Category: Move It Mama Monday!

Yes, I’m getting this post out late today. My apologies. I had planned to get it written yesterday and then schedule it to run first thing this morning, but I got hit with a ton of deadlines. I have four e-chapbooks (smaller than an e-book, bigger than a breadbox), coming out in the next week or so, and I had to get a lot of stuff done to make sure that happens.

So today’s post is late, but that’s okay because the whole day was sort of thrown out of whack when Pixie woke up this morning sounding like she’d swallowed the granddaddy of all bullfrogs. My poor little pooter has a mild fever, a runny nose, and a nagging cough. None of this is slowing her down, mind you, but it is enough to keep her out of preschool for today and tomorrow. Can’t be too careful with the H1N1 virus running around, I suppose.

So I unexpectedly have a child home today, a sick child whom I cannot take to the Y nursery anymore than I could send to preschool, and that puts all my carefully laid out plans for the day into the trashcan. Or does it?

I actually look forward to the days the kids are home sick. It somehow lifts the burden off of me to meet any other responsibilities beyond bringing my baby warm ginger ale to sip and watching Disney movies on the couch with her. I call these days “Blow Off Days,” because I have the perfect excuse to blow off work, exercise, what have you. Depending on the severity of illness and my desire to take a break from the usual routine, I may blow off everything or just a few select items on my daily to-do list.

Since Pixie’s really not all that ill and since I’m gung-ho to catch up on a lot of stuff I’ve been putting off all summer, I opted to only skip a few things today. Rather than hit the Y this afternoon for a lengthy karate practice, I pulled out EA Sports Active (yes, my one month moratorium on that game is up) and did a short 20 minute workout. Then I popped a Disney movie in the DVD player for Pixie and hit the office. While she played downstairs and watched her movie, I worked on finances, e-mail, and other odds and ends. I took a break every now and then to check on my little poot, but she was doing fine, so I let her be.

At lunch, I decided to pop Pixie in the jog stroller and I took her for a nice walk around the neighborhood. Nothing too fast, just a chance to get outside for some fresh air. We stopped at the local playground for a bit and played there, then returned home. Pixie is in bed now with some of her Barbies while I finish up more work in the office.

I did not get the hard-charging workout I had planned for today, but that’s okay. I had other options, and I think that’s what’s important. It’s hard to keep up with kids, work, AND exercise if you don’t give yourself options. And while I might miss the sweat inducing activity I had planned, let’s face it. If my kid is sick, I may be sick too soon. Taking a bit of a break right now instead of running myself into the ground might not be a bad idea.

Pixie will be home again tomorrow; she has to be fever-free for 24 hours before she can go back to school (again, can’t be too careful). But that’s okay. She’ll be well enough that I can take her to the dojo with me tomorrow for kobudo class. I have a kobudo test coming up this Saturday, so I need the class. But I won’t be staying for the class of open-hand karate following afterward.

After all, I got a sick kid, and we could use the break.

*****

I believe on October 4th, Nintendo releases the new Wii Fit Plus. I’m chomping at the bit for this one. I love Wii Fit, but I’ve done it almost to death at this point. I need something new. EA Sports is also releasing an update to EA Sports Active, which includes new exercises and workouts. I had thought about pre-ordering this, but decided I’d rather look into some other Wii fitness games instead, like My Fitness Coach. This game actually looks like it might include some stretching exercises, something that both Wii Fit and EASA have so far ignored. Although, maybe the new Wii Fit will surprise me in that aspect. One can hope.

Dear EA Sports Active,

I want you to know, we’ve had a lovely couple of months together. Really, I’ve had such a great time with your 30 day challenge and daily journal. But I think it’s time we take a break. Now before you panic, this is a break, not a break-up. It’s just that I need some time away from you to figure things out, like why my knees have been feeling like crap ever since we’ve been together, or why I’ve done nothing but gain weight since you came into my life. I know, these are difficult questions, and you’re not necessarily at fault. In fact, I don’t want to blame you, but I need to start looking for solutions to these two very troubling problems, and that means cutting back on possible contributors. Again, notice I say possible, not definite. I’m not blaming you. Really, it’s not you at all, it’s me, me and my bum knees.

I expect you won’t see me for about a month. While we’re apart, I want you to know I will be revisiting old friends, and yes, that includes Wii Fit and Dance Dance Revolution. I know you may not be comfortable with this, but I want to be upfront and about what I’m doing. And you are certainly free to hang out with whomever you choose. I don’t want you to be jealous, but I’ve always felt close to Wii Fit, and my knees are certainly more comfortable with the balance board than they are with your lunges and jumping, so I think maybe this is the right thing to do.

Again, we’ve had a wonderful couple of months together. All those training exercises, the upper body workouts, the volley ball and the tennis and other games… All that will remain very precious to me, and I’m certain that at the end of a month you and I will be seeing each other again, although maybe not as much as we had been seeing each other before. After all, Fall is coming up, and with the kids going back to school I’ll be hitting the Y more often to swim and lift real weights…

Oh, I’m sorry! Your weight training program is great, really! You should be proud of it!

Anyway, I have to go. I’ve got a weigh in at the balance board coming up, and I don’t want to miss that. Wii Fit gets so prissy if I miss a weigh in. I’ll see you in a month, I promise.

Yours truly,

Helen

Oy! I’ve been busting ass lately, trying to lose those LAST 10 POUNDS, and have had no success. In fact, the scale is actually tipping in the opposite direction. I weigh more now than I have in a while. However…

My clothes still fit fine. And I can see more muscle definition in my legs, arms, and pretty much everywhere else. AND, most importantly, Hubster says I look goooooooooood.

I know, that last part is pretty shallow. I shouldn’t depend on someone else’s opinion of how I look to validate that I do look good. But the fact is, I can’t see my own ass without a 3-way mirror and I know he stares at it all day when he’s home, so I consult with the expert on that matter. If he likes it, it’s fine.

But the not-losing-weight thing. What’s going on there? I’ve increased the amount of water I drink, hoping to stave off excess water weight gain at those certain times of the month. I’ve upped my intake of fruits and vegetables, in an effort to fill up on healthy stuff and prevent me overeating meat and other not-so-good for me things. I’m certainly doing more activity around the house. I spent a few hours this week scraping the old vinyl linoleum off the kitchen floor, and let me tell you, that ain’t no picnic. That activity alone should have caused me to sweat off a few pounds, but no, it didn’t. I’ve put in over four hours at the dojo this week, 2-3 hours on the Wii (EASA and Wii Fit). I’ve spent two hours on yard work, three hours on dedicated house cleaning. I’ve been pretty much go, go, go all week.

And yet my weight has gone up, up, up. Huh.

One thing I’ve also notice is that I’ve been getting some seriously rough, dry patches of skin on my forehead. One minute, my face is fine, the next it looks like it belongs to a monitor lizard in molting season. This leads me to think that something is going on with my hormones, and since my weight fluctuation seems tied to my menstrual cycle, I’m wondering if that’s what’s going on here. It could be. Or I could be sneaking in a few too many bits of chocolate, that extra soda here and there, dinner out last week…

I dunno. All I know is, I don’t want to starve myself, I do want to keep exercising, and I still fit into my favorite pair of jeans. Oh, and Hubster says I look gooooooooooood.

On to other things. I’ve found the more I play with EA Sports Active, the better I like it. Now that I’m no longer chained to that bloody 30 Day Challenge, I feel free to create my own routines. Remember how I said you couldn’t get a decent cardio workout from EASA? Well, it turns out you can. What you do is create a new workout and fill it with the cardio activities and all the sports activities. I’ve made up three of these workouts already, mixing and matching the dancing, running, boxing, and other sports together. The workouts I make range from 18-30 minutes, burning from 90-140 calories. I find I tend to burn more calories than EASA predicts, which is good, though the workouts also run a bit longer than EASA predicts (not a huge problem there unless I’m tight for time that day). I’m usually sweating like crazy after one of these cardio workouts, so that’s a good sign.

As for the strength training exercises in EASA, I’ve found I have to limit how much of the lower body exercises I do per workout. I can fill up a workout on upper body with no problem, cranking out reps of biceps curls, shoulder presses, etc. But do one too many sets of lunges and I pay for it the rest of the day, and probably the next. So, to make sure I get a lower body workout, I’m going to make some workout routines that mix just a few of the lunges and squats and jumps with the sports and cardio. It’ll work like this: cardio/sport, cardio/sport, lunges, cardio/sport, cardio/sport, squats, etc. That’s two aerobic exercises for every lower body exercise. And keep in mind the roller blading exercises in EASA count as lower body exercises, not aerobic.

Final thought for the day — I wish someone would make an adventure exercise game. I recently got Wii Sports Resort, and I love it, but only a few of the mini-games offer any sort of exercise, and those, not as much as I’d like. I’d love to see someone come up with a Wii game that combines exercise with an adventure or game of some sort. Like say, an ancient Olympics game, where you represent one of the original Greek city states in a competition. You have to out run, out lift, out throw yourr opponents to win medals. Or something along the lines of the Lego Star Wars or Indiana Jones games, where instead of operating your character via a remote while sitting on your assets on the couch, your character only runs when you run, fights when you fight, etc. Isn’t that what the Wii was supposed to do in the first place anyway?

Okay, that’s it for me today. I’ll be in Chicago next week, so I don’t know if there’ll be a Move It Mama Monday blog post or not. Will depend on my schedule while I’m there.