exercise regularly

I hereby re-commit myself to this goal. Last fall for a good while I was exercising regularly and feeling really good about it. But with winter came languor and laziness and lately I’m really feeling the effects of that. I want to start exercising every morning before work again. I like the exercise ladder I was using before (hacker’s diet, based on the XBX) and am going back to it – I started back at level 5 today – still very light.

I am also recommitting to taking the stairs more, especially at home (I live in an apartment building).

Exercising is important to me for weight loss and also for general health. Being 27 and having a doctor tell me my cholesterol is high is ridiculous. So here goes. This is going to be a priority for me.

But I’m starting again bright and early tomorrow am.
Say one for me, that I’ll be able to stick this time!

I have a new bathing suit, I’ve made my body as presentable as it can be all things considered, and I’m ready to start swimming again. Haven’t swum seriously since high school; once in awhile I’ve gone swimming since but never really for exercise, just for fun and sometimes with the nephews. I’m sure my form will suck but it’s the activity that matters, right? Maybe once I get back into it I’ll enroll in a class or something – I know the local Y offers a class for adults to work on their strokes.

Still haven’t overcome the basic problem of eyesight, though. I’m very nearsighted and hate going without my glasses – though I probably won’t physically run into people in the pool, I find it very disorienting, like living in a Monet painting, but without all the serenity and French landscapes. Maybe I should find out just how expensive it would be to get prescription goggles. Any ideas, anyone?

I’m really starting to enjoy stairclimbing. And I don’t mean on a machine. I live in a six-floor apartment building (including ground floor) and recently, whenever I have some pent-up energy or haven’t exercised in awhile, I put on a t-shirt and my mp3 player and go out and start climbing, floor to floor. I start out going up one, down the hall, up the other side, down the hall, etc so that my path looks kind of like a number 5. Then when I’ve warmed up I go up two, over, up two, over. Then up 3, over etc. Tonight I did up 4 and over twice too but I find that takes a fair amount out of me and I can’t do too many repetitions – yet! The way down gives me a chance for a quick cool down so that it becomes a kind of varied-intensity cardio exercise. I can’t move too fast as our building has a rule against running on the stairs, but I move at a steady pace.

I’m starting to really enjoy this as it’s something I don’t have to learn how to do or worry about my “form”. I don’t need equipment or space or even that much time, and it’s something I can do on my own without feeling like I’m exercising on display – anyone I encounter will hopefully just assume I’m just on my way upstairs. And it’s indoors – and with winter starting to set in for the long haul, that’s very important!

I listen to my music and look out the windows as I get higher. I also keep passing by the apartment I’m moving to at the end of the month – yay! It’s on the fifth floor, so this is partially motivated by the fact that I want to be able to take the stairs to my apartment without collapsing after the move (I’m currently on 2nd).

Frankly I’m starting to feel good about how much I can do before I feel like I need to stop; it’s more than I think I would have been able to do a month or two ago. Hurray!

I feel like I’m getting back on track with my am exercise and am up to rung 7 – still very light and easy, but helpful. And wow, does it ever give me energy in the morning! And I’m climbing stairs more. Hurray for moving in the right direction again!

Hm, I’ve missed my daily routine a few times in the past week or so, mostly because of lack of privacy (staying over at other people’s homes). I still haven’t gotten over my aversion to exercising with other people around, even if they’re in another room. Sigh. But I think I’ll have the apartment to myself when I go home for lunch today so I’ll start ‘rung 5’ at noon rather than in the morning today, and that will be okay. :)

This exercise thing has mostly been entirely positive, though there’s been one drawback. I find myself really chafing at having a roommate where I rarely did before. She’s usually gone in the morning well before I have to leave for work so it works out well – I do my routine after she leaves. But whenever it happens that she isn’t gone, or that I have to leave early, I find myself really starting to resent her presence. And that’s MY problem, not hers! And little things like thinking about getting a recumbent bike – but it would either a) have to go in the living room, where she would be too or b) have to go in my bedroom making it obvious I was hiding and leaving her probably feeling a little lonely. Sigh. Just got to work through this.

I’m in Winnipeg right now at a meeting. Our meeting let out early this morning to allow staff to participate in a world record attempt to have the most people walking one kilometre at one time. I don’t know yet if we actually did make the record, but it sure was great to get out of the meeting room and into the fall air!!!

Just got in from a great walk! Mom needed to go to the Uni for work reasons so I went with her to show her the building and room she needed. Then she stayed and I walked home. It’s a great place to walk, bordering the park, over the lake, and autumn leaves everywhere. Nice strong wind in my face keeping me cool and giving me something to work against. I was walking hard to try to get some cv benefit and I really felt like I got some good exercise.

Feelin’ groovy!!

I wish autumn lasted longer!!!

This week I started rung 3 on the exercise ladder I’m doing (which takes you from a state of complete sedentariness through a series of “rungs” of gradually increasing difficulty exercise that you do every day for 5-15 minutes). I’m really starting to enjoy it. I’ve always hated exercising for the sake of exercising, especially anything that brought up memories of high school phys ed (shudder). But I’m really liking the way this is weaning me into it (can you use the word weaning like that?). Today in the jog-and-jump part my heart rate really got going and for once, I didn’t hate the feeling. It felt right.

My work is doing a fitness challenge thing as a part of our United Way campaign, “Walk Across Canada”. We’re in teams of 10 across Canada and every 10 min of physcal activity per person counts for 5 km for our team. As much as the cynical part of me finds such things rather cheesy, I’m actually finding it to be a good motivator. It’s fun to be able to get into work and have to kind of dance down to the water cooler because I need one more minute to make the full 10 so it will count! (I’m known for being the bouncy one at work anyway, so this is not out of character.) If your workplaces are the type that you think would get into it, I would encourage something like this. A little friendly competition and a good balance between exercising on your own but knowing your coworkers are doing it too is proving to be a good motivator for me.