gotta love those endorphins

Thanks to the "$20.10" fitness pass that gets you into ALL the municipal facilities plus the Y and whatever else for a month, I actually went to a gym tonight (Esquimalt Rec Centre) and OMG was it ever good. Treadmill! Rowing erg! Stationary bike! IPod! All good. Oh gym, how I missed thee... yes, I was seriously Pissed Off at VI Fitness at the end there, but I do so love going to the gym even if I honestly believe that it shouldn't be necessary to be healthy.

So, I had a really good first day back on the wagon. I didn't eat very much, I had a good brisk walk this morning, "swam" with Rowan this afternoon, and had a real workout this evening. Oh and I did my pushups this morning too.

Um, maybe tomorrow isn't going to feel so good. Hello, ibuprofen, I've missed you too...

I'm pretty sure it's not ACTUALLY dead so I'll keep flogging it.

I was never able to quite get back on the wagon after Christmas. And now I feel like absolute shite, which is generally enough to kick me back on. Seriously, I am not feeling well. Most of the time I want to just whine a lot - it's not FAAAIIIIR. Millions of other people can eat crap virtually all the time and they survive apparently fine. I eat a bit too much sugar and flour consistently and don't get much exercise beyond chasing Rowan on her Skuut bike, and I feel bloated and gross and I start getting heart palpitations. (I did some reading and they're most likely harmless, since there is no associated pain, dizziness or shortness of breath.)

Well, it sucks to be me doesn't it? So today I'm back on the wagon. And I've come to the conclusion that I probably need to do some portion control in order to actually lose weight.

For what it's worth, I'm only cranky about this because I'm PMSing. It's not the ideal time to restrict my food intake, but if I can make it through the next couple days, I'll be fine.

Happy, uh, Chinese New Year....

Well it looks like I missed the western New Year with the blog so we'll start back in at the Chinese New Year (which is technically on Tuesday, if you're keeping track.)

The last month was not so good, health-and-fitness-wise. Snow, travel, family gatherings, holiday celebrations, colds, food poisoning... the good thing was that I didn't quit exercising altogether - I went to the fitness centre once while we were in Whitehorse - but generally, yeah. Not good.

So, back on the wagon. Yesterday I did a strength test for pushups - 22, which is not all that bad - and so I'll start back on the pushups program tomorrow at week 3, column 2. This morning I did a run, setting myself back to week 4 of the couch to 5K program but I think I'll go for the beginning of week 5 next run because that was pretty easy.

On the food side of things, I succumbed to the lure of the christmas goodies and while I'm not mad at myself for doing it, it is REALLY hard getting off the starches again. The last couple of days haven't been too bad but I really need to have about a week of NO starches or sugars before I feel comfortable with it again. The food poisoning last week certainly didn't help - although it only lasted a day I wasn't able to face much except toast for another day or so afterwards.

As for New Year's resolutions, the only one that really concerns this blog is that I'm going to run the Times Colonist 10K. Yikes! I have barely 3 months to get myself up to running 10K. Right now, I could run 5K, with some difficulty. So I need to get myself first comfortable with 5K, then work up to 10K pretty fast. It will definitely be challenging!

To that end, I really need to start waking up earlier and going running in the morning. Not every day, but it's light early enough now that if I run Tuesdays and Fridays during the day and once on the weekend, if I can add one weekday morning run in, I think I'll be good for a while. Closer to the race I'll be needing to run every day, but I think this will suffice until mid-March.

hittin' the treadmill

After the only exercise I got today was hauling Rowan up the toboggan hill (aka Beacon Hill) five or six times, I decided that since I was all clever and made coq au vin for dinner, which just sat in the oven for 3 hours, I could go to Crystal Pool with Stirling and Rowan for Rowan's swimming lesson, and do half an hour on the treadmill and then not feel bad about missing my run. I no longer feel like a wussie for not running outside, it's about -10C and there's more than 10 cm of snow on the ground, and people here do really half-assed jobs of shoveling their sidewalks so they're actually worse than if they didn't bother.

So I did day 2, week 6 on the treadmill, which is 10 min run, 3 min walk, 10 min run. Except I forgot that you can adjust the incline on those puppies, which I should have done, because it was waaaay too easy, so I just kept running (upping the speed to entertain myself) until the staff started yelling that the pool was closed. (not at me, just generally. apparently there is no PA system there) After I got off the treadmill my breathing was back to normal instantly so I don't think I was working all that hard, although the heart rate monitor on it said 160 - briefly - just after I stopped. Then it dropped really rapidly down to 150, 140... I dunno if it was just making up its mind or reflecting my amazingly awesome cardio recovery. I am guessing the former.

Anyway, it was fun for a change. The snow is supposed to stick around for a few days so I may have to hunt down another treadmill on Tuesday and this time I will remember the incline, and maybe push myself a little more. Tuesday's run is a straight 25 minute jobbie - which reminds me, I have to discipline the iPod because it crapped out on me today. I am starting to understand why my neighbour was so eager to give it to me for free - apparently it needs a complete wipe and reinstall of everything. I don't even actually like running outside with it, it makes me feel vulnerable and I think some of the songs I have make me run too fast and I get tired before I'm done. Plus, there is enough to keep me entertained and distracted outside. But on a treadmill, the tunes are good.

Also, I think I am going to give this blog a bit of a hiatus until the new year, since I am heading into crazy-busy holiday time and I am not going to attempt any progressions on any of my exercises, just to do a few pushups occasionally and run when I can to avoid backsliding. I am sure I will cook up some sort of new year's resolutions and then the blog will be all about that. I'm sure you can hardly wait.

wussie

All right, I am officially now a soft southerner. Snowflakes started falling this afternoon and I totally bailed out of my run and walked the dog around the block. She wasn't complaining, mind you - she being a soft southern dog herself.

But I did at least ATTEMPT a run yesterday. It was right after dinner, and I doubled over with cramps 10 minutes in, but at least I tried.

meh.

I was down all of about half a pound this week. And my body fat % was back up to 37% (I think the scale WAS lying to me a little bit last week). I am tempted to stuff the scale into the closet and not weigh myself until after the holidays when I'm prepared to do a couple weeks of hard-core low-carb. I haven't eaten anything starchy or sugary, it's just going to be a slow process, I know that, and maybe weighing myself every week isn't the best thing. Although, it's not like it's going to de-motivate me, so we'll see.

And also in crappy news, my right foot is really sore. I fear it is due to my indulgent wearing of my nice boots - with a heel - to a party last night. I went for a long walk this morning but by the end of it my foot was pretty achy so I opted out of the run I'd planned and rode my bike around and to the craft fair instead. I did my pushups, too - and just barely managed the last set, but you know, that was 120 pushups, I think I can whine a little about the last bit.

Hopefully my foot will be better tomorrow and I will be able to go for a run. At least I feel healthy otherwise (knock on wood).

one hundred pushups

Today I did 100 pushups in the span of about 20 minutes. Yay! and Ow!

Also, I managed the 20-minute run at the end of the couch-to-5K week 5, and I didn't even feel like dying at the end! The last minute was hard, but I did it. Next week gets back to shorter stretches with walks in between, but the total running time goes up steadily over the next few weeks and by Christmas - I think - I should be really running a real 5K.

How in the world did people get fit before they had the internet telling them how many pushups to do and how long to run for???