Monday, March 19th:

45 minute spin class, with the younger instructor who likes a lot of short intervals and moving around on the bike. The cramp in my right calf, which I thought might keep me off the bike, actually responded to the movement and disappeared. After class, someone said, "Was this an usually hard class?" I told her I'd had trouble for the past week and as I was talking to her, realized it was partly from not sleeping enough. I need to get to bed earlier.

Tuesday, March 20th:

15 minutes Nautilus elliptical, resistance at nine, backward, for a warmup.
60 minutes back and biceps, with lat pulldowns and lots of dumbbell work. I feel like I am getting nowhere sometimes, but today I took notice: In the strip set series of bicep curls at the very end of this routine, now I start with 15-pound weights and do eight consecutive reps without trouble. I remember when I would only have been able to do three or maybe four.
45 minutes recumbent bike, resistance at nine, then resistance at eight and alternating one-minute intervals of sprints with one minute steady peddling. This just killed me. The two people from the nearby Senior Center who were on the other recumbent bikes on either side of me look on at me during the sprint intervals with something suspiciously like pity: "Why are you doing this, dear? Why all this effort?"

March 19: 30 minutes Body Pump, 30 minutes core/strength training

Totals:
15 days
1030 minutes

Wednesday, March 21st:

45 minute spin class, with me still getting used to sitting higher up and peddling with a lengthened stroke. I felt a little better than last week, when I felt as if I were struggling to keep up.

Afterward, I tried some Pilates moves while stretching. Oh, dear, I am dreadfully out of practice. I went from doing Pilates three times each week to nothing, and it shows. Things I did easily now come hard. I had better get back into some kind of routine before I return Downstate to my classes, where everyone's been keeping up weekly.

Thursday, March 22:

15 minutes Stairmaster stepper, resistance at eight, aerobic intervals
60 minutes biceps, shoulders and triceps routine, with the 12-lb weights feeling much easier on some of the moves. I think I'm ready to up my weights.
45 minutes Nautilus elliptical, intervals, resistance at nine and five, half backward.

The gym is actually stuffy and over-warm during this March which increasingly feels as if it has skipped April and proceeded straight to May. The staff needs to open some windows, to let in more air.

Not getting enough exercise this month!

March 20: none

March 21: none

March 22: 60 minutes Zumba

Totals:
16 days
1090 minutes

Michele, I may have more faith in your good habits reasserting themselves eventually than you do. I am sure that after your life settles back down, you will get back into your routine.

Friday, March 23:

45 minute spin class, with the tough "push point" instructor who simulates actual rides & goes for long intervals. With this class full of weekend marathon runners and male triathletes, I always feel like the class lightweight. But today I noticed that the guy on my right, for whatever reason wasn't following instructions to up the resistance. (Maybe perfectly valid healthy or injury related, who knows?) I was pouring sweat and panting at points while he was still sitting perfectly upright & just peddling. Maybe he likes the fellowship in the class. I need these moments of perspective.

I tried some more Pilates moves after class. Definitely rusty. I'm going to look up my old Pilates routine and start incorporating it into my stretches after spin class. I just want to be tuned up for when I rejoined my twice-weekly classes Downstate, where others will have been working steadily during the eight months while I was away.

I'm glad you have faith! It's funny because I know that if you missed a few days of workouts, you would likely be experiencing all sorts of doubt. Or maybe I'm just making assumptions. Regardless, I'm hoping to get back on track. I'm once again exhausted today as dd went to see Hunger Games, not returning home until after 3 am, when my alarm went off at 5 am. I wasn't up the whole time waiting, but I napped off and on checking my phone for calls or updates. My plan is to stop at the store to buy a couple of ingredients on the way home, prepare the dinner, put it in the oven (on time delay), and go to the gym. I hope it works out that way!

You're not assuming, you're reporting on an observable reality based on my past history.

I have faith in you, but not enough in myself.

Yes, if we were to trade places, I'd be thinking, of myself: "You sluggard, you slacker. Don't complain when you regain."

I am not allowed to miss a single day, but you are, because I know you'll get back into your healthy routine.

It's something I see a lot on these forums, actually. We are kinder to others and offer them more encouragement than we give to ourselves. We are all much harder on ourselves.

March 23: I'm somehow off a day-- I need to go back and find the missing day!

40 minutes stair master

Totals:
17 days
1130 minutes

So true! I feel the same about you and many others here. How long have you been maintaining Saef?

Hmmm. A good question, Michele. Let's see if I can remember how long I've been maintaining. One of the things that I lost in the flood were all my journals and Day Timers going back to the 1990s. I used to flip back over these occasionally to encourage myself about my weight. I used to have this in my signature somewhere. I **think** that I finished my weight loss in 2007 and began maintaining that year, as I managed also to maintain the following year, while my father was dying of cancer. Probably close to five years.

Saturday, March 24:

60 minutes arc trainer, hill intervals, resistance at nine, pouring sweat through a good part of it. These long cardio intervals never seem to get any easier.

Sunday, March 25:

15 minutes on a Precor EFX 546 elliptical, mostly backward, resistance at eight, the glute 2 workout, which felt all like hamstrings, calves and butt.
60 minutes shoulders, triceps and biceps workout, very hard to get through today. With fixed barbells, I'm in a weird place where it's easy to bench-press the 50 lb barbell for 20 reps but nearly impossible to lift the 60-lb barbell off the rack when it's higher than my shoulders.
45 minutes arc trainer, 2:1 intervals, resistance at nine, which meant 65 and 40, and this was a struggle

My arms feel like jelly after today's workout. I don't want to lift them at all.

March 24: I arrived at the gym at 8:40 for a 9:15 spin class and it was FULL! It was cold and rainy and I think all of the outside exercisers had come in. I was really annoyed as I didn't have any headphones to listen to music but I stayed anyway. Then, later in the day I went to Bikram Yoga so I got lots of exercise in! Ate way off plan with dh so glad I offset it with the workouts....

40 minutes stair master
90 minutes Bikram Yoga

Totals:
18 days
1260 minutes

Monday, March 26:

45 minute spin class, a long endurance ride with some tabatas toward the end.

Thank goodness all I did at the gym was peddle, because my arms and shoulders are really sore from yesterday's workout. Just experimenting here at the desk, when I spread my arms out on either side of me, or bring them both forward in "zombie" position, like for lateral raises, oh boy, does it ever hurt. I'm going to hunt down a heating pad and also take something for this.

Oh, and it was sleeting slightly as I drove to the gym, and I met more than one animal trying to cross the road. I avoided hitting a skunk and then later, a rabbit thankfully ran a circle, as they tend to do, thus taking himself away from the front wheel of my car. Otherwise I would have killed it. At such times, I always remember words from my friend's father, a longtime truck driver with many long-distance hauls under his belt, who always says, "If it's smaller than your tire, just run over it."

Heartless-sounding advice, I know, but he's the safest, most experienced driver whom I've ever met, and I have many times been glad that I remembered his advice and took heed. (Most recently, when I was driving behind a tractor trailer that was losing chunks of ice from its roof, and because I was careful, and someone who passed me wasn't, they were the ones who got their windshield smashed in by a huge wedge of ice. Not me.)

On the "smaller than a tire" advice, my friend's father means that swerving abruptly and reflexively -- almost always without checking around you -- is often the most dangerous choice, particularly when the stakes are relatively small. Would you take out a rabbit rather than move in front of someone else's lane without warning, with that person going 65 mph? I would.