Category: Fitness

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are still here. William and I have both been pretty busy lately. Unfortunately, I am behind on my recipes. However, the tradeoff was using some free time to get a personal trainer at the gym. It has been money well spent! I love my trainer. I am enjoying it thoroughly and seeing some great results. Today was session 8 of 13 and it kicked my butt! We are on to phase 2 of my training and the intensity has been turned up 200%. I am very excited about finishing strong and fitting back into some clothes that are sitting neglected in my closet 🙂 More importantly, I am feeling better about my fitness level, and making my workouts part of my daily routine. I have been to the gym every day for the past 27 days (except Friday and Saturday of this past weekend when I was out of town). This is a huge accomplishment for me, especially since work can keep me tied up with dinner meetings, etc. Some nights, I was at the gym at 10 or 11pm, but I went. I am very proud of myself! Still struggling a bit with the sweets, but I am getting better.

William has been very busy in the lab as usual, but has also been frequenting the gym.

Anyway…we will try to blog again soon.

Sadly, neither of us lost any weight in the month of October. The fact that the holidays are quickly approaching just makes matters worse. I plan to keep excersing, but I will be eating all of my favorite things come Thanksgiving and Christmas.

With William well on his way to his workout goal, and me lagging behind a bit, I decided to take it to the next step.  I had a couple of assessments done at the gym to make sure I maximize my workouts and balance out my eating.  I took two tests.  The first one was an Anerobic Threshold Test.  I bascially had to walk on a treadmill at varrying inclines and speeds with a mask that measured my oxygen output.  Yesterday, after 12 hours of fasting, I took a Resting Metabolic Rate test that told me how many calories my body needs to function.  This test required me sitting in a chair in a dark room for about 20 minutes while again breathing into a mask that measured my oxygen output.  I was expecting for the trainer to tell me my metabolism was poor, but it was actually pretty good.  I burn a lot more calories during the course of the day than I thought I did.  So, the two tests have given me a good baseline on how to plan my exercises and my meals.  I have a workout plan for the first couple weeks that consists of interval training in specific zones, and since I know how many calories I burn each day, I am planning my meals better so I can both make sure I get the nutrients I need and can loose a few pounds also.  I need to learn to eat more meals during the day than just the typical breakfast, lunch and dinner…. something I already knew, but this only reinforced it.  Anyway… the tests were intersting and I will seewhat kind of results I get from this new direction.

Remember that whole exercise challange thing?  Well, between work, trips and everything else, we stopped giving regular updates. Sorry. I don’t know what week we are on, but here it is: I’ve lost 17 lbs and Kyllan has lost 5. Yes, I know. I was a little chubby. Both of us are still excersing regulary. I’ll give another update the first week of November.

I finally found a Wii Fit!!!  After several failed attempts over the past couple of months to find one, I thought that this past weekend would end in success since one of the sales associates at Circuit City told me they usually get Wii Fit’s in on the first Sunday of the month.   Well, I went to Circuit City on Sunday around noon and they were already sold out of the Wii’s they got in that morning.  The manager told me that there was a line outside when he arrived to work at 7am.  Really??!!  Wow.  I called several other stores and they had similar situations…received some that morning, but were already sold out.  Most stores only seem to get between 3-6 per shipment.  I still don’t understand why high demand item production is so scarce!

Anyway… the guy at the Game Stop near where I work told me they usually get one on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, so just call the store and ask if they got any in.  So… I figured that was my best option (to try to find one at a store near work instead of waiting till the weekend and going to Circuit City, Best Buy, Walmart, or Toys R Us.)  Well… today, I called Game Stop at the end of the day, and calmly asked, “Do you have any Wii Fit’s?” and waited for the disappointing news.  BUT… he said, in a voice like I had just found a clue to a $1million dollar puzzle, “Actually… we do!”   At this point, I became very excited over the phone and said, “really?!  Great!”  He explained that he couldn’t hold it, to which I quickly responded, “No problem, I am on my way!”.  I was literally running through the parking lot to my car and calling William to share the great news.   When I arrived at the store, the guy says… “You weren’t lying when you said you were on your way”  The mall is about 5 minutes from where I work.  I purchased Wii Fit #3 of 4 they had received the previous day.  I was so excited!!

Despite my excitement and anxiousness to try it out.  I still went to my usual Wednesday Turbo Kick Class to make sure I got a high fat-burning workout since I figured my first day on Wii Fit would be fairly low impact.  Although the beginning started a bit slow as you learn the games, I will admit that the they do get progressively harder and higher in impact and I was very impressed!  The best thing about Wii Fit is that is focuses on aerobic activity, strength training, Yoga, and most importantly balance.  I guess they don’t call it a “balance board” for nothing!  All of the activities incorporate balance since they want you to work on good posture and overall fitness.  I think that is great!!   Even though I knew that strength training was important and Yoga is a good idea, this brought it all into perspective.  I really love it!!  I did pretty well on the aerobics (Ski Jump was by far my best event) and very well on the strength straining exercises and surprisingly well at the Yoga exercises I did (I am not very good at Yoga).  The balance exercises… that was another story.  I am not good at those (although I was good when it came to balance with strength training).  There is a balance game where you have to head bump the soccer balls, but dodge the other objects that come flying in your face (like cleats and other random objects) and let’s just say that I was horrible at that.  I would be black and blue if that were real 🙂  I did pretty good at Hula Hoop though and was able to unlock the Advanced Hula Hoop.  I thought I would be superb at Step, but you have to step at the “perfect time”, so I was not as stellar as I thought I would be, but I did manage to unlock the Advanced Step (I should explain here that as you get “better”, it unlocks new games, yoga poses, etc.).  I love how when you don’t do well, they play this depressing music.  That is hilarious to me.

I have to say that the best thing about Wii Fit is he tracking mechanism.  It can track your weight and BMI over time and it even graphs your progress!!  You an set timelines to reach certain goals, like lose 5 lbs in 1 month, etc.  You can also complete the balance test each day to track your progress with that, which I definitely need to do.

Ok… well, I am sure you get the drift of my excitement by now.  I played around on it for about 2 hours, but it is after midnight now, so I need to go to bed (and call William back since I was too excited pre-occupied with the games when he called earlier… all he could do was laugh).  I definitely recommend this to anyone thinking of getting one (or even those not thinking of getting one) although it seems like many of our friends have one! I think this will really help me keep up with my workouts and fitness and weight loss goals, which is exciting!

I can’t believe we are already on week 4 of our exercise challenge. I hate to admit it, but so far, William is in the lead. He has been faithfully exercising (running, riding his bike to work, etc). He has been able to lose 4 lbs so far. I did well during Week 1, but Week 2 and 3 were bad for me. The holiday threw a wrench in things and I think I picked up a few pounds. The good news is that I was back to the gym this week doing my Turbo Kick classes and I have making some healthy eating choices with the exception of the desserts at work..it’s killing me! I have a hard time passing up apple cobbler, chocolate cake, or any cake for that matter. So… I am still working on that. I think with a couple pounds added during the holiday and the delay getting back on schedule, I am only down about 1-2lbs. I do plan to commit myself to my exercise routine (I have added it to my calendar at work to make sure I leave on time to get to the gym) and I plan to keep choosing and preparing healthier meals. I know William will continue to do well. Plus, we have Dr. Neil to coach us along he way! (Thanks for your support and advice Neil)

William and I have been complaining a lot over the past couple months about not being able to fit certain clothes and not being the size that we were in college. He has been losing some weight, but I have watched my weight slowly increase. So…. we are both challenging ourselves to make healthier food choices and exercise on a more consistent basis over the next couple months leading up to our 1 year anniversary. My goal is to lose 15-20 lbs. This will allow me to fit in most of my clothes again. William is also hoping to lose about 20 lbs. I am only posting this on the blog to possibly help keep us accountable for this goal. We will try to post updates on how we are doing. We have both done fairly well this week. I have worked out 3 days straight so far doing my Turbo Kick class on Sunday and the Turbo Jam DVD yesterday and today. William has been biking and working out in the gym. In fact, he plans to participate in Denver’s annual Bike to Work Day tomorrow. We have not finalized the prize for the winner of the challenge, but we’ll keep you posted.