So I have a confession to make, I know I posted all about how I wanted to set up another three week plan to keep me motivated and on track but I didn't end up coming up with anything official before the start of the week on Monday. We're actually hoping to close on the house this week, which is looking more and more like it's probably not going to happen on time ... again. Anyway I was thinking that over the next three weeks I'll probably be spending a lot of time cleaning, packing, painting, moving, and unpacking and I realized that any three-week plan I did come up with would probably just get shot in the foot as a result so I decided to wing it until the move is over and we're settled in the new house.
Well ... signing hasn't gone as planned but I still didn't want to fall off the wagon so the last few days have just been fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants. Monday was walking/shopping and sprinting with the dogs but all totally unstructured. Tuesday I broke out a dance workout video on Netflix after Snackers left for his night jobs. And last night I decided to go back to the good old floor exercises to build more muscle. I realized that front leg lifts are a WHOLE LOT more effective for abs than crunches. Crunches are a waste of time I would even dare say. I was doing 200 crunches twice a week for the last three weeks and had gotten to the point where I wasn't even getting tired doing them. Without a weight machine for abs the only solution would have been to up my crunch count but 200 crunches is a long time to be rolling my bones around on the floor (more explanation on that statement later) so I did a web search for more effective ab exercises to do at home and found leg lifts/curls. I was doing them when I first started this journey but for some reason I'd stopped for a long time and forgot how damn hard they are. You lay on your back, brace your hands under your butt and curl your knees up to your chest, then straighten your legs so that they are parallel with the floor and as close to the ground as you can suspend them without actually letting them touch, then curl them back up. They're super tough to do but they don't hurt the bones/spine as much as normal crunches.
On that note, I had another epiphany regarding how much I've lost last night. I used to do floor exercises comfortably with plenty of padding for my hips and shoulder blades but doing them last night was completely different. My hip bones were pressing into the floor doing the side leg lifts and the last time I did normal crunches it bruised my shoulder blades for the same reason. That tells me that those areas have a LOT less fat on them than they used to. Saweet.
Food:
8 glasses of water
1 cup of coffee w/creamer
1 Fiber One bar
1/2 serving leftover roast veggies (but no roast)
1 piece leftover chicken (lunch)
1 serving shepherds pie (dinner)
1/2 serving pickles & pb (post workout snack)
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Daily Caloric Intake: 1,002
Activity:
3 flights of stairs
50 push-ups (increased intensity on these, more info in tomorrow's post)
25 squats
25 lunges
30 minutes of yoga and stretching to release muscle tension
A few weeks of "unstructured" is GOOD for you! Enjoy it. :)
ReplyDeleteIf you ever have a desire to switch things back up to crunches, there is an alternative to a crunch-weight machine: a weighted medicine-ball (or similar alternatives... basically, any small weight you can hold in your hands). When you first start you hold the ball between your hands tucked-in over your chest while you crunch. As that becomes easier, you hold the ball over your face. The final step is to hold it, arms-outstretched, over your head (the top of you head, not over your face). By placing the weight further away from the fulcrum-point (your mid-section) it makes the weight effectively "heavier". After that you can increase the weight of the ball (they make different weights). You can also graduate to something called an "X-Vest" which is a vest you wear and strap 5-lb weights in to... can wear something like 60# of weights in it! They are awesome for walking and stuff too to simulate you are a bigger person when you actually aren't. Even sitting in 1 at the computer for several hours is tiring! You might want to look into one, it could really help you out where you work at home! You buy the vest online and then you can just go to Wal-mart and buy as many small 5-lb weights as you want.
(b)
Yeah those medicine balls have a lot of really good uses. I remember throwing one back and forth with H at Thanksgiving one year (when we all stayed at that ranch by the horses) and just tossing it back and forth was exhausting in many ways. The weight vests are pretty awesome too and I've been thinking about getting those weights that strap around the ankle for my walks. Mom had two pair a few years ago so I figured I'd check with her next time we were up there and see if she'd sell or loan one set to me.
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