Salt Away

I was feeling discouraged this morning because I haven't lost any weight for close to a week, even though I've been staying within my calorie count and assiduously avoiding sugar and alcohol. I talked with Mark about it at Fitness Together and he reminded me that I went to the midwest to visit my family one week and celebrated Christmas the next (not to mention the 5 parties the weekend before I went to the midwest) and was down 5 pounds during that time. Usually I would have gained at least that much weight with all those great eating occasions. That made me feel somewhat better. I wish the way I felt about myself physically wasn't so tied to a number on the scale. My strength and endurance have increased so much in the last month.

I felt even better when I came home and recorded my food from last night. Liz, our friend Bob, and I did the 6:00 pm spinning class at the Y with Peggy last night (what a workout!). Bob's wife Diana  picked us up at 7 and we had to have a quick meal in order to make it to the 8:10 showing of "The Fighter" (good movie). I suggested Panera, because I thought it would be a healthy option near Cinemark.

Panera is great, because they list the calories for each item right on the menu. I had the cobb salad, which left me with enough calories to have popcorn at the movie. What shocked me when I looked up the Panera nutrition information this morning was that the salad had about 1,200 mg of sodium. The nutrition program I'm on recommends 1,500 mg of sodium for the day, so between the salad and the popcorn, I must be retaining 25-30 pounds of water. Or maybe 1/2 pound--anything to get me below this stuck place. I'll see in the morning.

I worked out with Mark at FT today. What a great workout! We started doing 10 minutes of intervals on the exercise bike--I was amazed my legs weren't dead from spinning last night. I did some balance work on the Bosu, and then we did a really hard and fun set of exercises.

In the set below, I started in a plank position on my elbows and my toes and then one arm at a time moved to a push-up position with my arms straight and then back down to a plank. I sounded like one of those weightlifters trying to bench a few hundred pounds (I guess that's sort of what I was doing) lots of grunting and groaning.

 

By the way, it's probably obvious, but I didn't bring my phone to FT today, so I recreated the exercises at home tonight and Liz took the pictures. It was painful to have to recreate them!

The exercise below was my favorite from today. I was in a push-up position resting on 10 pound dumbbells, and then alternated rowing with each arm. The first time I tried it, I couldn't even budge the weight.

 

Then another tough one. I started in the push-up position, did a push-up, and then at the top of the push up, elevated one arm and turned sideways (terrible form in the picture--my two arms should form a straight line), came back down, did another push-up, and then elevated the other arm.

 Hey--if you're bored with your workout--try these exercises!!!