Mid-Month Update: Even More Workouts

I haven't been updating as often with my recipe posts because I haven't been cooking that much (which is bad). Because I'm going to the gym a lot after work with Cathy, we either get something to eat on the way back or have something at her place. She did make delicious pork and vegetable wrap one night that was delicious and low calorie. Since my last post, I went to a lot of workout classes and had my first personal training session.

FYI: You don't look like this while spinning.

I went to spinning on Monday, which was the class I was most terrified of taking, but I ended up LOVING it. I even got a thumbs up from the instructor about forty-five minutes into the class. It was as if something just clicked and I got in the zone and just pushed myself. It was awesome, and I really want to make that a weekly class. On Tuesday we took zumba, which was just ok. It was fun, but I feel like I didn't get as good of a workout as I would have on my own.

The personal training session was on Wednesday. The trainer was very nice, and the exercises we did were good, but I just wanted a more kick-my-ass type training session, and this wasn't it. She did show me how to use a few of the weight machines to target the places I most want to work on toning, but other than that, it wasn't anything special. I have two more sessions left in my package, but I'm not sure if I'm going to buy more or not at this point.

Thursday was an off day, but I did walk a couple of miles downtown for the Blackhawks game on St. Patrick's Day! So much fun. I also ate delicious Mexican food at Chuy's and went WAY over my calorie range. Friday and Saturday were just plain ol' elliptical days with some abs and weight machines thrown in for good measure.

So I'm pretty proud of myself for actually making it to the gym five days this week, but the problem is that I need to reign in my calorie counting. I haven't lost any weight this month (although to be fair I did gain a few pounds while in Rhode Island, and I did lose that) and there's only eleven days left. I definitely think I'm gaining muscle from working out, and I've gotten way more comments about my weight loss from people at work this past week. Even so, I am really going to have to buckle down to meet my goal this month.

Boot Camp: 28 Day Challenge: Day 1

In addition to using my Wii Fit everyday (for different reasons, not the least of which it yells at me if I skip a day) I'm going to follow Sparkpeople.com's bootcamp workout for the next four weeks. For those who don't know, Sparkpeople is a wonderful free site where you can track calories, goals, recipes, workouts, and basically anything you would ever need to lose weight. Again, for free.

They had this workout as one of the challenges for January on the Start page, so I signed up for it. They lured me in with words like "for people of all fitness levels" and "it's called 'Bootcamp' not because it's highly intense, but because it involves daily exercise and commitment" and "10 minutes or less." I set up a Youtube playlist with all the videos and set my TV up to play the first one yesterday evening. 

I scoffed at the 11 minute length of the cardio workout - 11 minutes is nothing! How is that a cardio workout? Can you even get your heart rate up enough? Meanwhile, the instructor on the video has been power marching and I can already feel myself thinking "Ok, is this over yet?" I couldn't even DO the jumping lunges at about 6:00 and the mountain climbers and squat thrusts that followed nearly killed me. 

After the 11:00 workout finished I was sold on this bootcamp, not because it made me feel like I'd actually done some serious physical activity (which it did) but because it got me to do exercises I didn't believe I could do. I was watching MTV's I Used to Be Fat last week, and there was a girl on the show who started at 253 pounds and her trainer was making her do these mountain climber moves. When I was watching her I thought, there is no way in hell I could do those. Yesterday I proved myself wrong. :)