Greetings everyone. Haven't been around much, but I'm still around, if you know what I mean.

Mel: Couldn't you build a high hurdle in there, just to complete the circuit? Because then it would be exactly like a weighted-bar-jumprope-squat-clean-press. Only different.

Be strong,
K

PS. What's this about a challenge? I'm less than three weeks away from the big 4-0 and not where I want to be BF-wise, so I could use a good kick in the butt!

Hi Kaw:wave: I was thinking about you the other day. I'm glad to see your post. The challenge is a spinoff from a thread started in the Living Maintenance forum. Since we would rather pull our eyelashes out than confess to eating anything that deviates from our program it's been pretty effective. Mel has suggested doing a challenge within this forum as well and it looks like the two may be combined. Has a date been set to begin this anyone? Anyway, I still need to clarify my goal for this portion of the challenge.

So your 40th is in a few weeks. Congratulations. You must be a Gemini. Me too. ;) I'll reach this same milestone the first week of June. This year my b-day falls on a Saturday. DH better have something great planned. :club:

Ah, Mel has been too frantically doing her own challenge and getting ready to go away for five days to come up with anything concrete :?:

I'd really like to see everyone come up with their own goals, then strive to meet them. I was working on a chart that we could paste into posts, but it just doesn't work.

Hi kaw! I was thinking about you last weekend also. We'll have to have a 3FC birthday party for you and Lydia!

Mel

Ah, they're just young chicks! :lol: But an age ending in a zero is always something to celebrate....

I've been out of the gym for a week now. A nasty respiratory infection combined with severe hay fever had me wheezing and trying to cough up a lung. I thought about going anyway, but I have a real fear of being unable to breathe, since I had pretty severe asthma as a child. Now that I'm only dealing with hay fever, I'm really anxious to get back to the gym.

Unfortunately, I'll be back out of the gym for another week starting Friday. I'm going on vacation with my partner and won't have access to a gym. Since I won't have any weights, I'm planning on focusing on more core exercises. Squats, lunges, planks . . . Lots of romantic walks around the lake. Any other suggestions on how to keep up with my exercise would be appreciated.

I am absolutely up for a challenge.

So I'm still not feeilng up to par and I haven't been at the gym for over a week! Today I'm hoping for some yoga. That shouldn't be too strenuous and if it goes okay, maybe a power class tomorrow. I need to get a run in but I don't think I'm up to that just yet.

autumn - good luck with your vacation exercising! It's not something that I'm normally good at. ;) Lots of walking is all I can ever squeeze in.

Lydia/Kaw - oooh, big years for you this year! I celebrated that milestone last year :( and I'm still trying to adjust.

Mel - congrats on your "on-plan" streak. Keep it up. I wish I could do the same.

Have a great day everyone.

:D

Autumn, your vacation exercise plan looks great to me as is. Simple, easy, can be done anytime or anywhere. You'll be able to get it in without it detracting from enjoying your time away. Have fun! That's the most important thing!

Awww. Thanks Pat! :hug:


great.:s: Your not exactly helping me boost my enthusiasim for this birthday :lol3: Actually, I've been bemoaning this one since my 35th birthday. How bad is that! Every year I punch in the number on my cardio machine thinking a year closer to 40 ~sigh~ but at least it's not this year. Really, I'm thinking about this almost every day. As it draws closer though I'm punching in 39 and thinking yeah, well, I'm still here and doing better than I was at 35 so there! :devil: The reality is that I would only want to be 25 again if I could be the person I am today with better knees. :D

Today was my first day back to the gym since last Saturday. If you recall my previous post it was pretty pathetic. Now I know why I hit the wall. I was getting a small cold. I woke up Sunday morning feeling a touch of it but it wasn't too bad. I rested most of the last two days, took tons of zinc and vitamin C. I'm feeling so much better today and was able to finish a fbwo after my 55 cardio session. :yay: My glutes are a little achey and all is right with the world. :goodvibes:

Elisa: I hope you can make it to your yoga class. It is such a drag to be down with a cold/flu or anything in addition to missing your daily dose of endorphines. Hang in there and get better.

AutumnHarvest: Enjoy your trip. Bodyweight exercises are a great way to kick your own bad self. Last summer I continued my workouts during our family vacations and it was one of the highlights of our vacation. I dragged DH out of bed each morning before sunrise and we ran on the beach and around the golf courses. Loved it! For my b-day DH had given me adjustable weights which I did take on the trip. I'm sure I was breaking all kinds of guest codes on the balcony of that condo but :dunno: no one was up early enough to witness or complain. :devil: Have a great time.

My enthusiasm for 40 isn't terribly high, either. I think it's because I work in higher education, and in higher ed the students never get any older. Being around 20-year olds all the time just drives home the fact that I'm the same age as some of their *mothers*.

So, I make up for it by trying to be in way better shape than their mothers! :)

I still haven't come up with a challenge for my challenge, but I think it should be to (a) go to the gym every day this week, and (b) do cardio at least two of those days. This may not be much of a challenge by Mel's standards, but keep in mind that I'm *allergic* to cardio. :)

The chicken we're having for dinner is starting to smell tasty, so it's time for me to sign off. (Mmmm, dinner...)

Be strong,
Kim

Hey, where is everybody this morning? Sleeping in? C'mon it's after 6! Time to be up and at 'em.

OK, I'll stop channeling my mother.

I had a reasonably successful leg day yesterday, and I'm feeling it this morning. I can't say I'm making a whole lot of progress on my lifts anymore, but I'm still happy adding a rep or two each session. When I start to get bored with this, I'll have to shake things up a bit and try some new exercises. Maybe not any of the exercises Mel dreams up, though; I'm too coordination-challenged!

Off for coffee. Be strong,
Kim

kaw - I'm here!! And I'm already at my desk! Where are all the lazy sleepy heads today? ;)

Made it to yoga yesterday and it felt great so I'm off to power class today. Hopefully things are getting back to normal.

The scale was suprisingly overly kind this morning. I'm not complaining but I'm confused. We'll see if it sticks.

Have a great day.

:D

Here. Getting kids ready for school and wolfing down breakfast.

Elisa: So glad you made it to the yoga class. :hug: It just makes all the difference in the world to be able to return to our favorite things doesn't it. Here's to another good scale reading. :crossed:

Kaw- I rarely get sore any more or make "progress" on lifts. I'm not really interested in adding much more muscle, so to keep it interesting and useful, I just keep doing different, more challenging exercises.

I admit to muddling up that exercise I posted when I was doing it yesterday on my own, that I just gave up. I really need to practice it with just a body bar and work on the squat to clean and press part.

I'm leaving for Ohio in a few minutes and won't be back 'til Sunday night. Have a great week, everyone!

Lydia- what are we working tomorrow? :D

Mel

I'm here. I'm sore. I'm tired as heck.

In terms of my own exercise, I still let my trainer decide if we do something more or different. It's been about 2 months (give or take), but I still feel like a complete novice. I ask which muscles I'm working on every exercise we do, but aside from that, I'm happy enough to be instructed for now. I can really feel my muscles for the first time ever! I just have to poke through layers of fat first.

Elisa - Does the yoga improve your flexibility?

I almost blacked out at the gym yesterday while doing squats. I was really cranking them out right, but I just suddenly had to stop. When my trainer told me to just push through it, I told him, "Everything is going black." I spent the next five minutes lying on my back with my feet up on a swiss ball explaining why I hadn't thought it necessary to mention the respiratory infection that had laid me up the previous week. At least it gave me it a chance to ask him what exercises to do on my vacation.

For our almost 40's - I have a good friend who just turned 50 & she has decided she is going to do 50 things this year for herself. The first was a new car but I am quite certain all the rest will be smaller things. I think it sounds like a fabulous idea & can't wait to keep up to date on her list.

Autumn - eek! It can be scary to push to that point. Sounds like you have a sensible trainer though, who treated things appropriately. LOL - It kind of reminds me of the day I finished my row & my trainer said "Are ya gonna vomit?" & all I could do was nod 'cause if I opened my mouth.... We backed off a little after that!