Workouts!

In my first ever post I said I wanted to do a few posts about what I have tried so far on this journey. Things that worked and things that didn't really work.

Ellipticals. My first ever real workouts were solely using an elliptical. For the better part of my life treadmills terrified me (I will get to that later), and Planet Fitness had lot of ellipticals and everyone always raves about them. Well it worked ok. I thought, wow I'm doing so many miles each time! I would usually aim for about 45 minutes once I got my stamina up. I was convinced I would be able to run for real no problem. Ha! Yeah that didn't really work out how I thought it would. I signed up for a charity event through my then internship to do a "predicted mile" and failed horribly! I don't think I could even run for 5 minutes at that time. I also liked to use the elliptical when I was living in the dorms at school. It was convenient, I wasn't going to die by zooming off the back of it like I was certain would happen on a treadmill, and it was working for me. It helped me lose weight my junior year and be the smallest I was in college. Overall I'd say that I like the elliptical if I don't have other options but I've since found better alternatives.

Fast forward a year or so. My major elliptical usage was done prior to the start of my real weight loss endeavors but I wanted to include it.

Weight circuit training. At the beginning of my weight loss journey I had just graduated, was unemployed, and still had my Planet Fitness membership. I thought it would be a good idea to try to do circuit weight training to add to my elliptical-ing. I had a nice beefy trainer help me pick weights for each machine and off I went. I did this off and on for a few weeks but ultimately gave it up. It just wasn't for me. I know building lean muscle helps burn fat, but I really didn't like doing it at Planet Fitness. The apparent judgement free zone was full of frat boys who all thought they were better than you and skinny little "I put my make up on to go to the gym" girls who were probably all dating the frat guys. Needless to say I didn't really feel free from judgement. I blame this on the gyms location, right next to a HUGE off campus apartment complex. All in all I would try this again if I could be somewhere I felt comfortable. Say my own home with no one watching! That isn't going to happen so this workout is off my list!

Wii Fit. I was so happy to find a Wii Fit under the tree a few Christmases ago from my loving hubby. When I really decided once and for all I was really going to do this no matter what it took this was my first go to workout. Every day or so the little balance board would cheerfully inform me that I was obese and then I'd start my workout. My favorite activities were boxing, free step, and the marching band one. Boxing worked up a great sweat. My other great calorie burning activity was free step. Turn that on, switch to the tv and your ready to burn! Eventually I "outgrew" the Fit and moved on to more intense workouts. I still get it on now and again. I plan on getting on it to hear the balance board happily tell me that now I'm just overweight soon! I would highly recommend a Wii Fit as an exercise tool for a beginner. It's fun and easy and still gives you a pretty good workout if you pick the right activities.

Just Dance on the Wii. While I was phasing out the Wii Fit I started to play Just Dance as a workout. Boy, does that work up a sweat! Not only was I burning a lot of calories per hour but it was a lot of fun! I love to dance and was unfortunately born with no grace, rhythm, or general coordination. It was great to make up my own "dance classes" without having anyone be able to watch me fail miserably! At the Wii game anyway. My goal to burn calories was definitely achieved. It was also great because it allowed me to add on another few minutes to my workout by just picking one more song if I was up to it. This is a workout I would definitely recommend to people to have fun and sweat a lot! I also would do this again for myself.

Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I heard about this little gem of a workout when I was using the Knot 911 app for wedding planning. Lots of brides were trying to lose weight and someone suggested trying Jillian's ass kicking 30 Day Shred. I ordered the little sucker on Amazon for something like $8 and bought some 2 pound hand weights at Target and I was ready to go. I thought it would be hard, but I thought I had a certain level of fitness already, albeit a low one. Yeah, no. It was HARD! The hardest workout I'd done since the beginning of all this and it's only 26 minutes!! You are supposed to do it for 30 days non stop to "lose 20 pounds" and at this point in my journey I still believed a little bit in gimmicks. I think I did it for 18 days non stop before I stopped doing it every day. In that time I only lost maybe 2 pounds. However, this is one of my favorite workouts and I still do it regularly over a year later. Jillian really does kick your ass! When I did it for the 18 days I noticed I was stronger. I could lift things easier, I was able to hold myself in the lunges or the push ups easier. I was amazed at what just 18 days did for my muscles. Looking back I might have lost inches. I wasn't tracking those at the time though so I'll never know. This is a great workout and I recommend it to anyone looking for an intense, short workout you can do at home. It's my "rainy day" workout when the weather is nasty. I would say out of everything I've done this is my 3rd favorite workout.

Couch to 5k (or c25k). This changed my life. I hated running my whole life. All the way back to gym class when you had to do the presidential fitness challenge and run a mile in front of all your skinnier, faster classmates who didn't end up huffing and puffing at the end of it. I avoided it at all costs. I never used treadmills, as I have mentioned my great fear of them, and would choose activities that didn't involve any real running. Again I found this program from a fellow bride on a planning app. I decided to "waste" $2.99 and bought the c25k app for my phone. On the first day you only have to run for 45 seconds at a time. After the first few of these it became increasingly harder. I know that sounds ridiculous. How can 45 seconds of running be hard? I don't know, but it was. The first day was really hard for me. But day 2 was a little better! And most days after that I could make it through. Out of the whole 8 week program I only had to walk extra 2 times. By the end of the program (which actually took me more like 12 weeks) I could run non stop for 30 minutes outside on the road with some hills!! Let me say that one more time. I could run for 30 minutes!!!! Now if a serial killer was chasing me they probably would catch me because I'm not very fast (these are the things I think about while running) but I could do it! Running has been the best thing hands down for my weight loss thus far on the exercise side of things. I kept it up as my main form of exercise right up until my after wedding when I took a break from fitness and eating right. I had just picked it back up again in October or November of last year right before I hurt my back at Thanksgiving. Just recently I've started to run again. I love it! It's my favorite workout for sure. Well, except for in 85 degree 90% humidity. On a small side note during this phase of my exercise I finally conquered my fear of treadmills!! I started being terrified and holding on for dear life, but after a few sessions I wasn't holding on and even watching tv instead of monitoring my distance from the very front of the machine. Anyway as I said I've finally been able to run again. I'm doing a 5k on August 5th with my family and I need to get back into it. I've managed to run 1.5 miles twice this week. I am confident I'll get there with time to spare. I would highly recommend anyone use c25k as a workout tool. No matter what your level of fitness, it will work! As long as you can walk you can learn to run! So all of you loyal readers, go download it now!!

Zumba. My last workout in my long string of workouts is Zumba. I had wanted to try it for a long time when my mom asked me to do a Zumba for charity event with her. We did it and it was fun! It also was a heck of a calorie burner. I was looking for a place to go so I could keep up with this new found fun exercise when I saw a flyer in my office building for a new class starting near where I live. I checked it out with one of my friends and I have been going twice a week every week since April. It's a lot of fun and works up a lot of sweat. I'm going to start to do it at home now though to save money, $10 a week adds up. But again this is something I would definitely recommend to someone who is looking for a group class that is fun and a great workout.

Well that's a lot of info, I've been writing this for a week now! I'll be posting another quick post after this today too. I said I'd post once a week and I really want to keep at it!

Until next time!