Hi... I went to the gym this morning. YAY! I am super proud of myself for hauling my a$$ outta bed and going. I got up at 5 AM! Anyway, what I am wondering is good is... I walked the tredmill for 42 mintutes @ an avg of 3.5 speed with a 2.0 incline. I burned 407 calories and I kept my heart rate between 121 - 138 the whole time with the exception of warm up and cool down. It was 2.24 miles. I think it's good but I don't FEEL like I exercised. I am a reeree when it comes to what's good on machines. Anyone know if that was a good workout!? Any tips are welcomed too when it comes to any kind of gym workouts. Thanks!

Sarah, that is a hard question to answer. I know that at one of the gym's I used to go to, halfway through an aerobic class, you would do a pulse check. You would count the beats over certain period of time (I think it was 10 or 20 seconds) and then you check the chart to see if your pulse is in the fat burning zone. I don't use the machines that much so I don't know how many calories I burn. My own rule of thumb is if I can speak without effort around the half way mark, I need to push myself. If I am having trouble speaking (or even breathing ) then I need to ramp my excercise down. You learn to pay attention to how your body is feeling.

It sounds like a good start. I think you need to find your resting heartrate and then establish your maximum to know if you are working out to your best potential but I for the life of me can't remember how to check that.

If you feel like you didn't really work out, you might try some interval walking by upping your speed and slowing down, change your incline. I know some treadmills will have a preprogrammed thing you can try. You just input the time and the max/min speed/incline you want and then it will automatically change for you.