Day 242

So far the day has been pretty productive.  I was awake at 7am, had a bowl of special K with a sliced banana in it for breakfast, had my shower and was at the gym for 10:15am.  Before I left I received a call from my aunt asking if I wanted to hang out with her today for awhile.  She wanted to go look at a couple of stores and check some stuff out and then we went out for lunch to Fife n Dekel's.  I had the egg salad sandwich special with a ceasar salad and an orange juice and then afterwards we went to some home furnishings store and then to a clothing store called Laura's.  I looked around at some of the clothes and even though it was pretty expensive (compared to what I normally would pay) I saw myself spending quite a bit of money in there if I had it.  It just may be my new favorite store!  :)

I am getting ahead of myself here.  Before I went out with aunty,  wound up going to the gym.  Ya, that's it, that's where I was supposed to be headed in this blog.  Clothing tends to get me off on a rambling rampage lately because I am so excited to finally be able to buy clothes that are smaller.  Anyways, when I got to the gym, I thought it was pretty busy, but as I made my way upstairs to the ladies only room, there were only 3 other girls there and none of them were using the actual machines.  So, I decided to start off on the eliptical once again and for each minute, I increased the tension until I reached a level 10 and then brought it back down to a level 6.  When I hit the 15 min mark, I decided to bump it up to a level 15 and then for each minute I lowered it by a level each time.  I stopped at 30 min and wound up burning 320 calories.

I tried to incorporate a few strength exercises into the workout.  I sat on the bench of one of the pieces of equipment, put the weight on to 45lbs and did 12 reps.  I rested for a couple min and did it again.  I went over to another one that reversed the way that you lifted the weights and I did this 12 times as well.  I was experiencing a little bit of discomfort in the back, so, I figured I would get on the treadmill and have a go at that.

I started off at a 4.5 incline and a 3 speed and then my feet started to bother me so I dropped the incline down to a 0.  I carried on for a half an hour on there in comfort and again at the 15 min mark I started to increase the speed just a little bit each minute.  I wound up getting up to a 3.6 speed on the 0 incline and in total I burned an additional 118 calories.

After I got home from looking around with aunty, I did a few stretches.  I did the 2 different railing stretches that I was taught, and then I got the yoga mat out and did the cross body stretch, the one with my arms above my head with my feet pointed the other way and the hamstring stretch.  I did 15 ab crunches at this point and rolled up the mat.  I wanted to head back to the gym for a little bit longer.  So away I went.

On my return trip to the gym I did 12 trunk rotations, with the 17.5 lb weights on each side, 55 lb weight lifts on the machine that I pull the handles from the side in front of me 10 times, and then reversed it and did it 10 more times the other way and then made my way over to the bikes.  I started off on a level 1 and after 1 min I increased the level to a 14 for a min.  I then went back down to a 1 for a min and then back up to a 13.  I kept alternating this way until I hit 25 min and then I put the level to a 5 and left it there for another 10 min.  Altogether I wound up burning another 207 calories on there and called it quits.  I am now satisfied with my workout today, I am very sore because I have worked muscles that haven't been worked hard for awhile and I am so glad that tomorrow is a rest day.

I have been giving some serious thought to visiting the Chiropractic studio within the gym as well within the last week or so.  As my back has been getting progressively worse, and that I have been told that it can help, from many people, I think that I will soon have to make the choice.  Maybe it will help me out, and I am hoping so.

Tomorrow is weigh in day, and I am anxious to see how my hard work has paid off this week.  I have also been trying pretty hard to keep more of an open mind in the way of positiveness.  I have purchased the book that Jeremy has suggested to me, and I have almost finished reading it.  It is called The Secret and it gives you some exercises to daily to help you on that path of becoming more positive and in return, your life gets easier.  It's very interesting to read and I haven't been able to put it down.  I keep wanting to carry on and finish it off and I am hoping that I will be able to finish it by tomorrow night so that I can start using some of those exercises come Monday.

To finish off this very long blog of the day, I just want to say that the plans that I have in my head for the future and the plans that I have to change my life and attitude will be in full swing pretty soon and I am very excited to see what it will bring me.  :)