photo credit: visualpanic

This past week was my first week back to working out,  and it was a week of ups and downs.  I worked out 4 out of 7 days, and my eating was decent except on the weekend.

I started the week out really well, working out the first 3 days of the week (Mon-Wed) .  I got in a good run on Monday, some upper body weights on Tuesday and another good run on Wednesday.

On Thursday my new computer arrived from Dell, and I got distracted.  I didn’t exercise again until Saturday!  i was entranced with our fast new computer.  I took the nights for several days in a row to get it set up, transfer files from the old computer, and get things going.   I took my eye off the ball.

My eating this week was so-so.  The beginning of the week was pretty good.  Then my healthy groceries ran out.  I kept putting off going to the grocery store, and as a result I ate out most of the days last week. Not good for my diet – or for my checkbook!

This week, I’m getting back on the plan.  My computer is now setup, so I don’t have that excuse.  We’ll see how it goes! Wish me luck!  (I’m off to workout now!)

Over the Christmas holiday I got a new Ipod Touch through some work I did for another website.  Since my old classic Ipod was stolen a few months back I had forgotten how much I loved having an Ipod.   It was useful in so many ways,  but then again it was limited for some applications.  It was mostly just a music/movie/game machine.

Now that I have an Ipod touch, I’ve realized that it can be oh so much more.  It can do email, surf the web, play games, and use custom apps that can help you do anything from keep a shopping list to track your workouts.  I realized that the touch can help me fulfill my workout and weight loss goals I’ve set for the new year! What is my fitness goal for the new year? I’ve set a goal of losing 35 pounds by July 1st. Wish me luck!

Helpful Health and Fitness Apps

I’ve downloaded some useful health and fitness apps, and I thought I’d give a quick review of some of my favorites.

• Weightbot from Tapbots:  The weight tracking app is one of my favorite new apps.   The app is extremely simple, but has a beautiful design.  What does it do for you?  You can enter your weight daily through a simple interface, and watch as your weight decreases (hopefully) over time.   It’ll show you your BMI, and after you enter your goal weight it will show you a beautiful graph showing your progress, or lack thereof.  Basically, it is a great way to motivate yourself.  You can also make backups of the data through your wi-fi connection, and in the future you’ll be able to export your weight data.   Also, if you want to make sure that no one else views your data, you can lock it with a passcode!  Not bad for .99 cents!
• Gym Buddy: This app provides a nice way to keep track of your workouts. Define your own exercises, set up your own workouts. Allows you to keep track of your workouts by time, repititions, weight and notes. Also includes a way of tracking your cardio after a recent update. Only $2.99, and a good replacement for a workout notebook.
• PushupFu: A while back i was doing the 100 pushups challenge. I’m not doing that right now, but if you enjoy pushups, here’s a fun little pushups app. The application allows you to do pushup training, compete against others, and get scores for your pushups. Hard, but fun! $2.99
• Run Chart: This little app allows you to time your run workouts, as well as gives you audible cues as to how long you’ve been running. Set up specific routes in the software and setup goal split times to reach. The software will give you audible cues when those times are reached. Nice little piece of software for $2.99.
• Ifitness: A nice fitness app that shows you over 115 different exercises that you can perform, categorized by body region. Also allows you to log your workouts. Affordable as well at only $1.99
• Ipump Free Workout: Try out a free workout from Pump One, created by fitness professionals. They’d like to you to buy one of their paid apps, but give the free one a try first. Includes pictures of exercises, logs, exports via email. Can’t go wrong with free.
• Fit Phone: Another workout log that helps you keep track of your workouts, and then has some nice graphs to help you see how you’ve been progressing. $4.99
• Ishape: Calorie, nutrition and exercise diary. Set weight loss goals, and use the app to help you achieve them. Currently on sale for .99 cents!

So there you go, there’s a handful of good fitness apps for your Iphone or Ipod. They are certainly only a few of the apps that you can use to work towards your goals, and there a ton more waiting for you to discover them at the Apple Apps Store.

Do you have any Ipod or Iphone apps that you’re using to help further your fitness goals? What are they?

Just a quick progress report on how I’ve been doing with my workout routine. I’ve been back exercising for almost a week and a half now. Two nights ago I did my upper body weight training routine, and then last night I ran a couple of miles using HIIT.

It’s getting back to the point now where I feel good when I exercise, and not as much when I don’t. That’s a good place to be at. Now I just need to be a bit more disciplined about my eating habits.

Since I’ve restarted the workout plan I’ve dropped about 4 and 1/2 pounds. Not bad for a week and a half! My goal is to lose 1-2 pounds a week, and at this rate I’ll be at my goal in no time!

It’s been just over a week now that I’ve been back on the exercise wagon.  Since last monday I’ve ony taken one day off from my cardio and weight training routine, and I took that day (Saturday) off by design.  In my plan I workout 6 days a week, with alternating days of weights and cardio.

photo credit: shoothead

On Sunday I did my lower body weights routine for the second time since I re-started, and while it was hard, I wasn’t as sore as last week when I did the same routine. The routine is starting to set in.

Last night I went running on our treadmill using a built in high intensity interval training (HIIT) program.  In the program you start out walking, and work your way up to running 6.5 miles per hour at a higher incline after a few minutes.  The routine repeats this pattern 4 or 5 times.

By the time I was done I was soaking with sweat and was extremely short of breath. I think I am right at the point where I’m doing just the right amount -not enough to make me collapse, but enough to challenge me.

Tonight, I’m back on the upper body weight routine that I talked about last week.

My workout plan does get a bit repetitive, but I know it works since I lost so much weight last year doing the same thing.  After I’ve been doing it for a few weeks I may switch things up a bit with some workout tapes or other types of cardio to make sure I don’t burn out on the routine – and to keep me motivated.

What types of things do you do to keep motivated, and keep things interesting?

photo credit: maHidoodi

I went running last night on our treadmill for the first time in months.  The weather here has cooled down a bit, and sometimes its just nice to run inside, instead of freezing outside.  I know I shouldn’t mind the cool weather because it’s going to get a whole lot colder than this very soon.  Oh well, sometimes I just like running inside so I can watch some TV as well.

I did a high intensity interval workout on the treadmill last night, running for about twenty minutes.  Man was it tough!  I can feel the results of not working out for a couple of months!

For the interval training I started out running slow, and then worked my way up to running 5 minutes later – doing this 4 times.   Top speed for me tonight was about 6.3 mph, which for some might  not be too fast, but for me is fast enough with the shape I’m in.

I am so sore today.  I had forgotten how tough things can be when you don’t workout for a while.  The first time you lift weights or run after a long hiatus, it can be a big wakeup call. Luckily I usually am able to bounce back after a few days, and the soreness gets better. Read about why you get sore in this previous article.

Tonight I’m doing upper body weights – wish me luck!

Earlier this week my wife and I decided that we needed to finally start exercising again, and actually watching what we eat.  We had slipped into a bit of a malaise where we didn’t care much what we were eating, or where we were eating.

So this weekend we made a pact with each other that we’re going to get back to exercising 5-6 days a week, and eating healthy.

Monday evening I re-started my fitness routine by doing the high-intensity cardio from a DVD put out by the TV show “The Biggest Loser”.   Normally I can’t stand doing workout routines via DVD – but this one is actually not too bad.  It features the trainer Bob from the hit TV show, along with contestants from season 2 or 3 of the show.

What does the workout consist of?  It starts out with some back and forth skating motions followed by some tire runs (lifting your knees high running in place) and football runs (moving your feet as fast as you can).   Then you do some shadow boxing and finish up with 1 knee lift and leg kicks.

Every time I do this workout I go in thinking its not going to be that bad, but every time I am finished I am drenched with sweat, and panting for breath.  And it feels great!

Yesterday I re-started my weight lifting routine.  I started with a lower body routine with some squats, followed by some hamstring dead lifts.  I finished up with some calf exercises and some ab exercises.  Once again the workout left me tired.

I’ve learned that if I haven’t lifted weights for a while I tend to get really sore the first 2 or 3 times I lift weights, and then the soreness isn’t as bad.  As expected, I’m pretty sore this morning.

So I’m off to a good start this week, now I just have to stay motivated in the face of all the other stuff life is throwing at me this week. Transmission problems on my car, teaching a class, just being fatigued in general. Just another week!

What kind of workouts are you doing right now? Are they working? Do you feel like you need to try something different?  Tell me about it in the comments!

photo credit: Bob Jagendorf

Well I’ve been back from our cruise for about a week now.  The trip was amazing, we had a wonderful time, and we saw some of the most beautiful places in the world during our 2 week cruise.

I also ate some of the most amazing food while we were gone.  The cruise ship that we were on served food almost 24 hours a day – and the food wasn’t half bad either.  There was a cafeteria that had 3 meals a day, plus a pizza bar and ice cream stand that was open most of the day.   There was also several restaurants on board serving delicious meals every night.   I took advantage of all of these places. I ate – and I ate a lot.  I think I gained a few pounds back that I’ve lost over the past few months, so it’s going to be time to get back on the wagon – as soon as I can kick this flu that I’ve had for the past week or so.

On the last day of our cruise in Venice I started getting sick.  Ever since then I’ve been all stuffed up with headaches, off and on fevers, and just an overall feeling of achiness.  It’s not a fun feeling.  I’m finally starting to feel better, and I think I’ll probably be able to start working out again near the end of the week.

Boy do I need it!

So stay tuned for a renewed sense of purpose, and new workout updates coming soon. Maybe not today or tomorrow  – but soon and for the rest of the year!

Week 3 once again

Today I restarted week 3 of the 100 pushup challenge – again. Lately it seems that every time I try to restart this whole thing we get busy, have nights out and I just can’t find the time to get my workouts in. I think I may start having to get up earlier so that I can exercise in the A.M.

Week 3 day 1 Column 2

Once again I started with 20. No problem. Powered through.

the two sets of 15 weren’t too bad, maybe the rest I’ve had actually helped? The 13 and was harder, but overly hard.

For the last set I made it to 20, and it wasn’t as much of a struggle as it was last time. So Wedensday I move on to day two again.

Looks to be a little harder, but do-able.

How’s your pushup challenge going? Have you given up yet? Still giving it your all? Doing it half-way? Let me know in the comments!

100 pushup challenge for Ipod

If you haven’t downloaded the 100 pushup challenge for your Ipod (or other portable device) yet, you can still do so by subscribing to our RSS feed. The download link will appear in the RSS feed. If you have trouble finding it, please email me through our contact page, and I’ll be happy to help.

If you have already downloaded the file you may want to re-download it as I have corrected some mistakes, and made some updates. Thanks!

Week 5 looks tough!

Well last night was day one of week 5 in my 100 pushup challenge.   How did it go?

FAIL!

Ok, it wasn’t all that bad.  It was a pretty tough week and I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to make it through the first 2 or 3 sets.  After day one it gets even worse where instead of having just 5 levels, it has 8!

Week 5 day 1

So last night I started doing my pushups with the set of 30.  I made it through that without too much difficulty (which even a couple of weeks ago would have been a huge struggle).  The second set of 24, was quite a bit harder.   They were asking me to do a lot more reps than I’ve been doing this whole time, and it is H-A-R-D, hard!

The third set of 22 was a struggle. Around 16 or so I was straining mightily to push myself up.  I made it through.

The fourth set of 20 was tough going.  I pushed as hard as I could, really struggling after 14 or so. But once again I made it.  But at this point, I knew I was not going to be able to finish that last set.  I thought maybe I could make 20 – but 30? No chance.

photo credit: bitmask

The last set I started pumping out pushups, and around ten I started to hit the wall.  At 13 I could barely get up.  And by 15 I knew I was done.

At that point I got on my knees and finished the pushups from my knees, but still I had stopped 15 short of my goal of 30.  Bummer.

While it’s disappointing to have had a fail on the first day of week 5, I knew this may happen and it wasn’t a total surprise.  I had looked at week 5 and realized that like week 3 they had really bumped up the level of pushups a notch.

Even though I failed, I did over 100 pushups today before I failed.  Not too shabby for someone who struggled to push out 10 on the initial test!

So where to go from here?

So from here I think I’m going to take the weekend off, and then restart on monday on week 3, day 1,  column 2.  I’ll re-do weeks 3 and 4 using column two, and hopefully next time I reach week 5 I’ll be ready!

100 pushup challenge for Ipod

If you haven’t downloaded the 100 pushup challenge for your Ipod (or other portable device) yet, you can still do so by subscribing to our RSS feed. The download link will appear in the RSS feed. If you have trouble finding it, please email me through our contact page, and I’ll be happy to help.

If you have already downloaded the file you may want to re-download it as I have corrected some mistakes, and made some updates.  Thanks!

Week 4 – what column will I be doing in week 5?

This morning I was waiting around for some workers to finish fixing a crack in my foundation. While I waited around I decided to do my exhaustion test for week 4.

If you perform 30 or less pushups you go back to week 3 and 4. I was thinking that was the way I might be headed. Up until now I haven’t been able to do more than 25 pushups at a time (which in itself was an improvement).

I got down on the floor this morning and started pushing out pushups at a pretty good pace. I made it to 10, then 20. Then I passed my previous high and kept going. I made it to 30 then 35. I eeked out one more to stop at 36. That’s quite an improvement over week one’s initial test!

Looking at the workout plan for week 5, I think I may be in for a rude awakening. Column 2 (which I’m supposedly supposed to be using) starts out with 35 pushups, and pretty much stays hard the entire time. Wow, this is going to be interesting.

In the interest of having a better chance of finishing week 5, I think I’m going to do column one for week 5. Let’s just all pretend I didn’t eek out that last pushup .

So starting tomorrow, week 5 of the 100 pushups challenge!

Here’s my progress so far:

100 pushup challenge for Ipod

If you haven’t downloaded the 100 pushup challenge for your Ipod (or other portable device) yet, you can still do so by subscribing to our RSS feed. The download link will appear in the RSS feed. If you have trouble finding it, please email me through our contact page, and I’ll be happy to help. Thanks!