Category Archives: Fitness

4 Workout Week (or Heavy Weights And Speedy Treadmills)

Posted on March 30, 2015 | 1 comment

It was another 4 workout week at Orangetheory. I’ve pretty much decided that on Mondays, I’m going to do morning workouts (unless I already have something scheduled in the morning). It’s just easier for me not to have to drive home in rush hour traffic and there’s no reason why I should have to save my afternoon on my day off. Plus, morning workouts allow me to do fun things like Disneyland on my day off!

I’m still struggling with getting my heart rate to get up in the mornings, but that makes me feel like these morning workouts are needed. I need to be good with working out anytime during the day.

My biggest focuses right now in my workouts are to keep increasing my weights and treadmill speed. I haven’t been in a plateau, but I know that I can’t restrict pushing myself due to the fear of hurting my hips.

I’m having an ok time with using at least 15 pound weights for everything. For chest and shoulder work, it’s still tough. Especially when we have longer sets (like 10-15 reps each round). I’m getting really fatigued but I’m trying to not go down to lower weights right away. I’ve been doing alright with that. I’m pretty much not reducing the weight I’m lifting until the 3rd or 4th round each time.

Where I’m having trouble is pushing myself beyond the 15 pound weights. I know that for some things like squats that I can probably start using the 20 pound weights. But I don’t always grab for those. They just seem so extreme somehow to me. But I’m aware that I’m not reaching for the heavier weights now so hopefully the next time I have the opportunity to use them, I will.

As far as speeding up on the treadmill, I was able to keep my pace at 3.4 miles an hour during all 4 workouts. On my Saturday workout, it was definitely a struggle because my legs were tired (plus it was a hill day which doesn’t make things easier). I have no plan to move to 3.5 miles an hour anytime soon. 3.4 miles an hour still seems really fast to me.

But the other change I’ve been working on making on the treadmill is my walking speed between blocks. For the joggers and runners, when they get to walk they are told to put the treadmill at 3.0 miles an hour. Since that has always been so close to my walking speed, I would lower my treadmill speed to 2.0 or 2.5 miles an hour when I walk between the blocks. But I’m trying to go to 3.0 miles an hour between blocks sometimes. When we’ve just done a crazy hill or all-out (where I’m at 15% incline) I still need the super slow speed to cool-down. But if I’m not beyond exhausted at the end of a block, I’m really trying to only go down to 3.0 miles an hour.

These are all good progress steps in my mind. I’m much happier with the progress I’ve made with the weights than the progress I’ve made on the treadmill. I’m not sure why that is, but I just feel like my treadmill work is still such a struggle (the hip pain doesn’t help). Maybe I’ll feel better about it in a few weeks when I have my next 5K. I have no idea if I’ll PR again, but I feel like it’s a possibility because I’m doing faster treadmill workouts at Orangetheory now than I was doing before my last 5K.

I’ll just have to wait and see what happens at the 5K.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged 5K, Orangetheory, strength training, treadmill, walking, workout

Getting Faster Bit By Bit (or Speeding Up My Heart And My Walking)

Posted on March 23, 2015 | Comments Off

I’m getting more and more used to my heart rate being fast during my workouts. And the more days that go by, the more normal my heart rate becomes. In fact, it might almost be back to before the medication this week or next.

It was nice for a little while to have my heart rate faster than usual. I felt like I was getting more out of my workouts since I was getting more time in the orange zone. I know that it doesn’t really work that way when your heart rate is fast due to medication, but it felt like that to me.

But this past week, getting into the orange zone wasn’t as easy this past week as it was the week before. I’m working on using heavier weights during all of my workouts, but I know that I have to step up my cardio as well.

I’ve been using the incline on the treadmill a lot more than I did in the past. For my base pace, power walkers are supposed to be at 3% incline. I now always have it at 4%. During my push pace, I used to be at somewhere between 6-9%. Now I have it at at least 10%. My all-out pace is still at 15%, but that’s because 15% is the highest that the treadmill goes.

But as I get in better and better shape, my heart rate doesn’t go as high with incline as it used to (it’s real proof that my heart is getting stronger!). I’ve tried to slowly increase my speed, but it hasn’t been easy.

When I started at Orangetheory, I was usually at 3.0 or 3.1 miles an hour. I liked 3.1 miles an hour because then I knew that at that speed it would take me exactly an hour to do a 5K. Eventually, I was at 3.2 miles an hour on the treadmill. And a little while ago I went up to 3.3 miles an hour.

But this week, I really wanted to push myself. Maybe it’s because in my head I’ve realized that there is no way that I will not have another surgery on my hip in my near future. It’s inevitable and I better use my hip before it gets cut up and I have a long recovery. So I went to 3.4 miles an hour for all 3 of my workouts. I know that this isn’t that fast yet and I’m still below 3.5 miles an hour which is the bottom of what power walkers are considered at Orangetheory, but it’s improvement.

And I need to keep taking steps like this in increasing my speed. I’ve decided that if I ever decided to do a half marathon, the only one that I will consider will be one at Disneyland. If I’m going to do something that crazy, I might as well be at my favorite place in the world. All Disneyland races have a required pace time of a 16-minute per mile or faster.

So I found this great chart online to help me get to my goal of 16 minute miles.

I would probably want to be at 3.9 miles an hour on the treadmill to feel comfortable doing a Disneyland race. I know that those races have lots of awesome photo ops, and I’d want to have time to take advantage of those. On the Disneyland race website they even recommend having a training pace of 15-minute miles to allow for the photo ops. So that would bring me to 4.0 miles an hour on the treadmill.

That seems like so far away from where I am right now. But in reality, it’s not that much more of a jump than what I have done from when I started at Orangetheory to now. So maybe in another year (unless I have my hip surgery), I’ll be at my goal speed.

I’m thinking of making a training plan to figure out how to steadily increase my speed. I’m also looking at making a plan for increasing my weights as well. I might work on that this week when I have some time between customers at my day job.

But if any of you have ideas on how to make a plan to increase my speed (I’m not even starting to think about increasing my distance yet), I’d really love to hear your recommendations. I’m really so new at all of this, so I can use any help that I can get!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, Disneyland, marathon, Orangetheory, race, training, workout

Being A Spectator (or Watching And Not Wanting To Do The Marathon)

Posted on March 18, 2015 | 1 comment

This weekend was the LA marathon, and again, I watched a lot of it from my house (it didn’t help that we were having a crazy heat wave).

I’ve previously talked about how in the past I thought that maybe one day I would do a marathon but how I no longer have that desire. I always thought that a marathon was the ultimate thing to do to prove that I’m in better shape than I was before. But I don’t feel like that is the truth anymore.

I was up right after the start of the marathon and watched it live on the news for a good portion of the beginning. I even got to watch the winner cross the finish line.

The marathon starts at Dodgers Stadium and then ends up at the ocean. But part of the course was only about a 10 minute drive from my house. And since I knew a few people running the marathon, I decided to head out and watch the runners for a little while.

I was handing out between mile 19 and 20, so a lot of the racers were starting to look a little tired (plus the heat wasn’t helping).

I think that almost everyone I knew running the race passed where I was before I got there. But I still was cheering on for random people running by. There were runners who were barefoot, wearing crazy costumes, dribbling a basketball the entire time, and blind racers tethered to a guide.

After watching the racers for a while, I saw a somewhat familiar face run past where I was standing. It was Rachel from “The Biggest Loser”. I knew that she had gained some weight back after the finale (she looked much better after not being so incredibly skinny), and she looked pretty great running down Santa Monica Blvd.

I also saw one of my favorite authors running the race. I knew she was running because she posted about it on her Instagram, but it was still pretty exciting to see her! I cheered for her, but she was super focused and didn’t hear me (I told her on twitter that I cheered and she thought that that was pretty cool).

While it was inspiring for me to watch the runners, it made me realize that I have no desire to ever do a marathon anymore. I’m happy with doing a couple of 5Ks each year (it looks like I might only be doing 2 or 3 this year). And maybe one day I’ll do a 10K. But I see no reason to do a longer race than that.

I’ve talked about this before about how in the past I looked at 5Ks as a primary source of exercise. Now that I have a regular workout routine, I look at the races as bonuses and not necessary to try to get in shape.

I feel such a sense of relief that I don’t feel the pressure to ever do a marathon. I’m more than happy to go out and support people I know doing a marathon (I’ll probably try to get a group together for next year’s LA marathon and have a bunch of people cheering). It’s a huge accomplishment and everyone who did race should be insanely proud of themselves.

But it’s nice to know that I don’t feel like I’m missing out on something by not doing a marathon.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, book nerd, marathon, race, support, The Biggest Loser

Seeing My Heart Rate Spike (or What It’s Like Working Out On The New Medication)

Posted on March 16, 2015 | Comments Off

This past week, I got 4 workouts in (finally!). Two of those workouts were before I started the new medication and two of them were after. And those workouts were like night and day!

I was finally back to my normal schedule for workouts, so that made me happy. Monday was fine but Wednesday was a bit tough. My hips were killing me after being positioned so strangely for my x-rays. I don’t remember having so much pain after my last set of x-rays, but I just tried to not focus on the pain and to listen to my body when I might need to take breaks.

Even though on my post on Friday, I didn’t know exactly when I would start the new medication, I actually was able to start on Friday morning (I take the medicine once a day and in the morning only). I’ll go more into how my first week on the new medicine goes towards the end of this week, but it really did change my workouts.

I have no idea if it was a smart thing to do a workout on the first day of a new medication, but I did it and I can’t change that. My heart was racing like crazy all day, even if I was just sitting at my desk. With my heart racing so much, it was almost causing a panic attack as well! But I just tried to take deep breaths and remind myself that an increased heart rate is a very common (and almost expected) side effect of the medication.

I warned my coach on Friday that my heart rate was racing and that I wasn’t sure how I would do in the workout. He told me to just listen to my body and to take any extra breaks that I might need. And I really needed those extra breaks!

I have been struggling a lot lately to get my heart rate up into the orange zone. But when you compare a workout from the beginning of the week to one at the end of the week, you can see how much higher my heart rate was the entire time.

The top one is from the beginning of the week and the bottom is from the end of the week. And the zones that the app has is different from the zones at Orangetheory, so it doesn’t really show how much time I spent in the orange and red zone (I was there for 33 minutes of a 55 minute workout).

There were a couple of scary moments where my heart was racing so hard that I was getting dizzy and nauseous. That pretty much only happened on the treadmill so when I felt like that I just stepped onto the side rails and caught my breath. I had that feeling once doing floor work, and when that happened I just held onto the wall until the feeling went away (it was gone in about 30 seconds).

The other thing I noticed is that my heart rate is not dropping back to a “normal” rate as quickly as it used to. I expected my normal to be higher, but I thought that all the cardio work that I have done would continue to show (the stronger you are in cardio, the quicker your heart rate goes from a high zone to a regular rate). But I was staying high much longer than before.

I have no idea if the heart rate thing will be a forever thing while I’m on this medication or if it will get better as my body gets used to taking it. I’m taking notes and will be bringing all of these things up with my doctor next month when we discuss how I’m doing on the medicine as well as if I need to increase the dosage.

But while I’m doing all this adjusting to the heart rate changes, I’m more grateful than ever that I have to wear a heart rate monitor at Orangetheory. Even though I would wear a heart rate monitor at SoulCycle, I never looked at what my heart rate was during the class. I mainly used it to track my calorie burn. But now, I’m really paying attention to what my heart rate is doing and trying to make sure that I stay safe in my workouts.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged binge eating, doctor, eating disorder, Orangetheory, workout

A Welcome Distraction At The Film Festival (or Loving Second Place)

Posted on March 11, 2015 | 1 comment

I spent most of the weekend busy stressing out about the film festival. There wasn’t much time to think about anything else or to do anything else over those days.

So when I found out that the party to announce the winners of the latest weight loss challenge was going to be announced on Saturday, I knew that it would be impossible for me to go. But I asked the leader of my team in the challenge, Bruce, to send me an email to let me know what happened at the party.

On Saturday, I was running around like crazy trying to get things done so I wasn’t even thinking about missing the party. So when I sat down during one of the screenings to check the dozens of emails and texts that I had missed, I got very excited when I saw that there was one from Bruce.

And here’s what it said:

While I had an idea that I might place in the local challenge, I was not expecting second place!

I got a follow-up email after that one that said that as the second place winner I will get a free month of membership. That’s pretty awesome!

The national challenge winners haven’t been announced yet, but I really doubt that I placed in it. Unless the winner of the local challenge at my location placed first or second and I got fourth. But that seems very unlikely.

I didn’t quite lose my goal of 10% of my body weight, but I was close, But if I did reach that goal, I still would have been in second place. The winner in the local challenge lost something like 15 or 16% of their starting body weight.

But even if I didn’t place at all, I still would be happy with the work that I did over the challenge. I worked out really hard, made sacrifices in my social life (and my sleep) to get in the required workouts each week, and I worked on my diet more than I have in the past. All of these are positive changes that won’t be ending because the challenge is over.

Considering that I didn’t place in the first weight loss challenge and I got second in this challenge, maybe the next challenge will be my turn to place first! And maybe I’ll be updating this post soon if I end up placing in the national challenge!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged challenge, Orangetheory, weight loss, winner

Not Loving Early Workouts (or Trying My Best)

Posted on March 9, 2015 | 1 comment

Between my weekend trip, my new temp job, and the film festival; last week was a very limited week for workouts. I knew that getting 4 workouts during the week would pretty much be impossible. But I was going to do whatever I had to do to get my 3 workouts in.

Doing whatever I had to do included getting up early (for me) and working out at 7:30am twice.

Tuesday was my first 7:30am workout. It was not easy waking up. My flight home had been delayed over 2 hours and I was home much later than expected. But I managed to wake up and get my butt to Orangetheory in time for the 7:30am class.

It was one of the toughest workouts for me since my very first workout. First of all, my last workout had been on the past Wednesday. So it had almost been a week since I worked out. I haven’t taken that much time off between workouts since I started in the summer. So my body was feeling a little weak and things were harder than I remembered.

The second reason that the workout was tough for me is for some reason I could not get my heart rate up. I’m used to completing the 12-20 minutes in the orange zone each workout. But for some reason in this class, I barely got a minute. And I was constantly trying to push myself to get my heart rate in the orange zone, so that was making me more tired as well. Eventually I had to realize that it just wasn’t going to happen.

Wednesday’s workout was during my usual workout time in the afternoon. Overall, it was a great class and even though I had worked out the day before, my body was feeling much better than in Tuesday’s workout.

And it was a very rowing heavy workout. The rower is still tough for me and I have issues using enough power in my legs and not in my arms. But I’m working on it. And in this workout, we had to row 1200 meters two separate times. 1200 meters is a lot for me. I like the sprints like 100 or 200 meters because I can get them done quickly. But 1200 meters takes about 6 minutes of constant rowing.

Knowing that I had a long row, I set a goal in my head to take my time and to finish it without stopping. I was the last rower to finish each time, but I was able to do both sets of 1200 meters without taking any breaks!

I felt amazing after doing that! My legs might have felt like jello, but I was pretty darn happy with myself for not having to stop during 6 minutes of rowing!

And because of my limited time options for working out, I was back at Orangetheory on Thursday morning (there was about 14 hours between my Wednesday and Thursday workout). I’ve never had such a small turnaround time between workouts. I’ve also rarely done 3 workouts in a row. And of course I had the issues at the beginning of the week with my heart rate not wanting to go up in an early workout.

Sadly, my second 7:30am workout of the week was similar to the first. I struggled due to being tired from 3 workouts in a row. And my heart rate never made it into the orange zone. But I tried my best and even if it wasn’t a wonderful workout, some workout is better than no workout.

I have no idea why I can’t get my heart rate up for early morning workouts. I don’t have this issue when I work out at 9:30am. I don’t plan on doing 7:30am workouts regularly, so I don’t know if I’ll ever figure out the answer to this problem.

But at least even with all the craziness I have going on in my life, I was able to get my 3 workouts done.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health

Tagged Orangetheory, rowing, scheduling, struggle, workout

Short Workout Week (or Finding Ways To Fit It All In)

Posted on March 2, 2015 | Comments Off

Even though I got 3 workouts in this past week, it feels like I had a mini-week of workouts. That might be because I usually workout on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (and sometimes Saturday). But due to lots of scheduling issues (including work and a trip), I had to fit all my workouts in during the beginning of the week.

My first workout of the week was on Sunday. This was actually my first Sunday workout. I didn’t think that it would feel odd to me since I work out on Saturdays, but I really felt a difference in a Sunday workout versus a weekday or Saturday one.

A lot of the difference was in timing it all out. I had to eat something pre-workout, have my workout, shower, eat lunch, and then head out to the Oscar Party. I wanted to make sure that I ate enough that I wasn’t starving at the party, but not too much so that I could enjoy some food there.

I managed to get through my workout fine and took a post-workout selfie to remember how hard I worked that day.

My Monday workout was a bit tough for me. It was the second workout in a row for me (which is still a bit challenging) and it was an early workout because I had my Disneyland afternoon/evening ahead. I also knew that at Disneyland, I usually walk between 5-10 miles, so I didn’t want to be too exhausted after the workout.

I had some issues during that workout (and at Disneyland later) with some pretty significant hip pain. I know that I’m pushing myself farther than I ever thought I could go (and probably more than my hip surgeon thought I could do as well), and sometimes I will just have to deal with the pain.

My final workout of the week was on Wednesday. It was also my day to weigh in for the end of the National Weight Loss Challenge. I had a goal of losing 10% of my body weight in those 6 weeks. I was about 2 pounds away from that goal, so I’m not too upset. I doubt I will win the national part of the challenge, but maybe I’ll place. And I feel good about my chances of placing in the challenge for the studio that I go to. I guess I’ll have to wait a little while to find out what happens.

The workout had 6 blocks in it, 3 of them being on the treadmill. And all the treadmill blocks were spent most of the time at a high incline (between 10-15%). I’m really getting better at the incline work and my base pace at 4% incline is starting to feel like a flat road for me. I think that will really help in my next 5K race where the road is really flat. Maybe it will feel like a downhill road then entire time.

Due to my trip, my next workout won’t be until tomorrow (Tuesday). That means that I will almost have a week off between my last workout and my next one. That scares me a little. Hopefully I don’t lose too much progress or strength during that break. I know I’ll be doing some walking on my trip, but nothing like what I’m used to.

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how my body reacts to such a long break (and I’ll try to make sure that I don’t have another long break like that in the future).

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

Tagged challenge, Orangetheory, strength, weight loss, workout

“Only” 3 Workouts This Week (or Testing A Pre-Work Workout Time)

Posted on February 23, 2015 | 1 comment

This week I only got 3 workouts in. I wish I could have gotten more workouts done, and it could have been accomplished. But I can’t have regrets in getting 3 workouts done when before Orangetheory I could only strive to get 3 workouts in in a week.

I thought I was starting my new temp job this past week, and that didn’t happen (I have no clue if it will happen this week either). But I planned my workouts with the assumption that I would be working the new job this week, so that restricted things a bit for me.

Monday was going to be a normal workout time. But then I realized that if I moved my workout to earlier, I could go to San Diego for the day. So I decided to sign up for a class at 7:30am. That’s so early for me! But I realized that unless I go to an earlier class, that is the only class time I could do if I wanted to do a workout before I start work (I will have to do that in about a week).

My body wasn’t really awake when I arrived to the workout, but I quickly perked up when I had to do my first push pace on the treadmill. I wasn’t in as much pain as I thought I would be, so that’s a big positive. And I think that my workout report proves that I kicked some butt in that early class!

It’s not my highest calorie burn, but it’s up there!

As far as timing it out for a before work workout, it worked perfectly. But then I realized that there was no traffic on the freeway when I was going to the class and home from the class. I forgot that Monday was a holiday so many people weren’t going to work. So I don’t know exactly how it will work out when there is traffic, but worst case I start my work shift with wet hair. That’s not the worst thing.

Wednesday was my usual class time and it felt much more normal to me than my early workout. But changing things up for me is a good thing and I know I probably need to do it more often.

Friday was a challenging day. I had a bit of an incident at my house on Thursday evening and Friday morning (more about that in another blog post) and I was dealing with a lot of shoulder, back, and arm pain. My upper body is usually where I can push myself more and more since I’m so limited in my hip movement. But this class I had to try to go more with my lower body to ease things on my upper body.

I did step ups onto the bench which is something I usually avoid. They hurt quite a bit, but I pushed through them and fortunately that section of the workout was done pretty quickly. And I think I didn’t feel as much pain in my hips as usual because I was dealing with pain in my upper body. So my mind must have been confused with all that extra pain in parts of my body that don’t usually hurt.

This week will be another 3 workout week. And the week after will probably have to be the same. I’m trying not to get frustrated because there are things that I’ve been looking forward to that are preventing me from working out. And I have to be ok with 3 workouts without thinking that I need to do more. Plus, in a few weeks my life will be calmer and I can get back to seeing how often I can have a 4 workout week.

But for now, when I “only ” have 3 workouts, I need to make sure I push myself as much as possible to get the most out of those 3 workouts.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

Tagged busy, Orangetheory, scheduling, workout

Waiting On The Wait List (or The Text That Made My Week)

Posted on February 16, 2015 | Comments Off

I think it’s pretty obvious now that I’m very focused on making sure that my workouts happen each week. While I’ve set my minimum number of workouts a week at 3, I really strive for 4. Especially since there are some weeks coming up soon where 4 workouts will be impossible. And if I want to reach my goal of 175 workouts this year, I have to spend about half the year working out 4 times a week.

This week was one of those weeks where I thought I could get in 4 workouts. Then, I found out about an event on Friday (more about that tomorrow) that I wasn’t going to miss. And since I thought I was starting my temp job this week, I didn’t know when else I could workout.

Then, I found out that the start date for the temp job was pushed back so I tried to get into a Thursday class. Unfortunately, there was already a waitlist and no guarantee that I would get in. I tried to think positively, but I was worried that I wouldn’t get in. I even wore my workout clothes that day not knowing whether or not I would get in my workout.

But then, I got this text and had a super enthusiastic response to it.

Thank goodness I got into class! I needed the workout after the crazy week I had at work and I love that my workouts are now the way I deal with stress (instead of food).

All my workouts this week went really well. I’m having some increasing hip issues with lifting my legs during step ups on the benches, but there are modifications that I can do. And I have an appointment with a hip surgeon in a few weeks, so I’ll go over that problem with them.

My favorite workout this week was on Saturday. Since it was Valentine’s Day, it was a partner workout. Partner workouts are great because I feel extra motivated to get through my sets quickly. My partner is depending on me. The cardio portion of the partner workout was a run/row. I ended up spending more than half of my time on the rower. I’m getting much better at the rower (I rowed 750 meters and 1000 meters without stopping earlier this week). While my technique isn’t perfect because of my hip, I’m definitely a better rower now than I was even a month ago.

The strength portion of the partner workout was half floor work and half strap work. When one of us was on the strap, the other was on the floor. The moves were all pretty tough, but I had an amazing partner (who I only met for the first time in class when we had to partner up). We got through the entire rotation of work twice, and I don’t believe that any other team was able to do so.

While I did get my 4 workouts in this week, the next 2 or 3 weeks will have to be 3 workout weeks. I’ve got lots of things coming up that will affect when I can work out (like being out-of-town or running my film festival). It actually making me a bit mad that I won’t be able to do 4 workouts in a week for a while, but I’m trying to go easy on myself. And I am trying a super early (at least for me) workout today so if that works out well for me, I might add that in to some of the weeks where I can only do 3 afternoon or weekend workouts.

As always, I’ll update you next week how this new plan goes!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

Tagged Orangetheory, scheduling, workout

My 2nd MVP (or Kicking Butt In My Workouts)

Posted on February 9, 2015 | 1 comment

Another 4 workout week done! I’m not sure if the rest of this month I’ll be able to keep doing 4 workouts a week. But that’s due to scheduling issues and not my motivation or how I’m feeling.

I had another morning workout on Monday because of my audition. I’m really trying to love the morning workouts, but I’m still not used to them. And because of scheduling issues, I can’t take a later morning class on those days that I need the morning workout.

I have similar dizziness issues at all my workouts, they are just more extreme in the mornings. And I’m starting to wonder if this is an inner ear issue and not a food related issue (although I know taking my painkillers on a not completely full stomach isn’t helping). I’ve been having issues since I was sick last year, and part of that sickness was an ear infection. So I’m thinking that when I feel dizzy (which usually happens when I switch from a sitting/laying down workout to a standing one) is the result of that ear infection. Sadly, there’s nothing really that I can do about it. I just have to accept it.

Wednesdays workout was pretty awesome! The coach, JZ, named me the MVP of class! I got my MVP status because I let her know that we were already at a push pace when she said that we needed to move on to a push pace. So even though it was a mental accomplishment and not a physical one that got me my MVP status, I’m just as happy with it!

Friday was a class that truly challenged me. Normally, I find leg/hip movements to be challenging. I’m pretty good with arm movements. But in this workout, we had a block where we had to do tons of tricep dips (12-16 each time) and then walk out push ups (2-6 each time). Holy moly my arms and shoulders were sore after that block! Also, since my workout gloves don’t cover the bottom of my hands, my hands were killing me! Fortunately I didn’t get any blisters or cuts on my hands, but they looked pretty bruised for a day after the workout.

Saturday was my favorite workout of the week. It was a tornado style class, which means that we moved around from treadmill to rower to floor work a lot during the class. Each block was about 2 minutes long and there were 5 rotations (or 15 blocks). I love this type of workout because when I’m getting tired on the treadmill, rower, or floor; it’s already time to move on to the next block.

But just because those blocks were short, it didn’t make them easy. Almost the entire time on the treadmill was at a push or all-out pace (or 10-15% incline for me) and 2 minutes of rowing is pretty tiring! Even the 2 minute floor blocks were tough. 2 minutes of burpees or push-ups is a lot! I did have to make more breaks that I would have liked to, but I still got it all done!

This coming week, I know I’ll have a morning workout today. And I’m debating about adding another morning workout on Thursday because it turns out I can’t make my Friday afternoon class and I’m supposed to start my temp job this week. If I don’t, I can do a Thursday afternoon class and I’d be super happy with that.

I know that I’ve said this before, but knowing that I’m making my workouts a priority in my life is such a big step for me and I’m proud of myself for the commitment that I’ve made to Orangetheory. It’s a little tough when my schedule is getting crazy, but I know that this craziness won’t last long and I can find more workout times soon.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, scheduling, workout

Category Archives: Fitness

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