Leslie Sansone’s October Challenge – Final Week

It’s hard to believe it’s already the end of Leslie Sansone’s October challenge.I’ve done fairly well at sticking to the exercise routines. I did swap some of the walking miles for biking miles, but I was active every day. Monday’s are my weigh in days, and this morning I am still down 2 pounds. I was down 2 pounds last Monday, and it’s holding steady. The schedule for the last 3 days (she’s giving everyone a day off for celebration on the 31) is up. Here it is.

Monday, October 28 – 2 interval miles (she suggests The Big Burn dvd. It’s on youtube I think)

Tuesday, October 29  - 2 miles and core strength training

Wednesday, October 30 – 2 interval miles (again The Big Burn)

Thursday, October 31 – No structured exercise, but she says to celebrate by being active.

For today, I took a 2 mile (or almost) bike ride with my niece. So, that’s going to be my workout for the day. I’ve enjoyed this month’s challenge, and I hope she does another one soon. I like having a schedule to follow. I might make up a weekly plan from now on. I seems to follow it better and actually get it done sooner than if I have no written plan.

Have a great week, and keep moving!

New Addition To My Fitness Regimen

(photo credit – amazon.com)

I’m not sure if anyone caught it, but in my week three post of Leslie Sansone’s October challenge, I mentioned going for a bike ride instead of the one mile walk for a few of the challenge days. Bike ride? Yep. Well, more like a trike rather than a bike.

A few weeks ago, I finally bit the bullet and bought myself an adult tricycle. I had one for years when I was growing up, and I loved it. The main reason I hadn’t bought here yet is because it’s so stinking hot for 6 to 8 months out of the year. So what if it’s hot. I’m going for a bike ride darn it.

I got the Schwinn Meridian Adult 26-inch 3-wheel bike. I love it! Of course I got it in blue. Was there any doubt? If it comes in blue, it’s mine! It’s just a one-speed trike, but that’s OK. There are front and rear breaks, both controlled with your hands. The trike I had as a kid was able to break either by hands, or pedaling backwards. With this trike, you’re able to pedal backwards and not break. I like that a lot. Sometimes I need to back pedal to get more of a push. The large basket in the back is able to fold flat so that’s kinda neat.

I took a few days to get used to riding it. After all, I haven’t been on a trike for almost 20 years. Didn’t take too long to get used to it though. Depending on the terrain, I still feel like I’m going to tip over, but not too much. The only time I feel like I’ll tip is when I’m getting it out of the back yard gate. I have to go through grass which is bumpy, but it’s not big deal.

I’m not used to riding on hills either. I grew up in Miami, so everything was flat. Here, there are slight hills, which causes you to work harder. That’s a good thing. Right now, I’m riding around our block, which is about 3/4 of a mile around. The big block just adds an extra 1/4 of a mile, and you have to go up a fairly steep incline. I did that for the first time on Saturday, and it was a bit tough. I made it though. That incline is actually easier than getting up our driveway, which is a lot steeper than it looks.

I love my new trike, and I wish I had gotten it a long time ago. I can ride that sucker for a long time. I rode for about 45 minutes Saturday, and I could have have gone a lot longer. Yeah for new fitness and fun gear! Keep moving!

Mileage Mondays Are Back

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Mileage Monday post. With Leslie Sansone’s October challenge, I’ve been posting the week’s schedule on Monday mornings. This week however, she posted it early enough on Sunday I decided to bring back the Monday posts.

On my last Mileage Monday post it wasn’t much of a post, since my computer decided to have a brain fart. I had to reinstall Windows 8, and I lost just about everything I didn’t have backed up to “the cloud”. The pictures from the virtual walk site were among the casualties.

Good news! I was able to retrieve them from the web site! There is a way to enter in a specific mileage point on the walk to bring up that mile’s picture. So, I went through the SparkPeople’s  Virtual Walk/Run Challenge team’s (I help co-lead this team) Where Are You now? thread to get my mileage points that I was missing.

Right now, I have about two week’s worth of pictures to get uploaded. So let’s get started.

Mile 653.8 (watp for 4 miles)                                  Mile 654.8 (elliptical for 1 mile)

                 

Mile 655.8 (elliptical for 1 mile)                                Mile 657.8 (watp for 2 miles)

                 

Mile 659.8 (watp for 1 mile/elliptical for 1 mile)       Mile 661.8 (watp for 2 miles)

                 

 

(photo credit - http://exercise.lbl.gov/index.html;jsessionid=1F4E2B8269D80C6DF557FB31D1D6D77B)

Since my last Mileage Monday post, I’ve passed through Chavies, KY in Perry county, and Buckhorn, KY in Breathitt County. I have about 17.4 miles until I reach Booneville, KY in Breathitt county.

Have a great week, and keep moving!

Leslie Sansone’s October Challenge: Week Four

(photo credit - www.sharecare.com)

Hey hey! Leslie Sansone has this week’s schedule up already. Good deal. Only ten days left of this challenge, Time flies when you’ve got daily assignments. I think I may plan my weeks from now on. I usually just play it by ear. During this October challenge, I’ve been adding all of the workouts to my calendar, so every morning I have an email sitting in my inbox yelling at me until I get it done.

Week four looks like it’s right up my alley. I may add in my elliptical on one or two of the “strength training only” days though. I want to keep that up. Looks like I’ll be doing the 5K With A Twist dvd a lot this week. Fine by me, that’s my favorite DVD. I did that a lot last week also.

Here’s the plan for this week.

Monday, October 21 – Full body strength training only.

Tuesday, October 22 – 3 miles.

Wednesday, October 23 – Full body strength training only.

Thursday, October 24 – 3 miles.

Friday, October 25 – Full body strength training only.

Saturday, October 26 – 3 miles.

Sunday, October 27 – Full body strength training only.

There you have it. Week four. She gives some suggestions on her blog about which dvds to do 5K With A Twist being one of them. I can’t recommend that particular dvd enough. I absolutely love it.

Have a great week, and keep moving!!

Leslie Sansone’s October Challenge: Week Three Schedule

(photo credit:http://www.walkathome.com/)

I need to get my butt in gear. I took multiple days off last week again. Excuse after excuse after excuse. So, this week, I will be doing my best to get in a daily workout. I can at least get in one of Leslie’s miles. It is only 15 minutes to do one of her miles after all. No excuses!

So we’re on to week three already. This week is the same thing every day, and totally up to you as to what you want to do. We’ll be doing at least two miles every day, and then we have the option to a “bonus” activity, which means strength training. So you can do two miles one day plus upper body work, or you can choose to do three miles and do no strength training.

Check out Leslie Sansone’s full blog post for more details. Here’s my plan for this week.

Monday, October 14 – 3 miles

Tuesday, October 15 – 2 miles and full body strength

Wednesday, October 16 – 3 miles

Thursday, October 17 – 2 miles and full body strength

Friday, October 18 – 3 miles

Saturday, October 19 – 1 or 2 miles or a bike ride depending on what we’re doing that day. May be a chiropractic morning.

Sunday, October 20 – 1 or 2 miles or a bike ride depending on what’s going on that day.

I am getting back into my strength training slowly. My left arm is finally starting to feel a bit better. I pulled a muscle somehow a while ago, and it’s been giving me issues since. Stretching it helps a lot though.

So a full week of activity is planned. And I will be sticking to it! No excuses! Keep moving everyone.

Leslie Sansone’s October Challenge: Week Two Schedule

(photo credit - www.collagevideo.com)

Well, week one went OK. I missed two days though, oops. Oh well, on to week two. I don’t plan on missing days this week. I weigh in every Monday morning, and this morning I was down one pound. I actually checked it three times, because I wasn’t sure if the scale was flat on the floor. But the needle was down one tick (yep, a needle scale, still thinking about the FitBit Aria scale).

So, the week two schedule has been posted. Here we go.

Monday, October 7 – 2 (or 3) miles.

Tuesday, October 8 – Full body strength (see the bottom of her blog post).

Wednesday, October 9 – 2 (or 3) miles.

Thursday, October 10 – Full body strength.

Friday, October 11 – 2 (or 3) miles.

Saturday, October 12 – Full body strength.

Sunday, October 13 – 2 (or 3) miles.

There you have it. Two or three miles today. Totally up to everyone as to what they want to do. I’m thinking I may do one or two miles with a DVD and then a mile on the elliptical. No miles to be done Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, but I may do a DVD anyway since I skipped a few days last week.

Keep moving everyone. I have some blog posts I want to put up this week. Still need to write them though. Will work on that today. Have a great week!

World Cerebral Palsy Day 2013

Today’s the day! What is World Cerebral Palsy Day? Well, this sums it up. “World CP Day is a global innovation project to change the world for people living with cerebral palsy and their families. It is designed to gather ideas from people around the world and make the best of those ideas a reality.
The project is led by a group of non-profit cerebral palsy charities, and supported by organisations in over 30 countries.” (from http://en.worldcpday.org/about/)

You can find the World CP Day on FaceBook also, and a few weeks ago, they posted an interesting informational graphic.



(photo credit - http://en.worldcpday.org/about/)

I don’t know how big this picture will be on the blog, so go to this website to blow it up. http://en.worldcpday.org/assets/Uploads/about/WorldCPDayCP-Infographic.pdf

I found this information interesting, particularly all the statistics at the bottom. I usually describe my CP as ataxic, but I’ve recently discovered that I was never diagnosed with any particular type. Looking through the various types of CP, I’m leaning more toward the spastic description. My muscles and tendons are very tight and stiff. I also identify with the ataxic type because i do have bad balance. I don’t think my “sense of positioning in space” is impacted at all. Not really sure what that means, depth perception maybe?

The parts of me that are impacted are my right arm and left leg. My gross motor skills are technically level 2, but right now, I act more like a level 4. I’m working on that though. Get myself back to a level 2.

My manual ability is OK. I have no problems with eating, dressing, writing, or catching a ball. Although I do get hit in the head by a ball if I’m not expecting someone to throw it at me. When people start playing catch, I pay very close attention to who is throwing it. Been hit in the head by flying objects a lot over the years. The only real issue I have with getting dressed is buttons. I have a hard time with really tiny button on shirts. Also, the button has to be on correct side of the pants for me (the right side in my case).

I can walk and I can talk. I do experience pain from time to time, but it’s not as bad as is was a year ago before I started going to the chiropractor regularly. I have very tight muscles in my upper back and neck that are a pain frequently. I don’t have epilepsy, don’t have a behavior disorder, and I don’t have an intellectual impairment. I have no vision problems (almost 39 and still don’t wear glasses). I thankfully don’t have bladder control problems or a saliva control problem. And I don’t really have any sleep disorders other than the occasional hard time getting to sleep.

So, there you have it. Me in a nutshell. Not too bad. I got very lucky. My CP could have been a whole lot worse. I was lucky enough to have parents who didn’t treat me any different from my older sister. If I couldn’t do something, I’d get creative and find a way to get it done (still do that).

CP doesn’t get worse with age, although the impact on the body (joints, tendons and such) can deteriorate if they’re not worked. Walking ability also suffers if it’s not utilized often. That’s why I’m keeping up with exercise and trying to regain my confidence with walking.

I hope this information helps anyone out there wanting to know more about CP. Every case of CP is totally different. There are a lot of people with cerebral palsy that are trying to get more awareness of CP out there and help people understand this disability more. Here are links to a few of the people I keep up with whether it’s on FaceBook or through their blogs.

Charisse – FaceBook Page and YouTube Channel

CP Family Network – Website and FaceBook Page

Tina’s Blog – Living With Cerebral Palsy

Amelia's Blog - Life In The Blue Ridges

Have a great day and keep moving!!