overhearing personal trainers 10/21/05

Compared to my old favorite NM gym, Lifetime has a huge crew of personal trainers. Even I start to recognize some of them. They are probably way too expensive for me, so I am not ready to hire anybody at this point. However overhearing what they are saying and the things that they are having clients do keeps me interested. Today I was doing my glute and there was a trainer having his client do rotary calf press. He was saying too many people do the exercises wrong and work on the legs rather than calf (or he said ankle?). This one impressed me. Unfortunately there are a couple I try to see if they have a name tag, so that I would never end up getting them...

maintaining is winning 10/20/05

My gym puts out a glossy magazine every other month and sends me one in mail. It is called Expericne. I was reading it today while I was on my new favorite cardio machine. There was a big section about taking some serious tests once in a while. It said if you are working out, you feel like you have to improve at each testing and not changing may not seem like a good idea. However if you have the same result for five years, it means you haven't aged five years. So maintaining at this point is a winning. I decided that my case should be viewed the same. I was already at the current weight when I first signed up with the gym. Although at this gym, it doesn't give me any stats, I bet I get to the gym 3-4 times a week on average. Maybe worse. All the sitting around I do in the office and I only walk 5-6,000 steps a day, I should consider not gaining is actually a winning for me.

not losing, not gaining 10/19/05

Sometimes I am a grumpy camper here in Texas, especially when it comes to the heat (it tied the record with 93 degrees yesterday) or a long commute. But I am probably frustrated because I am not writing my research paper while taking a shower. I was going over some paperwork stuck in the gym bag and found test results when I first got here. I was already 10 pounds heavier than the lightest point back then. This means for a little over 2 months, I have been KEEPING the weight without gaining. Of course, I would like to get rid of it, but I guess I should feel OK. I haven't had any cold like most people do around this time of the year, so I must be doing something right. Be grateful!

haiku and moonviewing 10/18/05

Yesterday I had to miss workout because I wanted to participate in Otsukimi (moonviewing). I am going to call this stress reduction sort of mental health and document the poems here.

秋の夜に
静けさかもす
虫の声

Birds sing
Under the full moon
Tranquility

La luna me luce
No me falta el calor del día
Sino él de tu pasión

listening to podcast 10/16/05

I am really starting to like the stride cardio machine (showed up on 10/10/05 entry). I have always read while doing cardio, but on this machine, it is a little harder. The first thing is in order to monitor the heart rate, it constantly asks to hold on to the handle and this actually helps to use upper body as well. That is a good thing because I know my legs are strong, but my upper body is not as much. The second thing is that I have to keep an eye on display so that it tells me when the heart rate is too high. When I get carried away, it reaches to 130 (target is 118 for my age and weight). Cardio heart rate, when I tried once, was 144 and that is really hard to achieve. I think I will stick with this routine for a while. The best way, I found, at least with LifeTime machines, is to put my iPod in the slot and listen to podcast. I know I can't listen to music because I know I will start singing. But I am starting my Time subscription again and once that starts, it is really difficult to just to keep up reading it. Ahhh.