Weekly: exercise in my target heart rate zone (HRtarget) 4x (Happiness Manifesto Declaration #1)

Using Rob Glick’s Dvd. A great workout if you like choreography which I do.
At the gym , I also did iTread set 13 30 minutes. My friend A joined me as usual for the last fiteen minutes.
So I feel good today.

I pulled out a fun dvd by Christi Taylor.

Somehow my heart was not in it today. Was constantly glancing at the clock to see when the hour would be over.

My throat feels a bit scratchy again. I took Nimuliside to relieve the pain and reduce inflammation. The throat felt better but my stomach feels funny.

Hope tomorrow will be bettter. I usually look forward to my workouts. So it is strange when I feel otherwise.

This is a picture of me taken about 7 years or so ago. I weighed around 90 kg. My recent pictures are on my flickr page.

on the elliptical. Being the end of the week, I am a little low on energy.
Gym buddy ‘A’ decided to use the pre-programmed workouts on the treadmill and bike today. She came to me and got onto the next elliptical and called the programmes, ‘useless’. She said she liked the mp3 workout best.
She also confided that being a mother of a seven month old left very little time for herself. She has to sleep when the baby sleeeps and get her other work also done when the baby is asleep. As a result she has absolutely no time to use the computer or download workouts. her husband travels a lot and will not download stuff for her.
I plan to let her use my mp3 player when I am doing my weight workout.
I showed her one of my ‘fat’ pictures today. Her jaw fell open and she stopped talking mid-sentence when she saw it. She said it is absolutely impossible to believe that the person in the picture is me.
She felt reassured when I told her that if I, in my forties could get into shape, then she who is half my age can definitely also do so.

my mp3 player to use. I played CC Vol 2 as she is just starting out. She could complete only one challenge. She got off the treadmill and handed the player back to me.
‘Time flew’, she said, ’ But I found it a little difficult to keep up.’
I don’t think she will be buying CC anytime now.

Remember ‘A’? the mom of a 7 month old baby?
We worked out together yesterday and today again. Yesterday we did 20 minutes of treadmill and 15min of elliptical.
I did not use the mp3 workouts but the climbs and intervals were definitely inspired by CC and Itrain.
Today ‘A’ joined me for the CC vol 1 on the stationary bike.
I could clearly see that ‘A’ had experienced the endorphin rush on both days. She was dripping,flushed red in the face, beaming with pleasure and her voice had gone up a pitch.
Tomorrow is my leg day. I don’t do cardio on my leg day.
But I plan to take an extra pair of speakers that I have and give my mp3 player to ‘A’ and let Sean O’Malley work his magic on her.
My bet is that she will buy a few more CC workouts soon!

‘A’ never drank water during her workouts. She claimed it gave her a stitch. I told her that to keep hydrated and to avoid exhaustion, she must regularly take sips of room temperature water throughout the workout.
Today she came armed with a bottle and drank the whole lot during the course of CC1. And not a stitch!

I joined the gym that I presently go to.

At that time I weighted 73.5 kg. As part of the process of joining, I was weighed and measured by one of the trainers.

Though I was regularly working out, I was not very clean with the diet until the beginning of November.

The gym weighs and measures its members every two months to keep track of their progress. In the past, whenever a trainer would try to get me into the measurement room, I would give some excuse.

Yesterday, one of the trainers pinned me down and made an appointment to get me weighed and measured. So today, I kept up my appointment and submitted myself to being weighed and measured. There was some trepidation because I have been tracking my weight and it had gone down to 69kg which did not seem like much.

But I was astounded to see the difference in measurements. Except for my calf which has actually increased by a half in because of all the extra cardio and weight training and my forearms which show no change, I have lost a minimum of half an inch ( around the neck ) to 5 1/2 inches ( lower belly ). The total inch loss has been 23 1/2 inches!

At least three people commented that I was looking much slimmer.

Needless to say I have been floating on a cloud all day!

The support I have got at 43T has definitely been one reason I stuck with the program.

A BIG THANKS to all who have given me innumerable cheers, who have responded to my post and who visit my page.
Thanks to NYC who was helped me find 43T and Traineo.
A special thanks to my sis who patiently listens when I call and talk incessantly about my ‘weight problem’
And a big hug to my eldersis ELeonor, my brother Elderbear, and my CC pal Ooty.

I had befriended a young girl at the gym. She was a little confused about why she found the elliptical so easy ( she was working at resistance 1 ) while I was soaking the machine with sweat. I showed her how to increase the resistance and read the display so that she can up her speed.
When I went into the locker room after my weight work to fetch my mp3 player, I found her getting into her gym shoes. I smiled a greeting at her and she immediately asked me in an almost accusatory tone why I had not come yesterday. I explained the late night electrochem marathon to her.
She asked me to explain the stationary bike display to her. I showed her how to manipulate the bike’s resistance in the manual mode and explained what the various numbers on the diaspaly was.
As I walked away towards the treadmill she promised to finish her warmup and join me for a fifteen minute treadmill run. I has finished the first challenge and was about to embark on challenge 2 ( CC6 Candace G ) but she bravely joined in. We did the 6 sprint intervals together. At the end of the 4th interval, she asked me how many more we have left. But she stuck with me till the end of the challenge. By the time we had entered the steady phase, she was flushed and had a beaming smile on her face. She got off after 15 minutes as the ‘gym card’ said she had to do the treadmill only for 15 minutes.
She was a good sport. She is old enough to be my daughter, has a high child-like voice but is a mom to a seven month old baby.
I look forward to meeting her again on Tuesday.

My daughter who is preparing for an exam wanted me to sit with her and help her with electro-chemistry.
We started in the evening around 7:00 pm. But the chapter was never-ending and by the time we were through, it was 2:00 in the morning!
I got up in the morning as usual and managed to fit in my one hour step workout.

I usually leave for the gym by around 12:00 noon. But I found my eyelids drooping.
I decided to give the gym a miss and settled under the blankets for a snooze.
Felt much better after a two hour dreamless nap. Got up refreshed around 4:00 pm.
I’m like my mom – I need my beauty sleep!
One bad night – and I become useless!
Do I regret not going to the gym? Wellllll not really – My daughter really needed my company with that monster chapter.
She actually figured most of it out for herself but having mum around acted like a catalyst!

So I missed one of my four morning step sessions and substituted with yoga instead.

But have given my students a few days off for New Year. So I could squeeze in an extra session today at the gym on the treadmill.

I had a little trepidation as though my knee was pain free for the past two days, I was afraid running might start the pain again.

I decided I will take it one song at a time. I decided to use Grace Lazenby’s one hour treadmill mp3 workout downloaded form Itrain.
The only songs I had to modify on were the ones opn which she asks runners to run at an incline of 7 and 8. I upped the incline but walked at a brisk pace instead.
The hour flew by and i felt good! The knee is fine as of now.

Tomorrow ( Sunday ) is generally my day off but I am tempted to go to the gym. Will decide tomorrow.