It feels good to be back in the gym. I’m taking things slow, staying within myself, and simply focusing on following my daily agenda. Four days down, eighty more to go. (Well, eighty more on the Body for Life program, and then a lifetime beyond that.)
On Monday, as I talked about correcting my course, Greenman [...]

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Continue reading → Five Lessons Learned During My Adventures in Fitness

The last few weeks have been some of the toughest in my life.
I’ve powered through, though, on adrenaline and because there’s no other option. My mother is in the hospital and must be cared for. I’ve elected to become a “professional” blogger, and I must write to eat. My in-laws, who were in town [...]

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Continue reading → Handling Stress: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Last Wednesday, I rose early and headed out to the gym before the kids woke up. I arrived just in time for the 5AM spinning class at the gym. Before we moved down here from Portland, I used to attend spinning classes twice a week at the local YMCA and loved them. [...]

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Continue reading → The Injury Bug Bites Again

On Tuesday’s discussion about defining fitness, I mentioned that my own pursuit of that ideal had been derailed. “I’ve been eating poorly and taking no exercise,” I wrote. “Tell us more,” said a couple of readers.
After Saturday morning’s aborted attempt at a sixteen mile run, I was feeling miserable. It wasn’t just that my physical [...]

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• Boxing Exercise Fitness

Continue reading → Losing My Way, and Finding It

I feel pretty defeated today.
For the second Saturday in a row, I had to cut my marathon training run short. The pain in my knee was too intense to continue. Today’s three-mile walk back to the car was excruciating. I had a lot of time to think about my progress, my current physical state, and [...]

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Continue reading → Back to the Drawing Board

It’s been a while since I posted about the current state of my physical fitness. Though I don’t mind rambling on about how I’m doing, I know that it gets old listening to other people talk about their physical woes and successes. Still, it’s time for an update.
Have a heart
I’ve been especially pleased with the [...]

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Continue reading → State of the Body

It’s eight o’clock on Saturday morning. I’m at my desk writing this entry.
Some of you will recognize right away what this means: Saturday mornings are my time for marathon training runs. If I’m sitting at my desk writing, I’m not outside running. My sore quad is still enough of a concern that I opted not [...]

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Continue reading → Better Safe Than Sorry

Two quick anecdotes of physical fitness and pain:

When I started lifting weights three months ago, my shoulders were weak. They were so weak that it hurt to do even three-pound seated dumbbell raises. Well, my shoulders are still weak, but they’re getting stronger, and the pain has diminished. But I haven’t really been testing them. [...]

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Continue reading → No Pain, No Gain?

There are many interesting things about writing a blog. For one, when I’m completely honest, my successes are there for the world to see, and so are my failures. For another, I’m able to learn from the feedback of dozens (or hundreds — or thousands!) of readers.
At my personal finance blog, my public life is [...]

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Continue reading → Getting Ahead of Myself: The Consequences of Trying Too Much at Once

Yesterday was lower-body day at the gym. I did leg extensions, leg presses, leg curls, seated knee raises, and more. The workout felt good. I had taken the day off from my last lower-body workout because I felt like I was overworking my legs, so it was nice to do some more exercise.
When I got [...]

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• Fitness Equipment Gym, Workout Yoga Exercise Fitness

Continue reading → Don’t Let’s Start: Coping with Oncoming Injuries?

Just to be clear, not everything in my current fitness regimen is peaches and cream. My exercise program has been going very well indeed, but like Mac, I’m beginning to have food issues. Maybe that’s stating it too strongly. What I should say is that last weekend was difficult for me.
Most of the time, [...]

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• Boxing Exercise Fitness

Continue reading → Gluttony Is Its Own Punishment

Another week down. I had some setbacks - mostly the junk food again, and I keep forgetting to take my multivitamin. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I really hate taking that thing - it’s a horse pill! I’m thinking about investing in some Flintstone…

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Continue reading → Goals for Week 3

Starting weight: 170Week 1: 165Today’s weight: 169Skinny jeans weight: 150Well, I’ve decided last week’s weight was a fluke. I kind of knew that at the time because I barely ate anything for about two days before I weighed, and that’s not at all norma…

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Continue reading → Weigh-In Day

I was thinking about goals for the week while lying in bed last night and I realized that I need more motivation. I really want to be going to meetings because that worked incredibly well for me last summer, but the truth is with the move and my son’s…

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Continue reading → Goals for Week 2

So, major roadblock number one: living with junk food addicts who never gain any weight.My boyfriend and I were both so tired and cranky yesterday that we decided to have a date night and watch a movie together. Normally this would have been fine, exc…

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Continue reading → Movie Night is Hazardous to a Diet

Starting weight: 170Current weight: 165Skinny jeans weight: 150So I got a job this week, and after I got hired they told me the days were about 12 hours long and there were no benefits. The pay was good and the work was a piece of cake, so I figured I…

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• Scales Weight Management

Continue reading → Stress hurts