A Love Letter

Dear Cardio,

I hate you today.

Love,

B

Miles: 5.575
Circuit: Beginner - 2

You Can't Stop the Beat

I was whiny today.

Way past whiny. My thighs still hurt going down stairs and getting out of chairs making me feel like I was possibly going to have a hot flash soon.

I had convinced myself that I only needed to do cardio today and stay away from the circuit workout even though I had scheduled them to be MWFs.

Then I consulted my exercise Yoda, Mia who told me that I needed to power through and do the circuit workout.

We talked about switching up some of the arm exercises with the lower body workout, but I figured if I was going to do it I should keep it in the same order of focusing on the zones.

Then Krisana and I walked to the union for a farewell reception. I whined more.

I left work, whining.

I returned to a cat... that whined at me.

Then I changed my clothes and pulled out the dumbbells, turned on the box fan, and got to work. (Yes, I put a comma before the "and" I'm still of the old school that does it that way. MLA will accept either as will APA.)

Interestingly my arms started to burn in the warmup of simple arm lifts. I felt dread try to wiggle its way into my heart, but focused on the playlist and making funny faces at myself in the mirror to try and get myself to not pay attention to the aches and pains.

The next pain was in the core workout, but again I powered through it and figured out that I had been doing Plank incorrectly with how I balance my weight. I changed it and I still can't hold it well.

Kamiah you will win in a "Plank off" Every. Single. Time. I just want to be able to hold it for 60 seconds without whimpering to myself.

Then came the lower workout and I started out slow it was going okay. There was pain, but I could work through it. There were moments that I was sure I was going to lose function of my legs and plummet to the ground.

Instead I made it to the cool down and "You Can't Stop the Beat" came on... so I decided to do some cardio, just a half of a mile, which turned into maybe three quarters and when I hit that I thought, well might as well just do the full mile.

Hmm.

Didn't think that was going to be today's outcome.

So yay!

Miles: 4.075
Circuit: Beginner - 2

Ceasing Ramble.

Holy Crap

That's all I can think about as I sat down after the simple walk that I just did.

Because of the circuit workout from yesterday my thighs have been screaming like a six-year old who has had their Nintendo DS taken away. It didn't hurt as much when I was walking or going up stairs, but going down stairs made me feel like I was going to have my legs fly away.

So as I walked across the parking lot to my car after work I contemplated waiting until seven to do my walking tonight.

I had nearly convinced myself until I walked up the stairs to my apartment and felt my thighs screaming protest again. I had to walk or I was going to be stuck in my chair until possibly Friday.

Unable to move.

So I did 1.575 miles in 30 minutes and my thighs still hurt, but I am proud that I powered through the pain.

Now here's hoping I don't cry tomorrow when I try to attempt the circuit workout again.


Miles: 3.075
Circuit: Beginner - 1

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.

Remembering 9/11

I keep having thoughts about September 11th circling around in my brain and posted them in a discussion forum, but after sharing them with Dany I realized I should post it on my blog too.

I remember leaving my dorm room to go to Intro to Linguistics in the morning and chatting with my best friend Beth as we headed down the hall. We peeked into our friend Becky's room and saw her staring up at the television. She stated that America was under attack.

We both looked at each other for a moment and at a loss decided to continue to class. In our class there was a buzz of misinformation going through the air. Our professor plugged on and we were let out early. Wandering through the hallways Beth and I felt distraught and that we just plainly didn't know what was going on since there wasn't access to valid information yet.

We parted paths and I entered into my next class. The professor walked in very shook up and said that he thanked us for coming, but he knew that he couldn't concentrate and we probably couldn't either.

At that time I went back to the dorm where students were congregating everywhere and the murmurs and tension filled the rooms. I slipped into Becky's room and we watched more visuals flash by on the news channels.

That's where I go blank. I can't remember what else happened that day... as it was all washed over with some water and through some fog. Like a pensieve that doesn't work correctly shadowing parts of my memory.

When I think about September 11th I think about tragedy striking the United States, but also how our country is still filled with a mentality of retribution.

Acts of terror are not to be tolerated by any nation.

Strong lines should be formed in reaction.

But hate? Hate should not be what we take from this day or any other.

It should be remembrance and the realization that we, all humans, are alike in one fundamental way. We, together, are the human race.

Listen to one another.

Learn to respect one another.

Do not let hate and fear dictate your actions.

I had to get these thoughts out of my head as I feel the day surrounding me on this college I work at now. It's an echo of the day when I was a student.

Connect to someone today.

Listen to one another.

Hug your loved ones and tell them you love them.

The beauty, what we remember when our loved ones are gone... are the little things. How they laughed, the way they smelled, and most importantly how they made us feel.

Listen to one another.

Ceasing Ramble.