WOW!

So far today I’ve gotten 45 minutes of physical activity.  This morning it was 16 minutes walking at a moderate pace while working my way through Don Quixote.  Just a few minutes ago it was another 29 minutes of my normal jogging/walking mix.  I went 2.01 miles in 29 minutes!  I’m getting faster guys!

Remember how the other day I jogged for 6 minutes and was super excited?  Well… today I jogged for 9 minutes!  In a row!  I covered 0.75 miles in that 9 minutes.  I would have done more, but I started to have trouble controlling my breathing.  So, I jogged till it hurt and then walked till it didn’t and repeated that process for 29 minutes.

I can’t tell you how exciting it was to see the time keep going and the distance counter keep going and realize that I was actually going along with it!  I haven’t jogged for that long (time or distance) since high school.  That’s 15 years!

I’m gonna get back to walking (I need another 15 minutes of cardio activity) and then follow it with some stretching and resistance training.  My lower body seems to have recovered from my recent foray into resistance training.  My upper body is still a bit sore, but it’s not outright painful.  Just enough to remind me that those muscles have been worked.  I’ll focus on lower body and abs in a bit.  I just had to stop and say WOW!

Exercise in Jeans

Admittedly, exercising in jeans isn’t the best idea in the world… but here’s the thing: I knew that if I had to change clothes I wouldn’t exercise.  Sometimes that one little thing is all that stands in the way of me and meeting that daily exercise goal.  Rather than let the fact that I was wearing inappropriate workout attire stop me, I just jumped on the treadmill and got to it.

I knew that walking on the treadmill non-stop for 30 minutes would bore me out of my mind today.  I thought I’d spice things up by walking for 5 minutes at a time and then stopping to do some form of resistance training or stretching.  So here’s how it worked:

• 5 minute walk, 1.5 minute stretch
• 5 minute walk, 100 bicep curls with 2.5 lbs
• 5 minute walk, 30 reverse flys, 30 shoulder presses, 30 lawn mower things, 10 bicep curls (all with 2.5 lbs)
• 5 minute walk, 30 chest presses, 30 flys, 10 crunches (all with 2.5 lbs)
• 5 minute walk, 30 right side bends, 30 left side bends, 30 crunches (all with 2.5 lbs), 20 leg lifts
• 5 minute walk, 30 leg circles towards the front (each leg), 30 leg circles towards the back (each leg), 40 calf raises
• 5 minute walk, 1.5 minute stretch

I ended up working out for about an hour, and the constant change-ups kept me from getting bored.  Some muscle groups feel more worked than others but it was good to get up and move.  The only downside is that my jeans began to stick to me because I was sweating so much.  Oh well, better to exercise in jeans than not exercise at all, right?

Late Afternoon Workout

I meant to workout this morning, but I ran out of time before I was supposed to meet up with my sister.  Then I went to visit mom before I came home to sit like a lump and watch Biggest Loser on Hulu.  But I was restless.  I brought the laptop into the kitchen, sat it on a chair and watched BL while I did dishes.  Still dissatisfied I went back to sitting before I realized that watching the competitors sweat so hard was reminding me that I hadn’t exercised yet so I got up and got to it.

I haven’t been following C25K for awhile now.  Mostly because I’m lazy that way.  So today, I set the treadmill to a 1% incline, warmed up for 5 minutes at 3.5mph and then jogged as long as I could before I had to walk again.  I went for 6 minutes the first time, 4 minutes the second time, 2 minutes twice more, 1 minute and then I speed walked for the last 3 minutes.  I was super excited about the first 6 minute jog – it’s the longest I’ve gone since high school!  Then I was progressively more disappointed.  To make up for it, I speed walked, but it’s not the same, ya know?

Either way in 30 minutes 27 seconds, I went 2.09 miles.  Not bad – it’s a faster pace than I’ve done so far!

When I finished with that, I did a little bit of resistance training.  I’m super sore from the past 2 days of workouts, so I tried to focus on the muscles that weren’t as sore.

• 30 bicep curls with 2.5 lbs each arm
• 30 squats with 5.0 lbs
• 30 kick backs, each leg
• 30 calf raises
• 30 girl push-ups

I stretched and now it’s time to rinse off the dried sweat.

I feel good.  The movement definitely helped loosen up the sore muscles.  I sweated a lot so I know I burned some calories.  All I have to do is find a healthy dinner so that I don’t undo all the hard work I just did!

Decent Start to My Day

I was up pretty late last night.  So, like any idiot, I decided to get up at 6am for exercise.  Yeah… didn’t work so well.  I did that thing where I get all dizzy and sweaty from waking up and getting up too fast.  When I was a kid it happened a lot more often than it does now.  I think it has something to do with lack of sleep and an increase in stress. There’s also probably a blood pressure issue too.  It took about 30 minutes to feel normal enough to exert myself.

Since I was dizzy earlier, I thought it was probably a good idea to avoid jogging.  I walked instead.  I set the incline to 2% and the speed to 3.5mph and went for it.  I ended up going 1.75 miles in 30 minutes.  Then I stretched and started some resistance training:

• 30 shoulder presses
• 30 reverse fly
• 30 crunches with 2.5 lbs weight
• 30 side thingies (each side)

The resistance training only took about 15 minutes, so I still have another 15 minutes of movement to work into my day.  Should be easy enough.

I feel good, this was a good start to my day.  Now it’s time to get ready for work, go to work, and then visit my mom tonight.  Unfortunately I have a lot to do and can’t miss another day.

Restart

So today is the day to restart my healthy life.

I jog/walked for 32 minutes and I went 2.15 miles.  The last time I did this, I was able to jog for 5 minutes at a time.  This time… only 2 minutes at a time.  I’m disappointed, but it makes sense.  If you don’t keep moving, it’s harder to do it, right?  So I cycled through 2 minute jogs and minute and a half walks.  I was covered in sweat, but it felt good.

When I finished, I stretched and got right into resistance training:

• 30 girl push-ups
• 30 reverse push-ups
• 30 high kicks with each leg
• 30 mule kicks with each leg
• 30 side kicks with each leg
• 30 calf raises
• 30 squats

Then more stretching.  Hmmm… looking back it seems I missed ab work.  I’ll do that tomorrow – I need to get ready for date night now.

I feel good.  I am confident that I will lose the 20 pounds necessary to not be “overweight”.  It won’t be easy, but I can do it.

Non-jogging day

I jogged/walked yesterday, so today was dedicated to strength training.  I have free weights at home (they’re dumbbells, really) that I use since we don’t have a gym membership.  I worked with the 2.5 lb weights and did 60 reps of each upper body exercise.  I don’t know what the exercises are called, but they left my arms feeling worked.

I went without weights for my abs and lower body.  I did 60 crunches and 60 of those other things that work the obliques.  Again, no clue on what they’re called.  My sides are a bit tired, but I feel like I could do more crunches.  We’ll see how that feels tomorrow.

For lower body, I avoided anything that involved bending my knees a lot.  After last nights jog/walk, my knee is on the achy side, so I really wanted to try to give it a rest to prep for tomorrow’s jog/walk.  Again, I did 60 of each, but I don’t know what they’re all called.

A lot of these exercises I learned with a personal trainer and through various exercise DVDs.  I’ll work on figuring out their names, but their names don’t really matter, just the results, right?

Dinner was leftover spaghetti sauce from the freezer reheated and put over spaghetti noodles.  It tasted pretty good!