Tomorrow is Gonna Hurt So Good

The weekend was lovely.

I went to the Royals game on Saturday and met up with Jenny. We walked around the stadium. I nearly caught a baseball. We stared at the ball still in the fountain. We went to the Hall of Fame and continued walking around the stadium, finally sitting down during the fourth inning. A full three hours of standing, walking, moseying, and telling hilarious stories while waiting to get our free soda for being designated drivers. I love the K.

I also may have nearly agreed to do the swimming leg of a relay triathlon. It's like Jenny had researched all my comebacks to say no. I'll get into that later.

On Sunday I headed to my parents where I played free IT "expert". I taught my Mom that her computer did, in fact, have a DVD player, but her broken collarbone and Parkinson's has made using the mouse in her left hand hard to control.

She asked at lunch for "a dvd player bought, hooked up, and a tutorial" so I went to the happy local superstore and got a dvd player for 35 dollars. I was not aware they are practically giving away dvd players for so cheap, thank you Blu-Ray.

Then began the very long process of teaching my Mom how to switch from the TV to the DVD player and back. I actually put gold nail polish on the "component/input" button and then wrote out what I thought were really really really simple instructions. It seemed difficult for her, which has sent me on a worry fest.

She's never been fabulous with electronics, but I wonder if it's that my Dad commandeers the remote or if perhaps there is something else going on.

Nevertheless it's going to make me check up on my parents more than I have before.

And onto the workout!

Miles Walked: 8.405
Circuit Training
Beginner: 1 set - 3
Beginner: 2 sets - 1

Yes, that's right I upped the circuit workout to add in a second set and while I nearly threw up during the cool down I did achieve a couple things.

We've heard my struggle with the plank so I have changed to a modified plank hoping to work on my form and hold it longer. I was able to in each set do 2 modified planks for 60 seconds each. I really thought I was going to bite it on the last one, but it felt good to accomplish that. Hopefully I'll be able to work up to 3 modified planks for 60 seconds each and then take it to the full plank.

Tomorrow is going to hurt. I can already see it coming. I just hope my thighs don't hurt when I walk down stairs. I can handle everything else without becoming a whiny baby.

Back to the a leg of a triathlon. It's at Smithville Lake (or Smithville) 500 meters and in July. I love swimming and this finally might get me to commit to getting a pool pass to the community center (insert Beth's joke here about a pass to the pool).


Ceasing Ramble

Deceiving Circuit Workout

Each day another little change.

Today I tried to get up when my alarm first turned off, but failed. So I knew that my circuit workout would be destined for evening instead of morning.

I'm honestly glad I forgot how deceiving the circuit workout is. Tiny little exercises built on top of each other to work different muscle groups and leave you thoroughly worked out.

After a brief check-in with Kamiah this morning I told her about easing into exercise and decided to do the lesser of the circuit workout that I used to do, which is just doing one set instead of two.

Thank heavens I did that for myself.

Below is the Circuit Workout that I Use:

Warm-up:
Step Touches
Arm Raises
Simulated Jump Rope
Shoulder Rolls
Neck Rolls
Marching in Place

Upper Body:
Bicep Curls
Tricep Kickbacks
Dead Lifts
Chest Flies
Shoulder Presses
Overhead Pullovers

Core:
Crunches
Oblique Crunches
Captain's Chair
Plank (I hate this so much, but keep it in there)
Back Extensions

Lower Body:
Lunges
Plie Squats
Step-ups
Reverse Lunges with Leg Lifts (wherein I start sucking wind)
Calf Raises (wherein I hate all movement)

The Cooldown:
Calf Stretch
Hamstring Stretch
One-Arm Reach
Hip Flexor Stretch
Tricep Stretch
Quad Stretch
Child's Pose (wherein I think Yoga might be awesome)
Low Back and Glute Stretch

A set is usually 10 to 12, but I make a set 12 to 15.
Some exercises are time based, such as step-ups, the plank of evil incarnate, marching in place.

Generally it kicks my ass, and when it stops kicking your ass you add another set by first finishing through all the exercises in the area and then going through again. Circuit workouts are awesome. And painful. And awesome. And sweat inducing. And Awesome.

Another tidbit that Mia and I talked about was a thought I had while walking yesterday. I am addicted to achievements on Xbox as are many individuals that I know. So why not make Exercise Achievements to give me something to strive towards...

The first couple that I could come up with were:

Walk Five Hundred Miles - 20 EXP
Walk Five Hundred More - 40 EXP

I'm sure that there are things that I should really look into that are difficult, but also easy to achieve so I have little successes. I'm not sure what all of them will be, but I'll post the achievement when I get it on my blog. Much like the image below:



If you have suggestions please let me know. I know that one should be holding the Plank position for the actual amount of time instead of always wussing out. I hate the Plank. Maybe something like "ARRRRRRRRRRRR - 10 EXP"

Be creative I'd love to have goals set by others to strive for as well.

Start Weight: 208.6 lbs.
Miles Walked: 1.5 miles
Circuit Workouts: Beginner - 1

Not Quite Sucking Wind

The re-dedication to exercise started off better than I thought it would. I didn't want to push myself back into what I used to be able to do in my height of fitness.

Because that inevitably leads to hurting the next day and putting off the exercise (I should know I've fallen into that before).

You will notice that I do not have my initial weigh-in, because perhaps I stayed up late last night playing Deathspank on Xbox and perhaps... I got up at noon. I'll put that in tomorrow.

I'd like to do measurements too, but I'll need someone to help me with that later.

Before doing my 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill tonight I checked in with my friend Kamiah to see if she would be interested in helping me stay true to the promise I made to myself.

To exercise daily.

I told her that I would like her to guilt me everyday and she asked if she could instead be very peppy.

We also talked about what motivates us, what we do during exercise and writing.

I'm glad to have her on this ride with me, because I do admire Kamiah's commitment to many things. I'm happy to have her remind me have to be committed to myself.

The actual workout had a simple goal: 30 minutes on the treadmill or 1 1/2 miles whichever took longer. It turned out to be the 30 minutes took longer, which made me happy with the first dip back into exercise waters in a while.

A Mr. Bandito note: He was fascinated with the treadmill the entire time.

Ceasing Ramble.

Wherein I Spew Words and Such

Yes, I do realize it has been over a year since I blogged, thank you for noticing. If you did at all.

With the addition of twitter into my life I couldn't really find things to blog about without my blog turning into pictures of my cat (Who is doing fabulous, thank you for asking).

So instead I've decided I'm going to take you on a ride with me. Possibly a very, very, boring ride, but a ride nonetheless.

Yesterday I took off the afternoon at work to come home, pack and set myself towards St. Joseph to pick up Dany and see Brandi Carlile in Council Bluffs, IA. I took a quick shower because I felt like a slob and decided to change into something that was not a t-shirt of the university I work at so I would not be carded every two minutes during the concert.

So I opened up my closet.

Many of you know where this is going... the dreaded change of seasons when you pull out clothes that you wore in the past, but which are strangely tighter in the arms, or just don't look quite good around your waist/hips/chest.

I saw the lady cut graphic t-shirt of Superman stretching in areas that I hadn't seen before and Ole Blue was feeling strained and I flew into a full-on thirteen year old girl tantrum that resulted in my bed full of rejected outfits.

On the drive to St. Joseph I lamented to myself, while listening to country music, that I had finally reached the tipping point of 'when you finally realize you are out of shape'.

I knew that I had been struggling on stairs more than I should, but I didn't really care.

But it wasn't until Friday afternoon when I did the meltdown of maturity to see that I need to get back on the exercise horse.

So, I'm going to instead drift my blog into daily updates on my weight, exercise, and hopefully other entertaining things of the day.

Yes, I said daily.

Bold statement.

I'm sure I'll miss a day here and there due to lack of internet, but I'll still put it in the following days post.

I'm hoping to have a bit of an announcement tomorrow, but we'll wait on that one.

Tomorrow the weigh-in and initial "when she sucks wind" exercise re-start.

Ceasing Ramble.

Poor Man's Weight Loss Challenge

Update: Neither Beth, nor I owe each other money yet.

My weight loss is in a standstill. I've had many people weigh in on what they think is happening to my body.

I think it's just trying to hold onto the fat storage because it's so damn cold outside.

I feel better and I'm eating better, which really that's what matters.

Beth and I continue to marvel at the motivation behind a penny.

Also pork and black bean verde stew is delicious. Thank you Biggest Loser recipe book.

The Poor Man's Challenge Excersice Routine

Okay, so I know I'm going to hurt tomorrow, but it's worth it.

I did weights today.

In prep of the circuit training I'm going to start on Friday.

And this is what my workout schedule is going to be like.

Sunday - Rest Day (20 minute walk)
Monday - Circuit and Light Cardio
Tuesday - Heavy Cardio
Wednesday - Circuit and Light Cardio
Thursday - Rest Day (20 minute walk)
Friday - Circuit and Light Cardio
Saturday - Heavy Cardio

My Saturday/Sunday will most likely switch back and forth depending on what is going on over the weekend, but I should be able to keep with the circuit training very well at home. It's those darn weekend in Kansas City and elsewhere that worries me, but most likely I'll just switch those around to heavier cardio if I can't take my weights with me. (Yes I own weights... I used to do crunches with a barbell weight cuddled to my chest how awesome of me huh?).

I am taking the circuit options from the Biggest Loser workout book I didn't feel like opening until today. It's pretty great because the reason I never did circuit training is I didn't know how to put together all the exercises.

And man I'm going to hurt tomorrow.

But it will be a good hurt.

The hurt of not having to pay Beth a penny.

Ceasing Ramble.

NaNoWriMo

I finally am going to join up with NaNoWriMo.





I'm not sure I can make it to the final outcome, but I'm sure going to try.

If you're not familiar with NaNoWriMo. Please visit the homepage, it's really a pretty neat little thing and flies against what is usually the issue for me in writing. Not perfecting, but just going through and spitting out the content and getting 50,000 words out in that time.

Since I was behind on remembering about NaNoWriMo, I am going to be a full week back and only have 23 days to write... add in all of the hoopla that I have this month and it might get interesting.

Follow my progress if you'd like.

And now, to think of an idea.

Hmm.

Ceasing Ramble.