Category: exercise

Well, I Didn’t Die

94804a3965fcb0832bbde32e2bbf81d1After lingering on death’s doorstep for week upon week, it’s nice to mostly be able to breathe now, and my raspy voice is slowly getting back to normal after a solid month of trying my damnedest to cough both lungs up.  To celebrate my newly-reclaimed sort-of health, I signed up for Spinning class yesterday.

When I got winded just climbing the staircase to class, I started to seriously doubt the wisdom of said decision.  Ummm, maybe this is too soon!  I quickly did the math: it had been over a month since my last class, thanks to the holidays and then the cold/cough from hell.  I wondered if it was too late to sneak out of the room and flee to the safety of my valiant steed (also known as my car).

Too late.  Music started.  I pedaled tentatively, and just as a false sense of security washed over me, my nose started to run, and I felt woefully out of breath.  Being sick for so long has left me with no lung capacity whatsoever.  How undignified would it be to keel over, right off the bike and onto the floor, with a definitive thud?

A few miles in, my lungs complained, and I started coughing.  I drank some water and just paced myself.  Maybe I wasn’t going 100 miles per hour like my super-fit robo-instructor.  In fact, maybe I was pedaling with all the grace and finesse of a drunk toddler on a Big Wheels, but hey, I was pedaling, right?

By the grace of god, I finished class in one piece, still upright on the bike.  Some days, that is accomplishment enough!

I hopped (okay, scrambled clumsily) off the bike to stretch, and my legs were like rubber, shaky and woozy.  Great!  Now everyone really is going to think I am under the influence of some illicit substance.  I can’t even walk straight.

I made it to my car, fist-pumped in victory, and made my way home to share my courageous tale of conquest and dominion with my husband.  I’m sure he was just hiding how impressed he was, you know, keeping it on the down-low so I stay humble.

Time to sign up for my next class!

I Hate Working Out!

Working out when you are overweight and out of shape is not exactly an enjoyable experience.  I am now at my highest weight ever, and that’s not going to change unless I get moving and start eating better.   I set a goal of doing some sort of activity, anything, even if it’s just walking around our yard flapping my arms and squawking like a chicken, every day in March.  (And no, I don’t really do that. Or at least I haven’t yet!)

Great plan, until I actually had to do it.  I came home from work on March 1st wishing I had never set such an evil, masochistic goal.  I didn’t want to work out.  Have you ever just absolutely, positively not wanted to do something with such a passion and intensity that you could declare it from the rooftops?  That’s how I felt.  I’d rather have done almost anything else than work out.

I remembered I hadn’t done the other workout sections of my new Wedding Workout DVD, so reluctantly I popped in that DVD and tried the cardio section.  Not bad.  I like simple choreography, nothing complex, since my feet have their own mind and aren’t always on the same page as my brain or any other part of my body.  The instructor gives clear cues and isn’t annoying, which is important when you already didn’t want to work out.

Last night I went for a walk, which is boring as hell when you are by yourself, but my fiance was still working.  The neighborhood nearby has sidewalks on most streets, and a LOT of hills, so my legs got a good workout.

I’m thrilled that my fiance has decided to lose weight too.  It’s going to be so much better doing this together instead of flailing around on my own.  He has cut back on soda and is eating better, and he lost 4 pounds in the first week.  Right now he is even more averse to working out than I am, but I’m looking forward to working out with him and losing weight and getting healthy together.

Frozen Meals: Yuck!

I’ve never been a huge fan of frozen meals. First, the picture on the box always looks delicious, hearty, a nice, filling, satisfying serving of deliciousness.  Then you open the package, and you quizically wonder why that square of cardboard and that slimy pile of green ooze is in there, when it’s supposed to be chicken and broccoli.

But I hate to cook, so I have a habit of leaving a frozen meal or two in the freezer for those inevitable days I’m rushing to get out of the house in the morning and I forgot to pack my lunch the night before.  That happened earlier this week, and I was patting myself on the back for my forethought and planning as I slung a Lean Cuisine into my bag, patted the cats on their heads, and waltzed off to work.

I wasn’t patting my back later, after lunch, however.  I was holding my stomach and resisting the urge to groan loudly, since that would have drawn suspicious glances from my nearby co-workers.  It just kept getting worse.  It was like my stomach was tying itself in knots and making balloon animals to entertain itself.  To call it a stomachache is like calling an earthquake a gentle nudge.

My plan had been to work out when I got home, but I felt horrible.  I cleaned for half an hour to still get some activity minutes, but I started to feel nauseated and knew anything more vigorous than curling up in a ball on the couch and repeatedly telling my fiance “My stomach hurts” wasn’t going to happen.

Now, I have had some bad experiences with frozen meals.  Some of them just taste like crap, and none of them are filling.  I’ve certainly never pushed one away from me and announced, “That’s just too much for me to eat!  I’m so full!” or “Wow, that was scrumptious!”  I have pretty low expectations for frozen meals and consider them a convenience item, nothing more.

After how I felt last night, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to buy any more.  Anyone else ever get sick after eating a frozen meal, or am I just an oddball?

Two Days Down!

Two days into the new year, and I have two workouts logged, yippee!  I’ve gone back to putting a small star sticker on the calendar for each day that I work out.  My goal is to have a sticker on each day of January.

I weighed in on Saturday and ended the year with a 1.4 pound loss.  I have a long, long way to go, but I want to be proud of and celebrate each mini-victory like this along the way.

It’s time to do this.  It’s time to focus on me.  I want to, and need to, reach my weight loss and fitness goals this year.  I’ve denied myself so much time that I could have already been at my goal.

My wedding is coming up this year.  It’s a cliche to want to lose weight before the wedding, but I do! Why spend money on a dress if I don’t look my best in it?  I know the wedding is not about what I look like, but I still want to look good, and I want to look at our pictures later and know I worked hard to be healthy and fit.  I want to know that my health and happiness and my future with my fiance and stepkids were all worth it to me to push again and work hard to reach my goals.

Sick

My new start was temporarily placed on hold yesterday, thanks to a stomachache and a throbbing headache that lasted all day.  I stayed home from work and tried to read, but I couldn’t stay awake. My body demanded sleep, and I was forced to give in.  By the time my fiance got home, I was feeling a little better but couldn’t shake the headache.  I got up to water the flowers and plants in the yard later in the evening, but that was the extent of my activity yesterday.

I’m back at work today, headache gone, so I plan to work out after work.  My exercise minutes ticker is looking a little sad!  Got to add some minutes in these last few days of May.

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