indigo_rose99 | Entries tagged with exercise

For several years now I've been looking at inversion as a stretching and healthy thing. My friend S talks about her inversion table as something she cannot live without. Up until now I had two things stopping me:

Space to put it. There was really no practical place in our old house to store the table.
My acid reflux problems. Inversion makes these worse.

The new house solved the space problem. Clearly such a table would go in the gym area. And the acid reflux... My reading on the subject basically says to only use the table when my stomach is COMPLETELY empty. So, first thing in the morning and not again the same day. The inversion literature says "do it multiple times a day!" and that is not going to be possible for me. And I'm ok with that part. It will mean that any positive impact will take longer to happen and not be as pervasive.

Do I know that inversion is going to help my back feel better, improve my posture, allow fluids to move around more freely, cut down on potential swelling in my feet/hands and allow my joints to relax... No. The literature on inversion often reads like one of those creepy TV infomercials at 3am. But... What is the negative risk here? Making my acid reflux worse is the only one I could think of and I'll keep a close eye on it. But otherwise....? I might lower my overall stress because I'm doing something like meditating for a few minutes every day. That is...um... not a bad thing. Plus all the potential long term good stuff.

So T has gotten me an inversion table for our anniversary. I'm thrilled. It even has a vibrating pad for my lower back. I'm at the early stages of using it. The literature says start out for only about a minute and at low percent inversion. So I'm doing 15% (the lowest setting) for a minute or until something feels different. My lower back is not sore for the first time in a few months. Which could be psychosomatic... but I'll still take it!

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: home

My running is going well. The 2.5 miles I ran this morning is above and beyond the walking (3.44 miles, including walking).

T reminds me that the zombie run is only a few weeks away. I'm switching from watching my time (28 min of running Thursday) to watching the distance. Especially when the zombies are chasing me, I'll care about speed and distance.

I'm probably doomed anyway, but I will give it a good try!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: home

On my way to running a 5K in December, I am up to 0.6 miles. And to clarify, after talking to other people, this is the part I actually spend actually continuous running. I do not count the walking warm-up. ....OK, yes, 0.6 miles is still pretty lame. And if I completed the mile it would be something like an 18 minute mile. Yes, I am slooooooow... But the distance is almost twice what I started out at! At this rate of increase (distance -- which I will have to stop increasing if I want to increase my speed), I should be running for 3 miles in mid-August. Which, at this speed, sounds really deathly dull.

Current Location: home

T thinks the indoor skydiving does not count (at least for him) this year.

We compromised. Our plan is to join the zombie run 5K in late 2013. T committed to paying for our tickets when I can run 3.1 miles at 8.5min/mile. He warns that this may lead to our Christmas letters going out late so we can include pictures.

Tomorrow I start training. 0.25 miles, here I come!

Want to join us?

Current Location: home

I do not do new years resolutions. Never have. I am annoyed by those who do, at least the ones who show up the first two weeks of January at my gym and hog the machines. Otherwise I don't think we should limit ourselves to trying to change up our lives only once a year.

That said, my husband's company has a wellness program. If we allow a nosy human to talk to us once a quarter (it used to be once a month. Cutbacks?), they will give each of us $250. The nosy human (I mean, "Wellness coach") has been suggesting that I find a way to make exercise more fun. Get out of my rut. They suggested trying out the classes at my gym.

I hate interacting with strangers. And fighting for floor space to then demonstrate to the strangers that I am an uncoordinated klutz who has never seen these moves before? Ugh.

So I bought a new game for the Wii. My last one, Cardio Boxing, was a total failure. Frustrating and dull. Turns out that I like Wii Fit Boxing, I do not like boxing in general. Or perhaps they just put together an un-fun game.

I ADORE the Wii Fit. But I have played the games and exercises a LOT. I think it qualifies as part of my rut.

This time, I bought Wii Active2. It had better reviews than many competitors, used the Wii Fit board, and I liked the idea of monitoring my heart rate and putting sensors on me.

Four days and three sessions using it later, I like it. Their "30 minute" sessions take more like 45-60 minutes of real time. I like that unlike a gym class, once I have seen an activity I do not have to re-watch the painstaking directions again. I like that it monitors my heart rate, and when I get a high heart rate I get more calories burned credit. I like that the activities are short. So if I hate jogging (which I do), it is over pretty quickly. I like that it seems to have a wide variety of exercises, and it mixes them up day to day. So while I may be using the same muscles, the activity looks and feels different. Thus far I have successfully sweated all three times. And today I woke up with really sore gluts. I was not sore yesterday, it did not hurt to do the exercises... And yet today I am all about the muscle soreness.

It has a "nine week program." I am supposed to exercise four days a week. I'm not sure how I like being locked into WHICH days I choose... We'll see how that works out long term.

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Location: home

On days when my husband ditches the morning workout and I am disinclined to leave the house, I exercise on the Wii Fit. Yes, I know it is wimpy, but it is still kinda fun.

I am exploring the island on my "bicycle." My next objective is to get the road bike. Did you know you can do that? Yep, get a road bike. Cool. You gotta COMPLETELY explore the island. No dark map spots. I am still working on it.

Anyway, yesterday I made a brave effort and started out by doing the third (advanced?) level of the flying chicken suit. I completed it! Whew! I actually made it to the blimp! I felt so proud... and tired.

Then later in my Wii Fit meanderings I did the advanced (second?) level on the segway hitting beach balls. Lots of aggressive leaning.

Today I can barely move. My arms and shoulders ache, and my upper legs are really sore! I was not expecting the legs.

Surprise, surprise. This stuff is actual exercise! Or it can be.

Current Mood: surprised
Current Location: home

This past weekend we went to Vegas, which was lovely. Raaga123 wrote most of what I wanted to say about it.

But she did not talk about the cool bike in the gym. It was one of those stationary bikes, with a screen in front of it. I was thinking "TV," but no. It was a stationary bike that the handlebars would move (rare) and the seat was hideously uncomfortable (to keep people from lingering?). And the screen was a video game! You could ride paths with other bikers... or hunt dragons! I totally hunted dragons! Let me tell you, I did not notice the hills on this thing, because I was getting myself a silver dragon -- more points, you know. The landscape was a island with Asian ruins and wrecked ships.

I was impressed. Not enough to want one for myself, but enough to want one in my gym to play with occasionally.

Current Location: home

Careful diets, increasing exercise, and I still weigh a bit more than I did a year ago. I am up to exercising 4 - 9 hours per week, 1-3 times a day. Bleh. A big time suck.

A few days ago,

aurienne mentioned working on two hundred situps. I thought, why not? I might as well add this to my routine. So, today I'm up to 180+. Doesn't that sound nice and impressive? What a great, large number! But thus far I have had zero soreness. My biggest problem has been boredom. Nice to know that I'm in such shape that adding situps does not make me feel any different... but I kinda wish it made me fill a tiny bit different!

Current Location: home

I have gotten up early in hotels around the world to climb the stairs for exercise. Ireland, England, China... On the rare occasions I have encountered other people, they have never said anything more to me than "Good Morning."

This morning, over the sound of my ipod, I faintly heard, "Stop! You can't go down there!" ...Oops. It was a hotel employee, trying to stop me from going down to floor -1. I explained that I would be happy to go to the gym, if only it would open at 5am like civilized gyms (I left out the "civilized" part, though I thought it loudly.) Once he understood that I was simply going up and down the stairs, he let me be.

Only to say "hello" as he passed through other floors. And then later stopped to ask me what I was reading and where I am from in America. He found Texas an unforgivable sin, though I hastened to explain that I voted against W, as much as one can. Well, that part was OK, and we we were off into a discussion of the current presidential candidates. He is against Obama because he fears an assassination in the first few months in office. You know how racially primitive and prejudiced we are in the US? Not like civilized countries in Europe. Not that he said it like that.... *grin* But that was clearly what he meant.

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Dublin, Ireland
Current Music: (book) _Green Rider_ by Britain

I have not gone roller-blading much in the past 7 months. And during this time T took the opportunity to replace my wheels with ones we bought some year or so ago, and added a new brake. We had some trouble getting the larger wheels on with the brake -- not enough room. This further delayed me getting back out roller-blading.

Last Sunday the weather was beautiful. I awoke with a strong urge to exercise. I called my friend and neighbor B, and convinced him to roller-blade around the neighborhood with me. As I left, T warned me that the new wheels were a bit dubious in their attachment. Evidently if you put them on too hard, that is as bad as too loosely. T warned that I should keep an eye on... mysteriouspartsthatcouldfalloff. I nodded, and tried not to bite through my lip at the feel of being back on roller-blades for the first time since... Well, you know. I tried to imagine how I would check whether the wheels were in danger of coming off. Perhaps lift my foot and look at them? *hysterical laughter* Yeah, like that is going to happen! I can barely stand with both feet on the ground! Fine, I'll look at them after they are off my feet.

So, B and I roller-bladed in circles around our multi-circle neighborhood for an hour. About 45 minutes in during a long straight stretch, B said, "Hey, wait! You lost a wheel!" I didn't feel unstable. He found the wheel in the grass and showed it too me. Clearly my wheel. I didn't lift my foot to look for fear of going over on the asphalt. But I did go back and found a blue metal piece (about 1/2" in diameter, flat, with a hole in the center) and a black bolt-looking thing next to it. B explained that these were only some of the pieces, but that the actual bolt that screwed into my piece was easy to replace. He offered one of his.

But when I got back home, I learned several things: (1) I had lost a middle wheel, thus no strange feeling of being unstable. (2) T felt strongly that I should have been checking my skates the whole time. I'm still not sure quite what he had in mind for a practical application of that. Perhaps telling B to look at them sideways? (3) There should have been two blue metal pieces. (4) The wheel cannot be put back on the skate without BOTH blue metal pieces.

T & I walked the section of the route where my wheel came off looking for the lost blue piece last Sunday. 45 minutes. Nothing.

Monday of last week, I walked the first half of our zigzagging route through the houses looking for the lost blue piece. 61 minutes. Nothing.

T went online Wednesday looking for a replacement blue piece. 60 minutes. We could find skates, wheels or bolts. Rollerblade is uninterested in selling little blue pieces. Nothing.

Today I set out to walk the small missing piece of the route that had not been walked. Yes, it has been a week. Yes, the piece was probably in some gutter or picked up by a curious kid. I decided I just wanted the exercise and if I found it, this would mean we wouldn't have to replace the whole stupid skates. *sigh*

I found it.

Current Mood: giddy
Current Location: home

So I've had a lovely dinner and I'm reentering my hotel. In my new attitude as "healthy person," I ignore the elevator and head for the stairs. I'm halfway up the first flight (from floor zero) when someone enters behind me. I think, "Oh, well, it is only polite to not make them wait, I'll speed up! And I do this every morning, so that should be easy!" Taking two stairs at a time, I made it to the 2nd floor. "Surely, he'll stop here. I mean, who climbs the stairs up past this point?" But he kept following me. By the 4th floor, I'm trying not to pant audibly and have realized that I cannot do two stairs at a time any more... and he is gaining. How humiliating! The last floor I'd like to think that he didn't have to slow down for me... but *shrug* Who knows?

Bleh. Ok, kudos for not collapsing in the stair in a humiliating heap. Further kudos for him not actually appearing to be forced to slow down or pass me. But I would have felt a lot better if I hadn't been panting heavily by the time I made it to my room.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Ireland
Current Music: "Little Wing" by Concrete Blonde