Sluggish Workouts And The Importance Of Tracking

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diet and exercise, tracking food

Forgetting to track my food for a few days has screwed up my diet and makes me sleepy!

When you forget to track your food, bad things happen. Like what?  How about sluggish workouts and a complete lack of energy.

That’s how I’ve felt the last couple of days. I think my carb and protein intake are far too low.

During my weight training Wednesday morning, every exercise was difficult. Not too unexpected since my trainer is really pushing me — increasing weights, focusing on upper body, and challenging my endurance.

When I did my 5K training later that afternoon, my legs felt like lead. While I finished the training, it seemed harder than normal. I chalked it up to tired legs after working out with my trainer.

Yesterday during spin class, it’s clear that I’m getting stronger as my resistance level increased over last week’s class. But where I’m usually energized after spin class, today I just wanted to curl up in bed. And when it came time to do yoga last night, I struggled to finish the session.

I just didn’t feel right. Something was up. I’m not coming down with anything. So I’m thinking its diet.

When I went to look at my tracker, I realized the problem immediately.  The last time I tracked was Tuesday dinner.

Crap!

Since my trainer changed my diet, I’ve tracked religiously. Anytime I felt hungry, I made a note in my FitBook and looked at the tracker to see if I need to make adjustments to my meals.

I’m usually all over my tracker like a monkey on a cupcake!

But the last few days have been hectic. Just lots of errands, projects and breaking up too many pet fights (damn you evil overlord cat!).

How quickly things get out of whack when you don’t track for a couple of days. And scary how easy it is to forget to track.

I tried to remember everything I ate yesterday. It’s harder than you think.  What I pieced together indicates that I missed my morning and afternoon snacks. Not good. Also I ate about 20g of carbs, about 30g shy of what my trainer wants. I worked out for nearly 2 hours and 20g of carbs just doesn’t cut it.

As for protein, I was down 5 ounces.  No wonder I woke up starving this morning. Not eating enough to sustain your body is not how you lose weight.

This morning I’m back on track. I logged my breakfast — Kashi Go Lean, Almond Breeze Unsweetened Milk and one cup of strawberries — the perfect breakfast before this morning’s muscle workout and yoga class.

I prepared my protein shake so it’s ready for me when I get home — I just need to add 1/2 a banana and ice.

I also logged it.

Peddling The Fat Off — My Next Fitness Challenge

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weight loss cycling

Headed to my first spin class today. I expect it to kick my butt and turn my legs into jelly.

I’m a little late in picking my next 30-day fitness challenge. I’ve racked my brains trying to pick a good lower body workout. Walking around my gym, I stumbled upon the new challenge – cycling.

For the next month, I’m hitting the road…actually my local spinning class. I plan on attending a 60-minute cycling class twice a week.

Today is my first cycling class.  My goal isn’t to keep up with the class — I won’t. I just want to finish the class, as I’m expecting it to completely kick me in the butt.

Why Cycling?
I have a few reasons:

1. While I’ve lost weight everywhere, my legs are the slowest to give up the fat. I know you can’t target where the fat comes off, but I can give my calf, hamstring and glutes a great workout without a lot of stress on my joints.

2. I needed a new challenge. I love lifting weights, yoga in the mornings and interval training for the 5K, but that can get old. Sometimes you need to add in a new exercise to shake things up.

3. The last time I rode a bike ride around my neighborhood was 30 years ago. That’s too long. In 2010 my husband and I purchased bikes.  I rode it for 2 minutes. I felt unsteady and uncomfortable. I weighed over 300 lbs. and had no confidence in myself. It was easy to think, “I’m too fat to ride a bike.” So into the shed it went.

That bike’s coming out of the shed.  I’m going to relearn how to ride and take my bike for a spin in my neighborhood before year’s end. The spinning class is a way for me to regain my confidence.

Hey, How Come You’re Not Cycling Everyday?
Yes, the 30-day fitness challenge is a daily challenge. Since I’m interval training to run a 5K, I don’t want to tire out my legs. I’m taking the spinning classes on my days off from training. Trust me. Two spinning classes a week is a challenge.

I do plan to ride a real bike before the end of the year. But that is a separate challenge all on its own.

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How Can Little Muscles Hurt So Much?

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(the inner Dot2Trot)

— The Inner Dot2Trot —

Monday morning I had my first session with my new trainer. She’d planned to take it easy with me for the first week. She didn’t want me getting so sore I’d stop working out.

After our first session, I felt great. We did a lot of work with kettlebells — squats, presses, lunges, crunches and twists. After the session, I hit the treadmill for 45 minutes. It was awesome.  I felt like I had the tiger by the tail.  I just didn’t realize that the tiger was biding his time. Bastard!

Roughly 12 hours later, I made the mistake of getting out of my comfy chair. Wow did that hurt. My hamstrings, abductors and glutes screamed at me in unison.

But I knew the pain meant I’d done something right. I’d asked my muscles to do something they hadn’t done in a long time and this was their response. But I know my body will acclimate and the cycle will start again.

Flash forward to today: I did yoga this morning to help stretch my muscles and warm them up before meeting with my trainer. When I finished and my legs didn’t hurt, I thought I’d turned a corner. Ha!

When I got to the gym today, my trainer did not take pity on me. Working with barbells, I did presses, squats, pull-ups, lunges, rows, step ups and mountain climbers. For each exercise I had to do as many as possible for 30 seconds with only 15 seconds of recovery between exercises.

The soreness came back with abandon — in the glutes, especially.

I toyed with just going home, but I decided to hit the treadmill. After the first 3 minutes I was hurting. I picked up my iPod every intention of abandoning my power walk. Thankfully I ignored this impulse and kept walking, even increasing the speed. About 5 minutes later my legs felt great.

I finished my walk 22 minutes later and left the gym very proud that I’d pushed through the pain.

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Upper Body Workout: Resistance Is Futile

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resistance bands, upper body weight exercise

Thanks to my new found commitment to weight training I’m sweaty, sore and feeling pretty dang peachy about myself!

I’m exhausted, sweating up a storm and my arms feel like jello thanks to a new upper body workout compliments of a great video I found on YouTube.

Up until this morning I’ve used the images in a booklet that came with the resistance bands that show the exercises as my guide. It gets rather dull and it’s hard to tell if my form is correct. So this morning I hunted for workout videos on YouTube. Most only show one exercise and I didn’t feel like stopping to switch out videos. And you really couldn’t see the exercise because someone didn’t use a camera with a zoom lens.

After about 30 minutes I found a video by a group called Fitness Blender. I don’t know who they are, but I absolutely loved this workout.

The Fitness Blender video is 27 minutes in length and you complete each set of exercises in 3 rounds. The video is easy to follow and challenging. Also the voice-over provides clear directions on form as does the video. Another nice feature – rather than jumping from one exercise to the next, the video also provided about 10-15 seconds in between exercises to give you time to adjust your bands. And between rounds there’s enough time for a short water break.

I did hit the pause button a lot during round 1. After last night’s push-up debacle, I continually added resistance during each exercise.  And each time, it was too much weight. So after wasting about 10 minutes switching out bands, I settled down and hit my rhythm during round 2. I did skip one exercise – the lateral pull. My room is too small for me to lay on the floor and get enough tension in the bands.

I found that by round 3, my arms turned to limp noodles. I hit the wall during the overhead tricep extension. I could only muster 9 at the end. On number 10, my forearm stopped midway up. I actually let out a small yell as if to will my arm up over my head.  My tricep decided to go on strike. It was awesome!

After my workout, I decided to check out Fitness Blender’s YouTube channel.  I hit the mother load!  I found a ton of full length exercise videos. From yoga to strength training to Pilates, you’ll find what you need.

I plan to mine their channel for workout gold.

Drop And Give Me 3!

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Thanks to poor upper body strength, I have something in common with T-Rex. Fear not, wall push-ups save the day!

Thanks to poor upper body strength, I have something in common with T-Rex.

It’s day 1 of my truncated Push Up Challenge and it went as expected. Once in the plank position, I tried lowering myself down. I ended up flat on my face.

Not very graceful.

After a few more feeble attempts, I decided to give the modified push up a try.

So how did that go? Ugly!

I didn’t kiss my yoga mat, but my arms could hardly bear my weight. I ended up rushing through 3 half push-ups before rolling over on my back cursing what I got myself into.

Wow, 25 more days of this crap! Time to temper expectations.

A Flaw In The Workout Plan
Clearly, my upper body strength sucks. All my workouts center around cardio fitness and my legs. That’s just a boneheaded move! I weigh 246 lbs., I think my legs get plenty of exercise lugging me around. And cardio fitness is a good thing, but work is sorely missed on the muscle front.

This month’s challenge exposes a serious flaw in my workout routine.

I’m neglecting my arms, chest and abs. Sure I do resistance training with bands – but not consistently. Time to modify my workout schedule and add in 3 days worth of weight training.

I do love my resistance bands – they’re portable and take up very little space. But the amount of resistance is finite. And my house isn’t equipped with wall hooks to expand the types of exercises I can do.

I see free weights in my future.

Revised Push Up Challenge
Not a quitter, I decided to try 3 wall push-ups. While much more challenging than I expected, I could actually do them – barely. Hooray!  I felt stretching in my arms, shoulder and chest.

So here’s the new game plan: focus on the wall push-ups during the challenge, with the goal of moving my feet further away from the wall to increase the intensity (today I stood about 2 feet away). After each week, I’ll try the modified floor push up to check on my progress.

I love it when a plan comes together.

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I’m Sore Today…Time To Workout!

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stretchning and muscle soreness

Moderate stretching and exercise on the menu today to combat muscle soreness post backpacking trip. Image courtesy of photostock and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’m sore. My legs feel like lead and my hips stiff.  I jumped into a workout (backpacking) that I haven’t done for a while. Sure I walked about 4 days a week for the last couple of weeks and did yoga everyday. It still didn’t prepare my muscles for the big hike this weekend.

The soreness started Sunday morning, before the hike back. Breaking down camp and some stretching (and a couple of Ibuprofen) seemed to help loosen up my legs.

Today the soreness is back with abandon. I’m expecting the soreness to last about 48 hours before it eases its kung fu death grip on me.

The old me would give in to the pain and rest my body for a few days. Of course the old me also weighed 325 lbs. Sure I’d rest after a tough workout. But getting me to workout again was next to impossible. Why on earth would I want to feel more pain. It seemed that anytime I lifted a finger, I got sore the next day and needed to rest. My workouts were always stop and go, stop and go. So why bother.

I didn’t…and my waistline paid the price.

As I said, that was the old me. My plan now is to take it easy for a couple of days. But that doesn’t mean no exercise. On tap today – light stretching and a 1 mile walk. Tomorrow I go for a swim.  I might add in some resistance band training too, but using the bands with less tension than normal.

I’ve read that exercise may help reduce the lactic acids associated with sore muscles. It certainly helps pump more oxygen and blood to muscles.  I know that my body feel better with moderate exercise and the overall pain and stiffness seems to go away much quicker.

Plus, I need to get my legs ready for a 5K on Saturday.

The Ultimate Workout

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I’m always looking for the best workout equipment. Well, I think I found the holy grail of all exercise machines. What do you think?

C’mon Get Happy – Exercise & My New Attitude

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Dot2trot got her walking groove back. Averaging more miles a day. Sweet!

Dot2trot got her walking groove back. Averaging more miles a day. Sweet!

I got 4 walks in this week and I feel grrreat! And I’m super stoked about getting up early Saturday to walk 4.5 miles…..good lord what is wrong with me!?!

I’m not a morning person. I like waking up at the crack of noon. Why am I so damn happy about early morning walks of all things?

Clearly I’m pumping out the endorphins – the brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters. But I think that’s only part of the tale. Exercise is no longer one more thing on my to-do list. It’s becoming part of my daily routine. Exercise first. To-do list second. I’m getting back to making me a priority! Woohoo!

I’ll leave you with a little inspiration. If it doesn’t get you moving, you’re not human.

 

Think Housework Isn’t Exercise? Ha!

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Guess my workout today! Image courtesy of Idea go and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Guess my workout today! Image courtesy of Idea go and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’m too busy to go for a walk. But don’t fret, what I have on tap today will be more intense than any walk.  I’m doing housework!

It’s amazing how one thinks that you need to join a gym to get in your exercise.  I was one of those people. For a good workout, I thought I need to do yoga, aerobics or PX 90 class.

Truth is, an active lifestyle is what’s important, not just spending an hour at the gym.

I’ve discovered that housework can give me just as good a workout as weight training.  And yes, you can work up a sweat by cleaning.  Try lugging 5 loads of laundry up and down the stairs – that will get your heart pumping. Hell, just blast your favorite workout playlist and you can have your very own dance party while you dust. Trust me, there are lots of ways to get a solid workout by cleaning,

Even while blogging I workout my core by sitting on that exercise ball.

Now if your thing is counting calories (consuming and burning), don’t come to me for how many calories do you burn cleaning house. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m not about calories in/calories out. I reduce my carbs for weight loss. I’m active for overall fitness – improve balance, more energy, better muscle tone. I don’t lose weight because I’m more active. I’m more active because I’ve lost weight (there’s your moment of zen for you!).

No walking today. Instead I’ll be working in the front yard, doing battle with weeds and trying to tame some wild-looking rose bushes.

Afterwords, I’m sweeping and mopping the floors. Then I’ll start painting prep for our second bedroom – taping trim, moving furniture away from walls, taking down curtains, dusting/washing walls, and spackling nail holes as needed.

A workout? You better believe it.  Who needs dumbbells when you have a mop and a big-ass bucket of hot water to carry up and down the stairs?

Weight Watchers has a good article on everyday chores as exercise.