Personal Development Community

It’s time to start a new thread. As was true last year, I’m not counting days. Fitness has become a way of life for me and I miss exercise if I don’t get it in. On the other hand, I do want to keep posting. My posts are my record of what I have done and I print them out and choose exercises from them when I go to the gym. Knowing that I’m going to post is also motivation for me.

So. . . . .

January 1: rest

January 2: 30 minutes on the elliptical, 10 minutes on the treadmill, 30 wide-legged sit ups

January 3: 35 minutes on the treadmill including 2 five minute intervals at 5.5mph; in and outs with 7.5#, flies on a bench with 12.5#. My main accomplishment today was 5 walkouts on the exercise ball so that just my toes were on the ball. It took about 8 attempts to get the 5 clean walkouts. I rolled off the ball a few times.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to have my normal personal training session Monday. I have to take my mother for a CT scan at 10:00 and I’m not positive we’ll be back in time. I hope so.

Happy New Year!  I hope you have a great year.  Good job on your workouts.

Happy New Year Joan! Any specific goals for this year?

Bree

Bree, I thought about your question on and off all day as my husband and I went skiing. (It was cold but sunny and I’m really glad we went). As many times as I’ve read where you’ve asked others and as many times as I’ve asked about goals, I realized today that my goals really are an issue.

I started my fitness journey on January 24th, 2006 so I have an anniversary coming up. In 2006 my goal was to achieve “fitness” so I’d be mobile and strong when I get to old age. I also didn’t like the way I looked as I was at my highest weight ever--184 pounds. So I did want to lose weight, but I had had no success with dieting in the previous 8 years. I decided to work on the fitness and assume that weight loss would come naturally.

In 2006 I had no real definition of what “fitness” means--and to some extent I still don’t know. Scott mentioned on a recent podcast my obsession with balance. I started off wanting good balance in the future, but I truly didn’t realize that my balance wasn’t that good at the time. We don’t know how good or bad our balance is unless it’s tested, and mine really wasn’t tested. I don’t know what standards exist for balance.

What I’ve discovered is that there’s not much out there defining what “fitness” is for middle-aged and older people. Meanwhile our expectations are often too limiting. I’m doing things in the gym now that I never knew anyone could do, never mind my aspiring to do them. . . .

So what should my goals be and what are they really?

I can tell you that all my medical/blood tests show that I am very healthy, my BMI and weight are in the healthy range, and my cardiac fitness is in the excellent range. So there’s not much that I need to do medically.

What I’ve had as my goals are to be at 24% body fat (currently 26.7%), at whatever weight that takes, and be able to do at least 2 “real” push ups. The problem is that I’ve made almost no progress towards those goals in the past 9 months. Today I kept asking myself the question, “How badly do you want it” and “Why would you stop now” and I don’t want to drop the goals. However, I’m not sure how badly I do want them. The body fat is for health--but I’m healthy now. The push ups are an indication of strength. I want more upper body strength--but I really don’t know why. At this point I can carry anything I want to carry. As far as my size goes (weight), no one looking at me would say that I need to lose weight. I look normal enough. The issue is that my belly to butt area is bigger proportionately compared to the rest of me which makes clothes shopping harder than I’d like it. I’ve had to have waists taken in. But my current clothes fit so motivation is hard to come by.

I guess the question is what more I’m willing to do to reach these goals. I have no problem continuing what I am currently doing.  I don’t have an answer.

Be careful what you wish for . . . . . I told my trainer that I felt like I didn’t do enough in last Monday’s session because I wasn’t sore at all afterwards. Well, I know right now that I am going to be sore tomorrow.

Heart rate monitor says 1 hour, 18 minutes, 529 calories, 35% fat, max 159 (99%), and average 125 (78%). One thing I have noticed is that my heart rate hasn’t gone into the 160s for many weeks. I’m still working hard so I guess it takes more to get there.

10 minutes walking on the treadmill at 3.5
10 squats with 45# bar
10 modified chin ups (I didn’t get close to getting up to my chin even though my feet were on the floor in front of me)
10 assisted pull-ups (setting at 16)
10 walk outs on the exercise ball, 3 getting my toes up on the ball
10 squat thrusts
10 with each arm: in plank position with hands on an aerobic step with 2 risers, balance on one hand/arm and rotate the body so the other arm is extended towards the ceiling
15 shoulder presses with 5# in each hand
10 dead lifts with 55#

10 modified bobbing birds on each leg with about 10# in each hand: hold weight in front of leg, bend knee and touch weight to foot, stand straight again, then with straight leg bend weight to floor with other leg going straight out behind me. I wasn’t able to do them all without touching down with the non-weightbearing leg but that’s what I was supposed to do

3 sets of 10 arm circles forward and back with 2.5# weights
10 squat/lunge/squat/back lunge/squat sequences on each side with 2 ten pound weights
15 split leg lunges with 15# in each hand
3 sets of 4 curls while holding the other arm at 90 degrees and then switching arms and curling with the other arm
rows with my elbows extended out by my shoulders ( ?weight, ? reps)

several other things with weights but I don’t remember what

timed circle runs, military march
timed charleston kick, leg swing over the stool,
timed small jumping jack motions, jumping jacks, and then spread eagles
timed mini squats, real squats with arms being raised, squat/jumkps

1 minute of a chair sit
10 banana to apples
20 swings of my extended legs and feet from my right side over to the left without touching the floor (body bent at 90 degrees)
15 heels to heaven
3 pairs of holding scissors

Hey Joan - great to read your thread - way to go!! Keep it up!

I want you to add to your goals - come to Cleveland to see me for a free golf lesson and 9 holes when I am more “hip”!!

OK, Judd, I’ll add it to my goals as long as I can bring my husband along. I just found Cleveland on the map. I have to admit that all I knew was that it’s west of here. . . . Are there any car ferries across the lake? We were talking about the possibility of going to Stratford, Ontario this coming summer. That’s just on the other side of the lake from you. I usually go with my women friends but I think we’re going to Niagara on the Lake this summer instead. We’re just about straight east from you.

BTW, I loved your pun.

Couples lesson!! Even better!! Not sure about ferries across the lake - during my time off ... the lake is usually frozen!! In the summer I don’t see it much - even though we live in Avon Lake less than a mile away.

Hi Joan - I see you got some skiing in.  Read your post regarding your goals.  Hope you’ll continue to post your progress, your consistency is paying off even if you seem to be at a plateau currently.  Maybe need to try something different to start making progress again.  Best wishes for a Happy New Year.

See your workingout as hard as ever,great job Joan!

Thanks Shawn and Priscilla. Now if I could do better at monitoring my food intake maybe I could lose the last bit of weight/fat that I still have on me (that is reasonable to get off).

Today: 60 minutes on the treadmill: 30 at 4.0, zero degrees, 15 at 2 degrees, 15 at 3 degrees

I’m definitely sore from yesterday, especially my glutes and hamstrings.

I bet you are sore.  That was some workout. I bet you won’t ever tell your trainer you aren’t sore from a workout again.  Keep up the good work and you’ll lose those pesky last few pounds.

I’m still sore but it’s still tolerable. At least I know my muscles were working.

Today I almost didn’t get out to exercise. We had freezing rain; all the schools were canceled and the sander made only one pass very early on so the ice on the road was intimidating. We were glad to find out that two blocks away the conditions were much better.

25 minutes on the treadmill, except for the first two minutes, all at 4.0 mph. However, to mix it up a bit I did five minute intervals of different inclines: zero, ten, thirteen, fifteen, zero

2 sets of 20 of chest presses while making a table with my upper back and head on the exercise ball
20 abds and adds at 70#, followed by 10 more of each

2 sets of 20 wide-legged sit ups

I still haven’t been able to get off the sugar that I increased over the holidays. . . .

32 minutes on the elliptical
20 step ups onto the bench with 10# in each hand and while balancing on the bench on one foot do a curl; 20 more step ups with the other foot but this set had me pressing while balancing on the one foot
1 minute military march (the stretch felt good)
1 set 5 split lunges on each leg with 10# in each hand; repeat with 10 lunges on each leg
20 dips using the bar on the smith machine to go up and down on
10 forward lunge, bend down, kick back, straighten torso, press weights sequence with 10# in each hand
30 oblique raises on each side
2 sets of 30 of each of the 3 shoulder exercises with the red stretch bands.

I forgot: my first exercise of the day was swinging at a bucket of golf balls--at the balls, not the bucket, of course!

Hey Joan, interesting workouts as usual,good job!

Friday--no sugar all day--finally

45 minutes on the treadmill

Yeah for Joan!  You’re doing great!

Yeah for Joan!  You’re doing great!

Hay Joan.  Glad to see you are still planning on going strong.  Even if you don’t have new goals yet to add this year I think it is great that you are still striving to keep the gains you’ve made health and fitness wise. That is a goal in itself.  I remember you did some running last year.  Didn’t you participate in a race?  Maybe you might consider training for a marathon (or 1/2 marathon) to help keep you focused and have something concreat (sp?) to work towards.  Just a thought.

I do actually still have goals; they’re just not new. I have 5 to 10 pounds to lose--or whatever it takes to go down 2% in body fat. And I still want to be able to do at least 2 real push ups.

I did run one 5K in each of the past two years. I haven’t done any training for 5K since last spring. I have been thinking that I might start again next month. I try to be careful about the running because at this point in my life I’m worried about damaging my knees or hips. I’ve read research that says that running doesn’t cause knee deterioration but I’m still trying to be careful. It’s been almost a month since my last chiropractor appointment and I think my right knee and my left hip are both out of alignment just a bit.

Today was an “off” day at the gym. I tried to do some of the weight work that I did in the fall and couldn’t do it. I don’t know if it’s from being out of alignment or if it’s from lack of recent practice.

So today I did 5 minutes on the treadmill
3 sets of 20 of the 3 exercises for my shoulders
on the add/abd machine 2 sets of 10 at 80# followed by a later 1 set of 10 for both add and abd
with a 15# squishy weighted ball between my knees 2 sets of 20 crunches and 2 sets of 10 side to side
10 walkouts on the exercise ball: 5 getting onto my toes and 5 lifting one leg and then the other from the ball
6 curls with 15#

I ate 2 cookies so I didn’t avoid all sugar today. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Good stuff Joan, I though you said you wanted to get down to 2% body fat, my miss read!