Squeeze Exercise In When You Can

It seems like over the last six months, it’s been harder to complete my exercise routine. I’m not sure what changed, but when I first began this weight loss journey (now fitness journey since I’m at a healthy weight), I was able to complete my entire routine, and was showered and dressed by 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning. Now, it feels like I can’t get started.

I have more morning email to get through (newsletters, forum posts, and the like), and I now get started exercising around 7:30 and 8:00 (am usually out of bed by 6:00). I have a hard time completing my elliptical workout if I don’t eat. I need that food to get me through. My morning coffee won’t cut it unfortunately. So I wait until I eat breakfast before I jump on it.

It takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to do 30 minutes of elliptical work. I need to cut my breaks down to shorter amounts of time, and I am working on it. I feel like I’m under a time crunch, and I don’t know why. I know everything will get done that needs to get done, I just have this expectation of when I want to get it done.

Well, life doesn’t work that way. Life is erratic and inconvenient. Surprise visits from family, bad night’s sleep, or whatever else might make it difficult to stay on a normal schedule, things happen. You need to do things when you can. If you can’t get in your morning workout, then do it in the afternoon. If it comes down to it, do it in the evening. Just get it done.

Take today. It’s Wednesday. I have strength training scheduled along with a mile on the elliptical. Total workout time is probably an hour and a half. Do I prefer to do it all in one chunk? Sure! Will it? Probably not today. I will most likely get my strength training done before breakfast. But my elliptical workout might have to wait. I’m expecting a FedEX delivery sometime today, and they need a signature. So I need to be where I can hear someone knock on the door. If I’m at my desk, I can hear the truck pull up, but it will take me a while to get to the door. So I need to be out in the other room before the guy knocks and runs (why does it feel like they run around the corner as soon as you open the door?). So that also means, any writing work will have to wait.

My point is, my elliptical workout will happen, just not when I want it to. It might be 2 in the afternoon before I do it, and if it’s that late, I’m already preparing for an internal argument with myself. It seems like 2 PM hits and the exercise window has closed. There’s no window. If there is a window, it’s open all the time. I have to suck it up and do it.

I think I’ve convinced myself to exercise no matter what time it is (well, maybe not after 6 PM, hehehe).

I was a good girl yesterday, and got in my mile after the webinar and after I had lunch. And I’m actually writing this post at around 6 PM Tuesday. I’m squeezing writing in when I can too. I have a certain amount of things to accomplish in a day, and I have to squish it in where I can. Little bit here, little bit there, and before you know it, it’s all done.

I did my mile, and I made my goal of doing it in 300 revolution chunks. We’ll see how today goes. Here are my stats for yesterday.

Elliptical:
Distance - 1 mile
Revolutions - 1600
Resistance Level - 1
Endurance - Good. Stopped at 300, 600, 900, 1200, and 1500 revs.
Injury - None
Time - 32:00

Move when you can, just keep moving!

Busy Bee Tuesday

Been somewhat busy, but at the same time, it feels like I’ve gotten nothing done. I had a free writing webinar I attended at 10:00 this morning, and that’s normally around the time I’m ending my workout. I decided to hold off on the elliptical until after it was over.

The webinar was basically a recap of things I already knew. It was about how to find online freelance (telecommuting, home-based work, and that sort of thing) jobs, and how to avoid scams. Being a freelance writer, I like to keep on top of things. But, like I said, I basically knew about everything they were talking about. One thing I did learn is that there are a lot of scams out there. I think they said 1 in 60 to 70 telecommuting-type jobs is a legitimate offer. Yikes, that’s scary. Use your common sense when it comes to finding online work. So far, I’ve had no problems (knock on wood).

So, Monday’s workout went OK. I did my strength training, but never got around to the elliptical. Oops. At least I did something. Tuesday’s goal is to do a mile on the elliptical, in 300 revolution increments. I’ll let you know how I did tomorrow.

Keep moving!

Mileage Monday

Another Mileage Monday heading your way. I’m still chugging along the virtual walk. Haven’t made 500 miles yet, but I’m getting there. This past week, I sort of slacked on my exercise. Not sure what exactly happened, but nothing got done. Ah well, it’s the start of a new week, and it’s time to get it started.

Maybe I should post a goal a day. I’m actually writing this post on Sunday, so my goal for Sunday is one mile on the elliptical. My other goal is to do it in chunks of 300 revolutions. I’ve been stuck at 200 revolutions at a time before taking a break, so it’s time I bumped it up. I managed to do it the other day, so it is do-able.

My goal for Monday is to do strength training and one mile on the elliptical. I’ll let you all know how I do. We’ll see. Here are more pictures from the site in the meantime.

Mile 460.6 (Elliptical for .5 mile)                            Mile 461.2 (Elliptical for .5 mile)

              

Mile 464.2 (WATP for 3.1 mile)                             Mile 464.8 (Elliptical for .5 mile)

               

Mile 465.2 (Elliptical for .5 mile)                            Mile 465.8 (Elliptical for .5 mile)

               

 

(photo credit - Copyright 2006 Lawrence Berkeley Lab)

Sunday's workout went very well. Here are my stats:

Elliptical:
Distance - 1 mile
Revolutions - 1600
Resistance Level - 1
Endurance - Good. Stopped at 300, 600, 900, 1200, and 1500 revs.
Injury - None
Time - 31:58

Keep moving!

Found An Active Blogger

I always get excited when I find an active blogger who writes about cerebral palsy. I just happened to stumble upon Tina's blog Living with Cerebral Palsy: Living and Working with Cerebral Palsy. She has spastic cerebral palsy, so it's not exactly the same as mine. I did however relate to quite a few things in this particular post: Unforgiving. I just skimmed the first page of her blog site, and she is actively writing. I subscribed to her blog just now through the email subscription option. Woohoo! I love finding new people with cerebral palsy to learn what they deal with and how they deal with it.

Mileage Monday

Ok, it’s time to finally get caught up with the pictures from the virtual walk site. For a while, each Monday I’ll be uploading about 6 photos. I went through my saved pictures and I have about two months worth of “Mileage Monday” posts. So let’s get to it. There are some good ones coming up.

In the last several months I’ve passed through a few cities and towns in VA. In order, I’ve gone through Cedar Springs (Wythe county), Sugar Grove (Smyth county), Troutdale (Wythe county), Konnarock (Washington county), and Damascus (Washington county).

I am currently about 6.5 mile away from Meadowview, VA in Washington county. My total mileage to date is 490.4 miles. Coming up on the big 500. I’ll do a post on that day for sure. For now, here are the first of many pictures.

Mile 451 (3.1 miles of WATP)                                       Mile 454 (3.1 miles of WATP)

                      

Mile 455 (1 mile on elliptical)                                        Mile 456 (1 mile on elliptical)

                      

Mile 459.2 (3.1 miles of WATP)                                     Mile 460 (1 mile on elliptical)

                      

My Absence Explained

So, you may have wondered what the heck happened to me the last several months. Sometime around mid-May, I pulled a muscle, or several muscles in my back on the left side. I still don't know what I did exactly, but I had four gigantic knots. One up by my left shoulder, one right below my armpit near my ribs, one near my kidney, and one right above my left hip.

The one by my ribs was the one that was giving me the most problems. Somehow, I believe the muscle knot shifted one of my ribs out of place, because it was hard to take a deep breath. It hurt every time I tried, and I couldn't yawn for about three or four days. After a few days of not being able to breathe deeply, I broke out the massager (duh!), and worked out the knots. Well, it worked, but then the muscle spasms began. Once the knot relaxed, my muscle started to spasm, and it made it pretty tough to breathe. The only way I could comfortably breathe was if I stood up and raised my left arm over my head.

It was late at night and there was no way I was going to fall asleep. It actually started to spasm when I laid down. My husband had the brilliant idea to give me a straight shot of rum. Best idea ever! However, I felt like I was a dragon breathing fire when I downed the rum. Bleh! Straight rum is potent. It worked though. I was able to get to sleep, and there were no more spasms.

The next issue to fix itself was the shifted ribs. That was sort of freaking me out. I still couldn't take a deep breath without it hurting. I was about to call the doctor for an appointment the next day, but as I was putting laundry into the dryer, I felt something shift. Instant relief. I could breathe again. And yawn! I hadn't had a full yawn for days. It was still tender, and I couldn't do much, but I could at least breathe again.

For the next several months I took it easy with my exercise. I basically did none. Any little movement, and I would feel a twinge in my ribs, like things were shifting and moving around. Once it started to feel a bit better, I started trying to do things again. I was able to my leg exercises, but the strength training was a no-go for a while. My ab routine was pretty much nixed also. As was the elliptical. The arm pole movement wasn't nice.

It took me a good three months until I didn't feel any twinges. It was around the beginning or the middle of August by the time I was fully healed. I believe that was when I was able to do my full routine with no problems. My abs felt really tired after the first full workout, too. But I didn't care. I was just glad to be better again.

As a result,I have added a stretch to my stretching routine. I either stand up or sit cross-legged, raise both arms over my head, and bend sideways at the waist. This stretches the lat muscles which was what I pulled. I've also added a new strength exercise with my weights. Stand up and bend forward at my waist with the weights hanging in front of me. Then pull the weights up to my armpits. Sort of like if you're pulled weeds maybe.

Those additions seem to have helped a bit to strengthen my weak areas. The last few days I’ve been having a few twinges, but I think I just slept on my side too long or slept on it wrong. Hopefully that will go away soon.

I am back though, and am slowly trying to get back to where I was. I’m almost ready to start doing two sets of my strength training exercises again. And I am doing a full mile here and there on the elliptical. I at least do a half mile every time I get on. I need to start back up with my Walk Away the Pounds DVD. That seemed to improve my endurance when I did it.

Keep moving no matter what though. A little movement is better than none.

 

Another Pet Loss

Well, this isn’t how I planned to make my blogging comeback, but life happens like that.

As the title of this blog reads, we have lost another pet. Our second cat Ashley, presented the same signs as our first cat Paws did in the end. It’s taken me a little while to get this post written. Not a happy subject, so I kept delaying it. I didn’t expect to have to go through this so soon after the first time. I thought we had another two or three years. But, sadly, that wasn’t the case.

I don’t know if it was my imagination, but not long after we took Paws in, Ashley seemed to become more active. The move active she was, the more weight she lost. This was a good thing. Ashley was a very long, and very tall cat. She was also very fat. She became more active, and looked like a healthy cat for a while. But the last few months, she looked a bit too skinny.

She was still playing and running around a lot more than usual, but it was starting to show. What really got me a bit concerned was the fact that she was tolerating our third cat Abby more than usual. Normally, if Ashley and Abby got close, one or both of them would hiss and turn the other way. Or there would be the “stare down”, and they would stare at each other for a long time. In the last few weeks though, Abby was more friendly, and was grooming Ashley also. Abby would follow Ashley around from time to time to see what she was doing.

A few days before we took Ashley in to get checked out, I had both cats on my lap at the same time. Abby was on my lap, and Ashley was beside me with her head on my leg. They were face to face for a while with now problem.

A few days later, we took her in to confirm what we already knew. The vet said the exact same thing as he did with Paws. She was severely dehydrated, was in kidney failure, and her liver was also failing. We decided to do the humane thing and had her put to sleep. The vet said if she was younger, it might be a different story. Could have her on a special diet, or whatever, but, she was 13 years old, so it was best.

We did not stay like we stayed with Paws. It was a hard decision. I was torn. My husband absolutely did not want to stay. He still has that final image of Paws, and didn’t want to do that again. I think he’s right. It’s been a bit easier to get over the loss this time as opposed to the first. It was hard walking out of that room though, knowing she was still in the back. They let me hold her for a while and then took her into the back.

One thing about not staying is I wondered when they would do it. I would think to myself “Did they do it yet?” I did the same thing with my childhood dog, Tipsy. I didn’t go to the vet that day, but the outcome was sad. The rest of the day I wondered if it had been done yet. In the end though, I think I made the right choice with Ashley.

So, we’re now down to one cat. And she is healthy. Active, playful, and still agile. Abby is about 10 years old, so I don’t expect to go through this again for some time. To close, here’s a picture of Ashley just a few days before we took her in.

Ashley: July 1999 to September 18, 2012