What’s better than 40 minutes crushing calories on the elliptical and treadmill at the gym?
Watching the Phillies send the Dodgers to bed with a 1-2-3 bottom of the 9th in Los Angeles while burning those 367 calories.
Take that Breakfast!
Hit the showers Kent!
HA Ramirez!
Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!
Just sayin’.
I went to the gym today for the first time in six months. There’s a few reasons I haven’t been, which I won’t go in to, but this morning I woke up, and said enough is enough.
The fact that we decided to skip band practice didn’t hurt.
So, I got my gear on, threw the iPod in the arm band, filled my water bottle, and headed off.
I took it fairly easy, just fifteen minutes on the elliptical and twenty walking at a slight incline. I burned 275 calories. Not bad at all for the first time after six months.
I had completely forgotten how great/awful it feels to go to the gym. I won’t ever be one of those freaks that tells you working out feels good. It hurts. It hurts my knees. I get cramps in my sides. I breathe heavily. I sweat A LOT. At the same time, it’s still good to feel the air moving in and out of my lungs, and I love that zoned out mind wandering feeling that I get in the middle of the workout.
So now I just have to keep up the good work, and keep going.
I thought of a new reason to go to the gym today. I’m not cold at the gym. Working out warms me up like it’s summer. Almost like it’s summer in the central valley.
The thing is, I hate winter. I hate chills, shivering, and I absolutely abhor goose bumps. I hate cold that I can’t escape. Lately, there’s no escaping cold.
It’s unusually cold in California this week. I think the high in Oakland was 47. That’s usually the low. I’ve said before that I think 70 is my personal minimum. Maybe 68. I could deal with a day like today every once in a while, but it’s been two days already, and I think tomorrow will be more of the same. Plus rain. The only thing worse than bitterly cold is bitterly cold and wet.
On top of the cold outside, the heat in the office is lame. Someone from my office calls the maintenance dude every day. I sit on my hands. I take off my shoes and sit on my feet. I wear sweaters over my sweaters. I wear my coat. It’s just ridiculous. It’s inhumane. I’m about to call my boss in New York and tell him that if nothing can be done to fix the heat, then I’m going to insist on working from home. It’s that bad.
So, in the midst of the hellish coldness, it occurred to me that if I was on the elliptical, I wouldn’t be cold. So for the rest of the week, the gym is my blanket. My calorie burning, thigh toning blanket.
I used to have a very good gym habit. At one point, I was going as many as five times per week. Of course, I also lived around the corner from my gym.
After an illness, and moving, I’ve just fallen out of the habit. So even though I haven’t made any resolutions about such things, I do realize that I would like to get back into the routine. Even if I only go half as much as I was going when it was practically in my kitchen, that wouldn’t be half bad. Especially since I’m contemplating walking the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in July.
I went this evening, and I did 20 minutes on the elliptical at half the level that I used to do for 40 minutes. That was a little bit of an ego blow, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, right? I probably could have pushed through and done another 10 minutes, but I figured it would be better to start out slow, even slower than I thought I needed.
So, I burned 200 calories. Yay me! Now I’m sitting here with a ThermaCare heat wrap on my bum knee. Arthritis sucks. This is part of the reason why I’m not sure about doing the 39.2 mile breast cancer walk. However, if I keep going to the gym, and build up my knee, I may be just fine.
So here’s what I’m taking away from this: I just need to keep going, I need to pick up more of these wraps, and damn my new iPod is really that cool.
Peggy Lu Who's Just Sayin' 