The Healthy Tales

Posts Tagged ‘exercise’

So last week I totally slacked off. After going to see my doctor and telling her about how I was starting the Couch to 5K program to get back into shape as well as to give myself something to drag myself out of the house and into the gym, I totally whiffed and didn’t make it to the gym once.

So after a week of missing the gym and ordering in at work for an entire week (bleh!), I went back Friday night with Mike and finished week 1 of the couch to 5k program. Just like the previous 2 sessions, it was easy going for the first 2 intervals and then it got harder. I did push through and finish but after taking a week off, I think I am going to do one more week 1 session before jumping into week 2. I think I owe it to my body especially since I went back to the gym yesterday and lifted weights for the first time in what feels like forever. It was definitely a shocker in how out of shape I got so quickly. I learned though and will not be letting this happen again.

So yesterday was Session 2 of the Couch to 5k program. I didn’t do anything special or different than from the first night to prepare. I just grabbed my workout clothes, iPod, a towel, and a water bottle and drug my butt downstairs to the apartment gym and hopped on a treadmill. I would love to tell you that I felt a thousand times better and stronger than the first session but that would be a lie. LOL

I will say though that I felt I started out stronger than last time. I was able to go to a brisk 3.8mph walk to start things off within 2 minutes of starting the session. After that the first two 5 minute intervals of walking/jogging went by really fast and I was feeling really good. Then, once that timer turned past 15 minutes in, I started feeling it and noticing how out of shape I am. I didn’t give up and I didn’t turn the treadmill down but I did think about it a few times.

So by the end of the 25 minutes required by the program I had covered 1.74 miles (up .01 miles from session 1) and burned 170 calories. I also bumped my walking up to 3.8mph vs. 3.7mph and kept my jogging flat at 5.0mph.

I also pressed forward and did another 5 minute walk at 3.8mph, one 5 minuter interval, and then another 5 minute walk before cooling down for the night. I definitely felt like I had pushed myself but in a good way. We’ll see in the morning though what happens. I am hoping to finish week 1 tomorrow before jumping into the car and heading to Baton Rouge for the weekend. It will probably be rough as I am not too sleepy right now and then still up typing in this blog post and I need to wake up early for a doctor’s appointment. Riding an exercise bike for 40 minutes tonight didn’t help either. Oh well. No pain no gain right?

I’ve read about the Couch to 5k program a few times before. I’ve never given it a try as I am not a runner and the few times in my exercise life where I have become a runner, I didn’t need to rotate walking and running. Rather, I would just push myself and start running as I was in moderately good shape. This time around though I am more out of shape than I have been before or at least I feel that way and pushing has been leaving me tired and in pain.

So I decided to revisit the Couch to 5k program. If you are unfamiliar with it the link is here.  Everything seems very easy and straightforward.  You follow the program 3 times a week for 9 weeks and before you know it you are running a full 5k (3.3 miles roughly).  Week 1 requires a brisk walk/jog combination.  At first glance, warming up via a walk for 5 minutes and then alternating 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes sounds like nothing bad.  It actually seems easy and kind of wussy when you are use to running for 20-30 minutes (a year ago of course).

Off I went down to the treadmill and I started up my 5 minute walk – 2.5 minutes at 3.6mph and 2.5 minutes at 3.7mph.  Felt really nice and easy.  Then I started the interval portion.  The first 5 minutes were great, second 5 minutes and I’m feeling a nice sweat, the last 10 minutes I couldn’t believe this program was kicking my butt but I kept going.  I finished off pretty strongly but I’m curious to see how I progress as I was no where near 3.3 miles tonight.

Here are my final stats:

Day 1, Week 1

1.73 Miles

168 calories burned

25 minutes

Day 2, Week 1- Tuesday night!

Good grief! I will admit that for the past month I have been fairly lazy. I think in the month of September I went to the gym all of 3 times which is translated to be approximately 10%. There was no real good reason I skipped the gym other than I was being lazy and had absolutely no drive to go.

I didn’t think skipping for a month would be a big deal. I mean look at this past summer, I skipped most of July due to the wedding and then exercised off and on between January and June. Each time I picked myself back up and went to the gym, it was fairly easy to get into the swing of things and there was no revolution from my body. Rather, everything felt good, the stress was going away, and I felt re-energized.

This time around has been a whole ‘nother story as I like to say. I am tense, achy, and quite tired these past two days from exercising. I thought possibly that I just overdid things yesterday by spending an hour on the elliptical machine after taking the month off so I turned things down a small notch tonight – 35 minutes on the treadmill. I hate to say but I’m still not feeling much better about this whole exercise thing. I’m hoping that once I start lifting weights and take some of the focus away from cardio workouts that I’ll start feeling better and re-energized.

I think I’m going to pop an IB Profin and then take a warm bath so I can rest up and do it all over again tomorrow. The results are worth it, it is just a battle to get there!

Today I rejoined Weight Watchers.  I didn’t officially join in as that would be an extra budget expense I can’t afford right now, but I did “rejoin” at home today with my pen, paper, and the scale.  I hopped on the Wii Fit Balance board to take my Starting Weight and my Wii Fit Age so that I can track my progress along this fun journey.  I am not participating in any challenges right now but I’m hoping to remember to check with the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans in time to sign up for their next challenge. Their normal weekly weigh in is on Wednesday but I feel that stretching it out till Wednesday gives me an excuse to overdo it on the weekend and “fix” things by the time I face the scale again. Normally, that means a 0 weight loss and normally a 0 weight gain each week. Not very motivating as you can see. So I’m just going to be a tad early for the Wednesday Weigh in and try to keep myself on track all week.

So according to the Wii Fit ->
Starting Weight: 153.2
Wii Fit Age: 34 years old

Goal: 1 pound lost in 2 weeks, 10 pounds lost by Thanksgiving. Wii Fit age equal to my current age of 27.