On The Run Mama

I don’t know the calorie count for dinner tonight, but I’m sure it wasn’t good. I love my hubby and I love that he cooks dinner for us, but we don’t always agree what “healthy” is. Plus some sugar afterwards didn’t help either and that’s my own fault.

I did head over to the gym this evening for 45 min on the elliptical. I’m hoping that my calories burned brought me to being on track for the day.

Have I ever told you how much I love exercising? I do. I really do. I love that dead tired from working really hard and simultaneous feeling of exhilaration and energy. It was a good workout tonight!

Tonight’s work out powered by Mat Kearney!

Killed it tonight! I felt good and strong. I did the same program that nearly made me puke last time, but I conquered it this time! Last time in 60 minutes I did 4.77 miles and 604.5 calories. This time I did 4.94 miles and 638 calories, never feeling like I was going to barf. I was aware of my back pain, but the pain stayed at bay.

That was crazy! I went into tonight’s workout thinking I didn’t want to go too hard on my back, but not too easy either. So I settled on a program called “Cross Training.” I hadn’t done it before, but it was long intervals of low resistance and hard resistance.

Me: Ok, first 12 min done and now time to switch to hard resistance.

Elliptical: Peddle backwards.

Me: What?!?

Elliptical: Peddle backwards.

Me: Okay…

Elliptical: Peddle backwards.

Me: Oh holy cow this is hard! (catches self on grips so not to fall off)

I wound up doing two 12 minute hard resistance intervals while peddling backwards! I thought I was going to keel over from the pain, throw up, fall off or any combination of that. That was hard!!! I haven’t peddled backwards before clearly, and that works a whole different muscle group. I feel pretty tough hough for doing it for 24 minutes out of 60, and for not giving up and bailing . My legs are jello now and I can hardly think straight. I almost forgot to take out my contacts before collapsing in bed.

Any bets on how sore I’ll be in the morning?

I’m so excited to go workout tonight! Even though I didn’t post much about them, I did do last week’s workouts. The physical pain though just destroyed the fun of them though. I’m not 100%, but close with regular Motrin, ice and precautions. I’m happy that I’m actually looking forward to an hour on the elliptical tonight!

One hour and 580 calories burned on the elliptical tonight.  I was told it was okay to do the elliptical, but to take it easy.  I felt that I did take easier, but at about 45 minutes my back started bothering me.  Now that I’m home I’m icing my back and just took an anti-inflammatory.  I’m okay to do my 11 miles on Sunday as long as my back feels at least 50% by then, but I’m supposed to stop if my back starts hurting during the run.  I’m a little nervous if I’ll be up for it with how my back feels now.  I’d much rather take a week off than to hurt myself further.  (Which is exactly why I put a couple of extra weeks into my training plans.)  We’ll see how it feels in the morning.  It felt really good to exercise tonight though!

I finally convinced my self to go to the gym and do the treadmill instead of elliptical. (After tucking in two exhausted kids.) Lo and behold all of the treadmills taken and the elliptical were wide open as if they had the plague.

40 minutes ~ 6200ish strides ~ 450 cal

Oh yes I did!!

90 minutes of yoga & 36 minutes of elliptical!  

Yoga felt so good tonight!  I felt really strong.  I held poses longer and deeper.  I surprised myself with how deep I was able to go in chair pose!  The new mat from my kids was much better than my old one, and I didn’t have the pain in my wrist and knees that I’ve had before.  I’ll admit that having several new people in class boosted my esteem too.

36 minutes on the elliptical and 400 calories burned (yes, the extra minute to get to 400 calories even).  I could tell my body was tired and couldn’t put out the same effort as if I had only done elliptical.  I decided on 2 minute intervals and that worked really well.

Yep, I felt like a rockstar tonight.  I know there are people on tumblr and elsewhere that push themselves a lot harder, but this was a big push for me.  It felt good to mix it up and be so strong!

I’m exhausted!  Time for a shower and sleep.  Night tumblr world!

I worked out on the elliptical tonight. When I got home I did 100 crunches on my workout ball too. It felt so good to sweat and work my muscles. It amazes me how working out has gone from something I avoided, to something I dreaded yet did, to now something I crave.

Last night I also did day 2 of my upper body strength training. Using the resistance bands was different, but I think I got the hang of it. I know it has only been two days…and maybe I’m crazy…but I think I’m already seeing muscle definition. Maybe?

Wow!  I just got back from working out at the gym.  35 minutes on the elliptical and I feel g.o.o.d.  The first 10 minutes were brutal as I was pretty sore & stiff from yoga yesterday, but once I loosened up and got in a groove I felt good.  I have to tell you, getting back into eating right and hard workouts have made a big difference in how I feel overall.  

Breakfast ~ Oatmeal & 1% Salted Caramel Frappuccino w/o whip ~ 327 cal

Lunch ~ Sesame Chicken Salad and Reese’s mni pb cup ~ 416 cal

Snacks ~ Saltine crackers, 1 square of TJ’s dark chocolate truffle & Carl’s Jr chicken snack wrap ~ 484 cal

Dinner ~ Beef stroganoff and snickers mini bar ~ 521 cal

Post Workout Snack ~ Soy yogurt ~ 170 cal

• Total calories ~ 1,918
• Calories burned ~ 388

Net Calories ~ 1,530 (Yea!)

Okay… some explanation about my food.  Remember how yesterday I said that I would be on the road and in meetings today?   This morning I packed a bag of healthy and good for on-the-go snacks and I ended up giving them to someone else.  When I needed a snack this afternoon (I get shaky if I don’t eat every couple of hours) I couldn’t think of anything or anywhere I could get a snack quickly.  I pulled into a Carl’s Jr drive through and ordered what I thought was the smallest thing and probably the healthiest….wrong. 350 calories spent on a fast food snack.  Phooy.  I don’t know what it is like in other states, but in California major chains are required to post the calorie counts of food.  I love it, because it makes making healthy choices so much easier.  I was caught off guard when the drive through menu didn’t have the calories posted and I hadn’t looked up calories ahead of time.  The good news… despite that (and a couple pieces of chocolate) I still came out within range thanks to working out!

And now it’s time for bed.  Goodnight tumblrers!

I hit the gym early this morning to do the elliptical.  Who knew how crazy busy it would be at 5:30 in the morning and how bizarre the people would be?!  Now it isn’t a big gym, just our local HOA’s facility, but it does the job nicely.  For the ellipticals, there are two with moving arms and two with stationary arms.  I just jumped on the one closest to the door with moving arms, but apparently that was the wrong choice.

The gym has a rule that if people are waiting you can only be on that piece of equipment 30 minutes and there is a board to let you know that people are waiting.  I was going on the elliptical with arms when 3 people signed up to use it, but none of them even touched the two elliptical without moving arms.  Then one gal kept peering over at my machine to watch my time and make sure I wasn’t going over 30 minutes.  SOOOOOO annoying!!!  This was putting me a bad mood.  Then I had to stop at 30 minutes and switch over to the elliptical with stationary arms, so they could use they one with moving arms.  I mean really??  Is it that big of a difference?  If I saw people on the one with moving arms I’d just use the other ones, not kick them off of it!  Erg!!  I moved over and finished my final 30 minutes in peace with no one peering over my shoulders.  It also really bugged me that one of the gals who got on after me only stayed for 15 minutes!  And she was the one peering to make sure I was inline!!!  Ugh!!  Next time I’ll be making sure to use other elliptical in the first place.  I just don’t get it.

1 hour total between the two machines = 582 calories burned