December Interim Updates

You get a two-fer, since I meant to post the novel on worthiness yesterday.  Also, this is to make up for a possible lack of updates over the next 2 weeks due to holiday cheer, and other such related things.

Healthy Stuff:

So, I’m about 2.75 weeks in (meaning, one more workout this week, I guess), and figured I’d give a short update on how things are going.  To recap, these are my workouts:

Day 1: 30 mins intervals, 15 minutes Cybil the arc trainer, full body strength

Day 2: long run, yoga

Day 3: 30 mins intervals, 15 minutes Cybil, full body strength

Day 4: 60 mins DDR, yoga

I did make some changes to the original plan.  Always extra gym time, not extra DDR time (except the one workout I owed 10 mins, so I did 70 mins DDR…that was pain).  DDR day is always the last one instead of in the middle.  And somehow, 10 mins became 15 minutes (or a combo of 45 total).  Exercise time creeping up = bad, but it comes out to an even 600 calorie burn that way!

The good:

Pretty much everything.  I love this 4 day schedule.  I love that Wednesday, Friday, AND Sunday I don’t have to visit a treadmill, a weight bench, or a workout room.  The amount of actual time it adds each day is nothing compared to an extra day completely off.  I also now actually own enough sports bras to accomodate a week of working out, so I don’t have to do wash (by wash, I mean febreeze if I’m lucky) in the middle of the week.

I actually don’t think I can go back to 5 day weeks now unless there is a good reason to do so.  This also has great implications for the future – I really want to take dance classes (partner w/Zliten), but I just can’t give up a workout – I’m not confident that beginner ballroom is going to be anywhere equal to one of my normal exhausting sweat fests.  This way, I can do it and not have something to do every single day!  In spring, I want to do volleyball with the league at work, and this affords me the same luxury.  Plus – I’m more likely to be able to work around social engagements during busy weeks rather than having to cram a bunch of working out on the weekends (ok, or skipping days and being rather grumpy about it).

The bad:

These fuckers are daunting.  I know I said that the time each day isn’t much longer – but it sure feels like it when you start running on the treadmill, and know you have 30 minutes to go, plus 15 minutes on the evil arc trainer directly after, then an hour of weights.  Without fail, I come out feeling great, which means I’m not working myself too hard, but I dread these workouts a bit.  I also really hate leaving the gym after a 5.5 mile endeavour and having to go home and do yoga.  I’m home, I should be done, dangit.  And the week I had to do 70 minutes of DDR – my legs almost fell off.

Also, I have to be VERY careful about how many days in a row I’m working out.  Even though it’s the same amount of *things*, it feels much much harder, so about 2 days in a row is the max I can do.  I had put off a Saturday workout for Sunday, then did my normal Monday, and by Tuesday, I saw physical pain in my future if I tried to run any more, so I had to move the workout to Wednesday.  No biggie, but if scheduling got tight where I had to do 4 workouts on consecutive days or skip, I’d probably have to skip at least 1.  I also haven’t been able to increase my weights/reps much because simply doing more things in less days is harder to begin with.

The Best:

After 3 months of tearing my hair out, I’ve lost and maintained about 3 lbs so far.  While I would *lovelovelove* nothing else for Christmas but 159.8, I’m thrilled I’m on the down swing again.  In December even!

That being said, I have 2 more weeks of this (I’m not starting January’s plan until the 5th).  No complaints here!

Gamer Night:

So the night last week we were supposed to play, our friends came over and drank our booze and ate our fish tacos and black beans and it was a lovely night.  Sunday, we were supposed to play and I shopped all freaking day.  Monday and Tuesday, we had too much other crapola to do.  Wednesday was the day we finally put it all together.  We played Burnout Paradise.

We sat there giggling for hours taking turns.  Destruction is funny!  First, we crashed into things and tried to see who could make the most painful looking wreck.  Then we drove around looking for private areas to break into and burnout billboards to crash through.  Then, we tried to do some time trials and play online and didn’t have much luck, but it was supah fun.

Next week…I have plans, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so I will fill you in after a certain present-unwrapping holiday that starts with a C and ends with a mess, I mean mas. 🙂