My favorite exercise tapes

I've only been working out for a couple of weeks but I'm already thinking about doing exercise tapes after work. My two favorite tapes are straight from the 80's Jane Fonda's New Workout and Callan Pinckney's Callanetics. Yes, I said tapes. They're on VHS, but are now definitely available on DVD if you're interested. If you're into free weights I really like The Firm Body Sculpting Basics with Susan Harris it even has kegel exercises as part of the floor work, and if you're into step aerobics I like CherFitness A New Attitude. Workouts from the early days of aerobics always make me smile, all the spandex and bodysuits gotta love it. And they're fun with all the yipping and yelling and clapping.

Once daylight savings hits I'll probably start running in the mornings, I am totally unwilling to run in the dark with so many crazy drivers around. Or maybe I'll start running in the park after work and just do yoga and calisthenics in the mornings.

No matter what kind of exercise you do, just be smart and always listen to your body. Don't overextend your knee or back, and if you feel actual joint pain then dial it back and don't extend so far, or don't do that particular exercise at all.

Exercising around work

I work full time 5 days a week. The morning workout happens before I go to my job. It means I get up a couple hours before I have to be out the door, I immediately take a couple of vitamins that are supposed to be taken at least an hour before I eat, pack my breakfast and lunch which are both eaten at work, workout, and then finally shower before I'm out the door.

Being by nature a night owl, the packing of the meals in the morning is arduous and slow with lots of standing in place while zoning out. But I'm awake by the time I start working out and hitting it fast and hard so that there's enough time to shower afterwards.

The evening workout is more leisurely with stretching between each type of exercise. But it happens later at night after we put our little one to bed.

The only difference on the weekend is that the kiddo and I do jumping jacks together in the mornings together with bouts of jogging around the living room in between sets of 20 jumping jacks. And I do leg lifts with him sitting on my legs.

Using the internet to eat healthy and the allure of food fads

I've been haunting Amazon's "health food" section and have succumbed to the allure of strange dried fruits and seeds which I add to overnight oats and oatmeal. Overnight oats is a strange cold oatmeal concept. Oats are soaked overnight in some kind of milk and they're eaten in the raw in the mornings. Most people add stuff to their overnight oats like nut butters, mashed bananas, yogurt, chia seeds, flax meal, fruit dried or otherwise, etc.

Food has become totally unsatisfying to me. It doesn't help that I've totally burned out my sense of taste and smell. They're gone. Can't smell a damn thing and food itself taste bland and unappetizing in general.

How does a person burn out her or his sense of smell? It starts with an upper respiratory infection and finishes with lots of menthol cough drops. Waking up with cough drops and going to bed with cough drops. Yep. That's what burned out my sense of smell. Same thing happened to a friend of mine but she went the way of Vicks vaporub, she said it took a month before her sense of smell came back.

Burning off the fat

Burning off the fat takes a lot effort, you have to actually work longer and harder before your body switches to fat burning. Normally your body utilizes energy from carbohydrates molecules first that might be free floating in your body, once that is used up it turns to metabolizing protein otherwise known as muscle to produce energy, but once you've worked out long enough and hard enough finally your body turns to fat burning.

You can tell the difference immediately when your body turns to fat burning. It's what runners call their second wind, when you get a big spurt of energy and it feels like you can run forever. Fat metabolism actually produces twice as much energy vs. the other energy pathways, but it takes a bit of work to get there because your body is completely switching gears to get to that point.

The key to fat metabolizing is anaerobic also known as without oxygen versus aerobic as in with oxygen. When your muscle are starved of oxygen they naturally turn to fat burning. Whereas aerobic exercises naturally uses muscle as energy first, you have to actually run longer before your body switches fat burning. For me, I reach my second wind after 40 minutes of running which is when my body finally switches to fat burning. With aerobics your heart is pumping harder and you are breathing heavier which works to move oxygen to your muscles, it's not until your muscles become starved for oxygen that you switch to fat burning.

Probably the most efficient way to lose fat is through weight lifting, generally you are not breathing as hard and your heart rate isn't obscenely elevated so it is more of an anaerobic exercise since your muscles are still working away while getting less oxygen.

But I want to stress that it is still very important to do aerobic exercises which also works out your lungs and heart.

Really it's up to you. Run longer and harder or weight lift, or do both. Step aerobics is another good alternative as is jumping rope, or even running up and down the steps in a stadium if you want to focus on fat burning.

But for me, I'm not looking to get sculpted and ripped. I still want that nice layer of softness or baby fat while being trim and athletic. Plus I really like feeling the burn in my lungs and the hard pounding of my heart. Which means I lean towards aerobics, but I get bored easily enough that I'm always trying the alternatives.

Confessions of a fatty

I have back fat, as in fat rolls on my back, also called love handles. There are months where I forget about having them. Not having a full length mirror really helps with this.

Luckily they are usually one of the first things to go when the weight starts coming off. I carry my weight really evenly throughout my body and I lose it that way too. But that might just be due to the exercises I like.

Right now the goal is to strengthen my musculature and once my endurance is built up, then comes the aerobics. I like my aerobics hard and sweaty with lots of jumping and kicks and hard breathing, but I have to build up to that. It's really disconcerting when your belly jiggles while you're working out, it's downright unpleasant to me and puts me off aerobics and running. So I do lots of floor exercises and crunches before getting to the good stuff.

Do you still keep all your skinny clothes?

I still have all my nice skinny clothes from 20 years ago. That's right, I've been dragging suitcases of clothes I can't fit into from state to state. Long skinny skirts, tiny mini skirts, and a bunch of Levi 501's, plus a beautiful array of brightly colored embroidered Vietnamese dresses or ao dai.

This is going to be the year. I am going to get fit and fit into those clothes. It's still January so there's a good 6 to 7 months for me to get body ready and maybe I'll get to wear some tiny summer clothes. That would be just amazing. My wardrobe will triple in size just from being able to fit into some old clothes.

The dream lives on.

Snacks and eating habits

Now that I've started taking vitamins and exercising everyday it seems like my cravings for carbs have gone away. I'm starting to wonder if those cravings were tied to general exhaustion and sleep deprivation. We have a really high energy kiddo and the constant eating of carbs may have been a way to keep myself going.

Breads, bagels, muffins, doughnuts, cakes, and pies were my weakness. Normally, I could glut myself on sweets everyday. But now I've cut way down on those sorts of things and find myself sleeping deeper and feel more rested in the mornings. Some vitamins in the mornings and a quick workout and I'm raring to go. Even my moods are better. Cheerful even. So. Weird.

Breakfast:

Oatmeal - warm and gooey with butter and brown sugar. This week I'll starting adding stuff like chia seeds, goji berries, sliced bananas, blue berries, or milk. During the summer I'll eat the oats raw with soy milk, like the way you eat cereal.

Cottage cheese with fruit, usually canned peaches during the winter.

Fruit smoothies. During the summer months we live on fruit smoothies in the mornings. Lots of frozen strawberries and pineapple (we freeze them ourselves) with plums, oranges, canned peaches, etc., really anything we can find.

Lunch:

Rice with some sort of meat, a vegetable, and maybe some kind of fruit. Summer I'll probably start eating sandwiches like nut-butter and jelly.

Dinner:

Anything goes. Lately we've been eating dinner breakfasts like eggs in a nest. I just try to eat early, eat less and make sure I get an evening workout in.

Daily workout, 1/22

150 jumping jacks
50 pushups
50 floor tricep dips
150 glute clenches
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
5 minutes stretching

Running with ankle problems

If your ankles are loose or weak or you tend to twist your ankle often, it might be a good idea to get shoes with good ankle support. I do this anyways with aerobic shoes because when I'm dancing around everywhere, it's nice to get that support.

Now if you're interested in running and want to actually improve your ankle stability, then you might try walking or jogging on uneven ground like a flat grassy area. Even flat grassy areas are uneven enough to strengthen the little support muscles around your ankles. It doesn't take long for those muscles to get stronger and then you can move onto other surfaces. The nice thing about running around tracks, they are usually made from very cushiony materials which saves wear and tear on you joints.

The most important thing about running is stretching. Stretch before your run and stretch after your run. Stretch your calves, stretch your thighs, stretch your lower back, and even stretch your arms. Stretching helps you keep your full range of motion, which in turn helps your running form and keeps you from getting injured.

Daily workout, 1/21

Morning:
140 jumping jacks
70 pushups
60 floor tricep dips
20 minutes jogging
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
100 glute clenches
10 minutes stretching

Night:
150 squats
60 pushups
60 floor tricep dips
150 glute clenches
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
15 minutes stretching

Running shoes

If you're into running or jogging (which I think is pronounced with a soft j as in yogging) than it's a good idea to have a couple of pairs of good running shoes and swap them out every other time you go for a run. It lets your shoes have a chance to dry out between runs and they'll last longer for it.

But if your feet are taking a pounding and your knees are starting to bother you than it might be a good idea to get some new shoes. Runner's World puts out a best of shoe guide yearly where they rate shoes and price them, a good place to start when looking for a good pair of running shoes.

Daily workout, 1/20

100 squats
60 pushups
70 floor tricep dips
130 glute clenches
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse situps
15 minutes of stretching

About taking vitamins at night

Don't do it. They will keep you up for hours. Hours. Do yourself a favor and take them in the morning.

Daily workout, 1/19

Morning:
100 squats
100 glute clenches
50 pushups
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
5 minutes of stretching

Night:
100 jumping jacks
100 glute clenches
50 pushups
50 tricep dips
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
15 minutes of stretching

Thoughts on exercising

As you can tell, I like high reps when it comes to exercises. It builds stamina as well as strength.

When the exercises get too easy I make them more challenging by raising my feet higher for pushups or changing up the exercises, do something different like adding squats or pull-up bar exercises. It's also a way to keep your interest up during workouts. If you reach a plateau or get into a rut just completely change your workout, add something new, or increase duration like run harder or run longer.

My workouts have always followed the seasons. Winter was for weight lifting, jumping rope, rowing, and indoor bicycling. Spring and fall involved some form of aerobics. And summer was for running, basketball, swimming, canoeing, baseball, or tennis... really anything outside would do.

By nature I am really in my head, but being active and physical puts you in your body and teaches you to live in the moment rather than spending all your time dreaming of tomorrow.

And honestly when it comes to dieting. I don't. The more active I am the more my cravings tend to whole foods, fruit smoothies, vegetable juices, etc. It just happens naturally. Plus you'll probably find yourself reading exercise magazines looking for new interesting workouts, which by extension you will find yourself reading their healthy diet articles. After awhile everything just converges.

Daily workout, 1/18

Morning:
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
50 glute squeezes
50 pushups
5 minute stretches

Night:
100 jumping jacks
50 squats
100 glute squeezes
50 pushups
50 floor tricep dips
100 crisscross crunches
100 crunches
80 reverse crunches
15 minute stretches

Thoughts about being fat

I don't mind exercising. I don't mind sprinting or jogging. I love aerobics, butt clenches, jumping rope and weight lifting.

My weakness. Eating. And general laziness.

So, no more sitting on my ass reading a book. That means I am done with fiction. Done. No more junk food for the brain.

And I need to eat less. Sure sometimes hunger feels like a living breathing thing inside of me that's consuming me from the inside. But I can and will turn my interests towards other things.

So for beginners. Do some exercises in the morning and at night. Start out with crunches, pushups, squats, backward lunges, jumping jacks, and maybe some yoga Sun Salutations.

Daily workout, 1/17

150 jumping jacks
200 crunches
50 pushups
15 minutes of stretching (because I'm so damn unflexible. and I like to torture myself with the fact I have a hard time touching my toes when sitting on the ground because my fat belly gets in the way. nice.)

The back end of a scale

How did I ever let myself get to this point? I could blame it on the baby.... But the little critter is now three years old and that shit just don't fly anymore.

I'm big and ungainly, and still trying to fit into pants that feel like they are cutting me in half. My most comfortable work pants are my maternity pants. And pretty much everywhere else I where sweats. Ugh, even my feet are fat.

So lets begin.

Checklist:
vitamins (I've got tons of prenatals to use up)
green powder for blenderized fruit drinks or oatmeal breakfast concoctions (it's a fad)
breakfast (fruit drinks, oatmeal, banana, grapefruit, toast w/ nut butter, etc.)
lunch (only take the small plastic container w/ simple food to work, maybe a fruit cup or jello)
snack (granola bar or dried fruit)
dinner (anything's game but try to eat early and include a vegetable)
the Dress (tiny brand new dress w/ matching tiny new shoes for when I've lost the blubber)