Monthly Archives: January 2010

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

01/29/2010

The temperature gauge read 16 degrees in my car this morning. The howling 30-mile-an-hour wind gusts made it feel more like 4 degrees. I had planned to go to the gym this morning to get a run in, but when I heard that wind? I opted to stay in bed. I’ll go to the gym tomorrow when it’s at least light out. Somehow the bright sun makes it look a little warmer outside. I take my daughter to work in the morning and then come home and get myself ready and out the door. In between, this morning, I stopped at Walmart to pick up gloves. Can’t find mine and my hands were cold. While I was there, I also grabbed a knit headband for around my ears… I suppose just in case I decide to brave an outdoor run? I’ve also found myself considering what layers I would...

Morning Swim…Interrupted

01/28/2010

I joined my gym because they had a pool and I wanted to be a triathlete… which meant I needed to have somewhere to swim. I also joined my gym because it’s really close to my house and it’s a family gym— not all hardbodies and beauty queens. That was important too. The pool, however, is small. Only three lanes. When I started at the gym last year, one of the reasons I ended up shifting to morning workouts was because in the evening, the pool is crowded with kids taking swimming lessons and seniors doing their water aerobics and water walking. Frustrated and unable to ever get a lap lane, I tried the morning. Ahhhh. The pool opens at 6:00. There’s rarely ever even a lifeguard on duty at that time in the morning. The pool and surrounding atmosphere is warm and the lights are off. It’s zen-like...

Weight Watchers Needs a New Monster

01/26/2010

Weight Watchers has the Hungry monster. They rolled him out last year with the Momentum program. He’s cute. A little too cute perhaps. He reminds me of the monster in old Bugs Bunny cartoons. The thing is, for most of us trying to lose weight or maintain a weight loss, hunger is hardly the problem. Weight Watchers addresses this with the Hungry monster. They suggest we evaluate why we are eating. Hungry? Bored? Stressed? Angry? You get the drill. And for an emotional eater like me, any of those are possible triggers that could lead me to a box of cookies. Since the holidays though, for me, having control over my eating, or should I say not having control, has been more about mindfulness. I’m wondering if Weight Watchers should change the name of the Hungry monster to the Mindless Eating monster. Cause let’s face it, for those of...

My Perfect Exercise Week

01/19/2010

On my last post, Jeannie asked what I consider to be my perfect exercise weekly routine. That’s a a tough question because every week ends up being a little bit different depending on my schedule. So I’ll share what I try to get done and what I consider the best for me right now. Thing is though, what I consider to be a perfect exercise week now is much different from what I did when I was starting out. When you are starting out, you need to find something that you can do. Something that won’t hurt you. And something that you enjoy. When I started out, I started with walking. I tried to get out there 3-4 times a week and I started with a mile at a time. Each week, I added a half a mile until I was up to walking two miles. That’s when I...

Running Is Joy

01/15/2010

I went running this morning, 3 miles. It’s still too icy by me to run outside, even though we are being teased with above-normal temperatures for a couple of days, so this run was a treadmill run. But that’s ok, it was still a run. And maybe Sunday, I’ll be able to meet with the road. I haven’t been running as much as I should in the past month or so. I haven’t been running as much as I’d like. But I’m getting back. And maybe a break or a change isn’t always such a bad thing. I’ve also added strength/core training to my workouts, I’ve played on the elliptical, and I get an occasional swim and bike in (also not as much as I should have been but that all changes now with race season starting again soon). I say that the change/break isn’t such a bad thing...

Ouuuuch…in a good way

01/12/2010

I’ve been sitting at the computer for awhile. Blogging class, chatting with my brother (I’ve added his zazzle store to my sidebar – BarrelX. He’s quite the designer and he focuses on Xtreme sports. Cool stuff.) I wear his stuff all the time. Anyway, as I went to get up from the computer to head back upstairs, OOOWWWWW. You may have noticed I’m sitting down again. After a few weeks of intermittent workouts at best, I have gotten in four very solid exercise days. Core/strength training/Zumba on Saturday, swimming on Sunday, core/strength training with the ab killer Monday night and running Tuesday morning. The Ab Killer was especially energetic Monday night and we worked hard. Even tried out some new stuff on the Pilates bench. I was already sore from the weekend, but the training last night helped stretch that out. I felt good this morning, so I finally...

An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away. Or Is It Exercise?

01/11/2010

Yesterday morning when I came home from swimming, my husband yelled at me. “It’s 20 degrees out! Your hair is wet. What, are you trying to get sick?” Isn’t it sweet that he wants to take care of me? I reminded him that germs can’t live in the cold outside, and having a wet head for a few seconds in the cold isn’t going to get me sick. It might get me frozen hair, but not sick. We don’t get sick from being outside in the cold. We get sick because it’s cold out and we spend so much time indoors around other sick people. It started thinking about getting sick. Not with anything life-threatening, but with the usual winter culprits: a cold, sore throat, a stomach virus, or this year’s favorite: Swine Flu. And I realized I haven’t been sick since I started taking better care of myself....

Accountability: Fitness with a Friend

01/10/2010

You hear it all the time. Work out with a friend. Diet with a friend. Starting a fitness journey with someone who has the same goals as you do can amp up your results and keep you on track. My triathlon training has been more or less a solitary venture. That’s ok. I’m doing it for myself. In the last year, I’ve done most of my exercise alone, and for all practical purposes, I enjoy the solitude. However, for a summer race, a friend trained with me some, and that was fun too. Then exercise becomes a social experience and as long as you stay on track, it works. A couple of months ago, I started working out once a week with a trainer (the same friend who did the triathlon with me) and knowing that my appointment on Monday nights affects her schedule too, I make sure to...

Freedom from Fear

01/04/2010

I am a Taurus. And I read my horoscope. One astrologer in particular that I enjoy is Jonathan Cainer. While I know that he is writing for the masses and I also know to take my horoscope lightly, I find it interesting and sometimes even enlightening. In my horoscope for 2010, Cainer says I will be freed from a fear and areas where I have held back or have felt held back will open up for me. That is of course if I let go of the fear. There’s always a catch. He also said that I have started on a path that I am happy with and that will continue.This is good news. And it started me thinking. What am I afraid of? There’s plenty. And I know there are areas of my life that are starting to shift toward the more positive for 2010. So maybe I’ll...

Holiday Lessons

01/03/2010

I started writing this post earlier from the perspective that the holidays derail us…on our diets, on our budgets, on whatever it is we are working on. The holidays (from Thanksgiving through New Year’s) give us a license to eat, to shop and to well, just put our feet up. When I started writing however, I realized I was blaming the holidays for my errant behaviors this season. And that’s not entirely fair. No one put the cookies in my mouth or tied me into my snuggly warm bed so I couldn’t get to the gym in the morning. No one held a gun to my head in the stores to buy those extra presents when I had bills to pay, or to wait until January to get that important project started that’s going to make me my millions. Nope. I did it all by myself. And I realized...

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