Friday, November 22, 2013

Holiday Break

I think it's time...

Time for a blog break - I've been posting for 6 months straight now and I'm gonna celebrate and take the next week to reflect on my successes/failures setbacks.

My goals for next week are simple:

Drink LOTS of water
Exercise LOTS
And don't eat LOTS!!  (Some, not LOTS)

Ultimately, I'd like to lose weight over the next 7-9 days, but I'll set a more realistic goal of not gaining weight.

None.

Zip.

Nothing.


My scale will move this much next week!





















I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, an enjoyable time with family and most importantly a safe holiday.

See ya back here on the 2nd of December!


Thursday, November 21, 2013

Total Immersion?

I keep seeing this "Total Immersion" thing everywhere I look online.  While searching for triathlon training books, the Beginner Triathlon website, it's at every turn.  It even came up as recommended on my Amazon account.  So, I thought I'd check it out.

First, what is "Total Immersion"?  In case you haven't heard of it either, it is "The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster and Easier."  Cool, right?

Next, I subscribed to their website and now I get emails that, well honestly, don't make a whole lot of sense to me.

But hey, I'm not schooled in this so I'm willing to learn.

Then I went to good ol' Youtube and sure enough, there's lots and lots of FREE videos on this swimming technique.

I also checked out the FREE preview of the book by Terry Laughlin on Amazon.

So far, I think this is ultimately a technique that I want to learn.

Here's a quote I thought was funny:

"Virtually everyone's first swimming attempt is a near-death experience, with a real prospect of drowning if you're not successful... Traditional swimming teaches you to not drown rather than to emulate what works so well for fish."

Ok, interesting.

In one of the videos I watched, called Total Immersion Perpetual Motion Freestyle, this picture was shown as an example of making your body torpedo-like in the water.


If I swam like that, I'd be thrilled beyond words!!  So, I'll check this out more and get back to you.  Unless of course, you've already checked it out.  If you have, please tell me if it's worth the time/money to try!


Wednesday, November 20, 2013

To Eat or Not to Eat over the Holidays

I think I'm going to spread the wealth a bit on food intake.  I hate overeating to the point of pain and suffering.  So, this year it's going to be spread out over the entire holiday period.  A piece of pie one day, a piece of fudge the next.  A nice dinner one day and another a few days later.

Will this work?  I have no idea.  What are you gonna do different?  Anything?

Today was a crazy busy day, but I got my workouts done.  I didn't make it to the big gym as planned, but I did get it done in my LR gym.

Month 1 Week 3 Day 2 from BeginnerTriathlete.com (1 hour)

Lift: Back, Shoulders, Abs. 2 sets of 10-12 reps for 2 exercises each body part.
Bike: 30-35 minutes stationary bike. Check HR often on this workout. Do a continuous hill workout. Every 2 minutes, add a gear or two (increase resistance). Keep climbing until you have reached halfway through the ride/workout.  At the halfway point, start taking a gear or two OFF every 2 minutes.  Come down as slowly as you went up.  5 minute cool down.
Stretch: 10-15 minutes of FULL BODY stretching.

Bike Workout Summary
I still haven't replaced the batteries on my bike computer - on my to do list now!  Anyway, I did 35 minutes including the cool down and increased the resistance up to the halfway point.  It started getting pretty tough to keep a good cadence going.  Then finally the halfway point on to the end of the workout was very nice - just like riding down hill the whole way.

Strength Training (Lift):
Back
1) Lat Pulldowns 12 @ 50; 12 @ 110
2) Dumbbell (DB) lawnmower pulls 12 @ 5lbs x2
Shoulders
1) DB Shoulder Press 12 @ 15 x2
2) DB Side Raises 12 @ 3 x2
Abs
1) Ball Crunch 12 x2
2) Leg lifts 12 x2

Stretch:
Full Body 30 seconds per muscle.

After the workout, I ate dinner and then about 45 minutes later, we headed to the pool.  I definitely like the group lesson!  There were 3 of us and that meant that I was able to catch my breath while the other 2 swam.  Then I'd go and once I was halfway, the next person would go and then finally the third.  I had a nice 30-45 second break each time.

I felt much more confident this time.  I had tried to practice the other day and it went horribly, but for some reason, this time it went pretty well.

Guess I have to just keep swimming...


I love this movie.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Stairs, I do stairs now.

Yep, me - stairs.  Can you believe it?

It used to be so painful to climb just ONE flight of stairs, now, I do several.  On purpose.  What?!?!

My knees were what bothered me before, but now it's what I've been doing to get rid of the stiffness from sitting so long at work.  After 2-3 hours of sitting, I have to get up or else my feet go to sleep and my joints start aching.  

So, I use the stairs.  Up a couple of flights, walk a hallway, up a couple more flights, walk a hallway, down a couple flights... you get the idea.  I do this for about 15 minutes at least a couple times each day at work.


It's nice to be able to take the stairs again.  It's also fun to see the looks of disbelief when I suggest taking the stairs instead of the elevator.  

That's right... 
I  |_                      _|
am |_                 _|
the    |_            _|
Stair    |_       _|
Master   |_  _|

Ok, not quite yet. =D

Monday, November 18, 2013

1st Milestone in Sight

Between May 2014 and August 2014, I have been and am working to achieve my weight loss goal of losing 80 pounds.  If I were 20 years younger, I'd do it in half that time, but this is how it is.

I started this journey in May of this year and I'm finally approaching what I consider "Milestone 1" - 20 pounds lost.  I can't believe it's taken me 6 months.  Well, such is life, right?

My doc tells me that a slow weight loss will likely lead to permanent weight loss.  I guess that's something.

Looking back on my early posts, I had envisioned a 2 pound/week weight loss and achieving my goal by February 24, 2014.  Uh... yeah, that's not going to happen.

BUT!!! My first milestone will certainly be this month.  I'm .7 pounds away AND on top of that, I'm 5.8 pounds away from "One-derland" (yay!).

Reaching yet another goal of being under 200 will be such a huge motivator for me.

In order to accomplish these goals, I absolutely must exercise.  I'm very much looking forward to the day that I whole-heartedly look forward to the workout.  I'm not there yet, but here's what was on the plan for today...

Month 1 Week 3 Day 1 (from www.beginnertriathlete.com) 2 hrs

Lift: Chest, Triceps, Legs. 2 sets of 10-12 reps for 2 exercises each body part.
Bike:  20-25 minutes indoors.  Use upright bike.  Work on keeping feet flexed (like scraping gum off the bottom of your shoes) and upper body relaxed.  Keep resistance moderate and throw in 30-45 second sprints every 5 minutes.  5-minute cool down.
Stretch:  10-15 minutes of FULL BODY stretching.

Here's what I did:

Tried to practice what I learned in last week's Swim session.  I didn't count laps, but I was in the pool for at least 30 minutes.  Did I swim the whole time?  No, I did ingest quite a bit of pool water though - yuck!  Got out of the pool and spent some time in the hot tub - ahhhhhh.

Showered off the chlorine, dried off and changed.  Headed off to do bike workout...

Bike Workout Summary:
Stationary upright bike on manual setting level 8 for 25 minutes - including 5-minute cool down.  Every 5 minutes, I upped the RPMs to 90-100 for 45 seconds.  This actually got my HR up to 126 for a few seconds.

155 Calories, 4.78 miles, average speed 11:49 mph, average HR 115.

Strength Training (Lift):
Chest
1) Bench Press Machine 12 @ Setting 3 x2
2) Roc-It Pec Fly Machine 12 @ Setting 3 / 10 @ setting 2

Triceps
1) FreeMotion Tricep Machine 12 @ 20 x2
2) Arm Extension Machine 12 @ 30 x2

Legs
1) Roc-It Leg Extension Machine 12 @ Setting 2 x2
2) Leg Press 12 @ 100 x2
3) Leg Curl Machine 12 @ 30 x2
4) Seated Curl Machine 12 @ 55 x2
5) Abduction machine 12 @ 125 x2
6) Adduction machine 12 @ 115 x2
7) Calf Raises 12 x2
8) Angled Calf Raises 12 x2

Stretch:
Full Body 30 seconds per muscle.

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