Fitness, Nutrition and Health- All Welcome (Hardcore and “Light”)

Yes, I use Fitness Blender videos for upper body strength workouts. I like that I can choose my level, part of body I want to focus on, type of activity, equipment I have, etc. As a beginner you might want to start at level 1 or 2.

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I’ve previously passed this link along (9/26 according to CC :slight_smile:) , but here’s a marketplace of training programs for various price ranges. From beginner to advanced

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My strength focus today was bench press and deadlifts. Built to a heavy on each. The HIIT was a combo of lateral hops over the PVC pipe, burpees and reverse lunges. Time was 23:30.

Core work was a 3x10 of glute ham raises.

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For all newbies - don’t get discouraged if it’s hard or think veterans just breeze through everything all the time. We don’t. Today was a struggle and I used all my bags of tricks to keep going.

Went to the gym at o dark thirty and it was empty. The stairmonster today tried to get the better of me. I actually paused mid way expecting to get off, but then I thought of all the new people pushing through the hard today and I turned it back on and finished. Then I did Ab Ripper X and AAA from ALO. In some ways it was “easy,” but there’s always ways to make it hard and that’s what I tried to do. Came home, ate my junk food and took a 2.5 hour nap. And now cleaning. Whee.

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I had trouble getting motivated for my run today, but I could not deny that I’d like the sunny / 43 degree afternoon once out there and moving. I logged my best time of 2021 :grinning:

Yesterday was something totally different… 1/1 at 1pm New Years event - Zumba dance exercise class via zoom with a few hundred others from town

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@Colorado_mom, congrats on that new 2021 PR!!! :wink:

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To pick up on what classicmom98 said, it’s almost always a struggle. Maybe even always. :slight_smile:

For me, it’s about guilt, consistency, OCD, vanity, health, etc. And there’s that “runner’s high” after the hard workout too.

A week ago, last Sunday was my prior day off, and yesterday, Saturday, I had a tough time getting off the couch. Several areas of body were very sore. At around 5:30 PM, I convinced myself to just do 10-15 mins on the air bike. That’s it. So I went out to the home gym in the backyard and pedaled for 30 mins. It was a good sweat.

Today, I did my Saturday workout, which consisted of about 20-30 mins of clean and jerks for quality. No heavy, just working sets at about 75-80% of my 1RM.

The HIIT portion was a 30 min AMRAP of rowing, pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups and air squats.

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I really think that now it’s not a struggle always to exercise. I have it built into my routine. Instead of finding the time, I’ve made a time and now I feel guilt when I’m not active.

There are days I don’t feel like it and that’s ok too. It’s ok to have rest days. It’s ok to feel lazy. It’s ok. But I know that I’m out there doing something more days than not.

Went XC skiing today. When the snow is good, you have to go. It’s a short season. I’m very sore, we’ve skied 3 of the past 4 days and my body is not in peak ski shape. Tomorrow will be a rest day. I deserve it. Mostly I need to rest these sore muscles and I’ll be back to it. Besides some days I really need to do those pesky chores like grocery shopping

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Per our earlier weather discussion. When my wife and I left the house this afternoon is was in the upper 30s and raining lightly.

We still walked 2 3/4 miles to dinner and then 1 home

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I agree @deb922 - I figured out how to have time to exercise and prioritized it and it became a habit. I have days when I really don’t feel like it, but once I get going I’m fine. One of my tricks is telling myself “just one mile”. Once I get going, I do more but the hardest part is getting started.

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My strength is always getting out there even if I don’t feel like it. My weakness is my mind. I can convince myself I’m dying and to cut back/stop early/etc. when I really don’t need to. I confess I’ve walked in several 5Ks - that I’ve won. It starts to hurt, I turn around and nobody (female) is there and I just start walking. :slight_smile: It’s a bad habit.

So it’s back to the routine after another holiday - and I really wanted to sleep in, but I didn’t lol. The run was pretty good. I did an old route and it was neither fast nor slow. But oh am I so tired of rain. If it’s not raining, it’s rainy. Seems like it’s been like this for the whole pandemic. Technically it wasn’t raining today, but the moisture was so thick in the air and it was hovering around freezing, so I had to look out for icy spots. I did start my hybrid of the Shaun T (i.e. Insanity guy) and Tony H (P90X guy) workouts. Today was the Plyometric Cardio Circuit from Insanity. I wasn’t very good at it, but I tried hard. I’d like to get another crack at it as I think I’d improve. Getting the moves down always takes me longer than the average peep.

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It’s a little bit of a mindset change (especially from the days when I was “mom-ing” more and had very little time for me things) but (near) daily exercise is non-negotiable for me. I still work full time but since pandemic have 98% of the time managed to get 30 minutes of something in before starting work (or after checking emails). One of the biggest bonuses of this is that I am then usually likely to also do something after work - often a good brisk walk.

That’s MY plan - a good hour of intentional fitness daily. Most days. But it’s your game to play. Pick a starting point that is doable not only from time management but emotionally - what # of minutes are you willing to commit to?

Did a strength training video this morning before work. Looking forward to a nice walk after work!

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Back to work for me today after a couple weeks off. Kept the activity up. Ate more when visiting with the family, so at the top end of the range I’ve been in. Focus at this point is getting back into the routines now that work has restarted.

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I love ds2, but he’s been here a month so that has hampered my routine. Definitely ate more but kept up with exercising. He leaves Wedesday … ds1 and his wife show up Saturday. AACK!

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I hear you. For me, it’s not as much the eating/exercising, it’s the stretching/sleep that suffer. I normally roll out my legs and stretch on the floor at night when we watch TV. I don’t do that when the kids are home. And then I miss my lunchtime naps. I love my naps. I mean I love my kids more, but I do love my naps! And over a few weeks, the lack of sleep builds up.

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We did a pretty basic 3.75 mile walk tonight since DW had 7PM meeting and I should be doing work for one of my volunteer gigs.

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Same old, same old here. But, I guess it wasn’t as bad getting up and out there this morning. Progress. Video of the day was Eccentric Upper from P90X3 and Ab Ripper X. It wasn’t that bad today. I like the eccentric training. My natural rhythm is slow anyway, so it’s not that much different. I just need to concentrate on powering up. Pull-ups were pretty weak, but I’ll blame that on my grip. With it so cold in the C-gym, I tend to wear normal gloves under my lifting gloves. I took them off for the last set and it seemed to help. Go figure. :laughing:

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:tophat: off to anyone doing a pull up!

Went XC skiing today, lots of great outdoor exercise. My favorite activity!

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I have not done XC in many years. I realized last week that next time it snows enough I should take them to the lake trail to see if the ancient equipment still works. Also want to rent snowshoes this year to give it a try.

We had lovely sun and 50ish temp and bone dry trail today… but yikes it was WINDY. Still glad I went though. It was good to have various ways to make myself warmer or cooler through the 5k run.

MY GOOD FIND (from our cluttered closets): For a few months I’ve been looking for winter running pants with pockets. Covid has kept me from my usual thrift shop method, and one pair from mailorder was too small, got returned. I decided that it would work to wear pocketed shorts over my various pocketless long pants/leggings. It was delightful to find a box of old mountain bike shorts and hiking shorts (most windproof) from my long gone son as well as a pair of longjohns that might give me another option for “layer1”. They are all a little big but all have drawstrings or adjustable waist belt.

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I envy the xc skiers! Before I moved last year, we had great groomed trails in the next town over, I didn’t go as often as I could have, but now I have very little snow. I don’t know if I will even be able to use the snowshoes this year without a bit of a drive.

The “you can’t out exercise a bad diet” caught up to me on my weigh in today. Time to knuckle down and distance myself from the half price Christmas chocolates and other snacks hanging around the house.

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