Archive for the Category » Exercise «

Dec
13

Kinda Like Starting Over

I am always excited about starting something new, but when it comes to my body and the difficulties of the past fortnight, I am being careful not to think of getting back on the horse as starting over.

Exercise is difficult right now, as the pain, doctors and such have pushed me past my stress limit. Get me past that limit and my body shuts down to the point of making things like just doing the laundry and walking down to the shops very tiring. The good news is that, as much as I get tired out by little things, I’m recovering from that tired faster and faster every day.

Once again I am grateful for my Wii Fit, as I can use it as the energy strikes (which would be difficult with a gym or even with walking given Melbourne’s ever-changing weather moods).

I’ve gotten my next set of three months of birth control, and I am using that as a goal to really make a dent in the weight loss and fitness levels. I want to get off birth control (I hate the idea of artificial hormones) and I’m hoping that the end of this prescription can mean the end forever.

I’m now taking milk thistle and have ordered some raspberry leaf tea to try out in an effort to help my lady parts sort themselves out naturally. The very fact that I have an ovarian cyst means my system is waking up (my system pretty much just did nothing for a long time), and I want to take this opportunity to do what I can to treat it right.

So I’m not starting over so much as adjusting while my body adjusts to things.

And the adjustments are focusing not only toward a healthier me but towards a healthier environment for future bubs…

Category: Body, Checking In, Exercise, Food  Comments off
Dec
02

The One Hour Golden Zone

I’m here! I’m here!

There have been so many times I have sat down with the intention of posting here and at my other blogs, and I have just been way too exhausted. How things are so, so busy even though I’m off work this week, I don’t know…

I’m still getting up about an hour and a half earlier than I usually do every morning to exercise. I am so darned proud of myself! A solid hour of exercise every morning has been hard, but the pride and confidence that I get from doing with it and sticking with it (even if it hasn’t been quite two weeks yet) has made me feel amazing.

While my chiropractor was able to do amazing things with my ankle to alleviate pain, it’s still just not strong enough for a walk every morning (unless I want to limp home on the second day, which is no fun at all I can tell you from experience), so I’m alternating my walking days right now. On the opposite days, I’m doing a solid hour of…

Yep, my old friend. Wii Fit!

The first morning I opted for an hour of Wii Fit, I felt bad. I was sure I was cheating somehow, even though I was determined to do the same amount of time a walk would take, and even though I knew that I had to give my ankle some rest lest I damage it severely. So I did the hour and wow!

As it turns out, the Wii Fit is a more intense workout than the walking by heaps. I know that’s because there is only so much I can push walking because of my ankle, but still. Wow. I was really impressed and finally got shot with the clue gun that Wii Fit is like anything else – you get out of it what you put into it. And I have been putting some hardcore workout time into it.

While some people might not ever pair ‘hardcore’ with ‘Wii Fit’, I do because by the time I am done, I am exhausted, drenched with sweat and puffing. Woohoo!

I am so happy about this because it means that I don’t have to walk on rainy mornings if I don’t want to, and I can strengthen my ankle up slowly while still getting the amount of exercise I want. While my weight is still bobbing around, the past couple of days have showed definite losses. Happy, happy!

So I have the exercise, now I just have to get the eating and the mentality up to par.

Category: Body, Checking In, Exercise, Food, Walking  5 Comments
Nov
23

Day 23 – Day 2

When I think about it being day 23 of dedicating myself to my health and well-being, I can’t help but smile. The time has flown so fast, and I’ve already had ups and downs with the making of new friends and adding in social occasions. But I feel so good! I feel like I have started the habits of a lifetime rather than just another ‘new diet’.

I have added on another component to my lifestyle. Even though it feels weird to say that on day two, I feel proud just to have started. Exercise and I haven’t had the best of relationships in the past, but things are going well. Even if it is just day two.

That’s me! I wanted to take a picture on day one, but I was waiting on a replacement camera after mine bit the fuzz. This isn’t a great pic by any means, but it features me with my essentials: bandanna to keep my hair back, mp3 player currently set to The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry, my sunnies and a loose jumper over my t-shirt.

Today I definitely walked four kilometres, as The Bloke dropped me off a little further away. That started my walk with a hill, which set my ankle off a little. I’m thinking of wrapping it up to make it a little sturdier until the muscle builds up.

All in all, I feel like I’m on the right track and I like how things are going – slowly but surely. I’m not sure if I’ll ever like getting up so early in the morning, but it really does work best for me to exercise first thing.

Things are looking up.

Category: Body, Exercise  One Comment
Nov
22

Walk It Off

Today I got up about two hours earlier than I am used to – which, in and of itself is pretty huge because I am not a morning person – so my husband could drop me off on his way to work. With my sunnies on, my hair pulled back and my audiobook of The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry in my mp3 player, I set off.

I didn’t miss the irony of the universe when – completely unknown to me – Fry started his biography talking about his addiction to sugar and what it did to him. He swiftly went from an intelligent man I like to listen to, to a comrade in arms who has struggled as I do with this sweet-laden society.

Unlike music, which – after years of marching band – forces me to walk the tempo of whatever song is on, having an audiobook on engages my mind in a way that let’s me walk at a truly beginner’s pace while engaging my mind to the point I can mostly ignore breathlessness, soreness and sweat.

In one hour and two minutes I walked somewhere between 3.5 and 4 kilometres (somewhere between just over 2 and 2.5 miles) nonstop. I’m feeling quite chuffed about both the distance and the amount of time it took. An hour seems to perfectly… perfect and the distance challenges me without leaving me feeling like a worn out bicycle tire.

I know this is the first day of many, but taking that first step is so incredibly important that it is worth celebrating.

I already have my first goal, too. The Bloke has promised me that if I keep up with my walking routine with no exceptions for a month, I get to go in and have shoes fitted to me (something we’ve seen advertised on tele for athletes).

Overall, this is a very happy start. I hope to have my replacement camera with me soon so I can take pictures of the walk.

Category: Body, Exercise, Getting Started  2 Comments
Oct
20

Lazy Bones

I read in a book once that using laziness as a reason for not exercising isn’t actually a reason at all. That’s because saying you don’t exercise because you’re lazy is circular reasoning. You don’t exercise because you’re lazy. You’re lazy because you don’t exercise. An excuse for an excuse for an excuse…

The statement really struck me because I’d become convinced that I was just plain lazy and that’s all there was too it. I would have to get past my lazy ways if I ever wanted to exercise.

The book went on to say that not wanting to exercise has a lot less to do with laziness and everything to do with why you don’t like exercise.

Those healthy maintainers among us have learned to love exercise. The sweat, the heart pounding, the exhaustion. To them, it’s a high. For the rest of us, it’s unpleasant, and something you may not even realise is keeping you from exercise could be the root of your so-called laziness.

To figure out the real reasons I don’t like exercise, I did what any logical person would do: I exercised. What better way to find out?

The first thing that struck me when I paid attention to where my discomfort was springing from (the first thing that made me slow down) was breathlessness. I hate being breathless. It makes me feel like I’m suffocating. I can’t even handle having my head all the way under the blankets because the air gets stuffy and I feel like I’m suffocating.

Ding, ding, ding! Reason number one.

Reason number two is a bit more complicated: Sweating.

I like sweating. I love working so hard that my bra and shirt are soaked through, getting so gross that I have to take a shower no matter how exhausted I am because I wouldn’t dare touch my dirty skin or clothes to the bedsheets. (And I imagined I smelled, too.)

But I also don’t like sweating. Sweating any less than what I described above is uncomfortable for me. Why? I sweat when I get nervous. I’m a big girl, so I sweat doing things other people don’t sweat doing. And, of course, the good ol’ ‘girls don’t sweat’ routine some of us grew up with.

So, sweating a little and breathlessness.

Knowing the real reasons behind my ‘laziness’ made me finally feel like I could tackle exercise. Sure, I have a long way to go, but working to get past or around uncomfortable things is something to work on rather than simply a forever label like laziness that keeps you from even trying.

When I was just lazy, I couldn’t do anything but make myself feel guilty for being such a lazy person.

Now I can do breathing exercises to help and work out less fast but longer. Working out longer will help me to sweat more, to get me past that ‘feeling a little yucky’ threshold to the ‘I’m so sweaty because I worked damn hard!’ feeling.

Little steps…

Category: Body, Exercise, Mental Health  Comments off
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