I tried yoga a couple times a decade or so ago. Partly because I tend to ignore stretching otherwise and partly because it seemed like a good place to meet fit girls. The problems were: It cost money and involved going somewhere at a set time, and that I was too busy trying to hold the positions to effectively flirt with anyone during the session and too tired afterwards. Yes. Six days a week is certainly just a goal most of the time. With my current job, they don't want us in stores during the big sales so I've had a lot of time off so I'm able to fit in the exercise. That said, my day consists of getting up, eating something, playing with The Dog, doing the household chores (dishes, feeding animals/cleaning litterbox, etc), checking e-mails etc, exercising, and maybe getting one productive thing done during the day. I find myself going "Geez, it's 7pm already!?" And of course the problem is, you don't exercise and you are tired and have no energy because you're a big weak baby. You do exercise...and you're tired and have no energy because your body is recovering from the exercise. And I'm finally getting my knee fixed so my cardio program is going to be in the toilet for an undisclosed period of time. Well, planning on getting it fixed. The brochure the doctor's office sent says that "you won't be as good as new after surgery and may have to wear a brace for some activities." Well shit, I'm already operating above 90% and have to wear a brace for some activities. Why incur the risk, expense, and downtime of an operation if that's the deal? But I'm assuming that is just part of the "informed consent" type of thing. They undersold the shit out of LASIK to the point that I was having second thoughts and I was, like, 20/15 coming right off the table after the operation so, fingers crossed.
Yeah, I 've got a lot of really good [-]excuses[/-] reasons for being out of shape as well. Hopefully I can get some permanent employment this spring and can't use that as an excuse to avoid joining a gym. I've got two (one regular, one crossfit) within a quarter mile of my place so money is really the only snag.
Well, (1) $18 a month and (2) available 24/7 online pretty much eliminate your main obstacles. Won't help you with the "meeting fit girls" part, since everyone on your screen is in SoCal.
Today's roadblock is that it is 34 degrees out with a bitch wind howling down the Gorge, cutting like shards of broken glass. I try not to do my strength training 2 days in a row, but if I'm going to make my schedule this week I may have to.
Huh. Haven't posted here since the knee surgery. During the time on crutches all my strength was going into just getting around and recovering from the surgery. For not exercising at all and eating as much as I could I was actually losing weight. Fairly quickly after the surgery I started doing weekly physical therapy. It was supposed to be twice a week but it was out of pocket and I wasn't going to pay someone $95 to let me ride their exercise bike twice a week. Got to go for my first run around Tax Time. I'm still a month out from being able to do anything that requires dynamic direction changes. And a couple weeks ago I learned that kick starting a motorcycle isn't the smartest thing you can do with a bad knee. No damage, thankfully, just a couple days of swelling. We were busy at work this month, doing a physically demanding project, but over Memorial Day weekend I actually managed to get in six days of exercise--three runs and three strength days. Then nothing until today. Oh, and the runs have still been a little unnerving. A recent one, I got about 3 blocks in and the knee got a bit wobbly. Walked a block or two and it seemed to settle down so I finished the run. And I've been consistently favoring the weak knee. That said, I just got back from around a 3 mile run. It was a leisurely half hour or so but part of that was because The Dog needed to smell things every 20 feet. But part of it was because I'm fat and weak and old. Even so, the knee didn't do anything funny on me and I probably made it around halfway before I started favoring it at all. Still, my stride isn't what it should be. But I forget what recovering from a leg injury is like. Cracked my femur in the mid '90s--stress fracture. That, you just stay off it while it heals and then start running on it. Took a whole summer to get back into shape on runs--and I was in my mid-twenties then. So all told, this is coming along fairly well. I wish I'd bought some ice cream at the store. My belly doesn't need it, but my knee seems to think it is very good for rebuilding all the little muscles and further solidifying the anchor points on the new ligament.
I've heard ice cream speeds knee healing. Don't forget that going easy on your knee to heal is not the same thing as going easy on yourself. You don't need to prove anything to anyone. Keep it up.
Boeing is in the midst of it's annual "On the Move" program. trying to get its employees healthier (and thus get better Medical insurance rates) by offering competitions and incentives if one completes various levels of goals. Get $100 in Amazon gift cards by averaging 12,000 steps or 60 minutes of exercise per day for 8 weeks, for example...that's my goal. On days I play Racquetball or Golf, it's pretty easy to get at least 12K steps in (they have nice conversion calculators for a large number of activities), but on days when I don't have any of that scheduled, it's damned tough. I think I average 4K steps/day when I don't have specific activities planned. Well, 2 rball matches and a golf match in the past 3 days, and my body is achy as hell. All this fitness is killing me!
Get an active dog. On a typical day I spend 10-15 minutes throwing the tennis ball in the back yard in the morning. Then I walk her to the park that is 5-6 blocks away to throw the ball with a Chuck-It in the afternoon. Then before bed we go for a walk that is about an hour/2-3 miles long.
A) The Mrs. & I can never agree on a dog. What I consider to be good size, she considers to be "a horse". What she considers an acceptable size, I consider a "drop kick dog". B) No offense, Volpone, but based on your Blue Room thread, your entire life seems to revolve around the fucking dog. Pets shouldn't run one's life. Period.
Eh, she's a little like having a kid. I committed to having her. If you commit to someone you don't give up just because it is hard.
The knee is coming along nicely. I think it still demands a lot of calcium for repairs and I'm still sleeping more than normal, but it is coming along. 100% mobility is pretty par for the course with very little stiffness. Making complex motions on it and adapting to uneven terrain more or less seamlessly. Ran...Friday? Friday. Did a little over 2 miles in 20 minutes. Took a break to walk. Then finished up when I let The Dog off leash in a fenced area...and she promptly chased a cat through a bush and fence into someone's back yard and wouldn't come out until she thought I'd abandoned her. Today I did over 3 miles. It took a half hour, but I did it. No knee wobble and almost no favoring/compensating. And (at the risk of jinxing myself) it feels like I won't be in agony tomorrow. Of course now it's back to work so we'll see if I'm too tired to run or work out. (I favored job hunting over my strength training this week.)
