Wednesday, 13 April

30 minute private Pilates session on the reformer
45 minute spin class

April 12: none :mad:

April 13: 90 minutes Bikram Yoga

I usually recover quickly after Yoga, but tonight I had a weird experience. I sure hope I'm not getting sick. As soon as I started, my feet felt puffy and swollen but I hadn't noticed anything earlier in the day. Then, during class I was just dying! I've never sweat so much and I was struggling to catch my breath. After class, I had to sit down for a few minutes before I could leave. Then, once I got home and bathed, I had the chills. I ate dinner and still feel weird but better than I did. I checked my blood pressure and it was fine. The only other thing I can think of is that I drank two energy drinks today-- usually I have one during Yoga, but I had one earlier in the day too. Maybe it was too much for me. Glad I made my doctor appointment!

Totals:
12 days
997 minutes

Thursday, 14 April:

60 minutes arc trainer, hill intervals, resistance at nine
60 minutes Pilates class

Still reflecting on a conversation that I had with the Pilates instructor at the gym. She has invited me to become a private student of hers at her home studio, which she says has much better equipment than the gym's. At a lower hourly rate than my gym charges for personal training. Because, of course, we'll be circumventing the gym; I'd be paying her directly. She was very careful about making this offer. There is the ethical issue of whether she is poaching or siphoning off a trainee from the gym.

I'm thinking of taking her up on this. My only issue is that I just want to get Pilates training from her; I don't want her to be my overall trainer in my life. Some of her training beliefs don't align with mine. For instance, she believes in the low-weight/high-rep theory. Also, she was warning me against thickening my upper thighs from high resistance on the elliptical. So I do not want her advice in those areas. I just like how Pilates works my "core" or rather, in particular, my abs & other large muscles in the trunk of my body. Finally, her rates still aren't cheap. (There goes my tax refund.)

I hate feeling indecisive & uncertain.

Saef-- maybe try just one session with her. I find it hard to believe that she has better equipment at home than the gym but I guess you'll have to see to know.

April 14: 90 minutes Bikram Yoga

Totals:
13 days
1087 minutes

Michele, I think that I have to try it. If I didn't try something new periodically in the way of exercise, I think I'd get sick of my routine & do it really half-heartedly & then finally quit.

I think the only way to keep this going is to change it up periodically -- as you're doing with Bikram yoga, and as I'm trying to do with Pilates & also by adopting the arms & shoulders dumbbell routine from P90X to change up my free weight session.

Friday, 15 April

15:06 rowing on the Concept 2 for 3,034 meters at 2:27 for 500 meters, 34 s/m (which is pathetic) for a projected total of 6,073 meters
60 minutes weights
45 minutes elliptical, resistance at eight, half of it backward

Today in my dumbbell routine, I eliminated four of my sets & replaced them with exercises from Tony Horton's "Arms & Shoulders" routine from the P90X series. (It's disc 03.) As a person who takes comfort in routine & rituals, but then, as her dependence grows, starts to feel trapped by the necessity of enacting the whole ritual, I always find it hard to change things up, even as I recognize that I must do this for my mental health as well as physical health. My fear is always, "What if I don't get as good a workout?" So I tend to add & add & add. I don't want to do that. I want to swap out. Still, one thing I know is, I need to keep some exercises for chest & back, since this particular routine does not address those body parts.

My reminder to myself: Don't add more minutes. You said you never wanted to exceed two hours a day in exercising. So don't. Give up something; replace it with something else. Change it up, keep it fresh & keep it challenging.

Thanks for thinking aloud, saef. I recognise your dilemma with the Pilates instructor. I could do with a few sessions with a trainer but do not want all the nutrition and lifestyle stuff, on and on. There's not much choice of trainer round here. Add to this that my chiro told me I have to do more work on my core and posture and I am out of sorts today. There's only so much exercise I can do before the rest of my life (this includes my health, of course) suffers.

Movement so far today: little. A very little walking. Weeding later.

Reasons: all good. I am over-stretched.

Silver lining: had to make an appearance at a fundraising sale at DB's school & found a book about Pilates.

Saturday, April 16

45 minute spin class
60 minute Pilates class


Birchie, have you looked online for Pilates videos, particularly on YouTube? If you aren't working with an instructor, the demonstrations could help you perhaps more than an inert photograph or illustration in a book. You must take care of your neck & lower back, and I found an instructor invaluable for suggesting slight changes in position & modifications until those parts of my body grew stronger.

I looked at things like this online but I have found nothing quite so helpful as being coached in mat classes (& individually on the Reformer & Tower, which has helped me with form on the mat).

http://pilates.about.com/od/pilatesr...e_Routines.htm

http://pilates.about.com/od/pilatesm...rExercises.htm

So my legs are super achy and sore still and I'm thinking it might be lack of potassium. I was eating 2-3 bananas a day and I quit cold turkey.... hmmm.... I am going to watch my potassium levels and see if I can eat some potassium rich foods.

April 15: none

April 16: 60 minutes boot camp, 90 minutes (fast) walking with dh (got sunburned too!)

Totals:
14 days
1237 minutes

I'm also thinking I'm going to have to change my fitness goal for the year. I think 300 days was too ambitious for me to achieve in a year. I am at 88 so I'll never make it. I was thinking I would miss one day a week but some weeks (like this one), I miss two. I think I'll change it to 200 and see how much beyond that I can make. :carrot:

Sunday, April 17:

15:06 rowing on the Concept 2 for 5,978 meters at 2:29 for 500 meters, 38 s/m for a projected total of 5,978, and I was sorry not to break 3,000 meters & puzzled by today's performance
60 minutes weights, partly doing the arms & shoulders sequence from P90X
45 minute spin class

Monday, April 18:

60 minutes arc trainer, intervals, resistance at nine
60 minutes circuit training class


After circuit training class, in the ladies' locker room, one of the women was showing around "before" pictures of herself. "Don't you remember what I looked like when I first started coming to the gym?" she said. Actually, I didn't. I've seen her so often there & she has lost weight in a healthy gradual way that I hadn't realized that she'd lost 30 pounds. It took "before" pictures in a bathing suit for me to see it.

Also, she has the same body image problem that so many of us have. She cannot seem to "see" her current size. I was exclaiming to her how small her midsection & her waist are. (Being relatively short-waisted myself, I envy women with longer torsos.) She couldn't see it at all. So we got a tape measure from the boy at the front desk. We measured around. She thought the number was big. (She had that 36-24-36 thing in her head.) But when I made a noose of the empty tape measure to show her what size her waist is, she was astounded at how small it actually was. Also she was surprised that the boy at the front desk -- he really is just a boy since he isn't even 18 yet -- is just one inch smaller around at the waist than she is. She couldn't conceive of that; she'd thought of herself as being so much larger.

She told me she envied me because my stomach is flatter than hers. There we were, in the locker room, showing each other our stomachs, just like that thread here with the stomach photos.

There is something weirdly liberating about this.

April 17: none. Sore and tired.:devil::(

April 18: 90 minutes Bikram Yoga

Totals:
15 days
1327 minutes

Morning! Exercise here is of the gardening and core work variety at present. I'm still moving heavy items round the garden and, you'll be pleased to hear, have just built a sliding door for the wood shelter. I think I'll build another this year.

Michele: if you think the cramps are related to lack of potassium, could you increase some other potassium-rich foods? Random selection: dried apricots, salmon, beans, spinach.

Saef: thank you for your Pilates remarks. I agree about seeing moves rather than only reading about them. I saw the appearance of the Pilates book at the school bring and buy sale as a Sign. I'm now working out how to fit more core work into my life.

The scene in the locker room and at the front desk sounds fun! It sounds like a reward for both of you. Did you share any of your experience with her? And I'm so pleased you're developing your consultancy! Ditch the day job? (Just joking...)

I must start my day. Lounging in bed with a boy and an out-of-date plane book does not raise the heart rate.

Tuesday, April 19:

15:05 rowing on the Concept 2 for 3,003 meters at 2:23 for 500 meters, 36 s/m for a projected total of 6,126
60 minutes weights
45 minute evening spin class

Again, I did the P90X sequence for arms & shoulders, all except for the tricep side rises (which is probably not what they're called), the last bonus exercise in the 15-exercise sequence. I couldn't figure out the form for them. I was doing weird side-planks. I need to watch the video again & to try it in my living room instead of relying on memory.

Birchie, it was fun, but no, I didn't share as much about myself as the woman at the gym shared with me. I am a bit more private in person. (Far more than I am online.) It felt good, but there was a slightly wistful undertone, the same old plaintive sound of women rueful over their appearance & longing after beauty. Yeats is absolutely right about the hard labor involved in creating beauty.

"To be born woman is to know --
Although they do not talk of it at school --
That we must labour to be beautiful."