fitness blossom

Exercising felt good today. There were surprises.

Frustrated by my inability to locate my cell phone mp3 player, I stepped onto the treadmill. 2.5 for 2 minutes warm up. 8 minutes at 3.0 and then surprise! 1 minute run (jog) at 4.0. gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp. I caught my breathe again at 3.0. 8 minutes, then run, run, run, run, run. gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp. This time, I caught my breathe sooner; perhaps I found the trick-- deep breaths in, quick release out. 1 minute 3.0, 30 seconds 2.5, 1 minute 2.0, 30 seconds 1.5, off. I threw my foot on the wall and began to stretch. Then, my final surprise: 30 crunches instead of 25 and a decision to continue with an increase of 5 per week until I reach 50. Then, add angles.

I feel good.

also, I ordered a new keyboard for my laptop. Maybe my "a" problem will be over soon.

adrenal fix 1, 2, 3...

My instructions on how to "fix" my adrenals and not be so drained?
(1) Exercise more
(2) Sleep more
(3) Eat less carbs
(4) Take more pills

My realization, once I stopped exercising and quite the allergy elimination diet, was that taking the pills was not enough. Well, pills & sleep. I love to sleep.

This week, stomach virus put me on my ass for days. as I recovered from that, I returned to exercising. Slowly. and I reached my 3 days/wk goal. The first day, I felt like shyt so I talked myself into 10 minutes, then a 2 minute cool down. Then I decided I'm okay with resuming there. 12 minutes, 2.5 wlk. Today, I bumped it to 3.0 'cause 2.5 is for sissies (so is 3, btw). Today, I feel proud. It wasn't much. It was like a place-holder and I kept going back.

The plan? This coming week 3.0 for 22 minutes. Then, 30 minutes.

I didn't have a plan when I got on the treadmill but I did have my inspiration poster staring me in the face.



I've been gravitating towards the Marathon shots.


One is from Minnie, an inspiration I found a while back while searching for blogs from other ppl with fibromyalgia. She is in fabulous shape. amazing. She disappeared from her blog just after I found her; now she's back... and starting over fitness-wise. That inspires me too. She was able to do so much. I'm always amazed by how quickly runners lose their endurance. anyhow, Minnie is basically doing couch potato to runner kind of plan. She's at 4 minutes of walking, 1 minute of running. We're starting over together.

This is the other marathon photo I have.




I like the look of her strength. I think, in part, I like these shots because they represent hard work and training, goal met. achievement.

surely some muscular naked women are in pain too?

Today, I talked to a woman I've been drooling over at the gym. Her body-- wow. Muscular. I was near her so I decided to ask her how to use the machine she had just gotten off. Later, she showed me how to do a calf exercise on the machine I was using and she waiting to use. I think it can help me with a terribly bothersome fibro symptom- the inability to walk more than a flight of stairs without doubling over in pain (often 1/2 flight). I'm not sure where to strike the balance between weight and repetition to make this so. I think I'll do 3 reps on it before increasing the weight, whereas I do 2 reps on everything else-- well 4 & 3 (1 for muscle mass, 2 for endurance is my current trend). This lady said she works out 6 days a week, 5 of them weights, 1 hour at a time. The rest is diet-- lots of fish, chicken, and vegetables. That seems reasonable. I don't feel so far behind her. I was lifting within 10-25lbs of her on the two leg weight machines. Looking at her and looking at me, I was surprised we were that closely aligned. I do yoga 2 days a week and really want to build up to 2 gym trips a week-- 4 days vs 6. Okay. There's a lot of variation between us but it was still great talking to her. I wish I could input her picture. You think muscular women memphis will get it? haha.

One of the first hits I got with that search is quite interesting- muscular women porn. Granted, I saw "hard on" as I clicked their link (i have a bad habit of clicking links without reading full descriptions) but I thought it'd be like that nude yoga site I saw years ago. It was well-formed yoga poses. I didn't find it vile at all. This newer site, well, it's intentions are clear.... I didn't know there was such a thing as that kind of porn. I guess there's a naked version of everything, huh?

Anyhow, the gym zonked me again. It felt good. I'm trying mucinex to see if it can calm down the "joint mucus" and give me a pain-free sleep tonight. My next action, however, is to get off my arse and put forth the 15 minutes of spot cleaning I'm supposed to do each day. The weekend is when the grand hashing out happens. Namaste.