Long ramling post about the past 2 weeks

4 weeks! You know, I honestly don’t know whether I feel like the year has barely begun or like it has been going on forever.

These past 2 weeks were interesting.

2 weeks ago I had to have a cyst cut out of my neck – very interesting experience – only needed local anesthesia, so I was awake, but didn’t really know what was going on, which is surprisingly annoying.

Apparently it was a rather large cyst – the doctor kept going on about the size – the hole it left was about 2cm deep I believe.

That made life a wee bit interesting – thankfully due to painkillers I didn’t have a lot of pain, just uncomfortableness.

Hubs and I started a diet – calorie counting since apparently that is the best for fussy eaters – 2 weeks later and I’m 1.5kg down and he is 2kg down – not bad if you take into account that we can eat most of our favourite foods plus chocolate and fizzy drinks (which are mostly for the hubs)

I was also a bit annoyed, because I thought I was doing so well with drinking only one caffeinated beverage a day and almost no fizzy drinks, which I replace with iced tea – guess who forgot that normal tea contains caffeine?

Absolutely no progress on my crochet – I got to a point where I got demoralised because it looks like my idea for a pattern won’t work and then on top of that my neck being injured – I just have not been in the mood to crochet.

Hmm…what else (I really should have more pictures to make this post more interesting, but I suck at taking them)

Hubs and I look hilarious walking around in the shops scanning bar codes of items – we use myfitnesspal for counting calories and they have a bar code scanner that will pick up the food if it is in the database – very useful!

We’re very excited to be seeing Andy Stanley from North Point Church live tomorrow night – should be very interesting!

And lastly – we did something that will either be really stupid or really good – we bought a treadmill! We discovered on Friday that cycling while watching TV works quite well. And on Sunday we saw a treadmill on special – loved it – and I’ve always wanted a treadmill – and voila we bought one!

Bummer though is that we have to wait until Wednesday before they deliver it(it was too big for the car) – but I can’t wait! Planning on doing C25k…weeeeeeeeee

Apologies for the long and rambling post!

Training: Day 2

Last night I has my second session of Nike Kinect Training – it was hard.

Above all, I’m still amazed with this “game” it tracks such a variety of exercises.

There was the normal warm-up, jogging in place for 30 seconds, some stretched. And then on to the real training – strength training this time.

Oh, just to interrupt myself for a bit there – it seems like the iphone app doesn’t adjust your next session until you have actually completed said session, so at the moment it is still telling me that my next activity is on 5 November and it is strength training – hopefully they will sort this bug out soon.

Back to the training – there were rapid response hops (hopping side to side on one foot), sumo jumps (those are ouch), planks, dodge ball etc.

Toward the end I really struggled, I think the last exercise was 1.5 lunges and by the time I got to my secon leg, I cheated (I think I got some benefit still, but year)

Here I realised the big flaw in home exercise (granted not everyone will see it as such) – no support.

There is no group of people suffering through this with you, it is just you and the pain. No encouragement in seeing other people struggle with you or a “live” trainer encouraging you to keep it up.

I suppose one could say that it’s self-discipline that keeps you going, not the support of others, but having done this same type of exercises in a group setting before, I realised how much such a setting actually encourages you and how much it helps having some tell you that you can do it, just a little bit more.

Instead, there I was shouting at my TV/Kinect telling it to start working properly when it refused to pick up my kneeling push ups or my single hip lifts.

Time will tell how this will balance with the convenience of exercising in my lounge (Coffee tables with wheels are an awesome invention).
I am not too sore today, but I can feel that my core muscles have worked – it is a good feeling.

Next up is Cardio training on Thursday. I will however be getting in a form of cardio tonight as well – playing Dance Central with a great friend – I can’t wait.

Nike Kinect Training – the beginning

It’s Friday night around 20:30 and I find myself in front of my Kinect, about to do the assessment in Nike Kinect training.
My experience with Kinect sports games or should I rather say exercise games have been Your Shape fitness.

First of all, I have to set up my profile – height, weight(do I really want to have this “written” down?) age and gender.
Then they scan in my body for a representation on screen – pleasantly, it is less blob-ey than the one in Your Shape – but now there is no more excuse for the bulging tummy which is usually so well hidden. I have to look at this every time I exercise – I suppose I could see it as encouragement, but I don’t like what it looks like.

Next I have to pick a trainer…I pick the girl (or should I say lady?). I guess I figured I am a woman, so being trained by a woman?

Now it is time for my assessment – I actually don’t even remember everything I had to do. I remember there were squats and push-ups, possibly lunges – these were of the variety of “number you can do in x time). There were also flexibility type things – lying flat on the floor, how high can you raise your leg – or how close can you get your arms together behind your back with one going over your shoulder and the other under.

All of this being made difficult by Kilhra who decided that my exercise mat seems like a good place to lie down – and when I kick her off because I need the whole length of it, she just comes back and lies down on me.

Kilhra “helping” or “supporting”my exercise

The artificial lighting also doesn’t help much – I wonder if we can take the lampshade thing off – I’ve always found it too dark in the lounge at night anyways.

I also have to do joggin in place with high knees – 3 sets of 30 seconds with 30 seconds (or was it a minute?) inbetween. Hubby comments on the fact that I’m cheating by just lifting my knees high in a walking fashion – he’s right, so I run for a bit – but I am really really unfit.

All this done, I am given my results:

Fitness of 36 (average 26-29yr old woman has a fitness of 40)
Athleticism of 36 (average 26-29yr olf woman has an athletcism level fo 42)

I like the symmetry, but obviously I have a lot of work to do.

They ask me how many days a week I want to commit to exercise – I select 3 days, Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Hubby will join me for 2 of those – I need the support.

I shut down my Xbox and fire up the Nike Kinect app on my iPhone – everything synch-ed accross beautifully – I am slightly shocked to see that my next session is scheduled for the following day – logical, but somehow in my mind, I would only start on Monday – no matter, it’s only 26 minutes and I could do that quickly before we left for Hermanus.

Saturday morning appears and I am fortunate enough to wake up with a headache and sore muscles – perfect excuse not to exercise, right?
The newness of this however is strong enough to get me to push trough the exercise.

Except, it is longer than I expected – instead of the advertised 19 minutes, it now says 29 – I suppose it could be extended by the warm-up.

I don’t remember what all was in the warm-up – I just remember being really tired after – and I still had to do the exercises!

My Nike app has a list of all the exercises – I just know I was really tired afterward and really sore the next day.

Between the burpees and the inchworms, my tummy muscles WORKED.

I accidently also did an extra set of the exercises – not fun.

It wasn’t an overly difficult set of exercises – I am impressed with how well the Kinect tracks everything (much better in daylight)

I was however not impressed with the synching to the iphone app this time – the Xbox says that I have completed my first session – my phone insists that I did a quick cardio session and now, two days later, still says that my next exercise is scheduled for 03 November.

It is however early days both for the app and for me.

My next session is in about 2 hours – we’ll see how it goes.

Keeping up motivation will be the problem. Hubby doing it as well will help, but what to do in those days when the only thing you want to do is curl up on the couch and watch TV?

New “Game”

Lookee what I got!

 

(Why does WP keep turning images on their side? It won’t even go into the right orientation when I edit it)
I can’t wait to go home and start with it.

 

I did the demo a week or two ago and loved it. You initially do an assessment during which the trainer takes various measurements and based on that and your goald (toning, fat loss etc) they give you an excercise program.
You are then evaluated again every 4 weeks and I believe your program adjusted accordingly.
Excitement!

Quick Catch-up

Life has been a bit hectic (at work at least)

The weekend was fairly quiet and restful, but at work I’m preparing for a presentation and it’s going quite crazy.

I haven’t been able to go to exercise the last 2 days as my ankle is still hurting – really annoying. It looks like I might miss the assessment on Thursday as well.

I’ve been crocheting! Working on the scarf that I posted the other day – I wasn’t sure about the pattern at first, but it has grown on me – and now that it has, I have no idea where my other ball of the same yarn is!

I’ve also been working on a crochet top – I think I need to do about 10 more rows and then I’ll be done with either the front or the back side – this is one of those projects that I just can not wait to finish, but it will be a while still.

I’m trying to think if I have any other news…I don’t think so

The daily inspiration posts might be a bit erratic for the rest of the week due to this presentation, so please bear with me.

How is everyone else doing?

(Isn’t it awesome when you hit the spell check button and it tells you that no errors have been found?)

Busy-ness

Hello!

Life is a bit busy at the moment – hence no daily inspiration post or any other post yesterday.

I usually do the inspiration post during my lunch hour, but I’ve been told that we have a rather big presentation coming on the 16th and I’m preparing the document for it (I’m not sure if I’m going to do the presentation as well)
It seems like my boss and I don’t communicate very well. I thought the doc that I prepared was exactly what he had asked for, but it was completely not

So I started with a new approach which then again not what he wanted. I’m not exactly sure where the problem lies. Is it me who just assume I know what he wants, but I don’t really, or is it him who isn’t explaining well?

Any ideas how I can pinpoint the problem?

Its very easy (and tempting) to just blame him, but that is the wrong way to go about it and I need to remember that.

That’s work…please keep me in your prayers, I don’t know if I can do this.

Last night at home was quite nice, but then again, so was Monday.

On Monday hubby did the cooking and gave me a massage. We watched the second disk of White Collar (good,clean show, it’s awesome)

Last night was a bit productive, I cooked and we did some unpacking. Dinner and Bones. Hubby washed the dishes even though he had cooked the previous night (isn’t he just awesome?) and then while he was busy on his computer, I unpacked and sorted all my yarn – it was more than I thought..

I also found a project that I had started working on last year, but then got forgotten between wedding plans and moving and all that.

The yarn is just so so gorgeous! ( it’s Vinnis Nikkim)

I dug out the pattern and am good to go!

Did I mention that I actually finished the crochet part of the baby blanket I was working on? I just need to work away the edges…my favourite part…not!

Kilhra and Squeaky supervised the yarn…

This morning’s exercise was quite hectic + I think I sprained my ankle, which is annoying.

And I think that is about everything going on in my life…how are you all doing?

(please excuse typos and such, using my phone to post this)

One for the ladies

I didn’t mention this yesterday, but we eventually managed to get out of our house yesterday. The locksmith pretty much hit the lock with a hammer until it fell apart and then put a new lock in. We are free again!

I learnt a little bit from this whole thing, but not a whole lot. Last night I was so tempted to just not go to exercise today and have another rest day – because the two days go together so nicely so it’s a good place to skip. And I didn’t have any snacks for today. I’m so good at finding excuses…BUT!

I managed to motivate myself – I told myself that it would be worth it in the end and that it really isn’t that bad when I am at exercise. I also looked at my motivation pictures, which may have helped.

So there I was this morning walking during the warm-up and switching over into a jog – and things are a little…bouncy…

Somehow (please don’t ask me how) I managed to forget the most important piece of clothing for exercise.

I really couldn’t believe it – I mean getting dressed is pretty much the same every morning, it’s not an item that I sometimes wear and sometimes don’t wear. I know I almost forgot it on Sunday as well. What is going on with me?

 

Anyways – so anytime we were running I was doing this weird run where I was holding onto the twins. I skipped skipping and just jogged in place (didn’t want a black eye [slight exaggeration there])

I survived – it was quite a hectic morning especially for arms and abs, I do feel that I didn’t really work all that hard with the abs exercises – I kept using my back the whole time and that just hurt.

Glad I went. And yes, come Wednesday night I will probably not feel like going again, but as soon as it starts I will motivate myself and remind myself how much it will be worth it when I can finally look in the mirror and like what I see.

Ladies…don’t forget the bra…

 

 

By the way, this is my 48th post, which means that today’s Daily Inspiration will be number 49.

That usually happens around 14:04 Johannesburg time.

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Realistic Expectations and Patience

I think at the moment I am having trouble with both of the above.

I am having these daydreams about the last day of my current exercise cycle. Of doing my measurements and seeing that the centimetres have just melted away, the weight just fallen off.

I realised today that I should probably make sure that I have realistic expectations. Improvements are not going to happen over night. It took years to get to the size I am now and it’s not going to disappear in just 4 weeks.

Patience Patience Patience.

I am not sure what a realistic expectation would be. 1cm less? 2cm less?

I’ve done fairly well with eating right (there was that really divine cake on Friday though)

I must just not lose heart and give up. The hard work is worth it. The extra effort with proper food is worth it.

 

Fitness Assessment

I mentioned early in the week that I started with exercising again.

The  “program” that I am doing works in 4 week cycles and have fitness assessments to measure your progress.

These assessments happen on the first and last Thursday of each camp, which means my first one was this morning.

As opposed to the first two days, I felt rather weak and un-energetic this morning and I only did the half-distance run.

I am still quite motivated to work hard and push myself and get good results, which is motivating (yea, that is a weird sentence)

Eating healthy is going well, I am actually buying and making veg that I don’t usually bother with because hubby doesn’t eat them. I realised that I don’t mind freezing and then cooking veg, so that might work out well.

Without further ado, the results of my assessment:

800m run: 5m 43s

Push ups: 25 (in a minute)

Sit ups: 31 (in a minute – this one was a bit of a surprise, I expected much less)

Plank: 28 seconds

Right side Plank: 27 seconds

Left side Plank: 30 seconds.

I’m not entirely sure what my goals are in terms of improving these.

I think if I can do the run in 30-60 seconds less I will be happy.

And maybe the rest in increments of 10 seconds/repetitions will be a good idea?

I’m just going to work as hard as possible the next 3 weeks. I can do this

I have to do my measurements as well tonight – I doubt that I will post those, but I am playing with doing a progress bar for weight loss. I know that weight loss alone isn’t really a good measurement of how my body is shaping up because I will be building muscle, but it is still nice to see a change in weight.

Here is to a healthy life!