Slow Going?

It's the morning of Day 3, and I'm feeling pretty good! I was tempted to hit the gym this morning, but when my alarm went off around 5:30, I could barely get out of bed to turn it off; the gym yesterday is going to need some more recovery time... I did squats for the first time in 2 years, and it felt good but was hard on the legs. I might go do some cardio after work today to get some blood flowing through the muscles, though.

I hopped on the scale this AM and was a bit surprised to see only a 1-2lb loss. I've had very little of the lemonade mixture, which was light on syrup anyway, and lots of water, and even did the SWF last night. Not that weight is my primary goal here, but I thought of it as a very welcome secondary effect.

Gotta Get Back on Track!

Well, it's been a bit of a tough week on the cardio! I'm still smoking, so that's kicking my ass when it comes to trying to run, and I've been SO tired that I just haven't felt like rolling out of bed at 5:30am...

I have, though, been going to the gym regularly. My workout partner wanted to try a new split; Chest/back, legs, shoulders/bi/tri. It's pretty good, but our suspicions were correct - make sure to leave a day between the C/B and S/B/T... We didn't do that and did S/B/T Thursday and C/B Friday and it definitely was a lot tougher.

On leg day I also added in the adductor and abductor exercises in order to incorporate more muscles into my squats and improve balance. Boy was I sore ALL week! That means I need to be doing these though, so I'll keep it up.

So, next week: getting to bed by 9:30, getting up at 5:30 and either going to the gym or going for a run around the block (well, several blocks, but going for a 20-30min jog). I know I'll be lifting 4-5X/week now, but I still need to keep up the cardio so I'm dropping those lbs of fat for the summer.

Work Harder For Less...

Generally when you get better at something, you get more efficient; you are able to get more done in less time with less effort.

Not so with this exercise stuff!

I just recently tracked down my HRM strap so I could keep better track of my heart rate during my cardio - I really want to get my heart rate up over 160 and preferably over 170 at least for short periods of time. This used to not be so hard! Now, I'm pushing so hard on the elliptical that the muscles in me leg are fatiguing before I can get my HR much over 150 (I did pop over 160, but not for long). I know I need to get in better shape in terms of endurance, but it seems my heart has gotten in better shape a bit quicker than the rest of my body :)

So, looks like my running type exercise 3X/week will be my real intense one for now, and I will use my other 2-3 sessions as conditioning and somewhat intense cardio.