Week 29

Well, I lost .4 lbs this week.  Considering that I was sick nearly all week (which means comfort foods and mini pitty parties are especially tempting) and only made it to the gym once, I’ll take it.

As I said yesterday, I was struck with the winter blah’s this past week.  Monday started off well enough, but by the time Tuesday was drawing to a close it was obvious that I had contracted a cold.  It was never a really bad cold, but it settled in on my sinuses, lungs and throat.  This cold, which is still lingering a little today, knocked me out of commission as far as the gym went for the rest of the week.  I know that it was a good decision to skip the gym while I was sick so that my body could focus on recovering from the cold, but I’m so very frustrated to be practically a whole week behind on my running program (which means that I am going to be cutting it VERY close to not being able to run my whole 5k in April).  In addition to that, breaking my routine is a very dangerous thing for me to do.  It became very evident right away that I was not feeling as well about myself as I usually do (could have been the cold, but I’m betting there was some lack of exercise factoring into my lowered mood too).  The fact that it’s winter and I have am having some pretty intense cravings to go swimming and sunbathing (with lots and lots of sunscreen; I don’t mind being pasty white if I can avoid skin cancer!) finally caught up with me and I found myself just wanting to bury my head in my covers and sleep.  So I did.  Which was probably good for my cold, but again, didn’t do much for my mood or motivation this week.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting around moping about how much I was dreading the scale in the morning and how much I was even more dreading heading to the gym after the scale.  I knew that after being away from the gym for nearly a week it was going to be hell getting back into my routine and I just didn’t want anything to do with it.  Finally, a light went off in my head and I decided to turn my off week into motivation to re-vamp my workout routine.  True, I’ve been sticking to my running routine fairly faithfully (high five to me!), but the strength training exercises have been anything but exciting and challenging for me lately, and well, it’s become pretty obvious that it’s time to shake things up a little bit.

Usually after I complete my running on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I have a little time left to hit the weight machines at my WRC (Mondays usually get leg attention, Wednesdays usually get abs and arms and Fridays I usually work the whole body because I’ve got as much time as I want).  I’ve decided to keep on with this routine (I need to make sure that I’m working my whole body on a regular basis), but my Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays need some attention too.  On these days I am going to pick a target area of muscles and focus on them for a month.  I’ll warm up with about 20 minutes on my stationary bike in the basement and then work through my exercises before taking on the rest of the day.  Since March is a brand new month and I’d really like to see my abs one day (it’s one of my hardest fitness goals after all) I am going to focus on strengthening my core!  I’ll post my workout routine as soon as I get it finalized (still doing some research on what exercises offer the best bang for the buck) and let you know how it goes.

My workout today was a little lack-luster.  Like I said earlier, I’m still a little sick (sniffles and a dry throat, but much better than I was last week) and I’ve been away for a week.  My original plan was to run 4 minutes, walk 2, run 3, walk 2, run 3, walk 2, run 2, walk 1, run 1, cool down.  However, after my first four minute jog, it became very clear that my lungs and unusually dry throat were not up for that.  I decided to walk until I was comfortable again (about 2.5 minutes) and then jog until my throat started to hurt again (about 2 minutes) and continue this pattern for the next 15 minutes.  I got about10 minutes of running in, which was less than I was hoping for, but that left a little more time for strength training and stretching at the end.  I must be weird because I absolutely love strength training.  I think I like it because, while it burns and hurts, the pain is temporary (and the soreness that comes after is SO satisfying!) whereas cardio pain discomfort lasts a lot longer.  Strength training is always a bit of a reward for me for making it through my cardio because I feel just a little bit powerful standing next to all those buff dudes while the ladies look me over while they’re sweating on their treadmills.  Maybe I can’t run with you, but I’ll bet that I can out lift you. 🙂

My goals for this week are to focus on drinking more water.  I’m still struggling with that a little, even more so after this week of “falling off the routine wagon”.  Every time I reach for a soda this week I’m going to remind myself to refill my water bottle or make some tea instead.  I’m also going to focus on making my new workouts a habit.  It’s going to be a bumpy road to start getting in the habit of working out six days each week (new habits are always rough starts with me it seems).  If I can force myself to stick to the routine for at least three weeks I should be on my way to making it a much easier habit to follow.  I’ll just take it one day at a time and see what happens.  And lastly, but certainly not least important, I am going to try to really focus in on all the positive feelings that I have before, during and after a workout each day this week.  Paying special attention to these things will help reinforce why I am doing these exercises in the short term when seeing the long run payoff isn’t always an option right away.

Only 72.4 lbs to go!