#2230 miscellaneous Monday

• When I left work this afternoon, the thermometer in my car told me it was 104 degrees. That's freaking hot!! I did go to they gym this evening. It was nice and cool in there and even though I got sweaty during my workout, it was still cooler than being outside.

• The wellness program through my work started a fitness challenge today and I am determined to succeed. My goal is to get in 20 workouts during the challenge period which is July 29 through August something. I'm pretty sure I can do it; I will probably have to push myself on occasion. One workout down, 19 to go!

• This week I don't have any concerts at Red Butte. I was supposed to have one on July 30, John Prine, but he had to cancel/postpone the show for health reasons. I'm bummed out about it because I thought it would be cool to hear this icon. Hopefully he will feel better and be able to reschedule the date sometime this summer. I did pick up another show to make up for the lost hours, so that's cool. Next week I have three shows: Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Actually the Sunday and Wednesday shows were both bonus pick-ups for me. Only the Friday show was on my original schedule. More on those shows next week!

• Want to hear what I've got planned for this week? Okay! Tomorrow is open although I am planning to go out in the evening for a walk. Hopefully MT will come with me. Wednesday I am going to take a Zumba class and maybe the yoga class that happens right after. I've been wanting to take some yoga classes. Thursday is book club night. We are reading Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home  by Nora Krug and it is one of the most beautiful and unusual books we have ever read with this club. Click here to read a review of the book from the NY Times. I'll be interested to hear what the other readers make of it. After book club, I'm thinking about trying out a new class at the gym called BollyX. I think it could be really fun! On Friday MT and I are going to a party at Red Butte Garden. I'll tell you more about it afterwards. It will be good for us to get out and do something different. I'm looking forward to all of it!

• I don't remember if I mentioned it on Saturday, but Scooby has gone home. He was mostly fun to have around and I was also glad for him to go back with his people. 

• That's all I've got for now! Talk to you on Wednesday!

#2196 WW Wednesday

Last Saturday in the WW workshop, we talked about doing a different activity. (Activity is what we call exercise because apparently there are lots of people who hate the word exercise. *rolls eyes*) Lana asked the group what they wanted to do but were scared to try. Skydiving came up a couple of times. One lady said she really wanted to try yoga but was afraid all the people in the class would be looking at her.

I hear that comment so much, that people don't want to go to the gym because they think that other people will be looking at them. Here's the rock-hard, straight-up, solid truth: the people who are at the gym to work out, to exercise, to get in some physical activity, are too wrapped up in their own business to bother looking at you. A person might glance your way if you get on the machine next to the one they are on. They might appear to be looking at you when they are taking a break between sets, but they are probably not really registering you as a person and almost certainly not making a judgement about you.

When I am in a class, I notice that there are other people in the room, but I'm pretty wrapped up in my own insecurities to make any kind of judgement about anyone else. I might think something like, "Wow, that lady is really energetic," or "She is really working hard today! She's feeling it!" but I don't think I have ever thought about the way a person looked, except if they were wearing a cute outfit or had on cool shoes. I believe most people are like me in that they are at the gym to work out and move on with their day.

So I told the want-to-be yoga lady to not worry about others and just go try it. Several other people said the same thing. I hope she goes to a yoga class. I probably won't find out, though, because she's in the 8 AM group and I don't intend to go back to that group unless I really need to.

I thought about what I wanted to do but hadn't done. I came up with a couple of things. One would be water aerobics. I picked up the water classes schedule a few weeks ago, but I haven't found a time that works for me yet. I want to do it though. The second thing I want to do is go to a real spinning studio to take a real spin class.

I take cycling classes at my local fitness center and it's fun and energetic, but I've seen videos of spin classes at studios and it just looks extra. Back in January I looked online for cycling studios in SLC, and I found one that looked promising. I told myself that when I got back from vacation in Thailand that I would go. March went by and I didn't go. April was coming to an end and I hadn't gone.

Last Saturday after WW, I drove to the studio so I would know where it is and to find out a little more about the place. It is called Ride-ologie and it is in Sugarhouse. I met the owner, Alli, and we chatted about what I could expect. She told me about some of the instructors and advised me not to start with Taylor's class.

MT went out of town on Monday night, but I had something I'd already planned to do that night, so I decided to try a class on Tuesday since MT would still be gone. Wouldn't you know that the only time that I could go, at 6:30, was a class taught by Taylor? I almost talked myself out of it, but it was the end of April and I really wanted to complete this goal of mine, so I signed up for the class. By the way, the first class is free!

I showed up a bit early, as instructed, to sign the waiver and set up my bike. I met Taylor, a super-cute and extremely fit young woman who, like Alli and all the other people I'd met there, was extremely energetic and positive and peppy. She walked me through some basic spin things, which I was pretty familiar with from cycling class. People started to fill in the studio and Taylor turned on the music and we started to warm up.

Let me tell you about this studio. It is more like a cave. It's a pretty good-sized room filled with these high-tech spinning machines. They look like a bicycle, but just have a fly-wheel on the front. You adjust the tension on the fly-wheel to make it harder or easier to pedal. The seat and the handlebars are adjustable too, just not when you're riding. You want to make sure you're bike is set up to suit you before the class starts. Alli showed me how to set up the bike, but I felt like my seat was a little low. I like to be up higher since my knees don't bend like other people's knees. Not as much bend, you know.

Now picture this big room filled with 30 bikes that have maybe a foot between them on any side. It's tight. There are no windows. There are fans mounted on the walls. The front wall is a mirror. There's a platform front and center for the instructor and her/his bike. There's a stand next to the bike for an iPad that the instructor uses to control the lights, music and sound level.

I'm a little bit claustrophobic and when the door was shut and the lights went out, my breathing quickened up a little bit. I was kind of glad I was in the front row. I don't think I would like to be in the middle surrounded by people. When the music started, though, and Taylor turned into a spin class drill sargent, I kind of forgot about everything other than trying to follow her instructions and to just keep pedaling. I figured that even if I couldn't keep up (I couldn't) that if I kept pedaling I was still way ahead of where I usually am.

The class was a solid 45 minutes but with the time I spent warming up, about 10 minutes, and another five or so minutes that were spent doing extra squats (WHY?!?!), I clocked about 60 minutes on my fitness device. The calorie burn was pretty phenomenal, too. During the class I could really feel the burn in my legs, but today I am more sore in my arms and core. We did mini pushups on the bike and a bunch of side crunches, plus some light weight work. Do all that shit when you're trying to pedal at a good speed. Your core gets involved very quickly to stabilize. It's kind of awesome.

In the end, I was proud of myself for going to the class and for making it through without stopping, passing out or throwing up, both of which were slight concerns. Not passing out so much, I guess, although I was a little worried about the claustrophobia. I'm gonna go ahead and say I was the largest person in there, but that's okay, because I was doing it! I felt happy and full of endorphins when I was done. That is totally a thing, you know? I was extremely hyper when I was done with the class and full of love and joy for all things.

Will I go back? Yes I will. I'm looking at my schedule next week and I think I'll try to get into Amy's class on Monday evening at 5:45. (Alli mentioned that I should start with Amy.)

Yesterday I wrote that my work is doing a fitness challenge this month and my goal is to get my 10 (or 15) points every day in May. Today I walked two miles around the track at work, and I got in my 10,000 steps - good for 10 points! YAY! So far so good.

I'm thankful that Lana put out that little challenge last Saturday. It was the nudge I needed to try something that I've been wanting to do. It was hard, and I'm glad I pushed myself a little and did it!

#1902 three things: breakfast, hiking and closing the circles

1. Breakfast. Today started a bit unusually. My sister Lizzie had a two hour layover here in Salt Lake for a flight to Detroit (where she is visiting a friend). She asked me yesterday if I wanted to meet her at the airport and hang out a little. I said I'd bring breakfast. So this morning I hit McDonalds for a couple of breakfast sandwiches and bottles of water and met my sister around 9:30. We sat outside - it was warm, but it's a dry heat - and ate our breakfast and chatted. It was fun and different and I was glad to be there.

2. Hiking. What is the difference between a hike and walk? Is a hike just a walk, but with elevation? Maybe, but it also has to do with the type of terrain. A walk is mainly in urban areas on concrete or asphalt. A hike is on a more natural path or trail. (I always wondered.) Today the temperature in the valley was around 100 degrees and I really wanted to go for a walk. MT suggested we head up to the mountains where it was bound to be at least ten to twenty degrees cooler. We settled on hiking above the Alta ski area around Albion Basin on a trail known as Catherine Pass. I was looking for a hike that was fairly easy, that I hadn't done before and that was around three miles total.

We ended up hiking about 2.5 miles round trip. There was still some snow on the trail, and when we were pretty close to the top there was quite a big patch of snow to cross and I didn't want to do it. The trail was a pretty steady climb, not steep, but definitely steady. There was an elevation gain of nearly 850 feet, so going up I was huffing and puffing and stopping fairly often. On the way down it was a matter of watching where I put my feet and staying upright. The knees held up great and I felt good overall. The hike took us about an hour and 45 minutes (I'm slow).

MT was right about the temperature. It was in the low to mid 80s, so it was still warm but the breeze sure felt good. When we were coming back down, the afternoon storm clouds were gathering over the Wasatch Mountains. We made it back to the car just as some raindrops sprinkled the windshield. As we came down the mountain back into the valley, the sun was still super hot and the temperature was, in fact, 102 degrees.

Here are a couple of pics that MT took:

 I am standing on snow on 2 July.

I'm not sure why this photo is kinds of filmy. I think MT put his finger on the lens and it smudged.

3. Closing the circles. I got an Apple watch through my work. We have a healthy lifestyle program called Vitality and they offer an Apple watch as an incentive to exercise and better health. I had to pay $57 for the set-up. Each month I have to pay $13 or less, depending on whether I achieve the healthy activity goals that have been determined for me according to my height and weight. 

There are three goals which are represented by circles on my Apple watch. The smallest circle represents a "standing up" goal. You may have heard that sitting is the new smoking. My fun new watch tells me to stand up every hour, if I haven't already, and it keeps track of the times that I stand. My goal is to stand up 12 times a day, so once an hour for 12 hours. It seems like it should be easy, but when you're watching a movie, for example, you probably don't stand up in the middle of it when you're in the theater. Overall, it is an easy goal though.

The second goal is represented by the second biggest circle. It is a 30 minute exercise goal. The activity doesn't have to be all at once, but throughout the day, you should rack up 30 minutes of activity that gets your heart beating faster than normal. 

The third goal is the biggest circle and the most difficult to complete. It is the move goal which differs from the exercise goal in that it monitors the amount of active calories that you burn and also the total number of steps you take in a day. You may have heard that walking 10,000 steps/day is good for you. I don't know for sure about that, but it is a target to try to reach. If you are walking 10,000 steps, you're not sitting around, right? The tricky part of the third circle is the amount of active calories being burned. I don't know how the watch figures it out, but I'm going with it. My goal is 650 active calories, which is a lot because I'm a big girl. It takes effort for me to burn that many active calories. There are some days, like when I'm at the gym, that I succeed pretty handily. Other days, like yesterday, were much harder and I found myself marching in place in my bathroom at 11:30 trying to get the last 15 calories burned. (I did it!) Today my active calorie total was a smoking hot 1,378 calories and I think 1,200 of them were burned during the hike. So that's awesome. 

How does this all relate to paying for the watch? Well, every time I close my circles, I get 10 points from Vitality. 10 is the maximum number of points you can earn each day. During the month, I have to get 250 points in order to pay nothing for the Apple watch. As you know, there are 31 days in July meaning there are potentially six days that I could slack off and not get the points . Since I have some a couple of trips planned this month, I cannot afford to do much slacking which is why we went for the big hike today. It is possible to get just five points from Vitality, but those little five point workouts don't count toward the 250 points. GAH! So much pressure! And I have to do this for two years?!? 

The upside is that potentially I will lose some weight from all this activity, or at least possibly some inches. As I've said before, you can work out all you want, but if you don't control what you feed yourself, you're not gonna lose the weight. Exercise has lots of great benefits, but weight loss is mostly about what you eat. 

This post turned out to be a little longer than I planned, but you're caught up with what I'm thinking about tonight. 

Happy July everyone!

#1742 three things: updates

I think there are three things I can write about tonight! They are all updates from previous posts.

Knee. The last time I wrote I was bitching about how bad my left knee was hurting. Since Sunday I have been taking it easy and medicating. The knee feels better than it did, but it's still swollen and painful. The pain goes between a four and a six on the ten point scale. So annoying. #arthritissucks

Pillow. Around the end of July or the first of August I got a new pillow. Remember that I spent $50 on it and I was freaking out a little? Well, since I've been sleeping on the pillow for about a month, I can tell you that it was worth the money. I've mostly been sleeping pretty well, even though thinking/worrying about the man-child does sometimes wake me up in the middle of the night.  Not the pillow's fault or the man-child's fault either. Sometimes I just think too much for my own good. I will be away from my pillow for the first time this weekend, so I'll be interested to see how it goes.

iTunes gift card. Remember in July when I was trying to get in 8,000 steps a day so that I could be a $10 iTunes gift card from my work? Well, I did get in 8,000 steps every day in July; in fact, I averaged over 10,000 steps a day! Today I got the gift card in the mail along with a check for $50 for getting over 310,000 steps in July! HOORAY! Why don't I have that same determination and will power every month? I could give myself an iTunes gift card if I succeed or even something else (like nail polish!) but I don't reward myself or challenge myself. Kind of depressing when I think of it. But I was super excited to get the check and the gift card!

Want to know one more awesome thing? I'm going to San Diego in the morning! I'm super excited to visit Lizzie and check out her new apartment in the city. I'm also really looking forward to spending some time with my mom and dad in their peaceful little oasis in the 'burbs. And when I get home on Monday, MT and I will be closing on the sale of the fixer upper, so there's something else to look forward to!

#1704 no steps for that bike ride

The company I work for is having a health challenge in July. If I walk 8,000 steps every day in July, they will give me a $10 iTunes gift card. For some reason, I am obsessed with getting that gift card. I know it's not anything that I couldn't get for myself, but if someone gives it to me, it's more fun!

The first two days of the month I reached 8,000 steps, no problem. Today I decided to go for a bike ride. I rode over 12 miles and it was good. It was definitely work. The ride out was great. I had a tailwind and it was a smooth easy ride. Coming back, you guessed it, I had a headwind. Not as much fun. It only took me 28 minutes to ride the six plus miles out, but it took me 42 minutes to get back. I had to gear down and work to get back. I even stopped once along the way - I don't think I've done that before. My legs were tired. I was so happy to see the car!

I felt great about completing the ride. My Fitbit gives me some steps for non-walking activity, but for my 12 mile ride, I got ZERO steps! ZERO!! That's kind of disappointing, don't you think?

After dinner I went out for a walk to get all my steps. It was a nice walk. I started out going uphill into the wind, so the way back home was downhill with the wind behind me. It was good. I did get all my steps in and two workouts, so that's good.

~~~~~~

I just finished this book! Check out the 2016 Reading List page

#1601 this year for Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. I am not a religious person, but over the years I have sometimes practiced giving something up during Lent. Last year I gave up sweets. It was tough, but I did it. In other years I have given up soda. I wasn't thinking of giving up anything this year, but I've been thinking about it and maybe I will do something, but it doesn't involve food. It's more of a positive challenge, I think.


GOOGLE ALERT: Of course I had to Google why we give things up for Lent. I found this website that offered a reasonable explanation. In the last paragraph, the author writes about giving up a bad habit for Lent, and that's kind of what I was thinking about.

I feel that I am lazy. I want to lose weight and have better physical fitness, but it's easy to find an excuse to not go to the gym and even go for a walk. What I was thinking of doing for Lent is adding activity to my life every day. I want to break a sweat by doing some physical activity daily.

The irony is that I will be starting this challenge tomorrow because (here comes the excuse!) tonight I went to parent-teacher conference with my son. It's the last one, since he will graduate this year and there are no parent-teacher conferences in college. There were some people at my work who thought it was strange that I still attended parent-teacher conferences. I don't think I've ever missed one. T's education and progress is very important to me, and I feel obliged and lucky to talk to him and his teachers about his grades and his future. I don't tire of hearing his teachers tell me that he is a great kid with a bright future or that he is intelligent and funny and they like having him around.

So now that the parent-teacher conference is done and I have had some time to lay on the couch and watch TV and ponder my Lenten choice, I'm gonna do it! Starting tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes :)

#1491life with the FitBit

I got a FitBit ChargeHR for my birthday in June. I've been wearing it every day and night since I got it. I wore it in Hawaii. I wear it to the gym. I wear it when I sleep. It measures lots of different things and there is a cool app for my beloved iPhone that I gaze at several times a day. What I love about the app is that each category has a graph that shows you what you're doing. I love graphs.

Here's what I have on my FitBit app that I see every time I open it:

The number of steps I've walked in a day. My goal is 10,000. Sometimes I get it and lots of times I don't. When I do hit 10,000 steps, my FitBit vibrates on my wrist and I feel a terrific sense of accomplishment. I can open the Steps to see how many I've taken in the past seven days. Sadly, from last Tuesday through today, I have only walked 10,000 steps one day, on Thursday and I went to Zumba that day. There's a lot of stepping going on in Zumba.

My heart rate.  The Charge HR monitors the heart rate at all times. It also shows your resting heart rate - that is, the heart rate when I am sleeping.

Miles walked in a day. I think I have a goal of five miles a day. Maybe that's not realistic because I don't get it very often. I think it was a default setting. Or maybe I should just walk more (see Number of Steps).

Number of Calories Burned. I think the default goal is 2,500. I'm usually right around there. If I did just a little more walking/physical activity, I'm pretty sure I could do it. I don't worry too much about calories though because of Weight Watchers. I just stay in my Points Plus.

Floors climbed. It actually counts the number of times I go up the stairs. The default goal is 10. I usually achieve that since my bathroom and bedroom is upstairs. Also, my washer and dryer are in the basement, so there some more steps and stairs.

Active minutes. Whenever I exercise, that is, my heart rate is elevated enough for the FitBit to acknowledge that I am doing some physical activity, it counts the minutes. My goal is 30 minutes. Last week I only had one day with active minutes. I was pretty lazy Three or four days of 30 minutes of activity is a good goal. 

Exercise. The FitBit Charge HR shows how many times I exercised and gives me the option to categorize the exercise. Tonight I went for a walk after work. I walked for 31 minutes. It tells me how far I walked (1.42 mi), the pace (22 minute mile - I'm pretty slow, but I have an arthritic knee and a surgically repaired knee. I'm glad to be moving at all!), and the average heart rate (mine was 112 bpm). The impact on your day is also shown: I had 3,374 steps in that 31 minutes, I burned 269 extra calories and had 31 active minutes.

Sleep. This is a big one for me. I love it and I hate it. Last night I went to sleep at 10:39 PM and woke up at 5:34 AM. You'd think that would be about seven hours, but NO. The FitBit ChargeHR says that I woke up one time (true - I went to the bathroom) and I had 23 times that I was "restless" and calculates that to be 43 minutes I was awake/restless so I only got six hours and six minutes of sleep. I have set my sleep goal at seven hours because after nearly two months of wearing this thing, I can tell you that I have not come close to eight hours EVER. I used to think I was a good sleeper, and then I decided that I wasn't and now I know for sure that I am not a good sleeper. That's why I love and hate the Sleep category. 

There are several other categories you can show, like amount of water consumed and your weight and probably other stuff too. You can also find friends that have a FitBit and do challenges with them to keep yourself motivated. I don't really like to compare with others because we are all doing different things and have different goals. I like to challenge myself, but it's fun to see what others are up to.

I won't say that my habits have changed since I got the FitBit, but I am definitely interested in the stats it gives me every day!

#1464 bye-bye June; you were fantastic

Today is the last day of June. It's my BFF LA's birthday.  I sent her a text this morning and she told me that she was leaving work early to go kayaking with her husband. She got a green kayak for her birthday! I didn't even know she liked to do that activity, so I asked when she got into kayaking and she said last Tuesday. LOL

Next month is an odd number month, so I plan to write every day and I will write about Hawaii until I've told you everything. :) I've been thinking about the best way to tell you about it. Should I just write a day-by-day thing? Should I pick and choose stuff we did and write about that?

One of the things I like about vacation is that I usually have lots of time to read. I was hoping to read three books during my vacation and I did it! I was reading a book when we left, and I finished that one, plus I read three others cover to cover. I was pretty surprised to be able to read all those books because we were out and about quite a bit. I will write about the books on the 2015 Reading List page, but here is what I read:

On the trip over, I watched the movie Cinderella. Remember how much I loved that movie? I wrote a whole post about it. I still love it. Even though the screen was a lot smaller and there was a little buffering at times and the audio was interrupted by announcements by the pilot or the flight attendants, I still loved it. There was quite a selection of movies available. I didn't fully explore the options or I might have watched something else. I certainly had time to watch more than one movie, but I read a lot on the flight over. On the flight back, I just slept.

Looking back, June was kind of fantastic. The first weekend was my birthday. The next two weekends we were in Hawaii, and last weekend we were in Island Park. I'm thankful we will be staying home this weekend and doubly thankful that this weekend is a three day affair because it's the 4th of July! I have lots of things I want to do: see movies, read (I just picked up the latest Sarah Addison Allen book!), laundry, pay my bills, clean up the house, go to the pool (it's hot as blazes here!) and just relax.

July will be good, too. I'm looking forward to seeing the Zac Brown Band next week. We get another three day weekend toward the end of the month, too because July 24 is a state holiday here in Utah. There's some planning and some learning to be done, too, but more on that later maybe. Plus, I'm involved in a fitness challenge at work in which we have to complete 600 minutes of activity in the month and the organizers keep track of the activity through the Fitbit. (Remind me to tell you how much I have enjoyed my FitBit.)

Ok, I'm going over to the reading page to talk about these four books. Check back tomorrow and I'll try to verbally take you to Waikiki Beach and show you some photos too!

#1257 focusing on a big goal

Yesterday's WW meeting was good. It was about thinking why we came to Weight Watchers and focusing on our goals.

The first time I started at WW was in 2008. T was 10 and when he gave me a hug, his arms didn't reach all the way around me. There were some other reasons for joining, but the fact that my son couldn't hug me around my waist is one reason that I always come back to for a big reason for joining. At that time, I set a big goal for myself: I wanted to lose 100 pounds. I did not reach that goal, but I learned a lot and I worked hard and I felt like I was in a good place. I think the most I'd lost was between 85 and 90 lbs. That's a lot. I was so proud of myself!

I kept it mostly off for awhile, but I got lazy and complacent. I was having a lot of pain in my right knee and I wasn't exercising like I had been. I was falling back into my old eating habits, too. I wasn't paying attention to what I was eating; I was just eating whatever I wanted and in quantities that weren't responsible. The sad thing is that all during that time, I was still a WW member, but I was paying them as I was gaining weight. So I quit WW, then I started putting the weight back on in a serious hurry.

In January of this year, I decided to swallow my pride and get back on the program before I put all the weight back on. At least I wasn't where I had been in 2008, but it was close and it was going to happen. In the nearly nine months I've been back on the program, I've lost just over 12 lbs. It's not great, but it's waaaaaaay better than gaining 12 lbs!

So that's why I (re)joined, and now I need to focus on my goals. I have a weight in mind that I would someday like to be. I don't think it's necessary to share that number here, but I think it's attainable although far away. That's the long-term goal. The short-term goal is to focus on the five lb stars. At the meetings, you get a little sticker for every five pounds you lose. I love to get those stickers. I've only got two of them this year. I would like to get five more of them before the end of the year.

My goal is to lose about 25 lbs by the end of the year. That's a lofty goal. There are only 15 more Saturdays before the end of the year, so I'd need to drop just over a pound and half every week to achieve my goal. It's do-able, but difficult, especially with the holidays in there.

In order to reach my goal, I need to really focus on the WW basics: writing down everything I eat and staying within my Points Plus allotments, eating fruits and vegetables, drinking lots of water and exercising. I've been pretty good at two of those four things, tracking and drinking. I've got to get back in the groove with those other two things!

WW wants you to eat five servings of fruits or veggies every day. That's hard for me! Potatoes don't count and I don't really like vegetables all that much, but I've got to figure out a way to make it happen. I've done it before; I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do it again.

When I was in WW the first time, I really got into exercising. I liked it. It was fun and I loved watching my body change as I lost fast and gained muscle. Now I have a new knee and there are some limitations but I should be able to do most of the stuff that I enjoyed doing before, like spinning class. I also really liked yoga, but I do not like to be on all fours putting pressure on that new knee. It feels awful, so I'll probably try yoga again, but do some modifications for some of the poses.

Last year around this time, I joined a different gym because I was burned out on the classes and instructors at my regular gym. It was mistake. The new gym was yucky. It was dirty and smelly and the spinning room was a cave in which I got claustrophobic and nauseous. I haven't been there for months. MT was really cool when I explained my issues with the place. He said that we all make mistakes and that I should just go back to my regular gym and get back on the exercise habit, so that's what I'm going to do! I'm going to set up appointments with myself to get back to the gym and take some classes but also exercise on my own in the cardio and weight rooms. I figure I need to go to about five classes a month and hit the cardio/weight room about five times a month to cover the costs. Ten visits a month seems do-able, doesn't it?

All right. It's time to get serious about this. I'm tired of being chunky. I think I'll feel a whole lot better about everything in my life if I have this big goal to focus on and all the little mini-goals that go with it.

Okay! I'm going to go plan my attack on exercising and fruits and veggies this week! Wish me luck :)

#1185 my exercise idea

I got off work early today to get a little jump start on the three day weekend.  Since I got home, I have either been sitting here in front of my computer playing solitaire or laying on my bed playing with my phone or reading. I'm a little embarrassed at my sloth.

MT and T have gone to see the new X-Men movie. I never got into the X-Men, so I decided to skip it, even though it is MT's birthday movie. His birthday is tomorrow, but they wanted to see it tonight. I don't think MT is upset that I didn't go to his birthday movie. Last year's choice, Fast & Furious 6 (or 7 or 9) was a waste of money for me. I fell asleep. It's just not my thing.

As I was laying on my bed, petting the dog and feeling bad because I am such a lazy-bones, I came up with an idea that I think I'm going to try next week. My goal is to do some type of physical activity every day, so I came up with a list of things that I can do during the week that won't take more than about 20 - 30 minutes. For example, one thing is to go for a 20 minute walk and I specify the direction I should go. I've got a couple of 10 minutes walk options and some yoga options. There are nine options for the five weekdays. I have a separate list for weekends and those activities can take a little longer. So far I've come up with four weekend options.

My plan is to write the options on separate little pieces of paper and put them in a baggie - one for the weekdays and one for weekends. Monday through Friday, when I get home from work, I will randomly select an activity and immediately go do it. Same thing on weekends.

What do you think? Do you think I will do it, that I will stick with it for a week? Gotta try something and this will take the guesswork out of it because my options are pretty specific. Do you have any suggestions for activities that I can do?

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, America!

Talk to you tomorrow :)

PS - the egg muffins were fantastic! I will be making more of those for certain!

#937 squat challenge update

In an earlier post, I wrote about the 30 day squat challenge that I'm doing along with some people from work. We are now half-way through the 30 days. Tonight I am doing 150 squats.

I don't know if the squats are having any impact on my rear end. I hope so, but I can't really see it, so I can't say for sure. I do see some muscle building up around my knees and that is a good thing. My left knee feels sore after the squats, but my new knee feels fine, and that makes me feel happy.

Mandy has already found our next fitness challenge that we'll take on after the squat challenge is finished. It involves abs. I've seen the challenge schedule, and it does look challenging. I think it will be good.

First though, I have to get through the next 15 or so days of this squat challenge. I'm going to go do them right now while I watch the last few minutes of the Pacers/Heat game.