Hiatus

Life is interfering with exercise. I will be back. Promise.

A little seasoning

I suspect it's the changing of the seasons... the whole getting darker the morning thing... that makes it harder to keep to exercise-or-else mindset. I don't seem to do very well with transitions. Once things get back on track, I'm fine. So then, logically, the thing to do is just pretend that things are on track. Fake it until the seasons and my circadian rhythm catch up.

• AM:15 minutes dancing Fail
• Noon:30 minutes dancing Fail. Life is interfering with my plans.
• PM:60 minutes dancing Done. I accomplished ONE thing today. That's good enough.

Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down. Rainy Days and Fridays cancel each other out

It is a day of meh. Cold, rainy, want to curl up under a comforter and read comfort books. Don't want wave my arms around and scare the cat with my jumping jacks. Gonna do it anyway.

• AM: 15 minutes calisthenics. I'll incorporate some moves from that video, but I don't want to follow it today. Fail. I kept saying "in a few minutes, I'll get up from the desk." If you do that long enough, you run out of morning.
• Noon: 30 minutes dancing. Done! Got the blood going.
• PM: 60 minutes walking. If it's raining too hard, I'll try more dancing. Be flexible, that's the goal. In more ways than one. Well, I spent an hour heaving the elliptical around, and that thing weighs a ton. I'm inclined to count that as exercise. Ellipticals are work no matter how you look at it.

Not motivated. Exercising anyway.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
- John Keats, To Autumn

I like poetry as much as the next English major, but even so... "For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells" is a lousy line. (Yes, I dare to defy Keats.)

I'm not feeling any mellow fruitfulness in the air; it's cold. I want to stay in bed in the mornings and snuggle into the blankets, not be up and doing with a heart for any fate. That includes exercise.

I have not been doing well with that dratted exercise video. In part because I don't have the right cable to connect the laptop to the TV, in part because it's a bit intimidating that I can't go as fast as the instructor. I'm going to stick to trying that for 15 minutes and doing something else (jogging in place, jumping jacks, dancing) for lunch. Then a brisk walk for the afternoon exercise.

In a way, this is good. I like breaking up the exercise into different types. Well, no, that's a lie. I like exercise that I don't have to think about, hence my love affair with the elliptical. But it's better for the body if I break up the exercise into different types, so it doesn't get too used to one type of workout.

• AM: That dratted online video for 15 minutes. Done! I got to the point where she starts doing pushups while sticking one leg up in the air behind her. The woman's good.
• Noon: 30 minutes jumping jacks, jogging in place, dancing. Keep it moving, that's all. Done!
• PM: 60 minutes walking. Maybe I'll start to appreciate autumn if I'm out in it more. 30 minutes. I dallied at work. Must Try Harder!

Can I just do Friday over again?

Okay. I will try this video again. I feel intimidated that I can't keep up to her pace, but I don't know the moves yet. It is encouraging to see this very fit woman out of breath, but that's also intimidating. So long as I get the time in, that counts.

• AM:15 minutes video Done
• Noon:32 minutes video Fail
• PM:60 minutes raking those leaves, since the dang trees seemed to have shed a whole new lot of leaves onto the lawn. Fail. My lawn has disappeared beneath leaves.

Winging it

Okay. No elliptical, not much room to flail my arms around, but still the need to exercise. I am going to try this video. I like the way everything she does is restricted to the area around the mat on the floor.

• AM:15 minutes video Done! I didn't do everything quite as peppily as the instructor, but this does provide a workout.
• Noon:32 minutes video Fail. Put it off, due to work, which is dumb but I did it.
• PM:60 minutes raking those leaves, since the dang trees seemed to have shed a whole new lot of leaves onto the lawn. Semi-fail. Took a long walk instead. The leaves are still there, waiting for me. Lurking.

You had ONE job...

I seem to have broken the elliptical. The wheel is making groaning noises and the pedals are very hard to move.
I am far from gruntled. It had one job...
Now I'm going to have to concentrate on clearing the exercise space so I can work out with some exercise DVDs while I wait for the elliptical to be repaired. As soon as I find where I put the warranty information. I'm sure it is around... somewhere...

• AM: 15 minutes of running in place, jumping jacks, anything to get the blood moving. Done. I haven't done jumping jacks since middle school, but they still do work on the body. Who knew.
• Noon: 30 minutes yardwork. If I do it vigorously enough, surely all that bending over and hauling branches around will count for something. Done!
• PM:60 minutes raking the leaves. Thankfully, my kind trees have all decided to start shedding this week, so it really could take me an hour to get all this done. Done

I need a snooze button for Mondays

Ugh. I'm not here right now. At least, my mind isn't. It's still in bed, with a pillow covering its ears and a hand reaching out to slap that snooze button into oblivion. In other words, Ms. Cheerful is not in the office. Sadly, the need to exercise does not have a snooze button. I'm going to compromise by just doing a basic routine.

• AM:15 minutes elliptical Done! Got my heart rate, which considering how unmotivated I was when I started, is surprising. But I'll take it.
• Noon:30 minutes elliptical Done. Eventually. If you consider 'noon' to be 3 pm.
• PM:60 minutes elliptical Done. Late, but done.

I do love Fridays

Even on a three-day week. I did put in a solid hour going through stuff yesterday. Still more stuff to go through. I think I should be able to clear enough space by the end of today so that I'll have some room to do different exercises besides ellipticalling.

• AM:15 minutes ellipticalDone!
• Noon:30 minutes ellipticalDone. Granted, I was rather flexible in my definition of 'noon' -- does 3 pm count? I'm calling it done
• PM:60 minutes STIHTGTDone. Actually starting to see progress!

Monday, and only three days left in the week

This is what a Monday should be. Tomorrow's hump day, and then I've made it to Friday! On the down side, taking a 5-day weekend has left me mentally unprepared to face my inbox. They expect me to work? How unfair is that!
Okay, whining done for now. Pretty much. I'm going to concentrate on getting more of the STIHTGT today, with exercise breaks to keep my energy up.

• AM: 15 minutes elliptical - done
• Noon: 30 minutes elliptical sorta done, 30 minutes STIHTGT mighty fail
• PM: 15 minutes elliptical,overdone 1 hour STIHTGT over fail

I'm sensing a pattern here. I can see making time for exercise, especially when work is irksome or stressful, but cleaning? Naaaah. Yet I need to do both. On the exercise side, I did put in a 45 minute walk this evening as well.

Progress Report & Goals for September

Oddly enough, my subconscious seems to have decided that since I'm taking a couple days off, that meant I didn't have to schedule in exercise. Sorry, no. Doesn't work like that.

Looking back on this re-boot of my exercise program, I can see progress. Mostly because I started from a state of complete slug, but I'm still calling in a win. When I first went back to the elliptical, I felt it, actually felt the level of effort in my muscles. Now, I can go for an hour again. The muscles aren't sore the next day, but my legs feel as if they got a workout.

I want to start becoming systematic about the goals I need to achieve. Set up a way to push myself. The problem is, there isn't really room to go back to the dance videos I used to follow. I've got room in the exercise room for the elliptical and a whole bunch of Stuff That I Have To Go Through. All right then. That'll be part of this month's challenge. If it's between me and my exercise goals, I'll have to tackle it.

This is going to be a challenge.

• AM: 15 minutes elliptical - done
• Noon: One whole friggin' hour tackling the STIHTGT.- done
• PM: 15 minutes elliptical