Another day of swimming. I love it :-) And I have a friend. She seems young but she's really nice. She even offered to let me stay at her house if I want since she lives closer to the school :-) It helps make it more fun when you can actually talk to people you're doing things with. Go figure. And there's another girl who is in my math class, too. We have a bond because we get to practice at 6am and leave math class at 9pm Mondays and Wednesdays. She's really nice. I am honestly the worst swimmer on the team, but I'm having a good time and I have no intention of quitting :-)
So yeah, tip for the day: Make friends. Drag friends to exercise with you, make friends with the people you exercise with. . . you're more likely to enjoy it and stick with it if it's fun. Also, I guess find an activity you enjoy. I love swimming. I wish I'd gotten into it before, but better late than never, right?
My aerobics teacher had some good points last night.
You shouldn't try to lose more than 1-2 pounds a week. That's cutting 250 calories and burning an extra 250 calories for one pound. Every day. Double that for 2. This ensures that what you're losing is actually fat and not just water or muscle from depriving your body of nourishment and exercise. The can of Dr Pepper I just drank had 150 calories. . .
For an exercise program you should remember that your body won't get stronger unless you actually exert yourself. If you can comfortably walk 2 miles, make it uncomfortable. Increase the pace, the distance, whatever. Your body will adjust and get stronger, your heart will get stronger and more used to pumping blood to the rest of your body. But make sure to increase the intensity gradually, especially if you're not used to exercise.
You want to increase cardio respiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and overall body composition (lean vs. fat). Don't focus on how much you weigh, focus on how you feel and what your fat percentage is.
And. . . you should try to exercise at least 20-50 minutes a day for 3-6 days. Ideally, 4-6, but if you're just starting out you can see results with as little as 2-3 days of exercise, but you want to work up to getting your heart pumping more often. And it doesn't have to be all at once, you can work out a few times a day just for 10 minutes or whatever.
We can do it!!
Okay I'll shut up now :-) Someone else say something!!!
So last week wasn't quite as life-changing as I'd hoped :-P Baby steps, people.
Since our pool was down we went to Etiwanda for practice on Wednesday. Their pool is teeny tiny so we were all crowded. After practice Jenn came up to me and told me to sleep in for the rest of the week :-P Meh.
So I missed out on swimming workouts Thursday and Friday.
Wednesday in aerobics I got some work done, though. Yay, step! He also handed out guest passes for 24-hour fitness. I'm trying to figure out the best time to make use of that. We're restricted to weekdays and certain hours, and my schedule won't be opening up any time soon, so I might just try to go Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays after work. I have to get used to my crazy schedule first, though. I keep falling asleep every chance I get, including during chem class.
Tennis on Saturday was fun, and a decent workout. I decided to drop my martial arts class. I miss too much information at the beginning of class.
I was allowed to participate in swim practice today. I'm a bit sore already. Woohoo! So THIS week should be better :-)
swim every morning, aerobics Monday and Wednesday, tennis Saturday. Yay :-)
And my goal is to be ready to add 24-hour fitness the week of the 12th.
So, since I haven't said so and I may as well get it all out there so I know. . .
height: 5'3-1/2" weight: 150lbs body fat %: 27.8 bmi: 26.1
Found out the body fat and bmi stuff in aerobics last week ;-)
So we'll see how I measure up at the end of the class. I kinda want to get a body fat monitor thingy. They're like $60.
So we haven't actually gotten in a pool yet. Our pool is broken. I guess a boiler blew up? Nice. We're gonna use Etiwanda's pool for the rest of the week. 5:45am instead of 6. Oh boy.
So yeah. I had tennis on Saturday morning. We just had orientation. The martial arts class was interesting. I don't think the teachers like how they split up some of the classes into two different sections. It's a little distracting. I'm the only one going for the second half :-P They were already in the midst of a lesson when I got there. Dunno. That class is kinda weird. A little chaotic and unstructured from what I can tell. Which bothers me for some reason.
Sunday I went snowboarding. More snowboarding than I've done the last couple times combined.
Yesterday, instead of swimming, we all met in the dance room (same room my martial arts and aerobics classes are held) and did crunches and crazy ass stomach exercises, then we went to the fitness lab and took turns on the weight machines. THEN we went to the track and ran/walked a mile.
We just did a couple fitness tests in aerobics yesterday.
And today at swim practice we did the same thing as yesterday.
Well, here we go. This is my last "normal" day before my life totally changes.
I haven't been keeping up on eating better. I ran out of salad fixings last week and haven't had the money to go buy more :-( So sad. In a couple weeks I should be able to get back on track with that.
As far as exercise, I did go snowboarding last Sunday, but not for very long, and I plan on going again this Sunday. Tomorrow is the first day of my tennis and martial arts conditioning classes, but I'm not sure if we'll actually do anything since it's the first day.
Anyway, the point is, Monday I start swimming. I'm gonna die. And my aerobics class on Mondays and Wednesdays that I thought was going to be all easy? Heh. My teacher is crazy. It's going to be a good workout. A couple of the girls who were in his last class said they lost 20lbs. There are no guys in my class. I guess low-impact aerobics didn't sound too appealing to them. The name is deceiving. The teacher is crazy. He's also a trainer at 24-hour fitness and said he could hand out guest passes that are good for a month there (though I doubt I'll be needing MORE exercise in the next few months!), and he also teaches classes at a couple ritzy clubs in LA.
Okay, seriously. I LOVE this salad. I could seriously eat it every day and not get tired of it.
I know I've said it already a ton of times. . . and I'm sure I'll never forget, but here are the ingredients:
All from Trader Joe's
Baby lettuce mix Baby spinach Shredded mozarella cheese Just Caesar chicken Sesame soy ginger vinaigrette dried cranberries
I just put everything in a ziploc container thing in the morning before work and stick it in the fridge when I get here. Including the dressing. It doesn't get all wilted or soggy or anything. The dressing doesn't even have any fat in it. The chinese chicken salad dressing I had bought from Vons had quite a bit. Probably some bagel chips or sourdough bread chips would be great on it, too, but I haven't really looked at that yet. And the prepackaged chicken from TJ's is way better than the strips they have at the regular grocery store. Those are loaded with sodium and all kinds of crazy stuff. Trader Joe's actually looks like chicken you would cook at home. And the cranberries aren't Craisins, they're just straight up dried cranberries.
I ♥ oatmeal. Seriously. Quick oats from the canister, a scoop of brown sugar (tastes better in the oatmeal than regular sugar). Mmm. Even better if you add a banana or something but a canister and a box of brown sugar can last you a month without going bad :-)
And I love Trader Joe's. Prepackaged, cooked, seasoned chicken breast meat for under $6. Enough to make a few salads AND a few wraps or whatever. Bags of baby lettuce, baby spinach, etc. for $2. Salad dressing (the one I got is the sesame ginger. Chinese chicken salad. Mmmmm): $2. Shredded cheese (I think like $3.50 for a good-sized bag) and dried cranberries ($2) for a little extra. Oh, and "truly handmade" (aka freaking wonderful) flour tortillas for $2 if you want to wrap it up :-) They also have other kinds of tortillas, flavored ones, ones specifically for wraps. . . but the truly handmade remind me of the ones my gram used to make.
Okay. . . so far right now all I'm doing is climbing the steps in my house ;-)
As far as plans, I'm pretty much going to rely on exercise. Swim team (which means AM practices 4 days a week), and I'm also taking a low-impact aerobics class two days a week, and tennis and karate with an emphasis on conditioning on Saturday mornings. All of that, except swimming, starts on the 16th. Swimming will start the following week.
The only diet changes I think I can truly live with are just an attempt to not eat so much fast food and to stop drinking so much soda! I already had 2 Dr. Peppers today, though, so we'll see. I just can't see myself really *watching* what I eat ALL the time. I love good food too much to say no.
My idea for my favorite healthy foods to bring to work are oatmeal and a banana for breakfast and a salad with fatty dressing (!) and chicken for lunch. Once school starts I'm going to have to figure out something for dinner.
quixotic