Not much progress

Well, this post was actually supposed to be done on Monday, the 23rd. But, I haven't been feeling well. I managed to walk two miles on the treadmill Monday night only because my husband sat in the livingroom with me and talked to me the whole way through. I was in agony. My whole body hurt. Needless to say, I haven't taken a single step since. I was really hoping I could make a major race by May, but I'm seriously running out of time. I'll have to see how I'm feeling next week.

First 5K.... in a LOOOOONG time

I should have written this up last night, but I was too busy eating a Big Mac and fries. Naturally, I have no idea why I'm not losing weight, even though I really am trying to exercise more. I actually jogged a 5K on my hated treadmill last night (and did another mile as warm up and cool down for 4 miles total). It went really, really well. I'm not even sore today! However, I really can't brag much, seeing as how when I was feeling all proud of myself I noticed that I had forgotten to put the incline up. So, I did the whole thing with an incline ... of zero. The fact that I did it at all is a miracle in itself-- no inhaler needed. Of course if I had not eaten the McDonald's afterwards-- which is NO joke-- I would probably feel something closer to pride than the gut rot I've actually had all day today.

Happy St. Patty's Day

Actually, this post should have been done last night. I hit the treadmill-- logging in 3.5 miles. I ran 2 of it, and felt great. Now I think I need to stop with the walking and start running in full. We'll see how that goes.... still a lot of weight to lose.

I Shuffled with the Shamrocks!

Yesterday was my first official race-- if you could call it a race! My friend Lara and I entered the 5K run at the Shamrock Shuffle in Madison, WI. They had a 2mile walk, but that didn't seem like anything. So, we did the 5k. Believe it or not, we actually beat 10 people! And, this was Lara's first run/walk. She's never actually run in anything before, and we did actually run a little bit! I was glad we could do this together. I think we finished in 49 minutes. That's not breaking any records, but it is a fast walk. As for the photo, I'm not sure why I'm tipping over, even though this was taken after the race, outside of State Street Brats, and AFTER we decided to have a beer to celebrate. The other picture was actually pre-race and contains only coffee, but seeing as there were no bathrooms on the route, I did nearly have an "Ooops I crapped my pants moment" on Observatory Drive. It passed without passing shall we say... and we shuffled on to the finish line sweaty but otherwise clean.

Still Ouchie

It's certainly humbling to whine and complain when someone else is exercising with a cast on their hand. But, whining is what I do best, and I figure it must take up at least 3 additional calories per hour. Last night-- still in pain from last Thursday's weight lifting-- I walked on the treadmill 3.1 miles. It was the laziest excuse for workout I've ever had. No incline, no jogging, no motivation-- nothing. Just one foot hopelessy in front of the other. Of course if I hadn't tripped over my own feet the day before and crashed to ground, leaving a huge bruise on my hip I wouldn't be in so much pain. The ricochet is no doubt hitting Mongolia right about now. I claim no responsibility for Tsunamis or earthquakes in early April. Oh, the photo posted has no relevance whatsoever. I simply like the Stay Puft character, and it fits my demeanor at the moment.

My struggle to get off the couch...

Well, we’re seven days into this new highly motivating blog site idea, and I just today did something that even resembled a workout. I did 30 minutes on the stair stepper… at level 6 (of 20)! The machine didn’t give me the number of miles – mercifully! At least I finally did something, but if you spread the 30 minutes over the whole week I should have been exercising, it averages to only 4.3 minutes per day… which begs the question, why even bother?! But that was the old Lisa… who was an extremely logical (if not very fit) woman. :)

P.S. Sorry the picture is post-workout. We have a very small gym, and we chickened out of taking a picture in there at the last minute… but the photo provides some sort of proof nevertheless… as I’m most definitely too lazy to put on my running shoes just to stage a photo.

Confessions of a former weightlifting snob

Today over my lunch hour I walked back into my old stomping grounds—my health club where I used to do regular weight lifting classes at least twice a week. It’s been a year since I’ve lifted a bar over my head, and boy could I feel it! Every time the instructor kept saying “now for this song you can push it a little harder with your weights because it’s a short one, “I’d think to myself… ‘what, the fact that I actually got here and am lying down on the bench in my sweat pants doesn’t count for trying ‘harder’? Of course there’s the fact that the class actually cost me $300 because it was the first time I’d set foot in there for a whole year.

THEN, add on the fact that I have arthritis in my knees and my orthopedics guy made me promise that I would never do a lunge again in my life. So… when we get to the lunge track and I sit it out, the 65-year-old grandma glares at me. I’m thinking—“Sorry lady. This time I really do have an excuse. It’s not just because I’ve been grunting every time I lift the 3 pound bar over my head… Cut the glaring, it’s not like I farted—Though trust me, I’m thinkin’ about it!”

Anyway, I figured I better post this workout synopsis now before the pain sets in and I find myself in tears. I’m pretty sure that jiggly part under my arm is my tricep. It’s probably going to hurt tomorrow whatever muscle it is…

To the Inventer of the Treadmill....

Whoever invented the pre-programmed workouts on the treadmill clearly needs to have his head examined. And yes, I'm automatically going to blame it on a "he." A woman would not design something for people who are going to be stepping on to it wanting to lose weight and get back into shape after some time away-- and then be expected to be in good enough shape to run 8 minute miles on 10 percent inclines! I spent most of this 3.1 mile jog/walk workout pushing the buttons back down for a more reasonable speed/incline. See photo for opinion of whether I plan to use pre-programmed workout in near future. Thank goodness there's a brownie left over with my name on it!

More Pain and Excitement

For today's workout it was back to the treadmill, which I always hate. One of the best things to at least get the most out of that crappy experience is to crank up the incline. So, I did my favorite workout of a 3.0 mile walk, while upping the incline every 5 minutes. I did the whole stinking thing between 6 and 12% incline. At least my husband sacrificed himself for me and plopped down on the couch to play Guitar Hero on the big screen tv so I had something to watch while I was working out. It actually worked really well at distracting me from the pain in my rear. What a man!