New Workout - Old Habits

I have new workout routine because I my body was getting used to the old one. At the same time though I am finding it hard to stay on my diet track. Most notably at night - this past week I have binged between the hours of 8pm -10pm 3 out 5 nights. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to curb this?


On the up side my new routine is focused on cardio to burn more calories and build up my fitness. The pool is still closed - hopefully it will open by the weekend - so in the meantime I am replacing my swims with hiking. Here is my new routine....


Monday - Biking 30 minutes building up to an hour. (I feel like my lungs are handling the workout well so far, but "down there" is another story. My rear and vagina are so numb after 30 minutes of biking I switch over to the elliptical. Also 5-10 of Abs workout.


Tuesday - Intervals Walking 3-5 minutes, running 3 minutes for 30 - 45 minutes. (my goal is to run 5 minutes and walk two, but 2 minutes of running is hard on this obese body) 5-10 minutes of upper body toning


Wednesday - Swimming Laps 1 hour (currently hiking to make up for the lack of water) 5-10minutes of Abs workout.


Thursday - Walk/Run 2 miles - Starting with walking most of the way until I can eventually walk a mile then run a mile. 5-10 minutes of upper body toning


Friday - Walking for 1 hour at a brisk pace. 5-10 minutes of ab workout.


Saturday - Swimming Laps for 30 minutes


Sunday - Casual swim or walk not timed.


Today I went hiking at a trail that is two hundred yards from my parents home and maintained by the beaver brook association. I have to stay hiking today worked wonders for me, as you may know I was suffering from some mild constipation the last few days. As soon as I made it up the hill my body said it was time to go. So I rushed back to my parents house through the woods. Here are a couple photos before nature called.

The view on the road to my parents house.

Walking the 200 yards from my parents driveway to the trail. The sign says bridge closed, the "bridge" has been closed for decades and the locals knew if you tried to drive on you would end up in the brook. The sign was only put there ten years ago to the damn flatlanders the don't know a dead end when you see it; and then they added some large boulders to idiot proof it.

Love this hiking trail because it leads into lots of fields and some time in the spring you see deer.

What do you think?

Serving Single - Succotash

Suffering Succotash. I have had a rough couple of days diet wise, but nice quiet days holiday wise. To top off the bad diet days the pool is still close I guess when they started to repair the ceiling (it was damaged last winter with the MANY feet of snow we had) they figured out it was going to take an extra week to fix it right. That or they just take 3 hour lunch breaks. So I made my favorite no meat dish this weekend.





I love Succotash, but not the kind that that is pre-made, which I didn't know you could get until I started researching it's history. I love the kind my mom makes. This is traditionally a depression era dish that is inexpensive with very few ingredients. The succotash in a can is made with Corn and Lima beans, but my family makes it with Kidney or Pinto beans. My suggestion is that you make a big batch and freeze what you don't use for a later date.



You need...

1 bag of frozen corn (12-16oz)
2 cans of Kidney or pinto beans(12-14 oz per can)
1 cup of milk
salt
pepper

1. Drain but DO NOT rinse your beans. The starch on the outside of the beans will be used to thicken the milk.
2. Using a large pot on Medium heat put the frozen corn and the beans in the pot. Then season with salt and pepper to taste. Then add 1 cup of milk. You can use whatever milk you have handy skim or whole.
3. Let it cook stirring occasionally until the it is simmering then remove from heat.



It is really like a thin chowder at this point. I would put it in a bowl and garnish with a bit of fresh parsley and maybe some crumbled bacon and I sliced of hearty bread with butter. If you have left overs you can add some cooked Potato or Lima beans. It is very basic but tasty.

Saturday in Pictures

So I decided I was sick of walking around Nashua and decided to take a trip to the very rural Fitswilliam. Apparently I choose a bad weekend because every town between Nashua and Fitzwilliam had a pumpkin festival, apple festival, fall festival, or community yard. Not that I mind, they are really fun to visit and the detours often show you new scenic routes, but sometimes the traffic and the people annoy me.

Today I went for a walk in Rhododendron State Park in Fitzwilliam, NH. While it's best to go in May, June & July for the blooms - I enjoy going any time of the year because it is a quiet, easy trail that almost no one visits because they all pay $3.00 to go to Mt. Monadnock aka the most climbed Mountain in the world. Also I found that the local arborist maintain the area and they took the time to bring art into the trail in the form of stone benches, and columns, to hand painted trail maps on wood.
Above is said hand painted map of the trails. The big trail is Little Monadnock, which starts out easy and then get harder towards the top. The smaller loop is Rhododendron Loop which has some small offshoots like Laurel trail, and Wildflower trail.

The Rhododendron Loop is fun because it is like going through a tunnel of trees. This shot is of the canopy above me.

As you can see the trail looks like a tunnel up ahead is a bridge over brook with one of the few breaks in the canopy.

This is the shot of the trip home on Rhododendron Road. You can see the leaves are starting to change, right now northern NH is at the peak of leaf season. In another week or two southern NH will be at it's brightest.

Check in 10/7/2011

Taken 10-7-2011 - That jacket is actually a size 18, not a 20. I can button the top button, but not the bottom. So maybe in a month or two I will be able to button both.

Taken 9-9-2011. Remember this from the beginning of month one the was 15lbs ago.

Physical Check-in

Starting Weight: 271lbs

Last Week: 256.4lbs

This Week: 256.8lbs

Goal Weight: 169lbs

I saw a slight uptick this week. I felt like I wasn't loosing any weight. I think part of it was the lack of swimming, but I think a part of it was the fact that I haven't been eating breakfast until 10am for the last two weeks. It my have stunted my metabolism a bit.

I reviewed my food log and I feel confident about my portion sizes and my calorie intake, but there is always room for improvement. So I have 3 goals this week -

1. Get back in the pool (let's hope it open for tomorrow morning),

2. Eat breakfast between 6am-8am,

3. Measure my portions all week just to make sure I am not over splurging on the calories.

Mental Check-in

I am bummed at the increase in weight. Let's face it, being a woman it could be anything, my boobs hurt so maybe I am a bit bloated while ovulating, I have been stressed with all the additional interviews this week, and...TMI...do not read the next line if you are easily grossed out...I have been CONSTIPATED. Yes, that right for the last three days I have yet to see a decent bowel movement. What's good for a stuck colon, more water, exercise like walking or jogging, and maybe some prunes.


I feel like I worked really hard and I completed my first month of exercise routine and I am changing that up to focus heavily on cardio for the next month. So let's hope next week is better.

App-ilicous

Today's Fitness app is Nike's Boom. This App is cheestastic, but I find it oddly motivating. It takes and shuffles the music from you iPhone for your work. No big deal as I can do that on my own, but I have to say I like that is doesn't change songs when I am moving. When I have my iPhone in iPod mode the songs change mid-way through because my ginormous body giggles the phone in my pocket when I exercise telling it "Hey - she wants to change this song."

The other cheese factor is the "attaboys" you can select pro-athlete to cheer you on with canned and cliche expressions during your workout. The only thing is that there aren't any female athletes. It also records your workout so you can take a look at your work out history, but it doesn't give you much information other then the date of the work out and how long it was.

It gives me two options:

1 - Basic Workout - I select my warm-up, cool-down and exercise time. A trainer from SPARQ called Matt James tells you to start and finish and gives you a little canned encouragement every 10 minutes or so.

2 - Interval Training - Probably the more useful of the two. You can select how many sets you want to do, how long, and time between set. And it blow a whistle every time your supposed to change. The frequent whistle is irritating but you don't have to do you own timing then.

It has a couple other features like getting SPARQ rated. - Your enter a lot of your metrics like body weight, how fast you do the 40 yards dash, etc. I don't need to compete so I don't use it, but some dudes out there might like it. It also has a featured gear section, but I don't feel the need to use because I am not a Nike aficionado. You can also sign up for Team LiveStrong, which I couldn't tell you about either because I haven't registered.

Like I said Oddly Motivational, but ultimately can be replaced with your iPod and a stopwatch.