I am home now, for approximately two weeks. Sixteen days, to be exact. That is enough time to start getting on track. After Spain I'm home for a much longer chunk of time. ("And I'm going to be forty! ...Someday...!") Over the next two weeks I will:
- Get enough sleep. (Nice start. I missed bedtime by 90 minutes already.)
- Exercise EVERY DAY. No excuses.
- Start an arm training workout. (Anyone have any good links for this? I haven't found one I like yet.)
- Continue the ab workout I did ONCE a couple of weeks ago. Among other things, I tried a plank for the first time. It was humiliating.
- Count calories. I hate this, but it's the only thing that works for me.
- Get on my overpriced bike at least twice a week. (Not really overpriced. Underused for the price, though.) I WILL find a way to do this. If sleep-deprived Sarah can get up at 5, so I can I. But not tonight, because it's already almost 11:30.
Things are bad enough that I'm getting nostalgic about the marathon training. I wake up and see the sun up early and remember getting up at dawn and seeing the whole town when there was nobody out but other runners. I also miss being able to do 6 or 8 miles without thinking about it. People keep asking me if I'm still running. I get in conversations with other runners (listen to that -- "other" runners, as though I am still one) and it's fun to be in the club. I have to remind myself how much I did NOT like the training! And how I broke my leg (probably) and had blisters the size of Rhode Island and had to tape my knees back together every morning every day for two months. What a stupid sport.
I simultaneously like and hate starting over. I'm not starting over from scratch, at least! I hate knowing that it really IS hard work and I can't just nosh on cheese or chips or chocolate or whatever other ch-thing we currently have in the house that's so unhealthy in large quantities. But starting over -- hey! It's a fresh start! Erasing all the past mistakes! I know I can make progress because I've done it before. I KNOW what works for me (except for the arm thing -- after months of pushups my arms were a little bit better, but hardly sleeveless-dress-worthy). I just have to do it. Umph. It will all look better in the morning, right?
3 comments:
As soon as I'm done with my four week game at work, I'm challenging the bridesmaids (and bride, too) to four weeks of this game, probably starting in August. My weight this morning was 144.8, and I KNOW I'm not dehydrated. OTOH, weight loss like that worries me--I don't like quick weight loss because it's not healthy and it's not real.
Anyway, get on your damn bike. As soon as you're 50 feet down the road you'll remember how much fun it is. It's not painful and horrible like running. AND you get to coast downhill and still count it as exercise!
I'm back to running too, and amazed that I was able to run five miles continuously at a 10 min/mi pace or better just six months ago. I'm having to alternate walking and running now, can barely make it 3 to 3.5 miles, and my overall pace is over 11 min./mile. I also had the "are you still running?" question a few days ago and didn't know how to answer. Sort of? It's not so much running as staggering along.
Arm exercises--there was a good one in Fitness magazine years ago. No idea what happened to that. I also really like the pilates upper body workout. I just loaned that video to Katie, though, because more people will look at her arms than ours. Cycling will help--I'm feeling yesterday's ride in my arms today. And I just googled "Michelle Obama's arm workout" because there's a 40-something year old woman with two kids who has FABULOUS arms. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of hits on that search, so I'm going to see what looks good.
She DOES have nice arms. I've sorted through the hits and the workout she actually does requires a pulldown bar for triceps -- we have one at the gym but I was hoping for something for home. I'll have to go through some other hits. I can do the hammer curls, though.
Before I got picky about finding the real workout, I looked at the top hit, and it starts out with a yoga sun salutation -- no doubt very good for a workout, IF you can move that way, but I can't (the demonstrator's waist was two feet long, I swear) -- I'm wanting something a little more quick-starting and maybe I can work toward that separately.
I watched that video too and thought "man, that is one bendy woman!" I'm sure doing yoga regularly is part of it, but having that waist helps! Claire's old kindergarten teacher teaches yoga and SHE'S not long waisted, so I know it can be done.
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