Workout update

Saturday, March 31 marked the technical end of my extensive winter workout regime. I had set two pretty aggressive fitness goals to be achieved by 3/31 but I’m sad to report that I came up short on both. I tried to bench 135 on three different occasions and just couldn’t get it up. But I still feel like I have it in me. It’s a matter of when, not if. I also didn’t get my 8:30 mile on the treadmill. The closest I came was 8:34.

I consider April 1st to be the official beginning of spring and therefore, the end of worrying too much about high intensity gym workouts. Now I slide in to my softball and volleyball seasons and do some longer duration and less intense cardio along with decreased weights and focus on enjoying the weather. I’ve spent all winter in preparation. Now it’s time to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

I’m already lined up to play on 2 softball teams this summer. I think I could add a third and maybe a volleyball team or two. I really want to play with my brother. Oops. That didn’t sound right. But seriously, I can’t wait to get outside and play when the weather is nice. Maybe even when the weather is not so nice.

Two of my recent health initiatives include walking for 15-20 minutes at lunch and keeping a food diary. This was provoked by an embarrassing and painful injury/episode at the gym. I had done some serious lifting and was removing a plate from the bench press bar. (This next action took an extreme amount of skill.) I stood perpendicular to the bar (as if the bar was going to spear me through my belly button) and used my stomach to keep the bar place while I slid the plate towards me. Somehow, some of my belly got pinched between the bar and plate and when I checked it out in the shower, I had a half dollar-sized bruise and I had broken the skin. Doh!

The walk is a nice excuse to get out of the office and stretch my legs for a bit. It's not hard as long as the weather is decent. The food diary has been a very enlightening exercise. For the first 3 days, I focused on measuring out food before eating it and then making sure to record it. I didn’t do any calorie counting/adding until day 4. The numbers were rather sobering. No wonder losing weight has been so hard! I’m going on week 2 of this exercise. I had been dreading doing this but now that I’m doing it, it’s not so bad. Meredith encouraged me to do this when I told her I was thinking about paying someone to help me lose weight. She insisted that I already knew what I had to do.

And finally, the random things that don't really fit anywhere else...

In an effort to find more ways to eat whole grains (I generally tend to believe that whole grains taste bad), I’ve found Quaker chocolate rice cakes. They’re damned good.

How good is iced Dunkin Donuts coffee on a hot day?

Snappage update: 1/2.5


I’m starting to see flashing yellow lights around town. Love the idea! Pure genius. Can’t wait until they’re everywhere.