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Health and fitness
I’m pleased to share that I’ve made it to one of my longer term goals on my fitness and weight loss journey. I started back in August, I think, and I’ve lost just over seven kilograms which is pretty significant. I am not rushing the progress and trying not to get too tied to rigid routines because that seems to cause my downfall most of the time. My biggest improvements have been in my diet because I’ve been able to restrain myself from overdoing it a lot better lately than in the past few years.
My exercise has also been going pretty well too. I’ve been mostly cycling and walking for exercise up until now. I find I have a lot more stamina for climbing hills doing either and I can sort of keep up with the Scientist when walking with him. He walks really fast so I am still slow next to him even at my fittest….so he slows down for me and I speed up for him as much as possible.
I notice a couple weeks ago that I have a lot of sagginess in my arms so that motivated me to finally get on to doing some strength work after all this time. It’s still early days on this (only done it twice) but I started out using the Wii U Fit for some cardio work and then moved on to various other exercises including some using light weights. I’m mostly using a .5 kg dumbbell and it’s sad to see how even that is a bit of a strain after a couple of sets. Hopefully I will sort that out soon and be a bit more balanced overall.
My clothing size has definitely dropped in this time. I still need the same size tops but I can see it won’t be long until I move to the next size down. I’m just rather top-heavy so the fit isn’t quite right yet. On the other hand, the shorts I’ve been wearing have been just about sliding over my hips with almost no movement so I went out and got a couple pairs of shorts that are one size down. I do have some smaller ones here but I haven’t gotten down far enough to wear those yet.
I did have a couple instances in the last couple of months that seriously could have derailed my efforts. On one occasion I started out fine and I even felt as though I was exerting little effort for the first fifteen minutes. But then my heart started racing while climbing a hill and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to come down until I completely stopped riding when I stopped at some markets about half an hour from home (by bike). I walked around there and got a drink and then bought another drink along the way. I had made the mistake of forgetting to take water but that shouldn’t have caused the problem. Anyway, I started to feel better so decided to carry on with my ride and went to another suburb where I was again struggling with racing heart and struggle to get to the shopping centre there to get more fluids. I did feel a bit better but not particularly great to ride home. Fortunately the most direct way is a mostly downhill ride so I was able to coast most of the way and then go slowly the rest of the way home. I’m not quite sure why I had such a bad time of on that day because I didn’t feel unwell before I went out and I did feel unwell for a day or two afterwards.
Interesting thing is the next ride was totally opposite and was a good experience all around. It took me a few days before I tried to cycle again so it was a relief that it went so well that time.
Last weekend I bought an Apple watch, in part so that it would be easier to look at my stats while riding or walking instead of constantly looking at my phone. I’ve used it for cycling twice and it worked really well except for the fact the app I use somehow switched my activity to walking. I was able to change this before I stopped the app and it seems like it shows cycling as it should. I think this happened when the activity tracker accidentally started on the phone, which sent it to the watch, where something must have moved the digital crown and changed the activity there…and that made the change on the phone…sigh…will just have to be careful in the future about that. I don’t think there’d have been an issue had the app not started by accident.
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Fitness update
It’s now been nearly eight months since I started going to the gym and I’ve lost just under 9kgs now. It’s certainly not going quickly but at least it is shifting. It’s funny that I bought a pair of 3/4 length black denim pants last month to wear to the Neil Finn/Paul Kelly concert and it is already getting rather loose around my waist. I think I may find it more difficult with the cooler weather as almost all my clothes for winter are larger sized…I am going to try to manage with only a few new additions as I don’t want to invest too much in clothes I plan not to fit next winter.
The exercise is mostly going okay although I seem to have a bit of an injury to my calf muscles at the moment. Yesterday I was using the glutes machine (you stand over the machine and push back a pedal with one of your feet to lift the weight) and was finding it quite uncomfortable to do the weight I’ve been using for a while. My calf muscles were a bit sore beforehand but I suspect this might have pushed me over the edge. The unfortunate part is I have a tai chi workshop in the morning and I’m worried it’s going to be painful to work on the moves I need to focus on. It isn’t painful with every step so I’m hopeful resting today will allow me to feel okay in the morning.
I’m continuing to mix up my workouts every so often to keep from getting bored with exercise and it seems to work for the most part. I backed off from rowing workouts due because it almost always exacerbate my shoulder pains. But i tried it out again a couple days ago and it felt pretty good. I probably just need to keep the times shorter than I’d been doing to keep on track. I also tried out a step class I hadn’t done before and it was mostly okay. I didn’t stick it out for the full class because I got rather mentally exhausted trying to keep up with the choreography but will go back to it at some point to try again. I also tried a bit of a boxing class yesterday just to see if I could do it…again it was a matter of the moves overwhelming me so I quite after about ten minutes. I had tried a shorter class before but didn’t find it gave me much of a workout…this one seems like it might do a lot better if I can learn enough to get through the class. I’ve found the classes can be a sort of challenge to overcome so taking little steps will hopefully allow me to reach my goal.
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Not much weight loss but…
It’s now been about five and a half months of exercise/improved diet/etc and my weight loss as of this weekend was again about 5 kilograms. The scales don’t tell the full story though. I went to put on a pair of shorts that were a bit tight several months ago and they are now so loose I cannot wear them as they’d surely fall off after a few steps. I think this might be due to stronger abdominal muscles as my tummy isn’t pooching so much as it has (since Game Fanatic was born, I think!).  I can now also fit into a pair of size 14 workout pants that I bought for $5 several months ago when I discovered the discount on the size 16 ones I had purchased.  They are a bit snug but I think they may fit comfortably in another month or two. Meanwhile my original workout pants are starting to look really baggy…they are comfortable but I imagine it won’t be long until they are too loose to keep wearing. Hopefully that will happen before they fall apart due to constant use. I’ve also noticed a few of my shirts are looking really loose now.  The only tightness is around the sleeves but that would be due to the muscle that has built up in my upper arms.
This is what I have to remember when the scales don’t tell me a nice story. :D
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Sore and a bit frustrated
Pretty much since I started going to the gym, I’ve been doing glutes exercises since they were recommended by my physio. I thought I was doing pretty well with them. Then I tried a new workout in the Fitness on Request room at the gym called Kinetics and have obviously gone overboard because my bottom is so sore. That’s at 2.5 days after that workout. I’m still going to the gym but haven’t done the same exercises. The workout included lots of squats and lunges. While I can’t keep up with the number done in the workout, I did quite a few of them and must have used a lot of muscles that I haven’t been using. So I’m quite sore. Despite this I found it was a workout that I kind of liked and felt I might one day get used to doing. And I particularly liked the fact that the person in the video doing the easy option really was showing the easier option most of the time. On the spin bike video the easy option person doesn’t do the workout that much differently to the others. I hope I’m feeling better tomorrow because I’d like to try this workout again soon.
Meanwhile, my weight loss isn’t really going very far after five months of dedicated exercise and I’m frustrated at times. It’s not that I’m not losing the centimeters (I am although that has plateaued a bit) but the weight is mostly still there. At the moment my loss is less than 4kgs. My original goal was supposed to be an effortless 1 kg a month…effortless so long as I stuck to my exercise…which I have done. My overall loss hasn’t quite reached this goal and I seem to be a bit stuck right now.
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Rowing
My fitness routine is staying pretty constant and I’ve been to the gym at least six days a week for seven weeks as of today. A couple weeks ago I finally had my personal trainer session that comes free with my membership. I already know enough about the cardio side of things so wanted to add in a strength routine to balance out my program a bit more.
So far weight loss has been fairly low, which is frustrating at times. Essentially I’ve lost about 1.5 kgs in seven weeks. It’s nothing to be upset about but I was hoping I’d be down at least 3-4 kgs by now. On the plus side I am mostly losing centimeters around the waist and hips, except for last weekend when I seem to have gained a bit on both. Maybe it’s not correct but I am attributing it in part to my period starting as I usually do gain weight. Just didn’t know it might affect my waistline as it did. Happily my spot check yesterday showed it’s gone back down again and I just have to be patient and persistent. Seems to sound a lot like what my surgeon told me about my knee. :D
This week the gym finally finished the Fitness on Request room and the Scientist and I tried out the spin class. Actually, the class we tried turned out to be a tutorial for using the spin bike that ran for 20 minutes and could have been done in five. By that time, the Scientist had had enough of the uncomfortable seat and moved on to other equipment. I stayed and tried out the proper class and got quite a workout in twenty minutes. My biggest difficulty in the class is having to stand up while pedalling as my knee isn’t strong enough to lift me yet. But I have found I can do it by using my right leg and going slowly. I think that’s better than not trying it and it seemed to do no harm. I went back yesterday and tried again and was much better at the standing parts and maybe will figure out all moves properly in a few more tries. I have given up the treadmill for the time being as I think I was getting bored with that so will add that back in when I need to take a break from another machine.
The real surprise in the past couple of months is my love of the rowing machine. I never knew I would ever make progress on that. We have an air rower at home and I never managed to get past a few minutes on it. So imagine my surprise when regular use of the gym machine has me a bit obsessed. I have discovered interval rowing and that seems to suit me the best so far. I can now row for 30 minutes, taking one minute breaks every few minutes for rest. I can see how my endurance has increased on that. But I think my technique needs some improvement so I’ve been looking at the website of the machine to see what I should be doing and will take that on board when I do my cardio workout tomorrow.
Overall, I am feeling a lot better with my body and have yet to injure myself. I think changing equipment is helping a lot so I don’t overuse anything for too long. I’m still optimistic that the weight will start falling off as I go but can always feel pleased with the improvements in my cardio health, which is of utmost important thanks to my family history of heart disease.
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The ongoing weight struggle
This process of improving lifestyle and losing weight is far more difficult to navigate than I would have expected. It is all well to lose the weight and do the right thing for your health. But at some stage goals, or significant parts of goals are met. This is the tricky stage because it is so easy to ease up the stubborn streak that keeps me eating well and exercising.
At the end of January last year, I started on an improved health and fitness lifestyle. I started pretty small and worked my way to doing regular exercise and a much improved diet. This was spurred by an out-of-range blood sugar level, which was later confirmed as type two diabetes. Over the course of about eight or nine months, I lost nearly 20 kgs. I had setbacks due to injuries but even when not exercising as well, I was still eating well. I plateaued over the next months.