Exercise Diary: Random Thoughts

• The spinning classroom in our school gym recently got new spinning bikes that made the old bikes (which are currently sitting sadly in the hallway outside of the room) look like yucky ancient dinosaurs.  The new bikes are shiny, slick, and got a nice touch of red color.  They are also equipped with a display monitor that shows you how long you have been spinning, rpm, watts, calories burned, and distance.  I was very sad to learn today that after 35 minutes of peddling I only burned 197 kcals.  Also I really hope the distance display is in miles and not kilometers.
• This is the fourth week into my gym class and 2nd full week of 4-5 days/wk workouts.  Sadly my weight has not been dropping like I had hoped, and different parts of my body have been hurting everyday.  But I think I've got more arm muscles already, as I can already see a little bulge when I flexed my arms in front of the mirror today.  So that's kind of cool.  If I can build up some arm/upper body strength this summer I will be very happy.
• One morning (could've been Tuesday) as we were leaving I saw a very old woman in the gym getting ready for her workout.  The whole time I was watching her she was just stretching and flexing her extremities, but she looked very lean and muscle-y, probably more fit than I am, and  looked as if she's in her 80s.  I really wish I could be like that when I'm her age.
• This week I also saw a girl doing what I like to call "seizure crunches." She was doing crunches, and then bicycle crunches, but it was obvious from the way she worked that she valued speed more than anything else.  Her head and shoulders weren't lifted very high, which is totally fine since I think that's how I look when I'm doing crunches, but she was doing it so fast that she looked like a crazy person.  It was funny to watch if anything else.
• Speaking of abs, crunches are very effective when they are done on an exercise ball.  I felt that I could lift my body up much more, and my feet are more grounded in order to be properly balanced on the ball.  And afterwards you can stretch and drape yourself over the ball with arms extended like nobody's watching.  It felt good.
• I force myself to go to the gym and workout ridiculously early in the morning by paying and working out with people who are considerably older than me, but every time I go the gym is also well populated with other people and after a while you notice that it's always the same crowd.  And they are just there by themselves, working their heart out, apparently with only their self-motivation.  And my emotion switches between admiration and jealousy.  
• The steps class that usually take place on Wednesdays has now been switched to spinning.  Which means that instead of getting to the gym 4 days a week I am now doing 5.  I actually really like this since even with 4 days a week I still manage to complete not follow my routine on my day offs.  And with the new spinning bikes I got a very nice workout today.  
• I still don't know everyone's name in my class but they all seem to know mine.  Awkward.

Exercise Diary: Morning Mumble Grumble

5am: beep beep beep, beep beep beep....

snooze

5:10 am: beep beep beep, beep beep beep...

snooze

5:20 am

Up, wash, chow down a banana, surf the web, change.  Oh look it's almost 5:50, time to go.

This has been my routine for the past 2 days.

So far so good.

So for the past 2 week I had been very afraid of running.  I get really tired in the afternoons, and although I bring all my running gears with me to work I end up lugging everything back at the end of the day unused.  I make excuses: I was hungry, I was sleepy, I was tired, I felt sluggish, it's too hot out.

I think I've been afraid.  Afraid of the out-of-breathness around mile 2, afraid of the return of my plantar fasciitis, afraid of being famished and exhausted after my runs and order take out instead of cooking, and the general sluggishness afterwards that usually make up my post-run evenings.

All in all I had not been running a lot for the past two weeks.  But I did do a bunch of other stuff.  There was a hiking trip over graduation weekend, regular weekly yoga classes, and last weekend I did a group yoga thing with two of my friends who sort of got into weight losing and fitness.  And now I'm taking these two gym classes this term that make me get up obscenely early in the morning and make me seriously sweat out some major toxins.

And it's been good.  My abs are protesting, my body felt looser.  Tonight while I was walking I could feel that my shoulders are not even, with the right one higher than the left.  So I consciously tilted my body while walking and surprisingly that felt good.  Maybe I should look up on proper posture and standing, and maybe that will cure my weird and problematic right foot.

I've also activated a new Instagram account to participate in this month's blogilates challenge of doing a split in 30 days.

Above are the stretches.  We do #1-5 everyday, and starting day 6 we add the pose corresponding to the number of the day in addition to 1-5.  The whole thing takes about 10 minutes to do every day and theoretically at the end of the month we will be able to do a split (don't know about the standing split, balance is a whole other issue for me).  And as proof of our commitment we are to upload a picture of ourselves everyday on Instagram for a chance to win stuff every week.  I have a feeling that while the stretches will only take 10 minutes, taking the perfect selfie (which will involve a lot of timed capture, perfect camera and body positioning, and a lot of pain in the tush) for Instagram will take maybe an hour and half.  So we will see.  I've already tried to do a selfie today and truth be told, while the stretches felt great I look stupid (and fat) when captured on camera.  Maybe some people are meant to exercise in secret and who who are not don't really need to exercise that much.

Anyway, any exercise is better than no exercise and if I can become more fit (and hopefully slimmer) by the end of summer I will be the happiest glutton in the world.  I also need to re-think about this whole running thing.  I told myself that all the yoga and strength training are done to make me a better runner, but now I'm not so sure.  The whole point of any exercise is to make me healthier.  Although I probably won't give up running altogether, maybe it will take second or third place at least for the time being.  Is that so bad?  Or am I just impulsively flaunting myself over something new and again not making a commitment in anything?  I don't know and I need to think about this.  In the mean time, I will be very disappointed if either the number on my scale does not drop or I don't lose a few pant sizes.  I'm not drowning myself in sweat at 6am for nothing.