Hooked on group fitness! (Part I: cardio day) 5/29/09

I don’t mean to be anti-social, but I have this attitude of the gym is a place to get my workout done and I keep my loner composure.  I also thought I have plenty of motivation myself and with low tolerance with loud noise, I basically thought I wouldn’t enjoy group fitness.  However with the amount of money I am paying to the gym, I decided to check things out.  Turned out some classes are pretty good although I stay pretty picky on yoga classes.  But finding out which class I can do on cardio day and muscle day was my mission for the last 2 weeks or so and I am finally ready to give summary here.

First off, it is difficult to find classes for cardio day.  I alternate Chris day (weight training) and Jeff day (cardio).  Chris’ program works on legs, chest, back, shoulders, bicep, ab all in one day.  Technically I should be resting my muscles to recover.  Even when it is advertised as Cardio class, it usually contains some kind of muscles.  Even my favorite Mockingbird Ultimate cardio class comes back at the gym and do some weight training.  Pure, non-weight training could be the following, spinning class, yoga class and step class.  I have only gone to spinning class once.  Tony seems more excited about me trying this out.  He was an avid bicyclist in college and asked if I wanted cushiony pants to ease my butt soreness.  I also need to learn so that I can challenge myself to bring heart rate up.  Yoga is good, but bad instructors cause more stress and unfortunately it doesn’t burn whole lot of calories.  And I JUST CAN’T do steps and other choreographed classes!  I went three different step classes, some more difficult, some supposedly easier and took time to research to find good animation sites for different moves from Turnstep LLC and thought I would challenge myself learning as brain exercise.  But it is just not happening and I am too content, patient and boring to repeat same movements for bringing up heart rate. 

Jeff’s program is turning out to be VERY difficult.  This is partly because my legs never get rested.  It is also possible my heart is getting stronger.  First, I ran out of resistance in big yellow Precor machine.  I can only go so fast thinking this is an hour-long battle.  Next I ran out incline walking 4.0 miles per hour on treadmill and had to speed up to 5.0.  By this, it means basically I have to run whole hour.  Stairmaster serves me well, but it is really hard.  Watching the time and heart rate never allows me to lose focus and it has gotten very challenging with more tiring legs. 

At the next entry, I will go into lots of fun classes that I can go for muscle days!

Survived Memorial Day weekend? 5/26/09

On Sunday night, the next-door neighbors were having a wedding pool party and yesterday there was a family barbecue; typical Memorial Day weekend activities.  The little party was fine, but yesterday’s BBQ party taught me a few things.  Of course, I didn’t give myself of achieving goals yesterday as total calorie and fat counts went over.  However I kept the protein and carbo within the limits!  Here are some thoughts from yesterday.  What boosted up total calories and what I never thought about is how many calories alcoholic drink could have.  I did a best guess from Calorie King and with typical margarita glass (12 oz), it was over 500 calories!  That is my 1/3 of daily intake right there! Eating beer braut without a bun was a good idea.  That made me I could have another guilty pleasure, Marie Callendar’s cherry pie.  I must confess, though, I feel like I used to enjoy it more.  I still thought her crust was awesome, but the pie filling was way too sweet.  Of course, I had to have this with no ice cream, which everybody else was doing. I still felt like I was part of the party and eating party food.  And I could technically give myself a star because I spent enough time at the gym to burn extra 400 calories working out.  (OK, I was over 500 calories from food.)  I could just leave the half of sausage if I wanted it.  In that sense, maybe this would be easier than sit-down dinner.  Both Ernesto and Teresa mentioned that I had lost weight.  As painful as it was to control food yesterday, my efforts are paying off!

Speaking of Teresa, she always gives me good advice as I am rather new to the neighborhood.  Yesterday she told me about a new supermarket opened up in Allen, called Market Street.  The way she described sounds like Sprouts.  I am finding that for my breakfast, sliced strawberries are not only good, but looks and feels a lot of food.  They are in season and eating berries is a good idea.  I probably can’t be doing fresh fruits once the fall semester starts.  I will probably go with Dr. Amen’s frozen mixed berry suggestion.  But I think I should take time eating raw fruits and vegetables at all times possible especially when I am not time-pressed. 

Tomorrow I go to a Chinese place with a dining group.  That is Linda’s family business we have been together.  From my research after lunch with Kevin, those dumplings are not that bad.  I am thinking if I behave during the day, stay away from sweets and sample one of each, mainly vegetable, may just let me achieve my goal.

Best Guess Thai dinner, nutritional data help 5/24/09

Keeping food journal is not easy even eating at home.  Eating out becomes more difficult and I took a wild guess of last night’s dinner.  We started out with a visit to chocolate store and I had a cocktail and oh, I got full with very, very tasty food.  I calculated I was over my limit about 1000 calories.  So I am trying to burn extra 1000 calories today.  I stayed at the gym for a long time and I need a little more pedometer count.  There are some sites that two trainers suggested and I have found some good ones to keep food journal possible.  A lot of restaurants are on those sites and often the restaurants themselves publish nutritional value.  It is not impossible; best guess is possible, but it could take a long time.  Here are my favorite sites:

Diet Facts: Restaurant list

Calorie King (my favorite)

Daily Plate

I have tried many group fitness classes at different gyms and am getting ready to write an entry soon!