Tag Archives: elliptical trainer

Folding Myself Into a Paper Airplane – Take 14

BoredPanda

NutriSystem suggested that I NOT exercise during the Turbo 13 week, so I happily followed that suggestion. Thursday of this week we started Week 2 of our programs, so there was no longer an excuse to lay off more formal exercising.

I’m now doing kind of a ‘free-form’ series of really long, slow stretches I learned from the “Gentle Yoga” series by instructor Cat Kabira. I found the series of DVDs through the website Sixty & Me, and I’ve been really happy – both with the website and the DVDs.

I’m stretching for 30 minutes (with Amber, our 93 pound puppy safely behind the gate in the office), trying to relax and move my body into good stretching positions and holding them and breathing into them. I lost some ground by not doing this every day, so I’m going to try to practice each day now.

The other thing I’m doing is 15 minutes on the Elliptical Trainer. We have it set up in the garage, so there is little excuse not to take advantage of it. I’m having to really push to do the 15 minutes, having been quite slothful lately.

Each day I’m getting a bit looser. I’m hoping to shed some stiffness and soreness as I move.

Leave a comment

Filed under exercise, getting the lard off

On the Right Track Again – Finally

funnyimagegallery.blogspot.com

 

My husband and I have had a hard time for the past 6 months or so on our efforts to get the lard off and get healthier by moving more. We simply drifted off the track, endlessly seeing yet another excuse for splurging or ignoring our guidelines. Excuses, lies, and blather followed.

We’ve been trying various things over the past month or so – some successful to a certain extent, but not really being serious on a long-term basis in our heads. Last Monday we came up with a combination that seems to be working for us! There are certain things that are important that we keep – such as my husband’s fruit and cereal in the morning and our orange dream bars at night – but everything else is on the table for discussion.

My husband likes to eat out at lunch. This has been one large problem because we tend to choose the wrong things at the deli, as an example. I have decided to be prepared to fix us a large salad for lunch each day. If my husband decides suddenly that ‘we’ should stop at CV’s and he wants to get lunch at  the deli, he can do that. If he does, I have a go-to meal I can throw together at home, some combination of raw veggies and dip, hard boiled egg, a bit of meat – things like that. For dinner we’re staying low carb. Last night we had a roast from the crock pot and some steamed mixed veggies. My husband is a big boy and can make decisions about whether he REALLY wants to eat half a bag of potato chips while he’s reading in the afternoon… We also chose carefully and stockpiled our pantry freezer with low carb, low sugar frozen dinners, so we’re not derailed if I’m “too tired to cook.” I’m concentrating on drinking more water during the day, as well.

Since last Monday I’ve lost 5 lbs. (18.2 total from my highest weight.)  I’m down 13″ from my starting point so far.

I’m hoping that I’ve finally turned the corner again, taking responsibility for what I put in my own mouth, rather than grabbing excuses out of the air and pointing fingers elsewhere.  I’ve told myself that I won’t be upset if the scales or the tape measure don’t show any improvement from one week to the next. I just want them NOT to INCREASE!

I have not been doing my exercising, again using lame excuses. :0(    We have a 91 pound lab ‘puppy’ who tends to come in and run over me on the floor on my yoga mat, knock me over, or lick me to death. There ARE ways around this problem.  It has been REALLLLLLY cold for Arkansas this month. My elliptical trainer lives in the garage, so I’ve been using the excuse that it was too cold to do that. (The fact that I have walking DVDs in the house has been ignored.) I have also piously excused myself because I have been tackling an area most days to DEEP clean, including taking everything out, going through it all, deciding what to keep, what to donate, and what to throw away before cleaning the area and all things in it and reorganizing. This is a good thing to do – and LONG overdue – but NOT a valid excuse for not doing regular exercise.

I’m giving myself a bit of slack, though, because I HAVE been eating much healthier and taking responsibility, so I’m honoring my promise to

taolife.com

but I need to put this together with an honest effort to at least do some yoga stretching each day. I’ll concentrate on that this week.

Wish me luck?

 

 

 

 

7 Comments

Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating

Juggling to Get the Lard Off

I’ve been doing well the last couple of days on my latest effort to lose the lard. This is my 3rd day of doing 15 minutes on my elliptical trainer in the garage (MUCH easier when I can get my music to play.)  I’m also folding myself into a paper airplane – doing 30 minutes of deep stretching yoga for old broads – slowly and carefully, as I’ve apparently tied myself in knots over the period I didn’t practice. I’ve done really well on my low-carb eating plan of  40 carbs per day and 1200 calories per day. Actually, I’ve had an easy time of staying under the calorie limit, but I’ve really had to juggle to get my carbs in line!

My laxness lately and the on-again-off-again cold weather here has caused my usually reasonable judgment to nosedive. My husband and I really like the fried catfish sold for lunch at one of the local deli’s. I’m getting two pieces of fish. (My husband gets the full dinner.)  Today I can make us a nice big salad for dinner with kielbasa leftovers from a recent grill outside.  Several times, though, I’ve wanted to serve our leftover beef stew with low carb garlic bread. It’s obvious that any time we go to the deli that idea is out!

The thing that is really helping me adjust my thinking, portions, and meals is MyFitnessPal.com.

I usually eat the same thing for breakfast every day except Friday, when we go to Lunch Bunch (brunch for us.) I can add things as I go, and then figure out the rest of the day thanks to their really superior, easy-to-use database of foods. I can hunt for something, find it and add it to my personal list, or I can add something if I can’t find it. I can keep changing and juggling until the numbers add up the way I want them to. I’ve tried several other record-your-eating-and-exercise websites, and I find this is the best one for me.

It makes me feel good to be giving healthier eating and exercise my best efforts again.

2 Comments

Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating

Folding Myself into a Paper Airplane – Take 13

The Awesome Daily

I told you that I did something mysterious and hurt my back. I have no clue what I did, but I was in real agony for about a month, unable to do much except gripe, groan an try to sleep while my husband tried to keep things afloat and take care of me. I’m really not interested in repeating this experience, so I have CAUTIOUSLY begun my yoga for old ladies stretching again, plus CAREFULLY starting up my sessions on the elliptical trainer.

I have to put Amber on the porch because getting on the floor is an invitation for 65 pounds + of dog to sit on you, mouth open, with too many teeth available.  I’m doing stretching on my own on my mat, rather than trying to do a lesson from my “Gentle Yoga” DVD set. I’m up to 10 minutes again on the elliptical – pretty pathetic, except I don’t know what I did to trigger my problem. I’m treated myself kind of like a time bomb at this point, hoping to ease into more and more.

Since I’ve been walking and playing with Amber several times each day, plus working in the yard, I’m still getting a reasonable amount of exercise.

Now – If I can JUST be a good little girl and eat my low-carb stuff, my world will be complete.

taolife.com

Leave a comment

Filed under Attitude, DIET!, exercise

Getting the Lard Off Report 3/31/2017

Today is DAY 5 our renewed efforts on eating healthier and moving more.

YourEllipticals.com

I want to get started gathering ‘goodies’ for the new hummingbird bird bath, but I acted like an adult (at least more than usual :0) ) and did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer. I’m listing all my food, plus my exercise, on MyFitnessPal.com, getting a more realistic idea of the amount I’m eating and making sure it’s 1200 calories or less, and 40 grams of carbohydrates or less, each day.

Later today I’ll do one session of yoga.

World of Female

I’ll report to you on Wednesday of next week. Hopefully, I’ll be able to tell you that we’re definitely making progress again.

If nothing else, I’m feeling better than I’m TRYING.

taolife.com

Leave a comment

Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Attitude, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise, Healthy Eating

Move it!

ellipticalmachine-yourellipticals-com

yourellipticals.com

Yesterday I did pretty well on getting my body moving.  I started with 15 minutes on the elliptical trainer in the garage. (I took it easy because I had sore muscles from helping my husband put up another raised bed planter in the garden the day before. ) This low impact exercise is good for me because it’s easy on my joints and encourages range of motion.

 

 

ex-askthetrainer-com

AskTheTrainer.com

I had my first session with my exercise ball. It was pretty pathetic. I kept trying – but failed – to quit picturing myself trying to use this new tool. I had as much or more trouble getting ON the ball in the right position without falling off as I did trying to do whatever the exercise was. I wallowed a lot, but persevered.  The biggest problem was when my husband came in, took one look at me and laughed. (GRRRR!) I then offered to share my workout with him and he left. :0)

I have a few sore muscles this morning, having used different ones that I apparently do doing ANYTHING else. I figure, though, that my TRYING to do each of the exercises will result – eventually – in improvement. To say I have a long way to go is a vast understatement, but I AM moving.

The combination of the elliptical and the exercise ball seems to be a good one. I’ll try to do this a couple of times per week. The alternate days I’ll try to concentrate on my strength exercises with weights and stretching.

I’m trying to take breaks from whatever else I’m doing and MOVE – either exercising or walking out to the garden, or….

Wish me luck. I’m lucky enough to continue to get older each day so far. I’d LIKE to think I’m getting better than I’ve been in a long time.

 

taolife.com

taolife.com

Leave a comment

Filed under Attitude, exercise

Progress Report – Getting the Lard Off – 9/21/2016

taolife.com

taolife.com

I’m still on the ‘Plateau from Hell,’ as far as weight and inches go, (46 pounds and 23-1/2 inches off) but I freely admit that I’ve been eating more carbs than I should for the past week. My husband was really hungry for a few things, and I had put him off because they weren’t on my low-carb foods. I finally decided to indulge, since I didn’t want to prepare two separate meals for us. I think we’re now at the end of his really strong requests. He’s happy and so am I. :0)

He’s cutting WAAAAY back on sugar. This is a really good thing and I’m trying to encourage him every way I can. There are a lot of good recipes that are low carb AND low sugar, so we should be good for the near future.

 

I’ve been made newly aware, lately, of my age. This is mainly due to my trying to do two miles walking with annoying Leslie every day PLUS either upper or lower body strength exercises. I messed myself up, paying the price with several days where I felt 90+ years old. I decided to try a different approach.

I’m now doing the elliptical trainer for 30 minutes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

yourellipticals.com

yourellipticals.com

 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m doing both upper and lower body strength exercises with 5 lb. weights. (several different exercises, 3 sets of 8 reps each)

 

 

I also got an exercise ball that is now aired up and ready for me.

One of my good friends has one. She says she’s sitting on it while watching TV, bouncing. Isn’t that a wonderful mental picture? It makes me smile. She has to keep her balance in order to do this, so that involves lots of muscles.

The ball also comes with a chart of exercises I can add things as I want. I’m planning to do the ball stuff a little at a time on days I’m doing the strength exercises.  I can really use the emphasis on balance. This plan, along with just being aware that I need to keep moving (I carry a pedometer in my pocket),  hopefully will prove a good combination for me.

 

5 Comments

Filed under DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off