exercise medley

week: -2.5
total: -69

I am not deliberately making posts only when I lose weight. Rather, this fall I have become a morning exerciser, at least on Tuesday/Thursday, which greatly inhibits my Tuesday weight-loss-saga posts. So, I endeavor to improve in this as in other areas of my life.

Sunday I made a new PR in pullups: 17 with 85 pounds offset (which means I'm lifting a fraction of my own weight, I know). So this morning, I knocked it down to offset 70 pounds and I was able to do about 7 reps (working from memory here, my notebook is in the gym bag still), which is a PR too for that weight level.

I tried a new machine called an Adaptive Motion Trainer. I felt like I was training to walk in a mechanical body armor suit. The machine allows the exerciser to use whatever stride is most comfortable, from vertical stair-climbing, to long horizontal cross-country skiing (I am guessing on that last part). Anyway, my ten-minute interval session plus five-minute cool-down about killed my thighs. My knees were really aching after too, but they were aching before, so I'm not sure how much to blame the AMT. In fact, I was supposed to do sprints on the track for intervals, but after my knees started screaming while climbing the stairs to the indoor track, I changed my mind and went looking for something low-impact. The AMT is quite low-impact, at least on the lowest setting, and I felt like I was springing on a trampoline or in the moonwalk bubble from my childhood. I won't use the AMT every time (because I never use the same interval type twice in a row), but I suppose I will put it into the mix.

Tang Soo Do testing is in four and a half weeks. I think I'll be ready, but I have to prepare myself for my breaks better than I did last time around (e dan ahp cha gi and tollyo chung dan kong kyuk).

September ends

week: -2.5
total: -68

In the last week I did:
Tang Soo Do twice (Wed/Sat) (with hubby)
gym twice (Tues/Thurs)
cross-campus sprint walk between my MTWR classes, took the stairs several times, etc.

super busy last week: got up early and headed to the gym, completely forgetting that I should post something here. I'm almost ready for the gym today already, but I do have a few free minutes.

I rented a locker at the gym, since I'm trying that morning workout thing, so I'd have a place to keep my shower shoes w/out lugging them back and forth (and forgetting them at home more often than not). BUT the locker rental is $90 -- while it costs $1 to rent a towel on a per need basis. Twice a week for 45 weeks to justify that expense -- and it's a service I don't really need in summer. Maybe I'll switch to semesterly after this year is up.

I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights. I'm reluctant to go to bed in the first place (why? no idea, not tired); once I'm there it takes longer than usual to drop off; then I wake up every so often in a blind panic (or from a bad dream, like Sunday night), and I'm crushed when I see that it is still dark out. I think I have to force myself to go to bed earlier, even if I don't feel tired, just to unwind and settle the brain.

ready to return to normalcy

week: +1.5
total: -67.5

Another week of hectic weather and hence sporadic exercise. Tang Soo Do school opened again last Wednesday, but then we were feeling the effects of Ike, even this far away, and I didn't want to go out on Friday or Saturday. So. I did make it back to the gym this morning, and managed 8 assisted pullups (not a PR but exciting since it had been so long since my last attempt).

not quite normal

week: -3.5
total: -69

According to my milestones on the right column, I'm in the gray area between "overweight" (150) and "normal" (145). I don't necessarily like how I've achieved it here recently (see The Gustav Diet), but that plateau was pretty heinous, and I'm glad for breaking it.

Life is in turmoil here, and we have not practiced Tang Soo Do in over a week, nor have we been to the gym. We are planning to change that this afternoon and do something after work, and try to start getting back to normal, even as we keep waiting for the power to come back on.

the Gustav Diet

week (as of Tuesday, 9/2): -3.5
total: -65.5

late on posting, because we had a bit of trouble with Gustav. You probably won't be surprised to read that I found myself on the Hurricane Anxiety Diet. I really didn't feel like eating, and when I did eat, because of the electricity situation, I could only get an energy bar, a can of beans, or a can of fruit. Consequently, I shattered my plateau -- the question now is whether my old weight will resume as my life returns to normal (which won't actually be for a long time).

Currently, I'm at a friend's house, so I don't actually have my spreadsheet of previous weigh-ins. I do have my little ticker at the bottom, so I'm extrapolating from that.

tortoise v hare

I was just listening to an interview with Darin Steen (I'd put up a link, but the interviewer only makes it free for like 24hrs), who is a fitness and motivational coach in Chicago. One of the topics he touched on was the effectiveness of high-intensity intervals like sprints versus low-intensity steady-state jogging. Since we are in the midst of Olympics fever, he said something like: "Whose physique would you rather have, a sprinter's, or a marathoner's?" (Here are some pictures I found on the net to illustrate the point:)

<<<--SPRINTER

---

That marathon runner is slim and trim, but he's not solid like the sprinter. And I've always thought to myself: "When am I going to have to run 5k?" It's much more likely that I'll have to dash 100m -- to catch a child in the street or escape from an axe murderer. [Edited to add:] Or to dash across campus when I'm running late. [end addendum.] I've already been doing intervals based on my Abs Diet plan (I think it's in there), but it is always nice to vindication.

---

MARATHONER>>>

the end of summer

week: +1.5
total: -60.5

gym: Tuesday/Thursday
tang soo do: Wednesday

We went out of town for the weekend, leaving Friday afternoon, so I didn't take the time to hit the gym that day, opting instead to pack. We spent the whole day outside in the park Saturday though (excepting the lunch break, when the sky opened up a downpour on us). We had packed a cooler for the trip over, but then we forgot to get the Blue Ice things out of the hotel room freezer. Oh well, we had finished most of the cold stuff on Saturday anyway.

School resumes next Monday. In some ways, it should be easier to make it to the gym, since it's right there on campus. However, it also gets a lot easier to find excuses to skip: tired after teaching, too rushed to go before class, too crowded at the end of the day, yadda yadda yadda. I am seriously thinking of asking about a locker there though, which would ease up some of my rushed-ness.