Still Going Strong

Today was day 3 on the 9 week program and it went pretty good.  There are these stride jumps that are a big challenge and I can see that is mostly because of the right leg strength issues.  Can't wait for the physio appointment today.  Will add onto this table a section for the exercises they assign to me and I will be checking them off as complete as many days a week as they expect me to do them!

Also in the workout today was a bent arm side plank and a straight arm regular plank.  The side planks went really well and I was impressed with myself for doing the work in my obliques or whatever they are called.  But the front plank I think I need to figure out what is going on there since I could feel myself loading that work into my mid and lower back.  Not sure what to do to avoid that so will do a bit of research to see if I can figure it out.

Other	Strength	My Routine	Step	Pilates
walking 10		24

Leg Strength

Tomorrow morning I have a physiotherapy appointment to learn what I can do to improve the strength in my knee (which was repaired many years ago but which I never effectively restrenghtened).  Today during my pilates class it was so obvious to me just how weak that leg really is.  Today during the side leg series we did a new move and I did it with my left side first and did relatively well with it I thought (you bring your leg forward, then grab the foot and come back into a quad stretch, then swing the foot back and your arm forward).  But when I did it on my right side it was incredible how much less able I was to do the move with that leg.  The range I could cover in the movement was a very small fraction of what I could do with the other side - because I simply don't have the strength in that leg to support the work.

So needless to say I am extremely happy to be going to physio in the hopes that I can find an effective way to get back some of the strength in that leg.

Also I started up the 9 week program on the EA Sports Active so for right now I will classify that at My Routine in the table below.  The first two workouts of the program were good and my knees are feeling okay with the work so far.  It was good work though as a few of my muscles were definitely feeling it today - the glutes were sore for sure!

Other	Strength	My Routine	Step	Pilates
10 walking		24 yesterday 20 day before		50

Nephew energy

My darling nephew's birthday get together was yesterday.  Every time I see him and his little brother I am reminded of the boundless energy of youth.  The again, again, again of having fun.  Aunty as the engine for the rocket ship, or plane, or the wind under the wings of the pterodactyl gets her exercise in as well.  The little guys would have me flying them around the room and down the hallways all day and night long if I didn't poop out from it.

But it gets me to thinking about a couple of things. The first is the acting class I took a few years ago.  It was a first year first term acting class at my university and not in any way related to my major.  But as electives go I would say it was one of the most life altering things.  It reminded me about the ability for us to play as adults.  We had to run around acting like loons and doing things we would probably individually never have considered doing on our own.  The beauty of it for me was that it was a turning point in my attitude towards worrying about what others think.  Now when I am in a situation where I feel like I would like to put my all into participating in something - or if I want to race around after my nephew playing in the store or wherever I do it (at least 95% of the time - the other 5% I still find the odd bit of the old mindset sneaking back in).  

Like everything I am doing with this change of lifestyle I now really recognize that change is an choice.  I choose to choose joy and fun and to embrace it rather than some imaginary boundary about how to behave properly.  It isn't that I run around screaming at the top of my lungs and causing a massive disturbance for others - but I do choose to embrace fun and joy.  I am glad my nephews give me even more opportunity to do so!

I also just have to talk about my pilates class today for a minute.  Jenny definitely makes my abs work and I did slack off a little bit at the end of the abs section - could have pushed myself a bit harder.  Next week I won't let myself slack!  But I do have to give myself a bit of a pat on the back because I am getting better and better at my roll ups and roll overs.  The roll overs have a way to go yet but certainly better than they were even last week.  Just looking forward to continuing to improve on all of my pilates repertoire moves.  Think I am going to get the next video that has the full repertoire in it.

Other	Strength	My Routine	Step	Pilates
playing 20 - yesterday				50

Variety Does a Soul Good

While I have been nowhere near bored with my workout routines - I am still enjoying all of them alot.  The other day I had posted to someone that the Wii Fit wasn't as good a workout for me anymore (by that I meant it isn't quite as challenging) - but that I thought if I mixed things up a bit it would probably be challenging again.  So today I thought I would do something based on that.

I did a routine on the Wii today (not the my routine but the one where you combine based on exercise groups).  And it was great.  Got me doing a bunch of different things today that I haven't done in a while, worked my body in different ways than I have been doing lately.  So all in all it was great.  The hula hoop ones continue to be the thing that really works me the hardest of all the aerobic things - it is the one that gets the breathing going, the heart rate up and the sweat flowing.  And the routine included both of the hula hoop ones, the regular and the super.

Am thinking a bit of variety with the sports active will also be a good idea.  Someone told me the 9 week program doesn't have as many squats and lunges in it -so probably won't strain my knee as much.  Think I might give it a shot for the next 9 weeks.  

Other	Strength	My Routine	Step	Pilates
		61 (different version)

Getting going

It is strange how some days it seems very challenging to get myself up and going while others it just seems like I can find virtually any excuse not to get started.  Well I suppose it really isn't strange at all, probably everyone experiences the same thing (but we always want something about ourselves to be unique don't we ;-).

Well today I was doing my step aerobics and was thinking that I am going to start using the wrist weights I have. The arms when they are extended are starting to look kinda wing like ;-).  Which is great because the fat is reducing in them but I do want to get a bit more toned muscle taking the place - especially in my arms.  So my plan is the next time I do the step routine I am going to use 1 pound in the wrist weights (1 pound each arm) and see how it goes for 10 minutes of the routine and then go from there.  I will have nice well toned arms at some point - it might take a while but it will get there!

Other	Strength	My Routine	Step	Pilates
14 warm up and cool down 20 walking			33

A little embarrassing

Well perhaps I will be a little embarrassed since anyone could see this.  But I am going to post a picture showing my progress so far.  Now recognize that I purposely put my shirt on the start picture the way I did - I had planned to have my belly show in each of the photos but I decided I didn't want to when the time came to do the Feb picture.

I definitely credit my work with http://leadpilates.com/ with a good deal of the change in the side view of my abdomen.  Without the pilates I suspect I would be losing the same amount of weight but I doubt I would be seeing such a rapid change in my abs.

Other	Strength	My Routine	Step	Pilates
				50

Cold Weather

Sometimes it seems like the cold weather (especially after a few weird warm spells in Feb) makes it extra hard to get motivated.  This morning I was pretty slow getting going compared to most days - but the really important thing is that I did get going.  The great thing is that this morning once I decided "okay time to workout" the hardest part was deciding what I was going to do - was drawn to both my pilates dvd and my wii fit.  Went with the pilates dvd and am feeling the work in my abs as I sit here now.  I also did a couple sets of each of my 8 minutes in the morning workout exercises - probably should have done more sets but my elbow is a little cranky right now so I didn't want to overdo it and I figure some of it is far far better than none of it.

Got to finish getting ready for work and brave that nasty cold for the walk to work :-)

Other	Strength	My Routine	Step	Pilates
walking 10	5			25