Starting off

I have been exercising about 3x a week for the last two weeks. I seem to be creating a pattern.



Mondays I do zumba in the evening. It has not been easy to stay the entire hour it's offered. Believe me, I want to stay. I have a nerve problem in my foot that high-impact exercise, lots of stairs or driving long distances without using the cruise control makes my foot hurt like nobody's business. I have had it looked at by both a podiatrist and orthopedic surgeon. Their recommendations were the same and I've had varying success with the treatment. As of right now, I can't afford to continue a pricey treatment that has had a 33% success rate.

Anyway, I digress. The first two Mondays I did zumba, I was able to do it for 40 minutes before I had to go or my feet would go on strike. Yesterday I was able to do the whole hour! I should mention that I had figured out the brunt of my problems with the steps. My feet mostly hurt when there is a lot of steps on the balls of the feet. Unfortunately, I love Latin dancing (well, who am I kidding...most dancing in general) and zumba is, if you are not familiar, Latin dancing + aerobics. This ='s a LOT of steps on the balls of my feet. My solution was to do the steps on the heels instead as much as possible. I think this was what really did it in terms of allowing me to go the whole hour. I will have to try the strategy again next week (or tomorrow, but I'll get to that in a second) to see if it will work again or if it was just a fluke.



Ok, moving on. Tuesdays or Thursdays, depending on our schedule, Ben and I have been going together to work in the weight/fitness room. The first day we went, I did 60 minutes total with a combination of elliptical running (20 min), hand bike (20 min) and weight lifting (20 min). I remembered my love of the leg press from high school. It was the only machine I would want to do in the whole weight room when it came time to do weights for cross country or track. Probably because I rocked at it. I wondered how well I would do now, seeing as it is 10 year later. I started at 150 and did a few reps. I was fine, so I upped it to 200. Still fine, and increased to 250. I think I did 15(? not exactly sure) reps at 250 and could have gone up in weight, but had answered my question. I also did some reps on the pec machine. I don't remember what my weight was for that one. I didn't care as much. :)

The second day we went, we got there just before they closed, so we were only able to do 30 minutes on the machines. I split this between the stationary bike (15 min) and hand bike again (15 min).

We are going again this evening. I don't really know which machine I'll be on, but Ben talked with a "fitness advisor" last week and they showed him a machine he really likes. He wants me to try it out, so we'll see if it's available tonight.



I tried to go to a zumba class on a Wednesday morning once (I train child care staff most Wednesday evenings, so I can go into the office at around 2pm to balance it out), but apparently the county was under a snow emergency and they had canceled the morning classes. Don't ask me why the county was under the snow emergency. It was not bad at all. My only guess is that it was worse in the rural parts. Anyway, I have a free morning again tomorrow, so I'm going to give it another shot. It's a different instructor and when I spoke with her the other time, when it was canceled, she seemed really nice.



Fridays I've been swimming. The first time I believe I swam either a 500 or 600 meter. I don't remember exactly. I do know I swam for about 1/2 hour. I know, I swim slow. Give me a break, I'm trying to pace myself so I don't have a heart attack. Yeah, I said it. I'm not on cholesterol medicine for nothing. The second time I KNOW I swam an 800...I paced myself a little better that time. I don't know what the timeframe was. I think 40 minutes. This was when Ben was meeting with the fitness advisor and it lasted about an hour. I swam and showered in that amount of time, so 40 minutes sounds about right.



My ultimate goal is to get back to about 125, close to what I was in high school. I would settle for 130, but I don't want to sell myself short. We'll see what I look like at 130 and decide if I want to go for the extra 5 lbs or not. My current weight is....hold on. I want this to be accurate. I shall go weigh myself right now. Ok, drumroll please. My current weight is 154.6....I'm not happy about it. I didn't want to get above 150 at all. Hell, I didn't want to get above 140, but I let it happen. I am comfortable with my body. I know I need to lose weight, but I also think I am attractive (at times). That has created a number of self-concept problems. On the one hand, I'm more comfortable with my body than I was when I weighed 120. I feel more attractive now than I did when I weighed 120. A part of me is afraid if I lose weight, I will also lose some of the self-confidence I've gained as I've gained weight. I know it is unreasonable and illogical, but I still worry. I know I need to be at a healthier weight. If I didn't, I would be doing this. I know that 154.6 is not exactly the ideal weight for someone at 5'2". According to www.halls.md, it says that the "medical recommendation" for my height would be 104-137. So, I guess my 130 goal is ok.



Ok, so that's pretty much it for right now. I promise, future blogs will not be this long. This time was just an intro and also a catch-up for the last two weeks.



Off I go!