Joel: I'm Alive!

The last few weeks have been pretty busy, and so I haven't updated on here. I have been slowly making my way through the Couch To 5K program doing my "low-impact running". This evening, I did Week 3 Day 2. I used a treadmill for the first time this year on Friday morning when I was in San Antonio for the Texas Music Educators Associaion Convention. It was really cool. When I got tired, I was able to hold myself up so my legs could keep working but wouldn't have to support my entire body weight. Not sure it's the best thing for the treadmill, but it was the hotel's and not mine!

This is the beginning of my eighth week of working out. A few weeks ago, I decided to only run 3 days a week and try to do Wii Fit the rest of the days. After three weeks of doing that, I am certain that this plan will not be most effective for weight-loss. So I'm going back to exploring outdoors 5-7 days a week. If it gets too bad, I'll just run around my living room for 30 minutes with Wii Fit, but I really do prefer the outdoors. Something about nature and open air.

I have been doing this now for seven weeks. It's crazy when I think that I hadn't run in over a decade as recently as January 3rd. Now I am getting my breathing under control when I run and things are starting to get easier.

Slowly.

The weight loss has slowed a bit, but I think a lot of that has to do with me not getting out of the house to exercise every day. So far in 7 weeks, I have lost at least 5 pounds. If I can maintain even this slowed rate, I am on track to lose more than 35 pounds this year.

And this is without the use of any underhanded methods such as low-carb crash dieting or even as extreme as fasting.

Speaking of extreme methods, the school weigh-in is coming up on March 8th. I need to schedule about 5-9 days of fasting between now and then. Hey, I do want to win the money since it's there for the taking!

Carol Update: The Not So Chipper Me

My goodness I forgot to begin the last post with a "Your Mum's So Fat" joke in honor of the lack of Chubby Brits who failed to rise up to the occasion and participate in this little fitness challenge. So-o-o-o here are two of them (jokes that is, still no Chubby Brits)… Yo Mum's So Fat Joke #4…"They have to put speed bumps at the all you can eat buffet." Yo Mum's So Fat Joke #5… "She laid out on the beach and Greenpeace threw her into the ocean."

OK, so now that I am caught up, Here's a brief midweek update…

Monday…

• garage. semi-cold. kickboxing. (cat OK)
• went to Pilates Torture Time. Doomsday Becky postponed her trip by one day and did attend. Dora Who's Not The Explorer was out of town, and "A," who is Dora Who's Not The Explorer's daughter was not there either.

HOWEVER… (can I get one of those movie, suspenseful duh-duh-duhs and is that how you spell that?)

Two new people who were very, very, very very chipper  showed up, and they could do EVERYTHING without even one teensy groan or complaint. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, the Chippers could draw perfect circles and triangles with their legs. And, as if that isn't bad enough, let me just say that the words "lard" and "behind" never would appear in the same sentence as these two newcomers. Sadly, that is not the case in my case.


Still, I muddled through thinking not-so-happy thoughts.


Tuesday…

• Garage. Cold. Kickboxing. Pretty sure I now know all the words to the Black Eyed Peas song, "I Gotta A Feelin.'"
• Pretended all the Chippers of the world were on my punching bag.
• Doing fairly well with my standing Eagle pose.
• Tuesday night… yoga… Missy Chrissy Pretzel admitted that she was the one who told the Chippers about Pilates Torture Time class. Spent the entire class working on what Missy Chrissy Pretzel says is "letting go of all those hidden areas of stress." 
• So I tried to work on my Chipper issues.
• Worked on the Eagle Pose too, but I kept falling over.

I don't know why I can do the Eagle Pose better in my garage than in class. I keep falling over in class. 

As best as I can figure, that building must have some sort of foundation problems and the floor tilts.

Carol: And Now For The True Test…

Alrighty then… so I figure after my last appeal of "Is anyone out there?" there's probably  about two other people reading this thing besides Joel and me.

Somewhat of a disappointment, but then again, life is filled with disappointments, and we muddle through, do we not?

After watching Julie & Julia, I guess I was expecting a tad more readers. Instead, I just got hungry and wanted to whip out my Julia Child cookbook and whip up a few recipes.

But I didn't. Now before you get overly excited about my amazing exhibition of will power, I must say that frankly I was too tired and went to bed instead.

So let's have a brief recap of the week where we left off…

• Wednesday…garage, cold, kickboxing (cat OK)
• Thursday…yoga… doing better at not falling over. Thankfully, no Killer Dolphin poses.
• Friday…garage, cold, kickboxing (cat still OK)
• Saturday…walked 2 miles
• Sunday…walked 2 miles

OK, now for the real test, the real challenge… Monday is Pilates Torture Time. Doomsday Becky is out of town… Dora Who's Not The Explorer is out of town. "A," who is Dora Who's Not The Explorer's daughter, supposedly does not plan to attend without her mother…  Hmmmmmmm, who does that leave? There are two other sporadic people who randomly show up, so that really only leaves…


Oh my, that leaves only ME… ME ME ME…

So do I go? I'll get back to you on that one…