new undies, here I come!

I weighed myself before I worked out today. 157 again. Sigh. That's otay. at least it's not going up and I'm back down below 160 again.

I worked out for an hour and a half today! :D On the elliptical, I did 2.5 in 30:05...Not terrible, but I'd like to improve it. I did 2.12 in 25:15, which is about how much I would run in a cross country meet in high school. It's not even close to my best time I had then, but it's better than my worst time! I did the last mile in 10:15. I was trying to make it in under 10, but it just wasn't meant to be. Then, I did about twenty minutes on the handbike. I don't know how much I did distance-wise because I was reading a magazine at the same time. I had let a girl on the swim team who was practicing borrow my goggles, so I had to wait until practice was over to get in the pool.

So, then I swam for about thirty five minutes. My ear kept hurting from the water getting in it and I was already tired from the hour of workout I had just done, so I only did a half mile, with a 50 cool down. I just did a calorie calculator and it said I burned 287 on the elliptical for 30 minutes and 305 swimming for 35 minutes. I couldn't find anything to calculate the calories for 20 minutes on the handbike, so I'll say 160 or so (I took 287 from the elliptical and divided by 30 minutes. I got about 9.5, so I subtracted that to 8 for the handbike and multiplied by 20 minutes). So, in all I burned 752 calories today exercising. Yay!!

My next plan is to do a half hour before I go to bed today, or maybe sometime tomorrow if I am too tired tonight, of sit-up/leg lift exercises to get my 3 hours for the week. Then, new undies, here I come!!

Rewards!

So, I was thinking today as I was working out about incentives to get me to work out more. It was really hard to think of things, because everything I'd read was like, "get a pedicure; go for a massage; buy a song on itunes; etc" and none of that appeals to me. well, let me rephrase that: a massage and pedicure sound AMAZING, but they cost more money than I'm willing to spend, which does not appeal to me.

I did a little homework when I got home on the internet to find other incentive ideas. I was surprised, with as vast as the internet is, there were very few sites that actually discussed ideas for incentives. Even then, it was a lot of the same things, with a few "buy a pair of jeans, buy new shoes, buy makeup" blah blah blah. WHY DO THEY ALL SAY BUY???? Why does losing weight have to have a monetary incentive? Well, as much as I just nay-say'ed it, I think I decided on a pretty good incentive. For each week that I exercise at least 3 hours, I will buy myself a pair of underwear. They are not nearly as much as a pair of jeans or shoes (even at a thrift store), not as frivolous as a pedicure, massage or makeup and something that I will be needing anyway. I resolve that they will be cute, too!!

I can even make it this week, too!! I worked out for an hour today (45 minutes on the elliptical-3.5 miles and 380 calories and 15 minutes on the machines-25 reps on triceps at 45 lbs, 20 reps on biceps at 25 lbs, 5 reps on biceps at 15 lbs) and while I won't be able to go tomorrow (staff meeting in a.m., training in p.m.) I can totally go Thursday and Friday and be able to get a new pair of undies!! :D

Oh, I weighed myself before I worked out. 157. Yay! 1 more pound down!

Combination Plate

This is going to be several updates in one, because I kept forgetting to post progress. Well, it's not that I forgot, but I would remember as I was going to bed and didn't go turn the computer back on just to update.

So, last week on Wednesday and Thursday, I did a total of 300 crunches/leg lifts. I could have told you then how many of each I did, but I forget now. It was 150 per day, and I did the graduated 20, 15, 10, 5 sequence of crunches both days, in addition to sets of oblique isolations and leg lifts.

Then, yesterday I went to zumba. I was surprised that I got to go, because all week my days have been getting confused in my head. AZL was there, which was awesome. I even went 15 minutes early and did 1.5 miles on the hand bike. Then I stuck it out the whole hour of zumba, though to be fair, she was 10 minutes late. At about 8:50, my foot started to hurt, but I decided to push through it for 10 more minutes. At 9, she said she would go 10 extra minutes since she was late, but there was no way I could stay longer with my foot hurting the way it did. :( It was really fun, though. Nice and busy with the New Year's Resolution crowd.

Last but not least, I weighed myself before I started working out. 158. I lost 2 pounds. I know it's not a lot, but I'm hoping I can keep it off.

Blech

I went to the gym for the first time in almost a month. I am very angry with myself for letting it go on so long without going. Every day I would come up with an excuse (some of them were valid, like having trainings or whatever) and talk myself out of going. I'm not proud of it and I'm publicly berating myself for it here on my blog.

Now that that's out of the way, I did 30 minutes on the elliptical. I'd say it was probably about 2.5-2.75 miles, since I was at .9 at 10 minutes and I forgot to check when I got off the machine how far it had been. Then, I did about 10 minutes on machines (2 sets of 15 reps on triceps, 50 lbs and 1 set of 15 and 1 set of 10 on biceps, 25 lbs). Finally, about 5 minutes on ab crunchy thing (1 set of 20, 1 set of 15, 1 set of 10 and 1 set of 5).

There was a zumba class going on, but it was CZL and I was 30 minutes late. AZL was taking the class, though, and she waved at me as I walked past to weigh myself in the locker room. Speaking of...bad news. 160. I had a feeling it would be about that, considering the month I was not going to the gym happened to be the month that had all the holidays in it. Sigh. Not happy at all. I have to work harder.

I probably could have done more time on the elliptical, but my heart rate was really, really high and I was getting a little concerned. It was 150 when I was going my slowest and in the 180's when I was pushing hard. Now, I have a high resting heart rate already, like 130's when I'm sitting doing nothing. For instance, here at the computer, I just counted 57 heartbeats in 30 seconds, which translates to 114 beats per minute. Not as high as 130's, but still pretty high. Anyway, even though I know my heart rate is high normally, I was getting worried about the fact that it was getting SO high, especially with the fact that I have to call the doctor to refill my cholesterol medicine and haven't taken the time to do so, so I haven't had medicine to take for about a week or so.

I am going to try to go tomorrow...maybe swim or something, I don't know. There's a zumba class at another gym I might try.

Oh, one more thing. I have noticed that I am not doing the portion control like I had been, which I'm sure contributed to the 4 lb gain. So, I'm doing it again, at least to the best of my ability. Ben and I went out to lunch Sunday and I asked for a box before I started eating anything. I know I would have eaten the whole thing if half had not been taken away right away. Hopefully this will help as well, because I need to stop eating so much.