You can't run away from exercise, more's the pity

Quote du jour: In general, any form of exercise, if pursued continuously, will help train us in perseverance. Long-distance running is particularly good training in perseverance.
- Mao Tse Tung

Exercise du jour: 40 minutes running

Photo credit: roujo

Whatever it takes to get you moving...

Quote du jour:
I don't exercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.
- Joan Rivers.

Exercise du jour:
Sigh. Kinda sad that I seem to require a regimented form of exercise, even if I do tend to swear/complain about it most of the time.

And they do work. Last time I tried to do a full push up, before I tried the modified form of the push up challenge, I could not manage even 1 full push up. Last week, before I got sick, I managed to pull off 7. So even modified forms of exercise can help.

Sit ups are not my favorite exercise, to put it mildly, but I figure it will give me something to do while resting my arms from the push ups.

Week 1 of the (full) 100 push up challenge
Day 2
(90 seconds rest in between)
Set 1 - 6
Set 2 - 8
Set 3 - 6
Set 4 - 6
Set 5 - 7

Week 1 of the 200 sit ups challenge
(60 seconds rest in between)
Day 2
Set 1 - 15
Set 2 - 18
Set 3 - 15
Set 4 - 15
Set 5 - 18

Done! I think the Earth's gravitation force increased between today and Monday; my body seemed a lot harder to lift than it was before.
p.s. Xenia? Push ups and sit ups are a great way to pass the time when you're waiting online for five friggin' hours to sign up for a marathon. (And BCB calls me* crazy?)

Photocredit: Swamibu

When it comes to running... I think I was adopted

Quote du jour: Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes.
- Robert M. Hutchins

Exercise du jour: Apparently this photo is of a baboon trying to teach its adopted child to sit upright in proper baboon fashion. Today I have scheduled 40 minutes of running, though not in proper baboon fashion.

Huh. Weird. After the blood, sweat and, well, more sweat it took to run on Sunday, today was 40 minutes of wonderful, I-can-do-it running. I wish I knew why some days are wonderful and others awful. There must be some formula I'm missing.


Photo credit: JeffMcNeill

Momentum, Credibility, and Virginity

Quote du jour: Credibility is very much like virginity. Once you lose it, it is impossible to regain.

I figure in this case momentum is like credibility. I've got no time to exercise, but I can't let that stop me. I've got to keep moving or I'll go under.

So, here's the thing. I was going to find some good exercise routine to adopt. But who has time for that sort of thing? Not I, certainly. But at the same time I can't just stop, for that would be fatal. Entropy and lethargy and all those physic-y things would take over. The best thing I can think of is to do the Full push up challenge while I try to figure out what to do next. The important thing is not to lose momentum. Or to pretend that I have some momentum to not lose.

Exercise du jour:
Week 1 of the (full) 100 push up challenge
Day 1
(60 seconds rest in between)
Set 1 - 6
Set 2 - 6
Set 3 - 4
Set 4 - 4
Set 5 - 5

Week 1 of the 200 sit ups challenge

Set 1 - 15
Set 2 - 18
Set 3 - 10
Set 4 - 10
Set 5 - 14

The star is back! I dug it out of the closet and dusted it off. I do love the start of challenges, when I can get the exercise done before breakfast.

Not that I'm easily distracted or anything...

Oooh! Shiny new workout!


Exercise du jour: Okay, so it's not exactly new, but something I haven't done in awhile so it feels newish. Ran. A bit. Sweated rather more than a bit.

Update du evening: Dear Lord, I'm actually tired. Look, body, it wasn't that hard, was it?

What would Shakespeare do?

Damn virus, or whatever this is. I can't even stop off at the store on my way home without feeling completely wiped out. I do not approve.

I figured that this since is Shakespeare's birthday, he should have some words of wisdom. Alas, he's probably out partying 'cause I couldn't find any apt quotes. Did find the Shakespeare Insult Generator, which gave me the following:

Excuse du jour: Thou fobbing pox-marked carrion!

Note: this was not directed at you, gentle reader. I mean the evil virus or whatever it is that I am GOING to get over VERY SOON.

Nietzsche's girlfriend

Quotes du jour
What doesn't destroy me makes me stronger. - Nietzsche

What doesn't destroy me makes me lose weight. - Nietzsche's girlfriend (attributed)


Excuse du jour: Haven't eaten anything in two days. Don't want to eat anything now. If you put a box of chocolate in front of me, I'd say "No thanks."

The good part about being sick is that it does help you lose weight.


Photo credit: MigraineChick

Not waiting for a bouquet

Quote du jour:
Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
- Veronica Shoffstall

Exercise du jour: Walk, run, crawl if I have to. Aerobic exercise today there shall be.

Damn. Talk about jinxing yourself. I have spent the whole day in bed with a case of food poisoning, and not a cute one either. I can't figure out how to exercise without getting nauseous. I've heard it said that tomorrow is another day.

Wild camellias courtesy of Autan.

Monday. Again. Sigh.

Quote du jour: There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.
- Bill Watterson

Exercise du jour: Monday's are always a whirl of pressure and obligation. Let's try doing push ups -- the full version, and see how many I can squeeze in.

Note: I'm setting the goals small because I'm trying to get back into the habit of success. Then I'll stretch myself.

Cherry blossom world courtesy of Macartisan.


Did 30 situps, stopped when my back began to hurt. Did 7 full pushups. Did -- damn, I've already forgotten -- about 20 not-even-close squats

One step at a time ... but which way?

Quote du jour: I child-proofed my house, but they still get in.

Exercise du jour: I can't plan exercise for today. I don't know if family is coming to visit or not, and if they are then I don't know when they might come by. I just know it's probably a good idea to hide the breakables.

Having just done a road trip myself, I can understand the whys and wherefores and whoknows, but it's still frustrating. If nothing else, I'll do a lot of housework. And mowing the lawn, that's exercise.


Blues Crossroads courtesy of hankword.

Easter Friday

Okay, I suppose including this photo is a stretch. Easter island isn't really relevant to Easter. Besides, what is that woman doing? Trying to look like she's smooching a giant carved rock? Or hoping it's going to fall on her any minute?

Quote du jour: Life is too important to be taken seriously. - Oscar Wilde

Exercise du jour: More walking, and for that matter, more jogging.

Easter Island photo courtesy of Goron.

Easter Thursday

Quote du jour: When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. -Cynthia Heimel

Exercise du jour: Weight lifting with a Kettleball.

Easter bunster courtesy of annia316.

Easter Wednesday

Quote du jour: Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. - Mark Twain


Exercise du jour: Walking, again, and okay when nobody's looking a little jogging. I'm trying the stealth exercise approach here, trying to get my body used to regular jogging without actually making it think Life Is Hard or Why is she being so cruel to me or any other thoughts that sow the seeds of self-doubt in the back of my mind.



Easter bunny joke courtesy of isazappy.

I call this Thin Tuesday

I'm too lazy to go consult my French-English dictionary to find the proper French term for "Thin Tuesday." Not that it's a term any self-respecting francophile would use. Svelte, maybe. Time to get back into a regular exercise-and-post-about-it routine.

Exercise du jour: After I unpack, and find room for all the Really Necessary Stuff my mother decided to stuff into the car, I'm going to take a walk. If a little jogging creeps in, well, so be it.


Gorgeous "little liquid Easter eggs" courtesy of Steve took it.

Hi Atus!

All right, so that's a lame title. Whaddya want. I'm on the road, visiting family for Easter.

I've been gone. Oddly enough, people noticed. You guys kept looking at my blog; the guilt was becoming enormous.

My claim is that this hiatus was all part of my cunning plan. When work became so ovewhelming that all I did was work or sleep, posting exercise schedules or excuses fell by the wayside, as did a lot of other good things. I kept up -- pretty much -- with the eating mostly vegetables, though there were a few days where I followed the Fried Chicken diet, I have to confess. (But only chickens who were "raised in a human environment," as the sign in the store said. Poor chickens. Presumably that meant they had to sit in a cubicle for 12 hours a day and fight traffic to get home.)

Anyway, where was that paragraph going? It had a plan, then it got lost in a maze of dashes, parentheses, and tangents. Poor paragraph.

The point I was aiming toward was that when keeping up my Good schedule became impossible, I decided to make that part of my plan. Inadvertently, my last blog post was on Mardi Gras, the day before Lent started. So even though I went back to exercising regularly a couple weeks ago, I decided it would look more smooth and deliberate if I went back to posting as soon as Lent ended. Easter's a time of rebirth and stuff like that.

Somehow this seemed important from a psychological standpoint: hey, I may be struggling to keep organized, but I've got a plan and I'm kinda following it!

Exercise du jour: 50 minutes on my mother's motorized treadmill, watching cable television. Since I have neither cable TV or a fancy motorized treadmill at home, this is going to feel luxurious. Then it's the drive back to Oregon.

Easter tomb photo courtesy of Doughnut Diva.