January 15, 2009
mrsnarkypants
Life
Fitness
I’m two sessions into a 12 week group weight loss program at the gym. Initial thoughts:
1. They’re starting us off slowly. I’m getting a little frustrated with this, because I’m used to going in and cranking hard for an hour, so doing only 35 or 45 minutes makes me feel like I’m not really working out. On the other hand, we’re doing everything on a treadmill and I suck at running, so it’s good to ramp up the intensity.
2. Some of the others in the group are in really bad shape. There’s one huge guy who can’t handle 10 minutes on a treadmill. I hope he sticks with it, though, because he needs this badly! One guy is a real tool. I can’t decide if he’s trying to be funny or if he just doesn’t understand nutrition, but he needs to shut his mouth and let the nutritionist finish a sentence if anyone is going to get anything out of his seminars.
3. The nutritionist is a nice guy, but he has a hard time staying on task. I had a one-on-one session with him in December and noticed this then, too. Put him in a group of 12 and he goes off on so many tangents that he’s lost. He needs to write out an outline for his seminars so he can find his way back. Of course, if the tool in the corner would close his trap…
4. Travel is going to be a rock in my shoe with this program – I’m missing two sessions next week with the Colorado Springs project alone – but the trainer is going to give me workouts to take with me on the road and I’ve booked hotels with workout equipment. It’s going to take some real effort to keep myself on the right path.
5. I have a feeling that I’m going to need to work out a little more than within the group sessions if I’m going to see the results that I want. I need to just build that into my calendar now.
January 7, 2009
mrsnarkypants
Cycling
Fitness
60 minutes… heart rate between 120 – 140 throughout. I’m starting to be able to get the rate to recover quickly when switching from a hard interval to an easy one.
January 4, 2009
mrsnarkypants
Cycling
Fitness, MS150
An old favorite: Living Stones/Cemetary Road with SCCC.
Clear Lake to Friendswood, to Alvin, to Santa Fe, to Dickenson, to Webster, to Clear Lake. 44.6 miles.
I did well – hit 21 MPH on a 3 mile sprint down Cemetary Road – and was brought back to earth when a pack of racers passed me doing 30 without breaking a sweat. Still, if I were in a school zone, I would have gotten a ticket, and that’s pretty cool.
December 19, 2008
mrsnarkypants
Life
Fitness
This week I fell far short of making it to the gym 3 days (much less 5).
It’s the holidays. My entire family is descending upon Casa de Snarky tonight, and I needed the time to sleep and clean. The house isn’t perfect, but it’s as good as it’s going to get before mom arrives.
I really need to paint the windowsills. Quincy has done a great job of scraping them up. I touched them up the other night, but they really need to be sanded, filled, and repainted with several coats. I’ll pick it up after Christmas.
Monday morning, Nikon gets his broken tooth pulled. Poor guy. My sister has volunteered to look after him afterwards… she says he should be more cooperative than the average human patient she dealt with after surgery.
I am taking the entire week off next week. Maybe I will make it into Lifetime Fitness, but as Pamela pointed out on FB, it’s Christmas… we’re all going to be fat for another week, so we might as well enjoy it.
December 10, 2008
mrsnarkypants
Cycling, Life
Fitness
For the record: I don’t do resolutions.
However, I feel like it’s time to get out of the rut that I’m in and into better shape. With that in mind, I’ve done the following things for me already:
1. I joined a gym again. My track record for gyms isn’t that good. However, I might be able to stick with this one:
- It’s huge. You can go at a peak hour and find a place to park, have enough space to walk around, and use any piece of cardio or weight equipment without having to wait. You can also do an hour on one of the cardio machines and not have 10 people glaring at you waiting for you to finish. In the weight section, there’s a good variety of stuff for working the various parts of the body so you can mix it up. The freeweight section is equally as large. I haven’t ventured over to the pool section yet, but with an indoor pool, outdoor pool, and 2 spas, this place has no shortage of stuff. Even when you add the traditional January resolution influx, there should be room to spare.
- The classes are offered at times you can actually go. What’s the point of having a spinning class or core conditioning class at 1:30PM on a Tuesday? Although people look at me like I’m insane about being excited over a 5:15AM spin class, I do much better working out before work than after work.
- There’s no contract. If I decide later that I really don’t have the money for this, I can get out with 30 days notice.
My only knock on the place is they do tend to nickle and dime you to death, and it adds up quickly. I’ve dropped about $300 since joining on fitness assessments and a nutritionist session and I haven’t even given in to the pitch for a personal trainer yet. But I do have a plan now; I just have to stick with it.
The goal is to drop 20 pounds or so over 16 weeks. That means I need to lose about a pound and a half a week. I’ll be posting about this a lot just to make myself accountable to someone.
2. I signed up for another charity bike tour. At the urging of Lillian (aka Hillian) of Team Warm Springs, I’m doing the diabetes Tour de Cure that goes from San Antonio – San Marcos – Austin at the end of May. It’s a 2 day ride; 80 miles each day. As a diabetic (and with everyone in my family either being type 1 or 2) it’s a cause I care about.
This means I’d better learn to do some hills, and not wait until April to do them. Granted, the weather blows right now, but I usually can count on Mona (or someone else) at Space City to set up some training rides for the Houston – Austin MS150 that will get me started. Plus there’s now an offer from 21st Century Mom to go ride around the SF Bay Area, which would be an opportunity to really sink or swim. Yes, there are closer hills, but that would be a good change of scenery and a chance to mash the pedals in a place I won’t have an opportunity to ride in often. If I can do some of the Bike Barn training rides and live to tell about it, I’ll take her up on the offer.
So, screw resolutions. If anyone is looking for me tonight, there’s a good chance I’ll still be on the second floor of Lifetime Fitness getting my sweat on after I see their nutritionist.
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