Since I’m not blogging every meal + snack any longer, I decided I need to focus on something specific every day. As I thought about this I realized that since the healthy eating isn’t my absolute focus (still focused on it, don’t get me wrong), I’ve been trying to focus on achieving fitness goals:
- My current goal now is to get back into my cardio groove (although I’ve been going to the gym 6 days a week, I still can’t get into a good rhythm post-wedding!). Since I had nearly 3 weeks off from exercising (which is probably my longest time off EVER), I feel like I have lost my speed during spinning classes and I’m not quite sure why. I guess I’m still getting used to a whole new routine (by getting married and living with a husband!) but hopefully I will physically adjust soon. I notice myself getting stronger everyday I workout, so hopefully I’ll be back to 110% in no time.
- Another mini goal of mine is to incorporate mini strength workouts by doing pushups, bicep curls, tricep dips, and pull-ups (I’ve been doing this, but not nearly as often as I should). I’m hoping to incorporate it where I can, but to really put myself on a workout schedule, in terms of strength training, in a month or so.
My plan is to post at the end of every day what my workout has been, how I felt, what I accomplished, etc. I always like reading about what other people do, so hopefully you do too!
Here’s today’s stats:
- Activity: Ab work, light bike riding (as warmup) then Spin class
- Duration: 20 mins (abs) + 10 minute warm-up + 55 minute class
- Stretching: yes, prior + after
- Calories Burned (only during spinning): 440
- *Just as an FYI: I only calculate calories burned during the class, so I turn it off while stretching and I use a Polar F4 HRM simply to track my intensity in terms of heart rate and calories burned to see how it differs each week with similar workouts*
- How I felt: Energized & sweaty pretty much describes tonight’s workout. I take this class every week with one of my good friends, which helps us both stay motivated. The Monday night class is taught by my 2nd favorite teacher (there are 2 teachers who are tied for 2nd place IMO!) who has done the same rides that I have done (ACS Bike A Thon, MS-150), so I knew heading into it, I’d get a great workout! I’m still struggling with sprinting only because I used to be lightning-bolt fast without even thinking about it, but now I really have to think about ways to motivate myself to push as hard as possible during a sprint. Plus, I also think this has to do with me ramping up the resistance during sprints; whereas before I would keep it on 3-4 notches up, lately I’ve been trying to sprint on a 5 or 6, but sometimes I just can’t do it and tick it down in the middle of a sprint. I think I need to determine what is more important to me: strength or speed. I feel as though I semi-possess strength already and need to work on speed, so I should probably re-evaluate this method.
My question for you all is: How do you motivate yourself MID-WORKOUT? I have no problems with getting to the gym and starting a workout, but how do you push yourself to go further than you think you can?
One last note… there is another huge fitness goal I have been working on as well, but I’m going to save that update for tomorrow, since it will be more applicable then.
