Surviving a triathlon – even when they said you wouldn’t

Sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due.

Yesterday I participated in a sprint triathlon.

Let me just put it out there, it wasn’t pretty.

I wore a fat-kid-at-the-beach tee shirt during the swim, mostly because I didn’t have the right tri outfit. You’re just not going to find me in one of those hi-tech wet suits, I fear that once on, the darn thing would never come off.

Due to some shoulder problems, I did the breast-stroke for the entire 1/3 mile swim. I was looking throughout the previous waves and knew that I was the ONLY one doing breast-stroke but you know what? It was enough to get me around those buoys to the finish of the swim (and apparently it was enough to keep me ahead of the snapping turtles that had been spotted in the lake the day before – pretty strong incentive to swim as quickly as I possibly could)

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Final update on the One Hour or Die Exercise challenge

The month ended on a Holiday and I wasn’t able to get this final updates up so here you go –

One hour or die – exercising one hour a day as per the AMA recommendation

Just wanted to close out this challenge with the following three updates:

1. On Sunday night, due to the many, many tournament soccer games (our 4 soccer kids had a total of 10 games this weekend) Griffin and I didn’t get to the gym until late on Sunday. The gym closed at 8:00 pm and I was perversely proud when at 8:00 on the dot I was told by an attendant to stop my incessant exercising because the gym was closing.

Break out the band, yup that’s right, we closed down the gym. Who would have ever thought?

2. On Monday (Memorial Day) the gym was only open from 7 am to 2 pm. True to form Griffin and I were on the elliptical at 8:30 in the morning in order to fit the gym in along with the town parade and planned Bar-b-Que.

3. And lastly, just wanted you to know that for the last 2 months, that’s 61 days – I met my challenge and made it to the gym every single day (although not without some complaining on several of those days).

It wasn’t the easiest challenge I’ve ever undertaken but it was one of the most fulfilling. My son joined me halfway through, my clothes fit a bit better, and because of the workout summary, I now know how much exercise it takes to work off that chocolate chip cookie.

No thanks, I’ll stick with an orange.

Although my knee did get irritated by the exercise (please, sometimes I think that simply being alive irritates this knee) I found myself happy, stronger, less stressed, more toned, and contrary to the AMA’s findings weighing less than I started.

Not a bad outcome.

Will I keep exercising? Without a doubt I will but this time, I’ll be doing it because I want to and not because I have to.

One hour or die – exercising 1 hour a day as recommended by the AMA – final update

It’s been almost two months now since I started moderately exercising every day. My son Griffin (who joined me halfway through) and I have learned a few things along the way:

• It’s never the boyfriend who commits the murder – that’s too obvious
• Those water bottle flavor packs that clearly dissolve keeping people from knowing you are cheating by drinking something sweetened are the bomb
• While Griffin can work up a sweat that can bleed down to his belly button, my sweat stays as a sopping yoke around my chest stopped by my bra line. Yet one more difference between the boys and girls.

This past week I also read the book Younger Next Year for Women – Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge M.D. It was recommended to me by one of my Facebook friends. Finally, there is a document that gave me true and reasonable reasons to exercise (Basically exercise sets up “good” inflammation with then triggers repair of tissue which turns back the clock on your body.) It’s a fascinating and entertaining read that will get you up out of your seat by the end of the first few chapters.

I started exercising an hour a day because I was challenging the American Medical Association, I’ll continue because of that book.

One Hour or Die – Exercising 1 hour a day as recommended by the AMA – update

Here it is May 21 and for the last 40 days I, because of a self-imposed challenge due to a ridiculous study reported by the American Medical Association, have exercised moderately for one hour each and every day. Haven’t missed a beat (although can’t say the same for that heart of mine).

For those of you are interested in the weight part of this (but remember according to the AMA I’m not supposed to be losing weight I’m supposed to be maintaining my weight) my poundage as of this morning is 2.4 pounds down from last week (where I had gone up) with a total of 5.5 pounds down from when I started this project back in April.

That’s a fair amount of weight lost in the name of maintaining (and remember, I haven’t changed my diet).

My son, the new gym rat, has accompanied me every single evening since he joined. I guess he figures if his Mooom (say it in a whiny voice) can do it, so can he. Of course, there is also the factor of if I go and he doesn’t he may never hear the end of it. I may be middle-aged but I’ll never be mature enough not to lord things over my taller-than-I-am sons.

Exercise One hour a day or die – lessons learned in the last week

Weight? To the decimal, I weigh the exact same as I did last week. What are the chances of that? I’m sure that right now those folks at the American Medical Association are gloating.

Another week, at the gym for one hour of moderate activity each day. This even though Marc has been out of town leaving me to do the solo driving for the 5 remaining kids. It’s meant a lot of juggling, going to the gym at 8:30 at night, and (the best part) continuing to watch TV that is not the Cartoon Network.

This is what I’ve learned in the past 7 days:

• If you play paintball with your friends in the woods you will stumble across the body of a dead beautiful young girl. You’ll never guess who killed her. I didn’t.

Griffin (my gym buddy) and I are seeing who can solve these murders first. The first person to raise a thumb up wins (of course there                   are extra points here if you can raise your thumb up without falling off the treadmill – sounds easier than it is).

One Hour or Die – AMA daily exercise – a new gym rat is born (hint it’s not me)

Even though I didn’t report in on Friday (I blame the High School Latin Trip – which was a blast by the way – Odds Bodkin is a God in the story telling department) I still exercised at the gym last week.

In fact I have exercised every day so far in May.

Oh and lately, the TV du jour has been episodes of Law and Order Special Victim’s Unit – if that show doesn’t get your heart rate up, consider yourself dead. I’m thinking of making an MP3 that just plays that da-dum, da-dum – jail door closing sound over and over to play while I’m on the treadmill.

This past week I was joined at the gym by one of my sons who discovered that his soccer clothes from last year didn’t quite fit this season. This is a kid whose job, I reminded him, is to grow but as he put it, he is supposed to grow up and not out. Point made. Now I have a gym buddy who as it turns out is one of those guys who loves to go to the gym, he’s sort of like a dog when you happen to mention the word “walk”.

May Challenges – here they are

It’s May.

That means a new month and of course that means a new challenge! Yeah!

As some of you know, I’m going to continue doing the One Hour a Day or Die exercise challenge for May. Yup, one hour of moderate exercise a day, every day – just to maintain my current weight (or so says the American Medical Association).

But I needed a new challenge for the month (besides trying new recipes, and sharing more stories about our chickens).

And that’s when it occurred to me. I have the perfect challenge which sort of ties in everything. I’ve been working on a chicken-story manuscript but as we all know, what with kids, soccer, life, writing assignments, and one hour of exercise a day – things can get lost.

I'm gonna finish me a manuscript

Well not in the month of May. My new challenge is going to be this:

One Hour or Die – One hour of exercise a DAY to maintain weight – End of month update

Today is the last day of the month. A month which, may I remind you has 30 days in it. 30 long days.

Which of course means that because I’ve been exercising one hour every day, I have exercised for a total of 30 hours during the month of April? And when I say I’ve exercised it doesn’t mean that I’ve casually strolled around the block. It doesn’t even mean that I got up from the couch and used the buttons on the TV instead of the remote.

What it means that is for one hour each day I have exercised so much that my kids refuse to sit next to me when I get home from the gym until I take a shower. It means that I haven’t been able to reuse yesterday’s reeking work-out clothes for fear of being stopped by Homeland Security as a bio-threat suspect.

One Hour or Die – One hour of exercise a DAY to maintain weight – update

Here it is April 23 and I’m still going to the gym to exercise for one hour every day. This because of a study published by the American Medical Association stating that middle aged women need to exercise moderately for one hour EVERY day in order to maintain their weight.

This week I somehow managed to increase my weight 1.4 pounds. (This despite the fact that no one will go near me when I come home from the gym due to the buckets of yuky sweat on my clothing.) I blame this increase in part due to I-thought-I’d-ordered-a-healthy-thing-but-it-was-far-from-it Portobello Quesada dinner followed up by a family dinner at an all you can eat buffet with the kids to close out our Portion Plates challenge.

One Hour or Die – Still at it and still alive (barely)

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that middle-aged women need to get at least an hour a day of moderate exercise if they hope to ward off the creep of extra pounds that comes with aging.

One hour.

Every day.

Every single day of the year.

It’s just not fair.