Up and Up and Up . . .

I'm not sure if I've ever told the story of when I decided to start losing weight. If I have, feel free to ignore the first couple of paragraphs.

It was back in the end of May, and I was doing a bit of work in the library in my office building. Suddenly the irritating buzzer of the building's fire alarm sounded, and everyone went single file to the nearest stairwell. We were required to go four floors down and wait for instructions. We did so, and once they sounded the all clear, most people started climbing back up the staircase. I, having not taken the stairs in a while and apparently in a deep state of denial regarding my physical fitness, did the same.

At the end of four floors (8 flights) of stairs, my calves were tying themselves in knots. I had to lug myself up the last set of stairs by my arms. When I got back to my desk I all but fell into my chair, my legs collapsing and my heart racing as if it wanted to break out of my chest. For twenty minutes or more, I was useless, breathing noisily and trying not to move too much as I felt dizzy and a little sick. It was then that I realized that had I needed to climb stairs for an emergency, I would die. DIE.

Bullshit. I started planning from there.

So fast forward almost five months later, and I'm freaking, because my gym is closed for a week to fnalize their transition to super-active-fancy-pants gym. They'd aready been closed for a month for more extensive renovations, and as a result I'd stopped exercising, and stopped losing. Now that I'm back in the swing of things, I don't want to fall off the wagon. So I plan with some other gym-going co-workers, to get together at lunch and do our own workout, somewhere in the building.

Yesterday was a planned bust (Went out to lunch with co workers for my boss's 50th birthday), but today I wanted to bust my ass with weighttraining (Without weights since they're hard to carry on lightrail without looking silly). Unfortunately, every single one of my gym buddies bailed on me. So what was I to do?

That's when I decided; the stairs!

So today, once every hour since I got to work, I've walked up 4 floors (8 flights) of stairs. After doing this three times I decided it wasn't enough, and so each time I walked up a floor, I stopped and did squats. The next time I did lunges. The next time, wall pushups. The next, plie squats. The next, more lunges. I only have one more set to go, not sure what I'll do, but I know I'll do it.

And how am I feeling after walking up a combination of 24 floors (48 flights)?

Fantastic! I'll probably be sore tomorrow, and I don't think I could currently do much more than what I did today, but I'm a helluva lot farther along than I was in May. Huzzah!

Months Later . . .

Hello everyone!

I realize that it's been a while (Months, actually... yikes!) since I've posted on this blog, and I apologize to those few that have actually been keeping track of me.

Due to various problems, both external (My work gym closed for half of june and half of July for renovations) and internal (ie. my laziness and inability to follow through), I fell off the blog-wagon.

Luckily I didn't completely fall of the health-wagon.

My most current low weight was 282.6 lbs. as of 9/13/11. I've lost some inches and gained some flexibility and strength along the way. I've changed my workout routine from cardio-heavy to a more balanced routine of 3 days of cardio and 3 days of weight training. I've fallen in love with exercise equipment I've never used before (I love you, rowing machine, you crazy, sweat-inducing bastard!) and learned that eating healthy is difficult when your spouse isn't on the health bandwagon (And when your income is pretty limited).

I will try to be better about posting every day, at least to log my exercise and food.

Food-
Breakfast:
1 packet of Maple & Brown Sugar Oatmeal
1/3 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (I love this stuff, and only 40 calories a cup!)

Morning Snack:
1 serving White Corn Tortilla Chips (Decided to forgo the mango-peach salsa today, not sure why)

Exercise:
Tracy (One of my gym buddies) has a workout she got from her personal trainer, and this was the second time we tried it. It involves chest presses and skullcrushers on an exercise ball, a descending set of bicep exercises, enough shoulder exercises to make me cry for mercy, lunges, squats and finally, ab work utilizing a medicine ball. The first time we did this, I finished well. Tired, my arms and legs feeling like jell-om but I finished nonetheless.

Today, however, I started feeling lightheaded and a bit nauseous about 2/3 of the way through. I didn't get in any squats and did simpler ab work. But in the end my arms at least still felt noodly, so I don't think it was a total waste. I'll be doing sets of squats throughout the day to get those in, and may do some wall push-ups later if my arms will let me.

Lunch:
Smart Ones Lasagna Florentine Meal (Cheese! Yum!)