f4f3 | Exercise update

I’ve been a bit lazy about updating my gym progress for a while, in fact, I’ve been a bit lazy about updating, period, since the LJ site got blocked from work. The attempt to switch to “update by e-mail” has been foiled by my employer's non-negotiable email footer - you might not mind seeing my email address at work, but all that legalese would get very tiring, very soon.

Last week I managed five days at the gym in a row – it had a visible impact. By Friday I felt better, my posture was better, and I’d lost 4 pounds instead of my more or less usual 2. This week I’ve been along twice so far, but I’m not likely to make five again – my birthday is on Thursday, and I’m taking Friday off work. I’ve set myself new benchmarks to keep the workout interesting. I started with a straight “how many calories can I burn in 30 minutes”, and built that up from 300 to 350 to 400. When I was comfortable with that, I started trying to get my time down for 400 calories, with a target of 27 minutes (a 10% improvement). I made that by the end of last week, so now I’ve upped it to 450 calories, which took me 31 minutes 15 seconds this morning. The obvious target for that is now 30 minutes. That’s about what I was doing at my fittest, two years ago. This time I’ll try to press on to 500, even if that means upping the minutes to 35 (actually, I’m just about on that schedule already, so if I can drag myself out of bed earlier, I might start going for the 500 next week).

This morning’s session was made easier by my discovery of a free podcast called Podrunner (you can find it on the iTunes store). A D.J. called Steve Boyett has put together hour-long mixes at specific beats-per-minutes for running, spinning, or any other sort of exercise. I downloaded one called “Native Suns”, which worked well for me this morning.

My weight loss is going to target, by the way. I’ve kept off the initial big losses, and continue to average about a pound or two a week. It’s a long process, but I hope to make two stones (12 kilos) by the end of May or so.

And I've just finished 30 minutes on the Wii Fit.