time).

I also took a diet assessment at WebMD: http://weightloss.webmd.com/

My findings were that calories were a little high (although not super high) and I could stand to cut back on protein and carbs, and should increase iron and Vitamins D and E.

My main changes should be to (this is me extrapolating; the assessment doesn't go this far) trade snack foods for whole grains and add more shellfish, legumes, turkey and beans. Essentially, it's what I expected: eat more vegetarian and cut back on processed stuff. I think I can do that.

Tonight, though, it's something like 6 degrees. Stick to your ribs soup and salad. Soup will be fortified with some cheese (Vit. D) and veggies.

Another thing I need to cut back on is sodium. This is not under a doctor's directive and my pressure is just fine the way it is, but I want to be mindful of such things.

Clive and I hit the gym. It was far more crowded than usual. Everybody is
keeping their New Year's resolutions. For now. By mid-February it will be
back to normal.

Hey, Jespah, I love Joyce Vedral's workouts, and I'm so glad you mentioned her because I'd been racking my brain trying to remember her name! I used to use a book of hers that was probably the most effective exercise plan I've ever done, and I'd like to get back to that.

I'm starting with a modest goal because all I want is to get back in the habit of regular exercise, and I know I need to start small or I'll just get discouraged... So I'm just aiming for three days a week of whatever physical activity I can convince myself to do for thirty or forty minutes! If I actually manage to fit that in with the 22 units I've got this semester, I'll be proud of myself!

If I can find that Joyce Vedral book, I'll be using a combination of that workout and the elliptical.

cypher, when (not if) we meet, I'll be happy to do biceps curls with you.

Refinement for January --

Walk on even days, lift on odd days. It works better with my goofy eating plan.

Jan 1 -- shoulders, abs, back, chest (check)
Jan 2 -- treadmill 4.0 miles with varying elevation, 675 calories, 66 mins (check)
Jan 3 -- biceps, triceps, quads, hamstrings (check)
Jan 4 -- treadmill 4.0 miles with varying elevation, 600 calories, 68 mins (check)

Tough workout today. My daughter, K, joined me and I was trying to get her started on a workout. Before I knew it, I was up to 11% incline at 4.2 mph . I never quite recovered and had to slow way down and stay around 4.5%. I finished the distance but the calorie burn was much lower than I'd hoped.

Wow, that's one heckuva walking pace!

Treadmills are B-O-R-I-N-G! so I mix up the incline and pace. I start out at 4.5% and 3.4 mph and then tick up one notch on both levels for 7 mins, then I keep going up on the incline and come down on the speed for 6 mins. I do the same thing for the next 13 mins (up 7, down 6) while coming back down to 4.5%. Then I do the whole thing over again (52 mins total).

The top speed ends up being 4.4 mph but never at a top incline, which is what I did to myself today -- kept going up on both for until I was almost running uphill.

At the end I spend a few minutes working back down on both speed and incline to 3.4 mph and 0% and eventually into a slow cool down until my pulse recovers.

I gave up after 68 mins total today -- I'm not sure my pulse has recovered yet!

I hear you on the boring. I just can't use them.

I do the rower and stationary bike if I have to stay indoors.
(I'll do the elliptical too, if nobody's watching.)

The temp got up to the mid-twenties today (Farenheit) so I ran outside.

JPB, George--

I'm impressed with your accomplishments.

I stretched. I bent. I waved my legs around. I used my exercise wheels. I spend a half an hour on the stationary bicycle. I'm proud of me.

As you should be!

I won't be able to go to the gym today. Nothing scheduled, and E.G. won't be home in time. (I'm still a little annoyed with the gym for not allowing a quiet-as-a-mouse 7-year-old to sit and read while I work out, but oh well.) May be able to go tomorrow, then Monday + back to normal.

Did a fair amount of walking today, not a ton. Some lungy exercises.

Did today's set. I need a better chair or some sort of bench in the little exercise nook. There were a lot of sitting exercises today and the chair (it's made of wicker) kind of bends where it's not supposed to so that's no good.

Left knee is better but I still dare not put weight on it by itself. The knee brace and yoga mat I ordered cannot come fast enough.

Oh yeah -- another change -- I think I'm more or less off coffee and onto tea while at work. I had had nearly no coffee for the past 2 or 3 weeks or so, between holidays and then having really short days at work. I had coffee on Monday and felt too wired to sleep that night, and the last drop of coffee I had had that day was at about 11:30 AM or so. Plus I have all sorts of funky teas (we buy 'em by the case at Amazon) and so I'll just bring in my odd tea bags and little tea/fruit juice sticks and lay off the coffee completely, assuming I can stay awake at work, which I more or less can do with ease. This also gets nondairy creamer out of my diet; even the low-fat kind has calories that the tea and juice sticks just don't have.

soz, that's silly that they don't have any sort of a provision at your gym for sozlet. No child care facilities at all?

Another 5K. run for me today.
(Missed yesterday due to "cold" weather: 37F is cold for me).

Lift Olympic style weights M-W-F (high weight/low rep for strength)
Walk/Run T-Th-Sa (walk during strength training program)
Gain 15lbs of muscle
Lose 5lbs of fat
Hit weightlifting goals
Run 5k at 7.5 mph average
Zero fast food
Eat 3000-3500 healthy calories every day

Soz--

May Monday be absolutely "normal".

Jes--

I've found that mindless sipping of herbal teas has fewer calories than mindlessly nibbling anything more solid.

I clicked "submit" and I wasn't nearly finished.

Maporsche--

Your vigor is out of my league, but I'll cheer you on.

Fbaezer--

Temperatures in the 30's are cold for me, too. You are stalwart and indomitable.

********

I've done my stretching with one-pound weights and I'm off to fling my legs around before lunch.

Nope. It's small, cheap, and convenient, which is usually enough. Annoying when I lack childcare though, which thankfully is not that often. I brought her one time and she was great -- sat there the whole time reading -- and the person there agreed that she was great, but rules is rules, etc. Evidently there are people who insist their kids are perfect angels even as they run around and wreak havoc, so they can't make it behavior-based. Just an absolute no. Ah well.