Blood, Sweat and Tears

It's time to get tough, I said, and up the gym visits and lower the junk food. Gotta give yourself 8 solid weeks of being a good girl, eating right, working out, and not giving up if the scale spits out lies and slander the for the first couple of weeks.

So far, I've succeeded in this mission for 5 days. Been a super good girl. Today, I'm a little good-naturedly frustrated with the exponential difficulty of being a good girl.

I've exercised at least one hour every day this week. Every other day it's been intense at the gym, the other days it's been bike trips downtown to run this or that errand. Last night we even took a walk over to our friends' new house, and thanks to our mutually poor sense of direction, we were walking for an hour.

The rate at which my strength and cardio endurance improve are fascinating. I did the exact same workout on Monday, Wednesday, and today: 35 minutes on one of these X-country ski-like elliptical machines and then 45 minutes of weight lifting according to a program I got from the PT at my gym. The trusty Polar pulse watch was with me, of course. On Monday, my heart rate was up above 180 -- which is not super super high for me, because if I run it's up around 200; I'm like a small rodent -- on Wednesday it was about 170, and today the same elliptical workout kept me around 160, despite the fact that I was consciously trying to spin my legs faster than before and keep the RPMs above 50.

The upside is that it's a reminder that the body really does get stronger quite quickly once you manage to stick to a routine.

The downside is that getting stronger is my secondary goal -- losing weight is my primary (well, arguably, losing weight in order to get stronger). And where I burned around 500 Calories during my workout on Monday, I only managed to rid myself of 390 today. Plus, if these workouts are making me stronger and giving me more energy, someone tell me why it's tough to drag myself out of bed at 8 in the morning and why I must wince every time I raise my arms above my head 3-4 days after each workout. Anyone?

Whining aside, I'm quite proud of myself. Aside from the exercise routine, I've had a week packed full of fruits, veggies, no alcohol (admittedly, not tough), very little coffee (a little tougher!), and only one bout of "I'm too lazy to cook" that led me to eat at McDonald's. But it's okay -- I had a Happy Meal, only 590 Calories. ;)