Getting settled for fall 8/27/09

I finished the first day of semester. No matter how many times I do it, I get actually nervous on the first day of fall semester. Especially for first-year class, where I don’t know anybody and have to memorize names. It is time-consuming, but I take the time to invite them one by one in the office to talk about why they are taking Japanese and what they like to do in the future. There are various meetings, which various levels of administration organize. I missed one for general, meaning whole university, meeting yesterday. Reception starts at 3 with food and drink and meeting starts at 4. I cannot possibly make this kind of schedule after teaching three classes, finish teaching at 3 while scheduling students to meet.

This type of tight schedule also affects my workout schedule. It will be a good time to convince myself to have rest day a week. I seem to become too light now, so I have two “Don’t worry about calorie counting” days a week now. I am going to make it Friday and Saturday this week. Having all classes in Dallas Hall helps pedometer count and I am trying to go to the gym before my class at 10 in the morning. I am taking the first train. I hope this scheme works and I get all the teaching and domestic duties done and workout at the level I want. Well, let’s see.

Too thin 8/29/09

It has been a while since my good friend and department secretary, Rosemary, has told me that I should not lose any more weight. Tony suggested that I should set a range that I want to stay and declared that I am on the bottom of the range. He told me to stop counting calories once a week and now he says I should twice a week. That is the reaction of people I get at the beginning of the semester. Even my Mom said I shouldn’t lose anymore. Maybe I am thin enough in Japanese standards, too. At school, Brandy, an Italian teacher and Veronica, Spanish teacher and undergraduate advisor, saw me when I started summer school and were quite impressed with my progress, but now, they say I am too thin. Veronica, especially went on in Spanish (good thing; I need listening practice, too) how she no longer likes how I look. At Plano gym, a bike teacher, Louise, told me not to lose anymore because I will lose my muscles.

I ended up spending a lot of time in Shape magazine site, registering and getting programs. They had virtual trainer program and I decided to check out. It asked me to measure neck, waist, thigh bicep and forearm and estimates my body fat to be 15.1%. They also figured out my ideal weight to be between 124 and 138 pounds. Tony pointed out I am on the bottom of that range.

Combination workout 8/28/09

Express book has three day structure of whole body workout for all three days. Day 1 is mainly upper with tiny bit of lower. Day 2 is mainly lower with tiny bit of upper and Day 3 has combination workout routines. I re-wrote and made Day 1 completely upper and Day 2 completely lower so that I can make Day 1 and Day 2 consecutive. Also I made some modifications in Day 2. I don’t know why they want me to work on calves so much and there were no explicit glute exercises. So I played around and added two butt specific exercises. Day 3 exercises are combination where upper and lower are employed in the exercise in itself. For example, I do squats and bicep at the same time. I have had always mixed feelings about these combination thing. First, I think it is not a good idea because the weight has to lower down to the weaker part of muscle of two exercises. Secondly, the form gets less attention and possibly not effective/correct because you usually have another move to make. When I did Week 2, Day 3 yesterday, another thing I noticed is I don’t know when to exhale. Normally you exhale at the point when you are lifting and inhaling when you are coming down. Because there are two exercises, when you are finishing up with the first move (should be inhaling) is when you are lifting for the second move (therefore should be exhaling). I should go over the book again about breathing. The book is tailored for general audience, so they should have something about basics like this somewhere, right? But the good news is that I burnt over 200 calories in 30 min. weight workout. I think this is a record calorie count for weight training day.