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???

stronger

I've felt crappy for the past couple of days - some sinus thing, I think - and I bailed on Marci for going to Esquimalt Rec centre yesterday. She went anyway, and it turned out that she's having similar sinus things so I felt like a bit of a tool for bailing.

So I made a point of hauling out the pilates dvd in the afternoon and I did it, and felt better, then I did my pushups - Week 5! - and struggled through the first couple of sets then my muscles adjusted, or something, and I knocked off 27 in my last set - for a total of 93 pushups within the span of about an hour. Maybe an hour and a half... Rowan woke up after my first set and then I forgot I was doing pushups for a while, but then I did the last bits fairly close together. I am getting close to the point where I can DO 100 pushups in a certain time frame - probably half an hour is doable, maybe even 15 minutes, and I can foresee a time when the full 100 pushups in one set is not unachievable. The plan was also to do a bunch of squats but that just didn't happen.

Today is turning out to be a very difficult child day so I think by about 4:30 I will be more than ready to toss her next door and go for a run. My next scheduled run is 20 minutes non-stop, which worries me a little bit but I think I can do it.

well THAT explains it

If my very fancy scale is not lying to me, I've dropped 4% body fat since the end of October - down to 35%!!! I kind of think it's telling the truth, because my clothes are fitting me in a way I would expect if I were 5 lbs lighter than I actually am. So YAY PUSHUPS!!! And misc other weights I've been doing... but it's mostly been the pushups.

progress is progress

Down another pound this week. I missed Tuesday's workout but ran and did pushups Friday. Today I ran halfway across the park to get to coffee on time, but I ran the downhill part so that doesn't really count and I will go out for a proper run this afternoon. I'm going to do my pushups in a bit and I think I'll do just plain squats with the laundry detergent as well. I don't feel like going up to Sue's for a workout and she's got bugs now too anyway.

The belt I normally wear has probably 2 inches more of a "tail" on it now than it used to. :-D

Ooo, and because I seem to have been abandoned by the rest of the family today, and the chores are mostly done, I think I will haul out my pilates DVD too. And I can still spend a good amount of time knitting. It's better than a spa day.

Well no, not really. But it's cheaper than a spa day!

should I try to exercise if I already feel like crap?

Yesterday I was supposed to do a run and pushups. Unfortunately, the dog had a seizure in the middle of the night, necessitating half an hour of cleanup and the child sleeping crammed into a single bed with me for the remainder of the night.

So I wasn't feeling great the next morning. Plus the viruses decided to come back and make my nose stuffy, although I had no other cold symptoms. Physically, I probably could have managed a run, but I wouldn't have enjoyed it. Plus the dog needed a day of couch-time, so I didn't have a need to get her out too.

I pretty much sat on my butt all day, and I'm ok with that. I missed a run, oh well. I did my pushups today - I'm on week 4 now! - and my nose is completely clear and I feel much better. I feel a bit like the last two weeks have been a write-off, but I think there's a greater danger in too much self-castigation than in a bit of justified slacking. I'll squeeze a run in on Friday, somehow, and I'm looking forward to it.

Also, I have discovered that squat-overhead press exercises with the laundry detergent container are pretty great quick full-body workouts, if done in sets of 12.

exercise is good, but viruses work too

I'm down another pound and a half this week, after skipping my Tuesday workouts and only managing a run on Friday - no pushups or weights. I could almost feel my body bashing the viruses into submission, so maybe that had something to do with it. I was worried it was muscle atrophy but I did my pushups this morning - I redid the last day of week 3 instead of moving on to week 4, but it was ridiculously easy and I knocked off 20 in my last set, so I don't think my muscles suffered any from the almost-week of rest.

So I think I'm just going to keep going as I am until after Christmas, then in January do a couple weeks of super-low-carb. We're heading into the holiday-party season now, and while I don't have a problem avoiding the cookies and whatnot, denying myself the joys of carrots and apples seems just mean. And probably unnecessary.

Today I'm going to do my run then head up to Sue's for a weights workout. I'm following the beginner weight routines on stumptuous.com, which is a fantastically awesome site that everyone should check out.

is it wrong that it's harder to resist my own cooking?

Today is my little girl's birthday - she is 3! Growing so fast... sniff. And now able to make certain birthday requests. Like strawberry cupcakes.

Hoo boy - this was WAY harder than hallowe'en. Hallowe'en is just crap junk, that I find it easy to say no to for a couple of reasons. But my own baking? Uuuurrrghhhh...

The upshot of it was, I made Stirling test the cupcakes, taking only the tiniest nibble to reassure myself he wasn't just humouring me that they were good. But the icing... the icing got the better of me. It started with a tiny lick, just to make sure I had the sugar/creamcheese balance right. Then I had to make sure it was ok with the strawberry puree added in. Then it was some sort of crime to leave the bowl with ANY microbial icing remains, and Stirling was in the tub, so what was I supposed to do?

So I ate some icing. Not as much as I would have in the good old days (when I would have baked cinnamon buns this morning just to "use up" the leftovers) but some. And I am not surprised that I am way hungrier today than I have been for a while, but I have still remained in control and not eaten anything starchy or sugary, except some grapes that Stirling bought that I'm reluctant to give to Rowan because they're non-organic and probably loaded with pesticides. (So, yeah, I shouldn't eat them either.) But this is apparently what happens when one sends one's husband to the grocery store with no cash and the request for cupcake papers that cost all of $1.50 - he feels obligated to buy something else.

ANYWAY my jeans are fitting much better and my cold is going away, so I'm not going to get all freaked out about a little icing.

ack, stupid viruses

Well so much for my plans this week - the cold bugs caught up with me. I think I can get rid of them quickly though. They seem feeble. I expect that sitting on my ass today with multiple cups of tea, some good chicken broth with kimchee and a couple zinc lozenges (and a hot bath) ought to do them in. But I can't do a cold on super-low-carb because I NEED oranges, so I'm just going to postpone that. And my run that I was supposed to do today, that just doesn't seem like a good idea.

Mmmmm bath....

Oh, and I've discovered a great new way to not snack - knitting! (But my appetite has been crap for the last couple days anyway.)

Hrm.

So I've been starch-and-sugar-free for 3 weeks and I've lost all of 5 lbs. Well, I guess that's not bad. I missed my Friday workout because I was too busy being interviewed on TV and stuff, but I ran yesterday - week 4! 5 minute running stretches! - and I seem to recall managing my pushups on Friday too. I am going to do a garage workout today, I think - and ride my bike up there for extra fun.

I'm still amazed at how well the running is going. I can DO it! I have never, ever been a runner, and I am resorting to it out of desperation - but I am pleasantly surprised that it's not been horrible or uncomfortable or anything. I feel good at the end of a run, and while my legs do protest on the last leg, it's not unbearable.

But I would like to see a little more weight loss. Just cause. I'm going to do a 2-week super-low-carb stint just to kick-start the weight loss. It's not actually that hard, at this time of year... there are no tomatoes, no fruit except apples and pears, and the only carberific stuff around is yogurt, milk, carrots, rutabagas, beets... I can avoid those for a couple weeks. Lots of kale and cabbage and greenery!

A real workout

Today I did the first "real" workout I've done in a long time. I did my run (and messed up and ran an extra 3-minute block instead of a 90-sec one... oh well, it felt good!) and then I popped over to my friend Sue's garage where my weights now live. I had forgotten how absolutely crappy that weight set is, but oh well... it will have to suffice. They're heavy things I can lift, if not exactly comfortably.

I did my pushups there too - bumped down to column 1 of the hundredpushups program, but it doesn't matter, I'll get there in the end. I alternated sets of pushups with weights - squats, then deadlifts, then shoulder presses, bicep curls, and chest presses until I realized they were just backwards pushups and probably redundant by that point. And I did lots of nice stretching plus my back exercises, which I have been neglected. I felt all lovely and loose and floppy afterwards.

So... tomorrow is a rest day, then Thursday is a pushup day and Friday is the start of week 4 of the running program, which involves 5-minute blocks of running, yikes! I guess I can manage it.

Food is still no problem, and I am finding myself far less hungry as time goes by. It's noon, and I'm not starving for lunch like I used to be on an oatmeal breakfast.

progress

I'm more than halfway through week 3 of the Couch to 5K running program and it's going really well. I am SO SO SO thankful for my orthotics - *all* my running foot pain is completely gone and I don't even think about my feet when I'm running. Today the last leg was kinda hurty but in a good way - it made me think "oh, hello leg muscles, welcome back and you have 2 more minutes of running to put up with, enjoy!"

I took my weight set over to my friend's garage and will start doing quick weight routines there - since there is a mat, and space - three times a week.

I am just heading into week 3 of the hundred pushups program. I've been here before and I know week 3 gets HARD but I will do it, I will I will I will.

And still - no problem laying off the starch & sugar. I feel really good and really energetic.

I don't think I've lost any more weight though... I'm pretty sure I will need to step up my activity level, or go super-low-carb for 2 weeks to kick-start some weight loss... we will see, right now I am just enjoying being active and feeling good.

me + starch = bad

Today at lunch I was in pantry-cleanout mode and decided to heat up an ancient can of Caribbean-style black beans for Rowan and me. They didn't have any sugar in them and I figured that they're high enough in fibre to cushion the starch from my brain.

Um, no. I DID throw in some leftover pork, and I ate mine with gobs of sour cream for extra fat (and, indeed, 1/2 a small bowl was enough to make me feel full). But 20 minutes later I found myself at the fridge with my hand reaching towards my crunchy turnip sticks. I was able to stop myself and realize that I was still full from lunch and had NO reason to eat them, but it was a bit scary - I didn't even think about it until the turnip sticks were in my hand. And yes, it was just turnip sticks, which are not about to make anyone fat - but I'm sure if there HAD been chips or something around, my little paws would have been heading for them.

Also, I feel kind of bleh this afternoon and couldn't even convince myself to ride Bikey over to Cook St. Village. That's really not cool.

So no more beans, for now... they were delicious, but fortunately Rowan really liked them (she actually ate nearly twice as much as me! but she hardly ate any breakfast) so she can have the rest for lunch tomorrow.

feeling good

It's been almost a week since my big mind-shift and I've had no problem avoiding sugars and starches. The only real challenge was a party last night where almost everything was sugary and/or starchy, but I'd had a good dinner and I didn't really want any of it. I did, however, find it difficult to socialize because everyone was clustered around the food and it *was* hard to keep looking at it.

So, Hallowe'en is over, and I didn't even come close to slipping up. Woo!

I feel really good, actually, more physically than mentally. I am still adjusting to the thoughts that this mode of eating is permanent. On one hand, I really believe that it's a much healthier way to eat - but I will miss bread, especially. Not only its taste, but its versatility and ease of use. I suppose I will get over it eventually, and maybe in 5 or 10 years I'll see if I CAN eat just little bits - but to be honest, I'm a little scared of that so I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it.

I've also been doing the hundredpushups.com program and the Couch to 5K running program. Both are going well, and it's a time investment I can manage. Running is SO much more comfortable with my new orthotics, I am kicking myself for not getting them sooner!

Overall I feel less bloated and yucky, and yesterday I weighed myself and I'm down to 161.5. My clothes are more comfortable already.

So - so far, so good!

so far so good

I made it through Survivor night without eating any cupcakes. Or really wanting to, even though they came from the good place, not the yucky vegan place. (Vegan cupcakes are a stupid idea. Vegans ought to be eating only the very freshest and best greenery, nuts and seeds, and vast vast amounts of them, to have any hope of even approaching decent health. Cupcakes are the LAST thing they need.)

Tomorrow will be a bigger challenge - Hallowe'en! Then another hallowe'en party on Saturday - but at least I've been requested to make paté for that. I was supposed to make pumpkin tarts for the party tomorrow but my pumpkin turned out to be not a pie pumpkin. I think it was either a mutant freak or mislabeled... but it was just not good, so I shall make mince tarts instead, seasonality be damned, and use up some of the lovely green-tomato mincemeat I have in the pantry.

self-discovery, thanks to CBC

It's been a while since I posted. I've been in total denial mode - the "oh, I'll get back on that exercise thing on Monday" kind of denial. But I wanted to post about a recent self-realization in hopes that it really starts to permeate my being (at the risk of sounding a bit hippy-dippy).

So I was listening to Quirks & Quarks this week, and they had on a psychologist who researches brain differences between overweight and normal weight people. She was looking at the pleasure-centre activation using food as a stimulus (chocolate milkshakes to be precise) and expecting to see that in overweight people there would be more activation in the pleasure area (cause if you like something, you do it more, right?) As it turns out, there was LESS activation. Overweight people, apparently, get LESS enjoyment out of food. Interestingly, addictions researchers see a similar effect with people whose addictions are progressing - the measurable pleasure of whatever it is they're imbibing in actually decreases over time, prompting the addict to need more.

This totally made sense to me. For me - I would hesitate to say that ALL overweight people have this problem. I can eat a meal and stop, but if I start snacking, ESPECIALLY when I don't really need to, I can't stop eating. I'll have a piece of toast or whatever and think "I don't need any more" and then go back and make another one. And then have some cookies. And then an apple, because I need to eat something healthy. And then another cookie. And then it's dinner time.

So I thought "huh. I think I'm a food addict." I've always tried to ignore that possibility, preferring instead to believe that there was nothing wrong with me that a little willpower wouldn't fix, knowing that I'd been able to lose weight in the past, conveniently ignoring the part where it all came back on the minute any extra stress entered my life. But I think I have to face the fact that there IS something wrong with my brain - leaving aside, for now, the question of from whence this defect came - and I CAN do something about it in the same way that alcoholics and drug addicts can.

Of course, I can't stop eating. But I can stop eating the foods that trigger out-of-control eating, which is anything starchy or sweet. A bit of internet research quickly showed that almost all the people who've beaten an eating addiction have done so by cutting out starchy-sweet things. I've known for a long time that these foods are not doing me any favours but now I have to realize that my brain is expecting a big bang-for-buck in terms of pleasure from these things and it's not getting it, so it wants me to eat more. Well, from now on, the old brain is going to have to make do with pleasures from cheese and veggies. Deal, brain. (I think the problem IS actually specific to starchy-sweet stuff, because we are evolutionarily built to load up on that sort of stuff whenever it's around - and the best way to make someone do something is to make it fun. Hence the link between starchy-sweet and pleasure. I think the researchers would have had entirely different results had they used cheese as the the stimulus.)

For the last 2 days I've eaten no starch or sugar. And I'm not missing it, surprisingly. The real test will be the Hallowe'en parties this weekend - if I can make it through those, I can make it through Christmas. The problem in the past has been that I always thought I could get back on the wagon easily enough. Now I know that's not true. If I eat one jellybean, I will eat more.

Also, I got orthotics and I've been jogging a couple times a week. It's not fun, but I'm doing it.

And in the interests of full disclosure, my current weight is 164 lbs.

ruminations on why I suck

Ok, so I've been thinking over the past few weeks when I have been eating lots (of crap and good stuff, about equally) and not exercising exactly why this is so.

First, I think I'm not really such a fan of myself when I go into "on the wagon" mode. I'm pretty hard-core and unforgiving, and if I slip up or go into a situation where I know I'll slip up (usually involving either alcohol and desserts or both - ie, your average summer dinner party/bbq) then I stress about it, eventually cave happily and then completely lose my motivation to not do the same thing the next day. There's no "slippery slope" for me, just a big ol' cliff.

Second, the whole concept of making time for exercise is not doing it for me right now. Part of it is that I really miss gym workouts, unfortunately. I vastly prefer weights to body-weight exercises. I like being able to spend an hour or two focusing on my body rather than 20-30 minutes with one ear on the child monitor, looking at all the laundry I haven't folded and the dishes I haven't done. (If the laundry and dishes have been done, you can be sure the exercising didn't happen.) I could get a drop-in pass thingy for the Y and go there, but I'm already taking off several nights a week for Madrona Farm fundraising meetings and girl nights at the pub, and frankly I don't want to give either of those up. Plus it's an extra expense that we don't need.

So... what to do. I think I really, really need to work on my eating habits and my relationship with food. I am a tad obsessed with food from a number of directions: taste, preparation of, nutrition, ecology, sustainability/political... it's my #1 thing. The problem is that it's also my #1 comfort, too. If I feel stressed, bored, scared, worried, whatever, the first thing I want to do is occupy my brain with a book or the internet and stuff my face with whatever food is handy. That's gotta stop. Also, I eat on the go too much, and that's just a bad habit.

Starting right now, I'm not going to eat at the computer, or while driving, walking or reading. If I want to eat, I eat - but nothing else (except chat. That's ok.) Eating on its own doesn't have the same comfort value for me as eating with an occupied brain, so I think this will help.

I'm also going to try to use Bikey more. I like Bikey, and Rowan will now consent to riding on Bikey at more than a walking pace so it's getting more practical to do shopping and stuff with Bikey. I need to get some paniers or possibly a light cargo trailer though, because if I get more than a couple things at the grocery store, my backpack squishes Rowan when we ride. And, there is a limit to how much I can stuff in the backpack anyway. Also, biking saves gas, so even when I'm feeling lazy, I can get over it by being averse to spending money on gas. It now costs nearly $60 to fill up a Honda Civic. Even though we get over 500km per tank, that's still a big chunk of change.

So, we'll see how this goes. Once I've got my eating habits under control and I'm getting a moderate amount of exercise, if the weight doesn't come off at least a little bit then I'll get my thyroid checked. But I think gluttony is more to blame than malfunctioning body parts.

ow ow ow ow ow ow

Today's circuit:

10 burpees
10 each side single-leg squat (beginner's kind, sitting down to a chair)
10 shoulder pushups (knees on back of couch, pushup sort of vertical-like... ideally this is a handstand pushup, but I'm not there yet)
10 each side lunges (these started out as weighted lunges until there was a painful pop sort of thing in my inner thigh)
20 crunches

OMG that was painful. I hurt now. There is ibuprofen in my future. Oh, and I made it through the circuit only 4 times. I guess there's a lot of room for improvement there!

In other news, am having a lot of difficulty controlling my eating, to the point that I have actually, what with the slacking over the last couple weeks, put on 6 lbs. Uuugghhh. I may eat largely healthy food but I don't have healthy eating habits. I eat too much, generally, and I deal with stress or procrastinating by eating AND doing something else at the same time, I think in order to overload my brain with fun things so it doesn't have time to remind me that I really ought to be cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom, folding the laundry, writing an article, phoning someone, putting Rowan's toys away, culling my book collection, making crackers, or whatever. I have never been particularly good at self-management, and being an effective domestic engineer is ALL about the self-management. I keep everyone well-fed, to be sure - I have no problem planning and executing days-long food prep tasks like bread or whatever - but cleaning? laundry? not so much. There are a lot of factors behind that, but let's just sum up with a simple "I don't like cleaning very much." Eating helps me avoid cleaning, because obviously it's far more important for me to have a snack at any given time than pick up a few toys, or wipe the kitchen counters.

I suck. I KNOW I shouldn't do it, but I do anyway. Right now I really, really need to clean the kitchen - but here I am, finishing off the rest of the morning smoothie and blogging. And I HAVE sort of eaten lunch, although not very much of it. And that wasn't even a good lunch, I finished off Rowan's croissant and ham sandwiches. It's a vicious circle, too, because the more I procrastinate on housework and stuff, the more stressed I get, and the more I want to stuff my face and occupy my brain with unimportant things. And also, when I get stressed, I feel I deserve treats. Really, I do NOT deserve treats, yet somehow my brain manages to convince me otherwise. Sigh.

Well, I guess I just have to work on it. If anyone has any tips for dealing with this kind of eating, let me know.

Ummm... maybe I should start a food journal? An online one... but that would be seriously boring as hell. I'll put it in tiny print so if you don't want to read it, you don't have to.

Oh and the other thing? I think my coffee is sabotaging me... but I looooove my coffee. More sighing.

Food journal (will update later with the rest of the day)
- coffee with half & half
- smoothie: pint of kefir, 2 raw eggs, banana, 1/2 cup frozen fruit
- 1/2 croissant with butter & ham
- 1/4 ham sandwich on homemade bread (no crusts)
- apple
- 2 slices pizza (eating on the run to a meeting)
- bowl of ham & bean soup and a slice of bread

20 minutes, what can you do?

I've been slacking for the past few weeks. Bit of jogging here and there, the odd pushup day, but no real exercise. And I don't feel so hot. So, back on the wagon.

Yesterday I booted it on Bikey over to Sue's house, which is about a 20-25 min ride each way. It was fun, I like pushing hard on the bike because I can get my heart rate up and sustain it and the terrain - mostly flat with a few short intense hills - is good for the leg muscles. I would like to do more with Bikey but the child is averse to going fast. So Bikey, while slightly faster than walking, is actually less exercise than pushing the stroller when the child is involved. This summer's project: turn the child into a speed demon. And just try to use Bikey more generally.

Today I started my 3-times-weekly-honest-for-real bodyweight/LDC circuits. Basically, I give myself 20 minutes to do as many times through a 5-exercise circuit as I can. I've made up 3 circuits, each with different exercises. After 4 weeks, I will make new circuits.

Today:
- 10 x pushup
- 10 x 25lb LDC squat
- 10 x leg-raise ab thingies (lie on the floor, abs tight to support back, use abs to pull legs from parallel to feet over head, repeat)
- 2 x 10 x arm circles, both directions (40 arm circles total, use full range of shoulder motion)
- 10 x shoulder bridge with leg raise, both sides. (Shoulder bridge using one leg, other leg goes up and down 10 times)

I got through 5 reps of the circuit. Hey, that's 50 pushups! (Well, some of them kinda sucked a little.)

On Wednesday I will post my next circuit.

Originally I had planned headstand leg raises on this circuit. I clearly remember, circa age 12 or so, doing lots of headstands. However, I was probably 40 lbs lighter and in considerably better shape, and now it seems my neck will not permit this. I'll keep trying but it seems like a bad idea now.

harder than it looks

Yesterday, for the first time, I actually managed the 50 pushup goal - mostly because after a couple weeks of intermittent bursts of pushups, I got to the point where I can knock off sets of 10 instead of sets of 5, and it's a whole lot easier to remember to do 10 pushups 5 times in a day than it is to remember to do 5 pushups 10 times in a day.

Today I'm adding in a new thing - Get-Ups. Basically, hold a weight above your head in one hand, while lying or reclining, and then stand up, holding the weight up the whole time. Then lie down again, but keep the weight up. There are refined versions of this kicking around on some of the kettlebell sites, usually called "Turkish Get-ups" but I like the one illustrated on stumptuous best (it's about halfway down the page). It looks like she's using a sissy weight, but really, not so much. I used my 7-lb LDC and that was sufficient for 5 on each side to feel like I was doing something. Actually, it was kinda hard. Getting up once is easy, and usually it's sufficient for whatever purpose - but getting up from lying down over and over, and holding a weight over your head at the same time is challenging. I won't lie and say it's *fun* but it's technically easy enough and quickly enough accomplished that it's a good little "while the kettle's coming to a boil" exercise, if you get bored of pushups.

(Um, and on the weight front, I have to admit that I totally fell off the wagon while my mom and my sister were visiting and I actually put on 3 or 4 lbs. Bad me. I'm back on the wagon now and experimenting with intermittent fasting - I will post on that if it turns out to be actually a good thing. One of those "evolutionary biology theory predicts this will be good for you but let's see how reality works out" things. I will say at this point that it is entirely possible - based on one data point - to go for 24 hours without food and be hungry without feeling any decrease in energy or mood.)

I was sick, but now I'm doing 50 pushups a day

Well not really. Today I've managed 30, but I forgot to start until well after noon. See, you don't do the pushups all at once, you do them as many at a time as you can, and then you just do them as frequently as you need to in order to hit 50 a day. I just made this up, but it seems like if I do this every day, it'll do me some good.

Anyway, it was the first day I've done any kind of intentional exercise in the past week or more because last Friday (the one before this past one... er, the 11th?) I started to feel a bit squiffy in the back of my throat, then Saturday I had a raging fever (but still dragged my butt around town with my mom because it was our planned dinner/theatre night out), then Sunday I developed a wretchedly nasty sore throat that lasted most of last week. But I'm better now. I still got some exercise throughout the week, coughing and wheezing through a couple "why did we walk this far without the stroller, and my GOD that child is heavy" sessions... but this week I should be back on the real exercise.

dogs are good for you

When I can, I like to take Daisy out for a good hike, because the vet said she's not allowed to chase balls anymore - it's bad for her joints and eventually she'll tear her ACL - but she still needs a good amount of exercise. So I found the nearest park with a lot of vertical space and forest to play deer in - Mt. Doug Park - and I take Daisy there a lot. It's also very close to the in-laws, so when I drop Rowan off there to play with them, it's easy to take Daisy for a hike.

Yesterday we did a good one - about 45 minutes, most of which was a slow climb, then a steep descent. That seems best, exercise-wise. Anyway, it was a lovely day and a nice hike. Then in the evening I went swimming with the husband and the child, they played while I swam lengths. I need googles so I can do a proper front crawl - my eyes just won't tolerate being open under water anymore. I should probably LEARN to do a proper front crawl too, come to think of it. This doesn't really fit in the "cheap" range, because it's $4 something to go to the pool, but it's a nice family outing. And swimming is awesome for your arms.

actual decent workout

Yay I managed a real workout today!

5 rounds of:

10 burpees
10 shoulder presses (using 25-lb LDC)
8 table pull-ups
10 squats, holding the LDC

It took me about 20 minutes, and my burpees were in no way as jumpalicious as the ones in the video, and I remembered after about 3 of them how much I'd hated them in elementary school. But I persevered, finished the workout, stretched a bit, then the child woke up. Excellent timing today!

it works if you can actually do it

Yesterday I was feeling bloated and totally gross, partly from the Chinese food pig-out (er, make that "wedding feast") for Stirling's cousin on Saturday night, and partly from PMS, which doesn't usually afflict me but it is about that time.

Stirling and the child took off to the pool, and the dog started casting longing gazes my way, and I really did want to feel better... so I put on my stylish jogging outfit (even better than the other day - I wore a hot pink hoodie on top of my maroon & taupe pants) and took the hound for a jog. I didn't go the full 5K and I didn't jog the whole way, but I did make sure Daisy had to trot briskly to keep up with me the whole way.

I felt better when I came home, so I did some pushups and table pull-ups and some lower back exercises.

Oh, and my gym sent me a "you don't *really* want to break up do you?" letter and apparently although my last payment was April 1, I still am entitled to work out there until June 4. Huh?

So this week I'm going to try to work out every day. And I'm going to inflate the tires on the jogging stroller and see if I can manage that... errrggghhhh

the gym is history

I finally actually cancelled my gym membership yesterday. I can go for the next month, thanks to their silly "processing time" what-what. I might even do that. Anyway, yesterday I did an all-out, lift as much as I felt like kind of workout at the gym, because when will I get to see a squat bar again??? fully expecting to be sore today, but apparently I didn't push myself as hard as I might have, because I wasn't sore this morning. I even felt like I'd pulled a muscle yesterday, but no. And I didn't even hit the ibuprofen! (cause we ran out.)

So today I got started on the hard-core home workouts. I went to the crossfit site and the workout of the day consisted of 3 rounds of a 400m sprint, 21 kettlebell swings and 12 pullups. Well, I can't be running 400m down the street while the child's asleep, I don't own a kettlebell and I have no pullup bar. (Let's leave aside, for the moment, the fact that I cannot actually DO a pullup. Heh.)

But - I have a stepstool, a pedometer, an empty big-ass laundry detergent container, and a table. So, I filled up the laundry detergent container (LDC) with water and found that it weighed 25 lbs - all good - checked to make sure the pedometer sort of worked, and did 3 rounds of 400 stepups (as measured by the pedometer, I wasn't up to *counting* to 400), 21 LDC swings, and 12 table pullups, wherein one lies under the table, grabs the edge, and pulls up. It's sort of more a reverse pushup than a pullup, but it's still sufficiently hard and in the spirit of honesty I will say that I did not do 12 in a set. Oh, and the child awoke just as I was finishing the 2nd round so I never really finished the workout either - according to my spiffy timex, about 13 minutes had elapsed. 13 minutes is better than no minutes!!!

It was bloody hard though, definitely had me sweating and puffing, and if I can get my act together to work out before the child is likely to wake up, it'll be all good.

sugar is not my friend

Ok, so it's the first time in 3 days I've had a chance to exercise and I feel like someone stomped on my head, and I'm pretty sure it's because I just HAD to "take care" of the leftover carmelized apples that went on my father-in-law's birthday cheesecake.

Dummy.

I'm gonna take the last advil, wait 10 minutes, and do some shovelgloving. It's a good time.

Getting serious with the cheap

After a nearly 10-year relationship, I'm breaking up with my gym.

We don't spend enough time together. It's $34/mo down the drain. Plus, the gym folk have turned into poo-heads, they're all aggro about selling stuff and they're pushy and obnoxious and they were mean to a friend of mine.

So it's over. But I still want to get fit-ified, so I'm gonna do it at home, without spending any money or accumulating any exercrap, and most of the workouts need to be doable in my living room while my child sleeps or otherwise amuses herself.

I figure a combination of bodyweight exercises, stuff like pilates (for which I already have a DVD so it doesn't count as an expense and it was only $10 anyhow), and lifting some heavy things ought to do it. I was floundering around trying to figure out a routine, or a workout schedule or something when I came across crossfit.com - which is pretty much what I was aiming for, except with some modifications on the olympic lifts part because as much as I'd like one, there's no room for an olympic weight set in the living room. So my huge-ass laundry detergent containers filled with water will have to do what they can as weights, and the rest I can probably manage.

For anyone else wanting to get fit 4 cheap, follow along as I shamelessly rip off the workout of the day (WOD) on crossfit.com and adapt it to my equipment-less living room!

Today turned out to be a great day to get started because the WOD consisted of... a 5 k run. Now THAT I have equipment for, and the child was fortunately at her grandparents' place so I took the hound and ran to Clover Point and back, which I *think* is 5 k from my house but I will check with the car odometer to be sure when I go out later. Anyway, I did it in 34 minutes, which is not going to get me on any running team anytime soon, BUT I did run the whole way, even the uphill-ish bits with the wind and rain against me, and I didn't even hate it.

Oh, it's customary to state goals and whatnot, isn't it? Ok, I wanna get down to 25% body fat by the time we go to Hawaii so I look all cute in my hideous floral-print bathing suit. How's that for vain stupid goal-setting? Let's see if I can do it.

Below is the "before" picture of me. 152 lbs, 38% body fat. Note the stylish workout togs. No lululemon for me! Also, my face is all red because I forgot to take the picture BEFORE my run.