Feeling fine

This week was a really good one on the exercise front. I found a cool website for tracking race results, and I realized that my last race listed was in 2006. I had some other races that didn't show up, but it reminded me that it has been longer than I thought since I took training and racing seriously. I had the dissertation and the Crazy Job to distract me, but I'm out of excuses and ready to get back to racing shape again. I like that this site has a very simple way to track your workouts called WWYDT (what did YOU do today), very similar to twitter in that the emphasis is on short, sweet, and to the point.

So here are my WWYDT entries for the week, in reverse order:

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Pilates Reformer class, 1 hour.

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Friday, February 20, 2009

Strength and sculpt class, 1 hr. First half of the class was intense Spinning, second half was weight training with a Body Bar.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Ran 40 minutes in the park on a cold, sunny day. Did a fast interval on the long boardwalk. 10 minute walk to cool down. Lots of ice to dodge but felt great.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Spinning class, 45 minutes.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Ran 30 minutes by the quarry.

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Monday, February 16, 2009

Did 50 laps in the pool (8 were kickboard).

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Sunday, February 15, 2009

Ran 30 minutes with Jesse at the park.

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I am happy to report that I am feeling -- and sleeping -- a lot better after doing all of this activity, and my weight is down a little, too. I'm tracking my calories and trying to keep things high-quality. I find that if I don't focus on this, I tend toward the all-fat-and-carb diet, not the best. I'm trying to get back to basics: more veggies, more activity, less junk. Once I'm used to the current routine, I want to start increasing some of my workout times so that I'm averaging 5 hours a week, which is what Jillian Michaels recommends.

Speaking of Jillian, I was thinking of her smackdown of the contestant who only lost 2 pounds in several weeks of home weight loss. She talked more about it on this week's podcast. I think Jillian was right about this contestant, but at the same time, I've had the experience of feeling like I'd really made a difference in my body that hasn't showed up on the scale yet. I'm actually feeling that way now. I think there are two things happening. First, I think all the Reformer classes has helped my posture, so I'm feeling a little lighter and more lifted. I've been focusing on holding in my abs when I run and have been doing more posture checks. This makes me feel like I look better even though I haven't lost any weight. Secondly, I think that exercising does increase my confidence, so even if I don't look any different, I feel pretty kick-ass about all the stuff I'm doing. Neither of these is weight loss, but they are important things nonetheless, and I am happy to have some non-scale rewards to enjoy while I work on everything else.