Day 49: Simple Day

We spent a lazy day recharging our batteries.  Lounging around and taking it easy.  This is going to be another short entry.  Why? I am tired and to be honest not much happened today.

For a total change of pace we took the dogs for a walk.  They were able to hang on for about a mile or so.  Isabella, our Great Dane, was exhausted in the heat so we took her back home and continued to walk.  We headed down to the soccer fields and track. 

We walked past the sheriff’s office.  I mention this since I made a phone call to them earlier in the day.  Our neighbor has a massively loud truck that he has been cranking up at the wee hours in the morning.  I called to see if we had a noise ordnance and it turns there isn’t.  The copper I talked to was a total jerk who informed me that they couldn’t control what my neighbors own.  Typical government employee he didn’t listen to my question it was all about noise ordinances.  What a jerk.

So that was really the whole day.  Although for dinner we had a fantastic dish of pork loin and apples with shallots.  Really delicious.  

Daily Recap:

Matt and Kelly: 40 minute walk 

Day 48: Spin Class and Stuffed Animals

I made some fat person promises today to myself.  They included cleaning up my diet and hitting spin class this morning.  Unlike last time where we went with the little Asian lady that kept saying y’all all the time.  We knew who was in charge of this one and she is one of our favorites. 

Stephanie’s classes are high energy with good music and the advocates spin as a way to justify poor diet decisions.  Today, for example, it was one of our fellow spin mates birthday.  The birthday girl got called out several time and was told to peddle harder since we all knew she was going to have cake this evening. 

The music is always good when Stephanie is leading the group as well. She plays a nice mix of rock and pop all infused in techno so they have that thumping beat that makes you want to peddle harder.  Several of the instructors play music that can be boring. 

Also I promised to push myself through the pain today.  I did.  When you crank the dial upon one of the spin bikes it can get pretty tough.  I had a constant burn in my legs almost the whole class.  Compare that to the lady next to me who kept stopping and laying over her bike like she was dying.   It was a little to mellow dramatic for me.

I usually don’t feel like I have worked hard enough and I don’t sweat enough.  Not today.  I wore a long sleeve t-shirt and that did the trick.  I was pouring sweat.  By the end I bet that I burned a thousand calories. 

Like any other activity you do at the gym it also allows some interesting people watching.  The lady next to me that spent most of her time hunched over her bike is one of them.  On the other side of her was the guy who stayed standing the whole time and kept yelling phrases like “Yeah!” and “Bring it on!” as well as other just plain noises. 

At the front was a guy who spent the whole class spinning as hard and as fast as he could.  Several times I was convinced he was going to fall off his bike.  The people that I am always the most curious about are those that leave after the first 10 minutes or show up for the last 10 minutes.  Where are they going that requires them to only spend 10 minutes in spin class.  Or why bother showing up for the last 10 minutes?

Of course the best part is at the end when you get an ice cold towel. 

Other than that it was a pretty relaxing day.  I am sure we burned some calories hitting up some yard sales looking for stuffed animals for our Great Dane. She just loves them. 

We are planning on hitting the gym tomorrow. Now for the Recap.

Daily Recap:

Matt and Kelly: 1 hour in spin class burning calories and sweating up a storm.  

Day 47: Fat People Promises

Do you make fat person promises to yourself?  You know what I mean.  Let me give you an example.  “Next time the office has donuts I will not eat one, I swear.”  Those kind of promises.  As a fat person I have made many fat person promises to myself only to break them. Today seemed to be a day of breaking fat person promises.  It all started when the alarm went off. 

Fat person promise #1: I will get up and exercise, I promise.

The dog got me up a few minutes before the alarm went off.  Still drowsy and irritated I let her out only to discover it was raining.  The fat person in me reminded me how much my running shoes cost and I couldn’t let them get ruined by rain.  No, the smart thing to do would be to go back to bed and exercise later in the day after the weather had cleared. 

Fat person promise #2: I will eat healthy for lunch today, I promise.

I didn’t make a lunch today and it didn’t matter anyway.  Fridays are half days during the summer so I figured I would go home and have a salad.  A funny thing happened on the way home.  I was thinking about the Chinese people and their struggle for freedom.  Well, I couldn’t let them just suffer, I had to do something.  So I called the closest Chinese Consulate (China Kitchen) and let them know the I would like to make a monetary donation to their struggle (add hot and sour soup and an egg roll.)

Fat person promise #3: I will exercise today, I promise.

Okay, I kept this one.  Kelly and I went for a power walk around Lake Peachtree.  The total mileage would have been 3.6 miles.  The weather had a different idea. At 52 minutes into our power walk and while we were on the home stretch the sky applauded our efforts and wept at how proud it was of us.  Great big bucket fulls.  We sought shelter under a thick magnolia tree and called in reinforcements in the form of Kelly’s mom to come and pick us up.  After all I couldn’t ruin my shoes.

Fat person promise #4: After a crappy lunch I promise I will eat a healthy dinner.

There were meat and vegetables involved in dinner.  They were in the form of pepperoni and tomato sauce.  Not only that but it showed up at my door in 30 minutes.  Isn’t America wonderful! 

Now I feel miserable.

That leads me to…

Fat person promise #5:  After not only falling off the wagon today but also being run over by it I will clean up my act, eat healthier, and continue to exercise, I promise.

Tomorrow I am back on the straight and narrow.  No more junk food, it always make me feel like crap.  I will hit the gym and watch what I eat, I promise. 

Daily Recap:

Matt & Kelly: 52 minutes power walk around the lake until the rain stopped us. 

Day 46: A Little About Diets

It was a beautiful morning for jogging.  The moon lit everything up with its warm glow, there was a slight breeze, and despite the rain the humidity felt a little low.  I didn’t want to stop jogging but had to in order to go to work.  Isn’t that how it always is, work getting in the way.

While I was jogging I was thinking.  With all the exercise I have been doing I have not really lost much weight at all.  I know it all goes back to diet. Calories are a zero sum game.  If you burn what you take in and a little more you get weight loss no matter what you eat. 

I read an article a while ago and had to look it back up because I couldn’t remember all the details.  There is a guy named Mark Haub, he is a professor of human nutrition at Kansas. He theorized that weight loss was pure calorie counting. That is what mattered the most, not what you ate. 

He limited himself to 1800 calories.  His diet was Twinkies, Nutty Bars, Powdered Donuts, and Doritos, along with sugary cereal and cookies.  You would expect this man to die after a month but a crazy thing happened on the way to proving a crazy theory: He lost weight.

His bad cholesterol (LDL) dropped 20 percent.  By consuming garbage his body fat dropped from 33.4% to 24.9%.  Buy like any good nutritionist he felt guilty about eating pure junk in front of his kids so he did eat vegetables and health food with his family, still you can’t argue with his results. 

Now I’m going to theorize since I am a scientist a fact that we established quite a few blogs back if you haven’t read them.  What Haub really taught us was that we really don’t know what the body needs and uses as fuel.

When I tell people that for three months about once a week I ate a half a pound of bacon for breakfast and lost weight while lowing my cholesterol they look at me like I’m crazy.  It’s true I have the blood work to back it up. 

Let me give you one more example.  I worked with this crazy older guy once.  How crazy, you ask, well he chewed nicotine gum, not because he wanted to quit smoking (he had never smoked in his life) but because he like the gum and the nicotine helped him focus. 

This guy, at several points in his career, ran hospitals.  His problem was his cholesterol. His doctor told him he was a walking heart attack so he went on a diet.  A low-fat high fiber diet eating all the right rabbit food and his cholesterol got worse even on cholesterol medication. 

Next he tried South Beach and had the same effect.  Out of desperation he tried Atkins.  In several months with almost no exercise he lost over 50 pounds and bottomed out his cholesterol.  He ate bacon and fried eggs every morning.  Lunch was three or four hot dogs and cheese.  You get the picture.

Bottom line when it comes to diets I don’t believe any of the experts.  We are all different and what works for some of us will not work for all.  That’s all I got for today.

Daily Recap:

Matt: 36 Min AM Jog

Kelly: 1 Hour spin class y’all!

Day 45: Caffeine, Tablets, and Mile Stones

After the run last night I don’t like to do back to back late evening runs then early morning runs.  There would have been less than ten hours between the two jogs.  I may go nonstop on a daily basis but there has to be some down time for recovery.  Speaking of recovery today is the first pain free day since my excursion to the gym.

That is why I walked this morning.  At 5AM it was already humid as heck and you were chewing your air as we made our way around the neighborhood.  Kelly went with me after the dogs gave her no choice but to get up.  I am happy we went this morning to get it out of the way because I was dragging this afternoon. 

Where is the energy promised to me by the exercise books.  If it wasn’t for caffeine at work today I could have crawled under my desk and took a nice afternoon nap.  It didn’t help that my office window faces due west and it get warm in cubical in the late afternoon.  Holding my eyes open was a painful exercise. 

I thought I was going to go home and do some weight lifting or yoga but I was completely beat.  Again, so thankful I got up and busted it out this morning.  This is the kind of evening where you have the best of intentions but intentions only get you so far. 

I had a few things in the garden to tend to and then the evening was all downhill. Believe me it is going to be an extremely early evening for me.  I don’t know if I will make it to 9:30. 

If I am early enough what I would like to do tomorrow is get up and do a 45 minute jog.  See if I can circle the neighborhood twice before work.  I would like to start having a bigger breakfast too. I am still getting hungry by 10:30 in the morning.  The only way to make more time for breakfast is to get up even earlier. 

I am also working on putting all of my exercise videos on my tablet.  That way I can watch them anywhere especially the ones that don’t require weights like yoga.  This idea occurred to me while watching my last exercise video.  It would have been easier to have the screen down on the floor with me instead of craning my neck to see how they were doing an exercise.  

One last thing, today was another mile stone for me.  After my walk this morning Run Keeper sent me at “Good Job” email informing me that I had hit my goal already which was to do accomplish 20 miles in a month.  I thought it was a big goal when I set it but after I received my email I realized I do a minimum of 60 miles a month.  I set a new goal of 75 miles in 30 days it seemed like more of a challenge. 

Daily Recap:

Matt:     30 Min walk around the neighborhood

Kelly:     Exactly the same

Day 44: What did I do to the Chinese?

Last night, due to the circumstances and because it is partly tradition we had Chinese food for dinner after Kelly came home.   Our Chinese restaurant is a hole in the wall dive that has some of the best take out food around.  Even her parents, who have a Chinese restaurant two minutes from where they live drive to our place when they want really good Chinese.  I say this because I have eaten there hundreds of times and never any problems, but last night was something else all together. 

I know that Mexico has Montezuma’s Revenge but what do the Chinese have?   Genghis Kahn’s revenge? What did I do to make Mr. Kahn so angry that he decided to make my life so uncomfortable.  I was miserable all day.  I don’t think I need to fill in any details since I am sure you all have been there before.  My breath had a slight chalky freshness to it from all the shots of Pepto-Bismol I did. 

Now, with a 4 hour sleep night and Mr. Kahn being angry at me for no apparent reason I did not get up this morning and commence to my AM exercise.  It had to wait.

Has the day ever gotten away from you? It seems to get away from me all the time.  Even when I am paying close attention.  After I started feeling better I still had to drive home from work.  At roughly 11:30 this morning someone decided to play demolition derby on I285 south bound and block all 5 lanes of traffic.  It cleared around 1:30 PM just in time for the afternoon thunder storms to move in and make an even bigger mess of traffic.  Driving home today was no picnic and it took over an hour. 

At home it was threatening to rain.  We still had to go out and get something for dinner. Etc. Etc. Etc.  You get my point.  I am sure this is what happens to you all the time.  Bottom line is I wasn’t able to get in a jog until after 7PM. 

I was tired.  I was hungry.  I was aggravated.  And I didn’t want to do it.  The best part was that Kelly was home and was able to jog with me.  Even after I had a head start not only did she pass me but I couldn’t keep up with her. 

Whether it was Mr. Kahn or my own body, I got the message today and went back to eating Paleo.  I definitely feel better when I eat that way.  Who would hate a dinner of steak and fresh zucchini out of the garden?  Perhaps Genghis Kahn or maybe his right hand man  General Tsao?  Either way I have learned a lesson that will stick with me for two or maybe even three weeks. 

Daily Recap:

Matt:     Jog, 31 minutes and 2.1 miles after 7PM at a 14:52 Minute pace

Kelly:     Jog, 30 minutes and 2.3 miles after 7PM much faster than me.

Day 43: Kelly Comes Home From Greece

This one is going to be really short.  Kelly’s flight was delayed and she was super late getting home.  Now it’s late and I am feeling my early morning, and being that she has been up for almost 24 hours I know she is feeling hers.

AM exercise around the block this morning.  The muscle group that hurts the most from my workout on Saturday is my lats. For some reason everything really started hurting about 11AM this morning and then I remembered my ibuprofen had worn off.  Two more magic pills later and the pain was a  dull ache. 

As I write this the Yoga Pilates fusion DVD is staring at me and making me more than a little uncomfortable.  That is all for the day.

Daily Recap:

Matt: 30 min Walk/Jog 5AM

Kelly: Flew in a plane for close to 14 hours. 

Day 42: Planned to Take it Easy

I had planned to take it easy today.  I am slightly sore from my full body workout at the gym yesterday and was going to rest after all it was supposed to rain today.  As you may have guessed by now it didn’t rain and I have a complete inability to relax around my house when I there are things to do.

There was a small shower this morning, afterward the sun came out and it was a beautiful day which made especially hard to sit still.  Of course there is always thing to do in my yard and garden.  I spent a good chunk of the day outside working. 

I was having trouble lifting my arms over my head this morning and as I worked outside my muscles seemed to have loosened up.  This evening was a different story. As the evening wore on I become even more sore, as of right now I can only lift my arms about shoulder high. 

I haven’t hurt this bad since the first time I did Body for Life.  If you have never done Body for Life, let me describe this particular brand of pain to you.  It’s a book by Bill Phillips when you open it both the front inside and back inside cover have pictures of regular people who have submitted before and after photos of themselves.  Some show dramatic transformation. 

I broke the book out and gave it a quick scan since it has been years since I read it and yes it is one of the many diet books that litter my library.  At the heart of this break though is more calorie restricition.  In order to loose weight there are several things you have to do.  You have to:

1.       Lift Weights

2.       Follow his training guide.

3.       Restrict your calories

4.       Use supplements and protein shakes.

You will be able to build an impressive physique but remember if you ever stop doing numbers 2, 3, and 4 then all you will go right back to where you were.  That is what I believe is the problem with most of these diet and exercise books.  None of them say that if you revert back to your normal self you will blow back up like a balloon. 

Back to Body for Life.  Bill gives you a regimen for workouts that you have to follow.  They include multiple sets and increasing weight as you go.  Even starting with low weights leads to pain.  On my first attempt at Body for Life I had trouble putting on my own shirt for three day and walking was just as bad.  Sucking down all the protein shakes and vitamins supplements get expensive quickly. 

Body for life is a great way to loose weight and get in shape but the problem is maintaining.  It is completely unrealistic to think that you could continue doing this for you entire life.  Eventually the desire for pizza or hamburger always gets in your way. What I really need is a book that explains how I can be me and get in shape. 

Daily Recap:

Matt:     30 Minute Jog

             40 Minute Mowing the Yard (Yes it counts)

Kelly:    TBD

Day 41: One Busy Day

Saturdays are great.  They are one of the few days I get to sleep in if you consider 8:30AM sleeping in.  I started the day with a three mile jog and for a change of pace everything felt well except for the troubles I was having with run keeper. 

I have been considering changing to the Nike Plus App from all the troubles that Run Keeper has been giving me.  It literally delayed my run by fifteen minutes today.  I cranked it up and it wouldn’t find the GPS satellites.  Finally in frustration I reset my phone and when it still didn’t I work I started it and ran anyway.  By the end of the run it had acquired the satellites. 

In addition to the run I mowed half my yard today and we know how many calories that burns.  However I did say I was going to go to the gym today and that promise still loomed over me.  I finished everything I wanted to around my house and headed to the gym around 5PM. 

The gym is always a great place to do some serious people watching.  It seems people love to do things in public that they should do only behind the closed doors of their home.  I submit, for your approval, the dancer. 

Yes, I just saw this guy at my own gym. I walked in and made my way to the back where the free weight section is.  There is a portion of my gym dedicated to floor exercises. I saw this guy gyrating and shaking like a he was about to explode then I watched in amazement as he broke into a break dance.  What do you say to that?  Why would someone pay for a gym membership just to show up and break-dance?  

I commenced to exercise and in the mirror wall I could see this guy doing a full on break dance.  He would take a break and gyrate for a few minutes and then go right back to break-dancing.  Why?  Why pay good money just to break-dance in public. It was hands down the weirdest thing I seen in a long time. 

In addition to that I made my way to the library today.  I think I have mentioned before I have a 45 minute drive to work and I like to listen to audio books on the way.  While on my way out I passed the video section.  On scanning the titles I came across one: Yoga & Pilates.  What kind of sick person would sandwich these two torcher devices together?

Her name is Louise Solomon and she claims to have combined the best of both. Having now done the beginning videos for both I had to pick this one up.  There are two workouts on the DVD and I am going to have to try them both all in the name of exercise.   

That was my day. I can’t imagine how many calories I burned between a 3 mile jog, Mowing the grass for 40 minutes, and finally a 40 minute full body workout at the gym. 

Daily Recap:

Matt:  All of the Above.

Kelly: TBD 

Day 40: The First Day of Summer

Today is the first day of summer, it is also the longest day of the year and we will also have a “super moon,” where the moon passes in its closest orbit of the Earth. What does this mean exactly? I am glad you asked. Two things:

One:  We will have extremely high tides

Two:  Today is the day that most people make New Year’s resolutions for, the desire to have a beach body. 

I don’t really want that beach body, I just want to be healthy.  This morning when I ran I thought about the gym and decided that tomorrow I will pay it a visit, after all I am paying good money for a membership (since there will be a big penalty if I cancel) I might as well go. 

Also on my mind this morning as I trekked around the neighborhood, I am thinking it might be time to mix it up a little. I could start doing yoga or Pilates every other morning to accompany the jogs. From how badly I hurt after doing them I would say that it is a sign that, while I may be able to run a 5K, I can’t do sit-ups or hold my body in a Plank position for an extended period of time.  All of which may be applicable in the future for some unforeseen reason. 

I need to figure out a routine and stick to it.  Right now I am scattered as in, I lift weights every couple of days, run every morning, some days I am exhausted, and some not so much. I believe this is where a routine would be useful.  I wouldn’t get up every day wondering what to do today.  Instead I would know…It’s Wednesday I do yoga. 

Today is an example of how I have been “playing it by ear” so to speak.  This afternoon I started feeling restless.  I was planning on just relaxing but couldn’t.  All the exercise I have been doing might be to blame, but I couldn’t sit still.  I did and additional jog making my total for the day 50 minutes of exercise.   

After I got back I realized I saw the exercise ball video sitting on the stack of exercise videos I have and I could have done that, but I just didn’t think about it.  I should write down a plan.  Create a road map instead of just wandering around in the dark. 

We will see. So far the only think I have been able to stick to is the minimum of 30 minutes every day, and sometimes even that turns into a huge fight with Fat Matt, who wants to sit on the couch and do nothing.  Certainly I am not the only person who finds it insanely hard to motivate yourself.  I swear for me to argue with Fat Matt is like arguing with a two year old.  Sometimes he only says, “I don’t wanna” over and over again. 

Daily Recap:

Matt:  50 total minutes of Jogging

Kelly: TBD

Day 39: Gym People Part 3: The Amateur Body Builders

Some days I have no idea what I’m going to discuss in my blog, like today. I got up, on time I might add, and jogged the neighborhood.  It was really dark, as in no moon, and in several places I just followed the street light reflecting off the pavement.  

After that there really wasn’t much to discuss.  Work was, well work.  I felt good all day, although I could still feel the previous workouts from time to time in my stomach muscles. Other than that I had nothing, no gripes and no complaints.

After work I ran by the grocery store to pick up some salad supplies to go with my steak for dinner and low and behold there he was.  My topic was staring me right in my face as he loaded an arm full of Red Bulls into his grocery cart: The Amateur Body Builder.

They are reason number 584 that I don’t like going to the gym.  You know these guys well.  You may have seen them out in public even if you have never been to a gym.  Let me describe their species for you.

A massive upper body physique supported on two tooth pick legs.  In the gym these are they guys wearing the tank tops to show off their large upper torsos but beyond their waste they haven’t put in the time needed to build a corresponding frame.  To put it simply they look like freaks of nature.    

They have spent hours pushing plates to have an impressive upper body only to look like a joke on their lower.  I don’t understand not wanting to do a squat or leg press or something.  The last gym I belonged to before the one I am currently a member there one of these amateur body builders that would exercise in jeans and Doc Martins. I wish with every fiber of my being that I was joking but it is true.  He would do set after set of bench presses but I never saw him do anything else.  What a waste of time. To me these guys just look weird but I bet they are really good at arm wrestling. 

Anyway, that is all I have for today. Nothing exciting happened that would be really notable.  I was flipping though some of the exercise DVDs I have and one of them, which has never been opened of course, compliments the exercise ball I have.  I set it to the side for further consideration but I still have not opened it.  I have been thinking I need to do more “core” work after all I’m heavy so it has to be like lifting weights. 

Daily Recap:

Matt:     30 Min. Jog AM

Kelly:     TBD

Day 38: Pay No Attention to Your Alarm Clock

It was another late morning thankfully I set two alarms last night.  I slept through the first one at 4:40AM but woke to the second at 5:30AM too late to exercise.  I committed to doing 21 days of AM exercise, but to be honest at this point I don’t see myself stopping.  I have fully enjoyed some of the AM benefits discussed in the book I got.  I do feel better throughout the day and the best part is having more time in the evening to get gardening and other things done.

I was disappointed that I missed my jog this morning. My legs felt great.  My upper body was a different thing all together.  Maybe it was all the planks or the Pilates but I was sore.  Every muscle from my stomach to my shoulders felt beat and it of course got worse as the day went on.

My “Power Core” is not so powerful.  The muscles in my stomach were a full 360 degrees of hurt.  Shoulder, biceps, and triceps were all feeling the “Plank,” “Cobra,” or whatever.  I don’t think it would have stung my pride so bad had I done the advanced videos, but these were the beginners.  I mean, come on!

No exercise this morning meant one thing; Afternoon jog!  I get to fight the traffic, sun, and bugs, I was so excited.  After suiting up I thought about what I was wearing.  See, I wear a long sleeve shirt to jog in.  Even when it is 90 degrees outside, hear me out before you start shaking your head.  When it hot outside I have found your shirt becomes soaked with sweat in about 5 minutes.  The benefit to this is every little breeze makes it feel like a cool towel against your skin. 

Back when Fat Matt became Skinny Matt before becoming Fat Matt again he wanted to show off his body a bit.  I become one of those obnoxious shirtless joggers.  It was all fun and games until I did a 5 mile jog in the middle of the summer in South Georgia.  If you have never been in the “Low Country” you have to understand that along with our heat indexes we get UV warning as well. 

Let’s do some Algebra:

High UV (Fat Matt + 5 mile jog)=Really bad sun burn. 

Did you figure that one out yet?  I’ll give you the answer, I got cooked.  Like any good friend would do mine all slapped me on the back and asked me how my jog went. Lesson learned.

I went jogging in my long sleeved shirt and hat braving the traffic all in the name of getting fit.  I actually had a really good run.  Towards the end my legs were hurting in some of the places they have been since I blew them out lifting weights but I did get in three miles.  I call that a success. 

Daily Recap:

Matt:     43 Minutes (3 Miles)

Kelly:     TBD

Day 37: Soggy Jogging and Beginning Flavored Yoga

My legs felt good this morning, better than they have in the last five days and a jog to test them out was in order. The main problem was the thunderstorms rolling in.  At 5 AM it was no longer raining although lightning jumped from cloud to cloud. I suited up and hit the pavement.  Over a mile later I was feeling good when the first few drops fell on me.  It was sprinkling and I could endure it so I kept going.

I picked up the pace as the drops were starting to get bigger and bigger.  Twenty two minutes in the sky cracked and it was like someone was throwing buckets of water on me.  I turned around and sprinted back to my house.  For a moment my mind told me to keep going, but then Cheap Matt pointed out that both my running shoes and my phone would get ruined in a torrential down pour like this.  Frugality won over exercise. 

It was not a problem because I had found my beginning yoga and planned on getting in a session in the afternoon.  Final count: 22 minutes of AM exercise.

I got home this afternoon and for the second time suited up. I started Beginning Yoga. 

RETRACTION: Yesterday I stated that I had never done yoga.  That isn’t quite true.  I have never exercised to one of my yoga videos; however, in 2009 I purchased a Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit.  For a total of maybe three weeks off and on I committed time to my Wii Fit and along with the games there was a yoga routine. From “Warrior Pose” to “Rising Sun” to “Tree Pose” I tried to get fit and rack up a high score all while playing my Wii.  It didn’t work

Beginning Yoga had a lot of familiar poses in it.  “Cobra,” “Downward Dog,” “Morning Glory,” I knew almost all of them from my Wii. It seemed pretty simple some of the poses we were doing and there was the one person doing the modified or easy, versions.  Several of the latter I had to do,  for instance, the “Back Stretch” has you literally going head over heels and my chubby body can’t quite bend like that.

Much of the routine I felt like I was sailing through until I hit the half-way point.  My stomach muscles were feeling the “Power Core” stuff from the Pilates I did yesterday.  My yoga instructor had me doing some curl up back stretch that relied on your stomach muscles and it started to hurt.  By the end of the video we were doing a “Plank” to “Cobra” to “Downward Dog,” back to “Plank” and holding it to a point my arms started to shake. 

When it ended I realized I was sweeting and my arms and legs were fatigued.  Maybe there is more to this than I thought.  My back felt great as well from all the stretching.  Tomorrow I am going to try to jog in the morning if these storms will hold off, then Pilates in the afternoon. 

Daily Recap:

Matt:    Jog 22 minutes AM

           Yoga 30 minutes PM

Kelly:   Walked all over Greece and Climbed a serious hill.