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Maintainers Moving in August
It's finally here: The month when people tend to escape the daily grind and go away on vacations.
On your vacation, are you going to be able to keep up? Keep your energy level high? Do all those activities that you want to do? Do things you thought you'd never do when you were heavier? Of course you will. Because you've been moving all year round. And there's no reason to stop in August. In August, everyone should run on a beach. At least once. At least for ten steps. Even if you can't look like this while doing it. This is genetics. And a great photographer. (This woman may never have been in the same room with a carb. Maybe not even in the same building.) Hey, we can dream, right? http://looklikeanathlete.com/wp-cont...ning_woman.jpg |
Monday, August 1:
60 minutes arc trainer, hill intervals, resistance at nine 60 minutes circuit training class I'm trying to decide if it is motivating or demotivating to have my personal TV on the cardio machine tuned to one of the "Real Housewives" series. Those women look like aliens. It's because of what they do to their faces, surgically & with shots & with contoured makeup. Their legs are uniformly great, though. Occasionally you see one working out, but not often. That's not as interesting as when they're getting angry with one another or ganging up on one of the others. There has to be a Real Housewives workout video out there someplace. I think it would be fabulously campy and funny. I need to Google that and possibly buy it. |
Monday August 1: 60 minutes Body Pump
Totals: 1 day 60 minutes |
Monday Aug. 1: 25 min. arc trainer (100 resistance, 10 incline) + 5 min. rowing machine. Weights -- lower body and abs. Played tennis with my son, walked the dog too.
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Tuesday, Aug. 2:
10 minute warmup on Stairmaster, resistance at nine, aerobic intervals 60 minute back and biceps routine 45 spin class with weights The instructor cracked her hour-long CD so we had a 45-minute class, which thus felt short. I was glad to get out tonight as my ankles and legs were puffy with retained fluid. I think this happens when I sit at my desk a long time. Also I had some hummus at lunch, which was probably high in sodium. |
Tuesday Aug. 2:
30 min. elliptical 15 min. weights 30 min. walked the big shaggy dog 20 min. tennis with my son (just hitting ball against the wall) Did tons of housework today..... |
Originally Posted by traveling michele: Totals: 2 days 120 minutes |
Wednesday, Aug. 3:
45 minute spin class with weights 30 minutes Pilates mat routine on my own Cool delightful weather this morning and I feel comfortably abreast of my work & with the morning cardio to work off the tension of another day. This could be a good day if I handle it carefully. |
August 1:
nothing August 2: 20 min pilates "butt blaster" routine 8 min pilates ab routine |
August 3:
30 min + 5 min cooldown on the stationary bike "aerobics" program level 6 |
Wed. Aug. 3
Ultimate Burn class (1 hour) at my gym....I has to hold back the vomit with this one. It created a new definition for pain. Can't wait to do it again next week, as it's only offered once a week. |
Thursday Aug. 4: 1 hour Zumba. Will walk the dog n play some tennis w my son later. :)
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Thursday, Aug. 4:
45 minutes elliptical, resistance at 8, random intervals, half backward 60 minutes Pilates class Feeling, well, swollen tonight, even after working out and sweating. I think I may be ovulating. I do not foresee a good weigh-in tomorrow morning. I will try to be kind to myself afterward, and practical. LuckyMommy, you took a class that left you close to vomiting?! Oh my goodness. I sometimes feel existential despair during my exercise classes, and wonder if I can hold out even a second longer, but I haven't yet felt nauseous. I used to wonder when I would, though, after seeing so many exercise sessions on TV in which people puked. Puking was a repeated "Biggest Loser" motif. I think Jillian yelled out the word at least a couple times. I think in that show it was a desirable sign of having put in a great deal of effort. |
I don't understand working out until you puke. It has to be some kind of macho thing. And I really don't understand going back and doing it again.
I once got sick in a martial arts class because I ate too soon before class. We weren't even doing anything particularly strenuous physically, but we were employing a great deal of chi, essentially standing in horse posture. Wup! Off to the restroom... I watched what I did before class after that. Jay |
Originally Posted by traveling michele: August 4: 60 minutes Hip Hop class Totals: 4 days 270 minutes |
Saef, I don't usually push myself to that point, but I really wanted to just see if I could do it. Honestly, I didn't do half as much as the instructor...ok, maybe half. She must be some sort of a super athlete. I'm one of these people that does whatever a trainer tells me, which is why I never hire a personal trainer anymore because I always end up getting injured. Every trainer has always assured me that I wouldn't get injured, but I did. So, I've avoided certain classes because I know I'll do whatever it is that they say to do. But, I pay such high fees at my gym, I just couldn't justify them anymore....so I've incorporated a lot more classes. They push me beyond my comfort zone and I've seen some good outcomes from making this change. I do think this class is a bit overkill....but I thought that perhaps I could become more athletic...although now I'm not sure if that's even possible. Sorry for the ramble! ;)
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Luckymommy, you need to pay attention to your body. If you feel like vomiting, something is wrong and you need to stop. If you feel you're at the edge of an injury, you need to stop. You also need to share that information with those trainers and talk with them about modifications or changes. There has to be a dialogue. They are working for you and with you. They are not authority figures whom you must blindly obey.
Actually, there is no one in life we ought to show that much obedience to. Particularly if they hurt us. I do hope this is not something that happens in other parts of your life as well! As for me .... Friday, August 5: 10 minutes warmup on the Stairmaster, aerobic setting, resistance at 10, and this setting pushed me pretty good. 60 minutes arm and shoulders routine 45 minutes arc trainer, interval setting, resistance at nine An elderly man sat on the weight bench for a long time, unmoving, with the weights down at his side. His face was hard to read. I wanted to use that bench but felt that I did not want to interrupt his reverie. I went downstairs to use the ladies room, came back upstairs. Still sitting there, not moving. I got water. He was still there. Finally heaved himself up with a sigh and went to a machine. I asked if he was done and he told me yes, yes, yes he was. This man was unhappy or just tired. Getting old is not for sissies. |
Saef, point well taken. I do need to stop this little insane game I play. I kind of feel like if I do everything they tell me, then I'll be where I want to be (even though I'm kind of there? go figure). As for it being this way in other parts of my life....no, not really. I tend to be nice to a fault so I tend to attract people in desperate need of friendship or support...but I've been working on that part of my life as well. Anyway, I will take the time to talk to the instructor before the class. I kind of feel silly doing that because this class seems to be aimed at the super athletic type, so I'm afraid they'll suggest I do a different class, but I think it's worth a shot. :)
By the way, when you mentioned that elderly man, I was kind of worried that perhaps he had passed on? I'm so glad he didn't! Whew! Once I was at my gym and right when I got there, a small crowd had gathered around a very heavy man who was on the floor, having a heart attack. One of the employees had attached a defib. unit to him until the ambulance got there (btw, they didn't seem to be in any rush to come and get him!). I was absolutely stunned to see that many of the people at the gym (well, just about everyone! continued working out!!!). I felt repulsed by their attitude and I went home and cried. Later in the week, I inquired about that man and he actually survived and even later, I found out that he and his wife took the employee who saved him out to lunch. :) Today, August 5, I walked the dog for 30 minutes. 30 minutes elliptical 5 minutes rowing machine |
No, Luckymommy, the man hadn't passed on. He was upright, his eyes were open, but his head was down. He just seemed to be thinking deeply about something that made him unhappy. Perhaps his health. When I see men his age in the gym, and they're new, I always wonder if they have had a health scare or if they are there under a doctor's or a physical therapist's orders.
I am glad you are listening to your body and taking care of it. My question to you -- and also for myself -- is this: Do we really want to look like fitness professionals, only we have not articulated that goal clearly to ourselves? What is the goal these days? Saturday, August 6: 60 minute spin class, with weights 60 minute Pilates class Very early this morning, around 7 am, I managed to get to one of the small grocery stores whose produce is good quality and priced well for this area. So today I brought one of my friends at the gym a small container of coconut water, which she likes to drink as a recovery drink after working out. She is extolling its virtues. When I hear such things, I always wonder, "Fad or fact?" I liked the potassium content on the container but the grams of sugar seemed high. I wish sometimes I weren't so worried about sugar, but I am. |
Thanks Saef. :)
Saturday Aug. 6: 40 minutes of cardio (elliptical, step mill, jogging) 15 min. weights. Going out of town so wish me luck!!!! |
Monday, August 1: 1 hour walk with almost-elderly mom
Tuesday, August 2: 40 minute jog, 1 hour walk, 1 hour Zumba class, 50 pushups, 100 crunches Wednesday, August 3: 1 hour walk, 50 pushups Thursday, August 4: 1 hour walk, dancing at a club that sort of resembled squats (heehee) Friday, August 5: 1 hour walk, miserably slow 20 minute jog Saturday, August 6: 1 hour walk, thinking about doing the "100 Workout" but sleep deprived + hungry at the moment |
Originally Posted by saef: I scaled back my exercise awhile ago because it was hurting me. I'm not sorry I did. My goal was to become fit, not become an athlete, not to become a masochist, and especially not to have yet another area of my life in which I could become an "overachiever." I see older people at the gym a lot. Some of the men do sit around like that in various places, especially where the weights are--because they can pretend they are resting between sets. I suspect the reason is that their wives are trying to enforce an exercise regimen on them, having gotten the doctor's report. Sometimes their wives are there with them--off in an area far away, where they can't keep an eye on the husbands. You can lead a horse to water... Jay |
My entire day at work is a workout (with many different facets). But if I ever feel ill I stop, take the dogs into the shade and wait a couple of minutes. Ditto in the winter. If my fingers go numb (or the dog's noses start to bleed from the cold) we go to where it's warm.
Same goes for weights, yoga, paddling, etc. If it makes me :barf: I slow it down. Much as I admire some very fit women's bodies I'm too old/tired/lazy to go to ridiculous lengths to try to look like them. I work out until I'm pleasantly tired and maybe have some small twinges of muscle pain the next day if I'm doing something out of the usual. I finally stopped sessions with my personal trainer because she was 26 and treated me like I was her age (I was 52 at the time). She couldn't get that I didn't want to become better and better and stronger and stronger and push, push, push until I hurt myself. I was happy being toned and being able to lift my boat down from the rack into the water - those were my goals that I reached and am maintaining to this day. I had to stop watching "Biggest Loser" because I couldn't stand Jillian's approach. I'm definitely on Bob's team - coached along rather than hectored and bullied. Most of the time I wanted to give Jillian a good clout on the ear! Dagmar (fitness should be fun!) |
Sunday, August 7:
10:07 minute warmup rowing on the Concept 2, which took me to 2,014 meters 60 minutes back & biceps routine 45 minute spin class, definitely high-intensity as it was a series of sprints, ladder sprints, hill sprints, standing sprints Now off downtown to see a four-and-a-half-hour movie. Thank goodness there's an intermission in the middle to let the audience move around. |
30 min. interval training (walking/sprinting)...impressive since I'm out of town and hardly slept. ;)
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Originally Posted by saef: What movie did you see? Dagmar |
Dagmar, we did line up for the restroom, but thankfully, the intermission was 20 minutes long.
"Mysteries of Lisbon" was the name of the movie. Its director, Ruiz, is pretty wonderful. It ran as a six-hour series on TV in Europe. There is a four-and-a-half-hour movie version out now. It's a period film. It's so very 19th century. There's a duel. There are ballroom scenes. There is conniving going on underneath painted Italian murals. There are countesses and marquises and duchesses. There are notes exchanged. There are white horses pulling coaches through green, green fields. The silk gowns are gorgeous. The hair is piled up, the earrings glitter. The men look so very handsome with their chins resting on top of white cravats, wearing their knee-high shiny polished boots. People faint from excessive emotion. They retire to convents. Or they die in their beds from no visible sickness but unhappiness. I love this stuff. I cannot get enough. Four and a half hours of it is fine by me. (As long as there's an intermission in the middle. ;) |
I'm behind apparently.
August 4: none August 5: pilates - inner thigh insanity - uh oh obliques August 6: 36 min, 8.57 mile bike ride (14.1mph) August 7: 15 mins scrubbing the shower August 8: pilates - legs & thighs - muffin top exterminator - back attack |
Originally Posted by paperclippy: As for me: Monday, August 8: 60 minutes arc trainer, hill intervals, resistance at nine 60 minutes circuit training class I turned the TV on my cardio station from financial market news -- which I'd been glancing at all day long while at the office -- to the Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo (who boasts a great success rate but whose show mostly shows Things That Can Go Wrong on a First Date). I need to live in the present & focus on what is immediately in front of me & stop my mind from endless speculating about what all this will lead to. Because I can't affect the financial markets no matter how much I worry. |
Saef, yes, those are Pop Pilates. She has a whole lot of them, I'm not sure how many.
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Tuesday, August 9th:
10 minutes warmup on Stairmaster, aerobic setting, resistance at 10 60 minutes arm & shoulders routine 60 minutes spin class with weights I had a great spin class tonight. I don't know what got in me. It reminds me of a long time ago -- years ago -- years & years ago -- when I used to ride, and when I'd have a good riding lesson, and be really ON, I mean, really **with** the horse, and the world seemed perfectly balanced. And I'd think, Oh how I wish life could always be like this. Everything would seem calm afterward, and clearer, and in focus. Even walking the horse to cool him down afterward, with a chorus of evening bugs buzzing in the background, made me feel slightly high, elated but calm, not overexcited. Same feelings tonight walking home from spin in slightly foggy weather, from the day's rain and humidity. I don't know why this happens periodically. I don't know what circumstances coincide. I don't know if it's serotonin levels even, for God's sake. But it's as rare as some planetary alignment. Anytime it happens, I am grateful. For as long as it lasts. It's never long, but while it's happening, it's hard to believe life can feel quite this good. |
Wednesday, August 10:
30 minutes Abs Express class 45 minute spin class I woke up too late to go to 6 AM spin, and anyway, had I gone, I would have been a little late to arrive at the office, as I had to go to CT for a luncheon. So I took the evening spin class instead, with an instructor I hadn't worked with for a while. She cues differently and likes a lot of change-ups in movements in a short period of time, so I lost any feeling of mastery & was back to self-doubt & pushing to make it through again. But change is good, right? |
8/10: just being on my feet for a while
8/11: 35 min stationary bike -- 30 min interval program avg level 7, 5 min cooldown. Total avg 14.1mph. |
Jessica, how did you feel on the bike? Is there any discernible difference? Or is it too soon to tell? I'm always glad to see you posting here.
As for me ... Thursday, August 11: 60 minutes elliptical, over half backward, resistance at random intervals and at eight 30 minutes Pilates mat routine on my own What a strange day. The humidity dropped, it was warm but beautifully so, with a whiff of September crispness. And the office was nearly empty and got emptier as the day wore on. I drove home at my regular time, quite speedily, with less traffic. It was as if everyone had simultaneously decided to take a vacation day. (Except, of course, the analysts with whom I write research reports on my job, who've left me with several projects.) That apparently included the Pilates instructor at our gym, who hasn't shown now for her Thursday night class for something like five consecutive weeks. Today they couldn't get a sub, so there was no class. So I was rolling around on a mat in the studio all by myself. The rest of the class played hooky, since that kind of mood was in the air, or signed up for spin instead. |
Friday, August 12:
9:33 minutes rowing on the Concept 2 got me to 2013 meters 60 minutes back & biceps routine 45 minutes arc trainer, intervals, resistance at 10 -- this was a slog. I want to mention my Runner's Guilt. This is a feeling I get when I'm driving or walking someplace and a runner goes by. I feel momentarily guilty. Because I'm not running, too. This feeling comes over me even if I have signed up for spin class later in the day. Sometimes even if I have already been to the gym in the morning. I hold running and runners in great esteem, far more than I do any of us schlumps on the gym equipment. It seems like a "purer" exercise somehow. Somehow ennobling. Maybe even primal. Perhaps because runners are moving through the outdoors, interacting with the greater world, rather than going off to a specially designated facility. But I can't run myself. It's the impact. It's my age and my lousy feet, arthritic already, with chronic plantar fasciitis in the left foot. I realize this Runner's Guilt not rational, but that's how I feel. Particularly when I'm driving to work around 8 AM on a summer day and I pass them in an affluent suburban Connecticut neighborhood, working their way past gorgeous lawns, preserved elm trees, freshly painted 19th century Shingle houses, and the air smells like the ocean, like Long Island Sound. And yeah, I'm on my way to the office. I forget the hard work that running really is, the pounding, the breathing, & I think it is as easy as a gull's flight or a deer sprinting through grass. |
Saturday, August 13:
60 minutes spin class with weights 60 minutes Pilates class My quads were burning in spin today. Then in Pilates we were doing the Bridge pose and my quads were actually shaking from trying to pulse upward for consecutive reps. I may feel this tomorrow. |
Sunday, August 14:
9:39 on the Concept 2 got me to 2018 meters 60 minutes arm and shoulders routine 45 minute spin class Pouring rain today. The kind of rain that seems eternal. For a while I was the only one in the gym other than the sleepy pretty girl at the front desk. Then a few other regulars drifted in. Others are likely on vacation. This town empties out during some weeks in August. Even the instructors go off someplace. The substitute spin teacher was so young, I could have given birth to her. She used a lot of short songs -- she has great taste in music, though -- and frenetic cues. I felt old. And it's still raining hard. |
Originally Posted by traveling michele: Aug. 5: : travel day but still managed 30 minutes swimming and treading water. Aug. 6: 40 min running Aug. 7: 33 min running Aug. 8: 32 min running Aug. 9: 35 min running (this is the day I had a food hangover! I ran the same distance each day and found it interesting my time differences. The first day I ran with dh and he asked me to walk more so I don't really count that one). Aug. 10: 33 min running Aug. 11: 32 min running Aug. 12: 90 min. bikram yoga Aug. 13: 60 min. spin and 90 min. fast walking with dh Totals: 13 days 745 minutes |
Monday, August 15:
45 minutes arc trainer, hill intervals, resistance at nine 60 minutes circuit training class An illumination today: I realized that I have trouble leaving work undone till the next day. I feel guilty. I feel like I've just got to keep going -- even if it takes me till bedtime to finish, even if it overruns my personal life. It's like the compulsion to eat everything on your plate, just to make it clean and empty. One good thing: I will make myself stop if I know I have to get to the gym or to some other scheduled engagement. I leave reluctantly, but enjoy myself at the engagement. That seems to break the spell. That's what obsessiveness is like: I'm fixated, but if I can somehow break the concentration or flow, I'm able to move on. |
Behind again.
8/12: pilates routines: back attack, legs & thighs (I think, don't recall) 8/13: biked to farmer's market and back, 8.5 miles total, hilly 8/14: long dog walk 8/15: - dog walk - pilates routines: inner thigh insanity, saddlebag shaver, ab challenge |
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