It Takes Two

I love Mondays because I have two workouts--Fitness Together in the morning and spinning with Peggy at the Y in the afternoon. It's really hard for me to get enough calories on Mondays. I felt like I was eating all day and only ate 1,650 calories. I burned off nearly 1,000 calories between the 2 workouts, so I really should eat more. The problem with eating so few calories is that if my body thinks I'm going into a starvation situation, my metabolism will slow down and it will be harder to lose weight. Please body, I have enough fat stored up to last through a long period of starvation. Trust that fat supply--it's there for energy.

My workout this morning was fun, with an emphasis on upper body exercises. I did 60 push-ups--the last couple were pretty poor and 80 pull-ups, using a giant rubber band under my right foot to support my weight. I've never been able to do more than 1 or 2 actual pull-ups. I remember when I first tried doing pull-ups. I was in 6th grade and we were doing a fitness test that John Kennedy had his Fitness Council develop to improve the fitness level of America'a youth--things really don't change, do they. Anyway, I tried doing pull-ups and was shocked that I could only do a couple. I was a very athletic kid and excelled at every athletic thing I tried, so I was quite disappointed to learn that I couldn't do pull-ups. I also did some exercises for the obliques and some lunges, because who would want a day without lunges.

Tonight, Peggy did an endurance class, where she was having us work at a high level with few breaks. It's so much tougher to do that than interval work, which is counterintuitive to me. I guess it's because I was getting my heart rate up in the area I normally do for interval training and not taking the breaks to get it back down. Maybe I should try keeping my heart rate in the 140s when I'm doing an endurance workout.

Only one more workout until my assessment!

Nearing the Finish Line

A short post tonight because I've got a migraine. Very weird, because my migraines usually have food triggers and I haven't eaten anything that would cause a migraine in two months.

I will train on Monday and Wednesday at Fitness Together and take a spinning class tomorrow evening. Those are my last three training sessions before my assessment on Thursday. I'm really looking forward to seeing where I am (at the same time I'm afraid that little will have changed). I know I'm doing what I need to do to be fit, and while the title of this blog implies that I'm neaing the end of something, I know it's just an interim check-in point.

Then I leave the next day for 10 days in Nicaragua, and will be using the strength and endurance I've built up in the last two months to build an earth bag house with a group of people from the United States and Nicaragua. I can't wait!

The Limit

My older brother told me I should blog every day, and I have to listen to my brother. I went to spinning class for the first time in 2 weeks. I could feel the effects of the lay-off, or at least I told myself I could. I didn't feel like I could keep the same cadence (pedal revolutions per minute) that I had the last time.

I did get my heart rate up into the 160's regularly, though, and averaged 144 beats per minute. I have this idea that I would average 149, because that was regularly my average when I was training for a rollerblading marathon. I think it will be hard to get to that average, though, because my training sessions on rollerblades typically lasted 2 hours or more. When I start spinning, even if I don't record my warm-up time, I'm usually starting around 120 bpm, and It takes a certain amount of time to get my heart rate into the 140's, 150's, and 160's. So when I'm only in spinning class for an hour, there isn't enough time at the higher rates to make up for the initial time when my heart rate is lower. Besides, the articles I've been reading about training talk about the benefits of periods of intense training, followed by periods of less intense training, which is what Peggy does in spinning class, bringing my heart rate down. I was probably training at too intense a level when I was rollerblading, which may have limited my progress.

I think I discovered my upper limit for aerobic training today. I went into the 170's for a brief time, and that felt qualitatively different. If that's the case, my maximum heart rate is probably 200 (assuming people go into anaerobic training at 85% of their maximum), rather than the 160 the standard formula gives for my age.

You Gotta Know When to Hold 'Em

I've been having great workouts this week. Tuesday in particular was great--Mark led me in a leg workout that made trying to sit or stand a challenge. I love feeling sore--to me it's the true sign that I pushed myself. Today, Savanah was into having me do 12-15 reps of an exercise and then holding the last rep for 20 seconds to a minute, depending on the exercise. Like doing a set of squats with a Swiss ball against the wall, and then holding the last one with my thighs parallell to the floor . I don't remember how long I held that one, but my legs were shaking by the end.

Here are some examples. On the right is a picture of me doing the bench press with dumbbells, holding the last rep until I wanted to drop the weights. It's such a mental challenge--trying to stay present with how I'm actually feeling rather than thinking about the next 20-30 seconds and what they're going to feel like and whether I can make it to the end.

On the left, I'm doing a static lunge with my front foot elevated. My quads were already sore from holding the squat. I don't have pictures of everything, but I did some shoulder exercises, push-ups, tricep extensions, all holding the last rep.






This on was really hard. I had to hold myself in a semi-squat position on the platform on one leg, and the touch the other foot to the floor 12 times. Again, on the last rep, I held my foot off the ground. Believe me, that didn't last long.

I did this exercise after holding a plank forever (ok, maybe 45 seconds to a minute), so my abs were already sore. By the time the hold was over, though, it was my legs that were shaking because of the number of quad exercises I'd already done. All in all, a fun set of exercises.

I had a good week in terms of my weight--I lost a pound and a half, which is really rewarding. I realized yesterday that I'm not turning my food diary into Fitness Together anymore, because I finished the nutrition consulting part of the training. I had my worst eating day in a long time today, and was aware that I wasn't turning in my food diary while I was doing it. I somehow managed to stay below my calorie goal, but I didn't eat a mix of foods designed to make me healthy.

The main problem is that I wasn't home most of the day. I had a good breakfast, and went to workout t 11:15. I was supposed to go get Bennett at 1, and didn't really have time to go home and make lunch after working out and before getting Bennett, so I ate a protein bar. I then spontaneously decided to take Bennett to the movies to see Tangled, which of course involved eating popcorn. Then I was going to the movies tonight with Bob and Diana to see The King's Speech, and the timing was such that I didn't have time to make dinner and had another protein bar. Then it turned out that the movie started a half hour later than we had originally thought, so we went to a restaurant near the theatre and had meat, cheese, and bread. Very tasty, but a lot of carbs and fat. If I keep having the thought that I'm not sending in my food diary, I'm going to talk to Mark about continuing to send it in. I want to make sure I'm in the habit of eating well long enough, that I don't want to do anything else.

The Journey

Oh yes, I'm referring to Miley Cyrus's philosophy in the title. I realized yesterday, that people may not know that I almost always quote song lyrics in my title. Liz didn't realize my title yesterday was from a Simon and Garfunkle song. What's with that. So I moved from a 1960's reference to a 2010's reference.

I dropped a full pound from yesterday to today. Psyched! I know I'm in this for the long run, but it sure helps to see my progress on the scale. I feel great as I walk around--I feel how differently my clothes fit me, and I can feel how much stronger I am. Then when I'm feeling good, I start getting down on myself--think how good I'd feel now if I'd started at the weight I was last July. Why oh why did I put on 15 pounds (other than the fact the I was ordered to do no exercise and to move as cautiously as possible in the world so I wouldn't break anything).

Then I have to remind myself to enjoy the journey (thanks, Miley). Enjoy seeing each pound go, having my clothes get loose, having to buy new ones, enjoying the food I eat, the exercises I do, feeling myself grow stronger. Some day, someone will actually notice the change and say something (what the hell, is everyone blind!?!??!!!).

Gee But It's Great to be Back Home

It's good to be home in snowy, snowy Massachusetts. I had a really great trip in terms of staying with my fitness goals. I had a long talk with Mark at Fitness Together on Friday before I left about eating strategies on the road. Flying is usually a problem for me, because there really aren't many healthy choices at airports. I brought an egg and cheese sandwich, apples, almonds, and protein bars for the flight to LA, so didn't need to get anything at Bradley or at my layover in Las Vegas.

I also texted a friend of mine that was also going to be assisting at the workshop over the weekend. I know she usually goes to Trader Joe's for food for the weekend and I was going to be arriving too late to go there, so I asked if she could pick up some yogurt, turkey, and cheese, which were great for breakfast (with almonds and fruit) and lunch and I had protein bars for snacks. I ate out for dinner, focussing on protein and veggies, avoiding sauces and breads. I was tired of turkey and cheese by dinner time on the flight back, but found sushi at the Baltimore airport--perfect. Sushi is high in protein and low in calories, is filling, and tasty.

I also managed to get one workout in over the weekend. The result was I came back weighing exactly what I weighed when I left. Success!

Speaking of protein bars, finding a good one is hard. Most of them are candy bars in disguise. If you read the ingredients, sugar in some form is usually the first ingredient, and if it's not, it's probably because they use a bunch of different forms of sugar, which if combined, would make sugar the first ingredient. What I want is a bar that's high in protein and low in sugar. The one I've settled on is the Think Thin Peanut Butter Protein bar, which has 240 calories, 20 grams of protien, 8 grams of fat, and no sugar, although now that I look it up, it says something about sugar alcohols. I have to find out what that means. When I first started eating them, they seemed pretty tasteless, but now they taste fabulous and are really filling.

Just a little over a week until my assessment!

Lucy's In The Sky With Diamonds

We had to put Lucy to sleep today. She was getting weaker each day and hadn't been able to stand for a day and a half. It's such a hard decision--when would she want to go, what is her quality of life. Especially since we want to keep her with us as long as possible. I am in LA, so I participated by videophone. I'm glad I got to be there. Lynn, a vet tech from Riverbend Animal Hospital, came to our house to administer the drugs. Lynn frequently house sits for us when we're out of town and loves Lucy tremendously, so it was great to have Lucy surrounded by love as she died.

Lucy lived with us for 8 years. She came to us because I got a call from a woman I know who volunteered with an animal rescue organization. She told me that someone had tied a pregnant dog behind their house with no food or water, and had moved. They needed to find a foster home for the dog to have her puppies until they were old enough to find homes and the rescue organization would find homes for the mother and the puppies. If they didn't find a home by the next day, she would be put to sleep.

We had 3 big dogs already, but because we always rescued dogs, we hadn't had puppies. It sounded like fun. Liz and I made a solemn vow that we wouldn't keep the mother or any of the puppies. I didn't have any fear we'd keep the mother--she must have something wrong with her to be abandoned the way she was.

The next day, a woman from the rescue organization came over with the mother. It took seconds for us to fall in love with her. She was engaging, liked people, just a great dog. What sealed the deal was when the woman had to get some paperwork out of her car. Lucy followed her to the door and stood on her back legs to see where she went. Lucy had known this woman for a half hour and was already bonded to her. Liz and I looked at each other and that was that. When the woman came back, we told her we were keeping Lucy.

Lucy gave birth to 9 puppies two weeks later. Despite the short time she knew us, she completely trusted us to help her with her babies. Liz took each puppy as it emerged, helped with removing the balloon surrounding each one, let Liz dry them off, and let Liz bring the runt back to life. We couldn't get Lucy out of the house for a day and a half--she wouldn't leave her puppies. Finally, we had to put all 9 puppies in a cat crate and take them outside to get Lucy out. I've never seen a dog eliminate so much at one time.

We found homes for all 9 puppies. The hardest or us was the runt, Charlie. We cried so much when the person took him, she asked if it was ok she was taking him. A couple of months later, she called us and needed us to take Charlie back--her other dogs kept beating him up. There we were with 5 dogs, but we weren't giving him up again.

Lucy's been a great companion for 8 years, an integral part of our lives. We'll miss her presence, and are thankful for the circumstances that brought her to us.

It Ain't Over

I have 2 weeks left until my next assessment. I'm realizing that I'm starting to think that my training is already done--like there's nothing more I can accomplish in furthering my fitness goals in the next 2 weeks. When I stop to think about it, it's crazy! Two weeks is a full one-fourth of my training period--of course I can increase my fitness level in 2 weeks.

I know I've done this with many things in my life--stopping the race well short of the finish line. In the first place, I'm not going to stop training when my free training period is over, so nothing is really ending. And it's not like I need to taper for my assessment, which is the rationalization I've used for other athletic endeavors. I think it's a self-defeating thing I do. I stop trying before the end, don't achieve my goal, and then have an excuse for not hitting my goal (hey--I didn't prepare the way I should have), and then I get to spend some time in the well of self-hatred--I can't even finish what I started.

Well, no matter what I might be thinking, my thoughts are different from my actions. I'm going to keep up my training. It's going to be challenging because I'm heading to LA this weekend and making a quick trip to Illinois next week. I'll miss a spinning workout on Saturday, but will see how hard I can push myself in the hotel gym. I'll miss another spinning workout on Monday--I'll have to check my flight info to see if I can work out before I have to head to the airport. I moved my Monday Fitness Together workout to Tuesday. I'm going to see if I can fit in an extra spinning class on Wednesday.

I can see as I'm writing this that I'm contributing to being self-defeating by not looking at the workouts that I'll miss and getting new ones in my schedule. I'll do that before I go.

I Love Lucy

I'm just going to do a short post tonight. Our old dog Lucy is in the process of dying, and had a hard day today. Our vet told us before Christmas that she has a tumor in her spleen that's causing bleeding in her abdomen. She could have surgery, but it would either fix the problem or make it worse (I guess that's true of most solutions). She's an old lady, so we decided we didn't want to put her through surgery when there isn't a clear positive reason for doing so. So for the last 3 weeks, she'll have a bad day or two, where her tummy swells from internal bleeding and she is pretty exhausted and doesn't eat, followed by a good day or two, where she eats and goes on short walks and is engaged in life.

The vet said that this is a painless way to go, so we'd love for her to die a natural death, but it's pretty agonizing to watch. When she has a bad day, we're sure she's going to die that day or over night, but she's a pretty tough old bird. As the time has gone by, though, she's getting weaker and weaker, so even on a good day, she can be pretty wobbly when she walks. She still wants to be part of the family, though, so as we go from room to room, she somehow gets herself in the room where we are.

So I'm feeling very down tonight. Here's a picture of Lucy tonight on her new deluxe, heated dog bed:

It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song

I only have 7 more free sessions at Fitness Together, and I'm worried that I won't have accomplished enough. I want FT to be able to use my before and after story to show what great work they do, but I've only lost 8 pounds so far and no one has noticed a difference in my appearance. I had Liz take a picture of me to compare with the one she took when I started, and I actually think I looked better in the before picture.

I decided I was being crazy, so I put the pictures aside to look at when I was more rational, and guess what--I still thought I looked better in the before picture. Well, I've got 3 more weeks to have a better after picture. I brought my worry up to Mark when we trained together this morning, and he thought I was disappointed for myself, so he was reassuring me that I've made appropriate progress for the time I've been working out. I guess if Mark isn't concerned that I won't make a good story, I shouldn't be.

I'm very pleased with my progress. I would like it if my weight went down faster, but I feel great! I feel muscles where I didn't before, I can feel the fat disappearing like glaciers in global warming, I'm eating really great food and not having any trouble staying on the diet, and I'm loving the taste of food in a way I haven't. All that's good--stop worrying!

I had two great workouts today. I told Mark about the pain I was having in my ankle, so he had me do a lot of exercises that involved balancing on one leg and then the other. I would have thought that would have exarcerbated the problem, but it worked. Here are pictures from my two favorite exercises from today. I know, the first pictures look like I'm a person in the witness protection program demonstrating exercises while concealing my identity. Anyway, I would step onto a 1 foot high platform on one leg and then do presses. I did that about 40 times .

 

 








For the above exercise, I stood on one leg, holding onto a weighted cable, leaned forward until my leg was straight behind me, and then stood up and did a one-arm row, all without putting my foot down. I think I did 60 of these--4 sets of 15. Or was it 4 sets of 10. All I know is that I was really ready to stop at the end of each set--the sign of a good exercise.

Then tonight, I did spinning at the Y with Peggy. My ankle had been aching a bit, so I debated whether or not to go. I decided to err on the side of going, and if it hurt, I could always stop and come back home. I'm really glad I did, because I was able to make it though the whole hour. I didn't try to stay with Peggy--no jumps of standing for 8, sitting for 8, etc., but I stood a lot and tried to pick up my cadence both standing and sitting. I was able to get my heart rate into the 160s, and according to my heart rate monitor, burned 840 calories. I'm really pleased to have lasted the hour.

Best Laid Plans

Well, my plan of 3 workouts in 24 hours didn't work. After about 10 minutes of spinning yesterday morning, my left ankle started hurting. I rode for another 6 minutes at a slower pace, and not standing on the pedals, and then my ankle started hurting all the time, so I stopped.

My ankle had started hurting during spinning the night before, so for the last 10 minutes, I didn't stand on the pedals and it didn't hurt. The problem with the place my ankle hurts is that it's the place on the inside of my ankle that was operated on, so there are plates and pins under the skin there. Here's the scar:

 The pain could be caused by everything trying to adjust to all that hardware, which is something I've really been aware of on my left wrist when I do push-ups.  Here's my arm scar:

Another cause could be because the pin that goes between the two bones in my leg has broken. My doctor saw that on my last X-ray and said to let her know if it started hurting me.

Unfortunately, it is also the place where I've had chronic pain since I was 23. That summer, I biked back and forth from Northampton and Amherst everyday, using a bike that had a problem with the pedals, so it had a little hitch when I pushed down on the left pedal. I was at an age that it never occurred to me that that repetitive motion could cause a chronic injury.

I know from years of experience, when that chronic pain starts, I have to take it easy on my ankle, or it just gets worse. I've had regular pain in my left ankle since my surgery, but it's never turned into that chronic pain. But I know when I feel it, I have to pay attention, so I'm taking today off, too, so that hopefully I can work out at Fitness Together tomorrow morning and take Peggy's spinning class tomorrow evening. Wish me luck!

Who Knows Where The Time Goes

I only have 3 weeks left in my free training period. Wow--the first 5 weeks flew by! I've decided to step it up for the last 3 weeks and see if I can go to 3-4 spinning classes a week instead of 2. I did another double today.

At Fitness Together this morning, Savanah put me through a workout that was very similar to Mondays--lots of squats and lunges. In fact, the workout was all about the legs except for a short ab workout at the end, because I did an upper body workout yesterday.

The great news is that my legs weren't at all dead at spinning tonight, unlike Monday, and I was able to get my heart rate into the 160s regularly. In fact, I broke into the 170s for the first time. I think it's a sign of my improved conditioning. We'll see how it goes tomorrow morning. I've never done 2 spinning classes and a Fitness Together workout with 24 hours.

I was noticing tonight how much more I'm tasting the flavors in my food, now that I'm not eating any sugar. Both the cucumbers and the cherry tomatoes in my salad tasted incredible--and this is not a notable time of year for tasty vegetables.

Let It Snow!!!

We had a great blizzard here last night and today! The city and state declared a state of emergency and asked everyone to stay off the roads (coming from Minnesota, it was a bit of an over-reaction), so I spent the day at home, working in my comfortable chair with a fire going, watching the snow swirl outside the window. Beautiful! Here's a picture of the file cabinet man in our front yard through the snow:

The bad part of the storm is that my training appointment got cancelled. I hate taking off two days in a row. I considered working out at home, but I'm going to work out at Fitness Together both Thursday and Friday, and don't want to overdo it.

I read a really interesting article in livestrong, talking about the value of interval training. Here's the link:
 
http://www.livestrong.com/article/113860-interval-training-burn-fat/

The article talked about how you can train at higher intensity and burn more fat by doing interval training--alternating periods of very high intensity with recovery periods. It also talked about how you are less fatigued training that way. The timing of the article was perfect, because I had been puzzling about the differences between my training on Saturday and Monday at spinning class. Both days my legs were dead. I had had a really hard training on Friday which led to dead legs on Saturday. On Monday, I had done 120 squats, which resulted in my legs being dead Monday night. Saturday, Peggy led an endurance class where she was basically trying to keep our heart rates constant throughout the hour, with neither high periods of intensity nor breaks between songs. I struggled throughout the hour and couldn;t get my heart rate above the 140s.

On Monday, though, Peggy led us in interval training, and I was able to get my heart rate up into the 150s and 160s pretty quickly and return to that level regularly throughout the hour, even though my legs were very tired. As a measure of how much harder I was able to work out, I ended up burning about 75 more calories in the same hour time by alternating periods of high intensity with recovery. Again, this is something I wish I'd known when I was doing inline skating marathons. I would push myself to maximum effort for the whole 26.2 miles. I would get really fatigued and think I had no fuel left to burn and eat some caffeinated goo, thinking the caffeine and sugar would get me going again. I can now see that if I had alternated sprinting with recovery, I would have had more energy and probably would have finished in less time.

I really wish I could use this knowledge in another marathon. What I need is a long term goal other than getting in shape and losing weight. The North Shore Inline Marathon every September in Duluth, Minnesota has been that goal for many years. I've thought about whether I could have a biking goal--my brother Tom does the ride across Iowa nearly every year. But at this point, both biking and skating make me nervous. There are so many hills around here and I can too easily imagine hitting a bad spot in the road, a rock, or popping a tire and breaking a bunch of bones. Not quite the images I need to inspire me in a biking goal. Similarly, I've only fallen about 5 times in the 15+ years I've done inline skating, but all it takes is once.

Any ideas?


Hey, if you'd like an inspiring story of someone getting into shape, read this one. The before and after pictures are astounding:

http://www.livestrong.com/blog/blog/jacobs-success-story/

Can't Get Enough

Calories on Mondays, that is. My goal is to eat 1,950 calories a day, and at least 1,600 after subtracting the calories I burn exercising. That's hard to do on Mondays. I estimate that I burned 172 calories in 45 minutes at Fitness Together in the morning and my heart rate monitor estimates that I burned 747 at spinning class this evening. That means I need to eat 2,519 calories of food to be at a net 1,600 for the day.

I never in my life have had trouble eating the number of calories I need on a diet. It's usually a struggle to stay within my caloric limit. But this is the first time that my focus is on both the quality of the food I'm eating, along with the calorie count. My goal is to eat food that will support my recovery from exercise and building my muscles and bones. So no sugar or alcohol and no processed food. I also try to eat many small meals during the day to keep my metabolism high.

Here's what I ate today to try to meet my caloric need:

Breakfast before exercising: protein shake with whole fat yogurt, protein powder, banana, blueberries, raspberries, and peanut butter--494 calories
Breakfast after exercising: 2 fried eggs on brown rice with steamed kale--301 calories
Lunch: homemade blackbean soup, toast with melted cheese on it--414 calories
After lunch: apple and cheese--224 calories
After, after lunch: almonds--83 calories
Before spinning: protein bar--230 calories
Dinner (I was not hungry at all, but knew I needed to eat, so I didn't eat the chicken dinner I was going to): yogurt with almonds, blueberries, protein powder, raspberries, pumpkin seeds--584 calories

So after all that food, I had eaten 2,330 calories, netting 1,411 after exercising, 439 short of my goal and 189 short of my minimum. I feel stuffed and can't imagine trying to eat anything more.

I remember reading an article about what Michael Phelps ate on a typical day--he had to eat thousands of calories because of the amount of exercise he does each day. I couldn't understand why he ate so much crap. It makes much more sense to me now. It's hard to get enough calories without putting down a pizza or two.

Anyway, it's a great problem to have, and much preferable to the one I normally have when I'm trying to lose weight!

Head Games

I was excited about going to spinning at the Y today. The class was with Peggy, who really leads tough rides. Peggy led the class on Monday, where I was able to keep my heart rate in the 160s for some of the second half of the class. I wanted to see if I could could keep my heart rate that high for a longer time today, and see what it felt like to hit the 170s.

It didn't happen for a couple of reasons. First, Peggy decided to do an endurance class, focussing on keeping our heart rates at a lower, but constant rate throughout the workout. That meant that we weren't doing the heart-racing combinations of standing for 8-sitting for 8, standing for 4-sitting for 4, and standing for 2-sitting for 2 (with many multiples of each). We did a few 8 counts, but spent much more time standing for a minute or more, sitting for the same length of time.

But probably more important, my legs were dead! While I was able to walk up the stairs after my workout with Brandon yesterday, that workout was tough. I felt discomfort in my quads when we were warming up, but knew I'd get past that. But once I got past the discomfort, there was nothing there. And that feeling of have nothing there spread to my brain--I felt mentally dull, like both my brain and my legs were slogging through mud. That's when I knew I had to start the mind games.

I know from many years of working out that here's a big mental component to being exhausted. I think everyone has had the experience of being completely exhausted, and then something really interesting happens, and suddenly you're awake and have lots of energy.

I went to my old standards to get me going. My favorite is remembering a racket ball tournament I played in nearly 20 years ago, before I blew out my knee. I was in the semi-finals, and had played one or two matches that same day. I was dead in the final game--completely exhausted, dead legs and mind, absolutely nothing left. I started falling behind, and my opponent and the people watching all thought the match was over. Then I started putting everything I had into each point. Between points, I looked like a rag doll, but I wasn't conceeding a point. As I started moving ahead, I think the mental burden moved to my opponent--how can I be losing to this person who is close to dead? I went on to win! Unfortunately, the final match was shortly thereafter, and I was slaughtered.

My second favorite for mental toughness was remembering a playoff game between the Celtics and the Nets in 2002. The Celtics were down by 26 points in the second half and 19 points at the start of the fourth quarter. They never gave up and kept plugging away, and ended up winning the game. I'd never seen such an inspiring example of what it means to give everything and not give up.

So I thought about both of those situations while spinning today. My legs never did stop being dead, but my mind did. I got excited about just doing what I could do. My heart rate was generally in the 140s, not the 160s, but I enjoyed myself and had a good workout.

Hey Hey, Goodbye

Today was my last day training with Brandon. I've been working out with him for 4 years, and even though I know we'll stay in touch, it's sad. It was a lucky happenstance that I discovered Fitness Together and started working out with Brandon. Liz and I were at the Tunnel Bar with our niece Grace having chocolate martinis to celebrate Grace's 21st birthday. We were walking from the bar to Main Street to find a place to eat dinner (yeah, martinis on an empty stomach--not the best idea) and when I saw Fitness Together, I was curious about what they did. I had never worked out with a personal trainer, but in my slightly inebriated state, I immediately thought that working with a personal trainer could give me the edge I needed to do an inline skating marathon in 2 hours. I went in and learned that Brandon also did inline skating and started working out with him shortly thereafter.

Brandon's always challenged me to push myself and I told him for our workout today, I wanted him to push me so hard I'd have to crawl up the stairs at the end of the workout. I was able to walk up the stairs, but had the kind of workout that was fitting for our last one. I know I'll continue to make great progress with the other trainers, but it does feel like the passing of an era. Brandon said he'd come in to do my final assessment for this free training period, which I'm really happy about, because I want him to see the progress he's helped me make, going from sitting in a chair for 6 months to a high level of fitness in 2 months.

Speaking of which, I was talking with Brandon today about how slowly my weight is coming off, given how careful I'm being about eating and how much I'm working out. Brandon reminded me that after sitting for 6 months, I had lost a lot of muscle (yes, when Brandon calculated my percent body fat a month ago, it was not a nice number--40%), so when I'm working out now, I'm really building a lot of muscle, which weighs more than fat. That makes sense, because I can feel the shape of my body shifting. Brandon said that at some point the weight will start coming off fast.

Brandon was named by Business West as one of their "40 under 40" this year--an honor he earned and deserved for how he ran Fitness Together and his contributions to the community. I know he will continue to be successful in whatever he takes on next. Thanks, Brandon, from me and everyone whose lives you've made better by improving their fitness and that of the people they love.

You Can't Always Get What You Want . . .

. . . but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need. I had a fabulous workout with Seann today. We did lots of push-ups, tricep extensions, dead lift squats, lunges, and fun ab work. It was the first time since I broke my leg that I could do actual lunges without some kind of support.

Here's the crazy thing.  I've been feeling like my workouts with Seann weren't hard enough. First, I dismissed it thinking that he's starting easy and will make it more difficult as he gets a sense of what I'm capable of. Then I've been justifying it by focusing on the parts of the workout that were harder. But I really knew I wasn't working out like I wanted to be, and I wasn't saying anything. I was more worried about Seann feeling bad by me telling him I wasn't working out hard enough than I was on getting what I wanted. I realized yesterday that I'm half way through my two month training, and if I really wanted to accomplish my goals, I needed to say something.

So I told Seann today. He was fine about it and immediately gave me the kind of workout I wanted. It was hard to do and know I'm going to be sore tomorrow, which is what I want. Afterwards I realized that I was somehow expecting Seann to read my mind--to know what kind of workout I wanted. That's really crazy, and I wasn't being fair to either Seann or myself.

Do you want to hear something even crazier? When I use the Wii balance board to weigh myself, it always asks me if I want a fitness tip. Usually I say yes, but lately, I haven't had much time in the morning, so I've just been weighing myself, and saying no to the fitness tip. And I know part of me is worried about hurting the Wii's feelings because I don't want its tips. The WEii's feelings--and I think that even though I know the Wii doesn't have feelings. Hmmmm--I think I was too well socialized as a female and as a Minnesotan. It's a bad combination. Because most of the time, in order to get what you want and need, you need to be able to ask for it.

The Beat, Beat, Beat of My Heart

I love my new heart monitor! I've used a heart monitor extensively when I was training for inline skating marathons. It's not possible, though, to skate and pay a lot of attention to my heart rate--I used the monitor mainly to track my minutes per mile. I'd watch my average heart rate and pay attention to the peaks, but didn't really have a good sense of what my heart rate was doing.

When I used my heart rate monitor at spinning on Sunday, I spent most of the workout in the 135-145 beats per minute range. At one point, I hit 160, but was nervous about it being that high. According to the heart rate charts, at age 60, my maximum heart rate is supposed to be 160, and I was supposed to be working at 80% of maximum, which would be 128. I know that's way too low--when I was inline skating, I would regularly average 150 beats a minute in a 24 mile training skate. But I didn't know how much time I was spending in the 150s and above.

I was braver today. Once I warmed up, I spent most of the workout in the 155-165 beats per minute range, and hit a high of 169. That felt fine--I knew I wasn't working in the anaerobic zone because I wasn't struggling with my breathing and I wasn't feeling any lactic acid build up in my muscles. It really felt great to be able to work out at that  level. I started feeling bad that I may not be able to inline skate again. I will be in such great shape to start training in the spring that I would have a great shot at hitting my goal of a 2 hour marathon. I almost did it a couple of years ago--I was on pace for it in my last few 24 mile training runs, but the day of the marathon, it was 28 degrees (this was in early September) and there was a head wind. It was 28 here today, and everyone is in winter coats and boots. The day of the marathon, I was in shorts and a t-shirt. Who could imagine it would be 28 degrees that early in the year--even in Minnesota. It comes down to whether I'm willing to risk breaking a bone if I fall. I've only fallen a few times in the many years I've skated, but it only takes once to disrupt my life--particularly if I fell on a hip and broke it.

But in the meantime, I'm having a great time working out and spinning--I don't need to worry about what I'm going to do in the spring.

In The Groove

Happy New Year!!!! This is the first New Year's Day I've had in many, many years (40+) where I haven't had anything to drink the night before. It sure makes New Year's Day more pleasant. It's also the first New Year's Day I can recall that I'm unhappy that my health club isn't open. I'm really in a groove of working out every other day, and while I have equipment in the basement, I'm really aware of how difficult it is to push myself as hard as I do when I'm with a trainer or in a class--where is my Saturday spinning class?!??!!

Just in time for my official weekly weight in, I lost .7 of a pound. Brandon assured me that weight loss is not a linear function--some weeks I might lose 3 pounds and others I might not lose any. Intellectually that might be true, but psychologically it's hard to work out as hard as I am, and to carefully manage what I'm eating, without having that number on the scale go down at least a little.

I had two great workouts on Thursday. The first was with Brandon. It was the first time I used the new heart monitor Liz gave me for Christmas. It has the typical chest band, but what makes it cool is that is transmits the information to my iPhone. When I bought my iPhone, the phone part was the least important part of the phone. I spend much more time doing email, going online, texting, listening to music and podcasts, etc., than talking on the phone. As more and more apps become available, the phone part has become even less important (not that I'd give it up). Anyway, it was really interesting to see what my heart rate was as I exercised. I had always thought that the warm-up exercises we did were much more about getting my muscles stretched than elevating my heart rate, but my heart rate was consistently in the 130s to a high of 145 during the warm-ups--the same range it was in while I was exercising.

After warming up, I did 60 push-ups, 60 rows, and then moved to my two favorite exercises of the morning--30 combination squats and presses and 30 combination squats and rows.

 
The combination squat and press was with the 14 pound ball you see in the picture. It's awkward and got slippery because of the sweat on my hands, which increased the difficulty. I love exercises like this that use most of my muscles in one exercise.

 The combination squat and row was even more fun. As you can see in the pictures, I was holding onto a bar. I was using the bar to help me into a deep squat and then when I stood up, was pulling 50 pounds of weight into a row. I like the picture on the left because of the hint of a bicep muscle that's showing. Yes, muscles are reappearing!!!


In the afternoon, I went to spinning at the Y with Donna. I can feel how much stronger I am at spinning classes in the way I hold myself on the bike ( using my abs to hold myself up rather than just using my arms and hands) and by my cadence. I tried to keep up with Donna's cadence, which is something I didn't even attempt a couple of weeks ago. Try is the operative word. I'm amazed at how fast she can rotate the pedals, even during cool down periods. I'd have times I could keep up with her and then it would seem like she was twice as fast as me. I forgot to bring my heart monitor--I'm curious to see what my heart rate is at spinning. About half way through the class, I started feeling pain in my left knee. It only happened when I was pedaling in a standing position, so I sat for the rest of the class. The workout is much harder shifting from sitting to standing, especially when we're going back and forth every 8 seconds, but I really don't want ot injure myself.

All in all, a fun day, and I'm looking forward to more spinning tomorow!