Category: Exercise

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Move It Mama Monday! Does the new EASA work?

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It’s been over four weeks since I got the new EA Sports Active for Christmas. Since then, I’ve started the 6-Week Challenge (at medium intensity level) and am now half-way through that. Am I seeing any results?

Yes. Since Christmas, I’ve lost four pounds and I can definitely see more muscle definition. Even better, the new EASA doesn’t seem intent on destroying my knees like the old version was. A lot of the exercises that caused me so much pain have either been removed from the game or modified. So yes, this game definitely seems to be working for me.

However, I don’t believe I’m getting those results through EASA alone. Keep in mind, we are now past the holidays, which means I am also past the holiday eating. All those cookies, cakes, pies, candies, plus meat heavy meals are now three weeks behind me. I’ve since switched to eating two vegetarian meals a day, plus I’m drinking a lot more water. I’m not perfect at following these two rules, but I do them often enough that I think they’ve also had an effect on my health and weight. Plus I continue to take water aerobics classes and karate classes, both twice a week.

I think what’s worked more than anything is that I’m settled back into my old routine, with a little more emphasis on eating healthy and getting more exercise. Not being able to determine how the day would go over the holidays often meant I had no idea when or what I would be eating, so I ate a lot of junk and high fat meals as a result. I’d love to have more control over my schedule next year, if only so I could control my eating better. To do so, however, will probably mean I’ll have to make some changes to my schedule over all. Celebrating the holidays, in many ways, is like taking on an extra part-time job from October through December. To do all the things I’d like to do for the holidays – baking, decorating, sewing, parties, concerts, etc. – I’d have to cut back on my regular work during those months. It’s something I’ll have to think about before next October rolls around.

In any event, I’m enjoying the new EASA and the new eating habits. So far, I’ve cooked three vegetarian soups that did not suck, which means I’d cook and eat them again. In fact one of those soups, the carrot puree soup, was so good I’d make that any time and enjoy it.

So there you go, the secret to weight loss; healthy eating, plenty of water, regular exercise and a normal, livable schedule. Am I a genius for figuring out the obvious or what?

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Move It Mama Monday! New Year’s Goals

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Since I spent last Monday babbling about the wonders of the new EA Sports Active game for the Wii, I thought I should take today to blog about my fitness goals for 2010. These are pretty much just a continuation of what I’ve been doing already, with a few small changes. Without further ado, here’s the plan for this year.

Eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day – I usually eat at least 3 servings, but I really need to up it to 5. Also I need to get in a little more variety, so I’ll be trying things I normally turned my nose up at. I’ve already shocked the hell out of my best friend by eating carrots cooked in homemade split pea soup. We’ll see if I can shock her some more with brocolli, brussel sprouts, artichokes, etc.

Eat 1-2 vegetarian meals a day – This goes with the above goal. I made myself sick over the holidays by eating too many fatty foods, mainly greasy meat dishes. And when I say sick, I mean painfully sick. I had my gall bladder removed 12 years ago, so I don’t process a lot of fat real well. Thus when I overwhelm my digestive system with fatty foods, I get shooting, stabbing pains all through my abdomen and lower chest area. Naturally, the longer I’ve been without a gall bladder, the less I am able to deal with a lot of grease and fat in my meals. Since it royally sucks to spend 3 or more days doubled over in agony, I’m going to do my damnedest to avoid being in that position ever again.

Drink 8 glasses of water a day – I need to research this one a bit to see what amount of water qualifies as a “glass.” Is it 8 oz.? More? I usually drink from these huge glasses that hold about 16 oz., so I figure if I get 4-5 big glasses of water a day, I’ll be good, but I’ll have to check.

Attend 2-4 karate classes a week – I’m a second degree black belt, and I need to get to class on a regular basis, especially if I want to eventually reach third degree. The dojo I go to offers day time classes, including weapons class, and has just added a daytime black belt class. This means if I show up on Tuesdays and Thursdays on a regular basis, I can get in 4 hours easily.

Attend water aerobics twice a week – I’m loving the water aerobics, especially since it seems to strengthen my lousy knees. I don’t think this will be a hard goal to meet, given how much fun I’m having.

Complete at least 1 EASA 6-week challenge – I’ve already started the challenge and am finishing up my second week. Unlike the previous version of EASA, the new version doesn’t seem to destroy my knees. The challenge requires I do 4 sessions a week, which is a little challenging to fit into my schedule (but I guess that’s part of why they call it a 6-week challenge). However, this ties in perfectly with the next goal, which is…

Complete 3-5 evening workouts a week – these evening workouts are going to be mini-workouts, 20 minutes or so in length. The average EASA workout is 22 minutes, so this works just fine. When I’m not doing the EASA workouts in the evening, I’m going to fill in with Wii Fit Plus and Gold’s Gym Cardio Boxing. My Fitness Coach is going on the shelf for a while, unless I’m really craving a yoga workout. While it is a very effective workout, I dislike the aerobics style warm up, and just like the old EASA, I’m finding a lot of the leg exercises are killing my knees.

Go to bed no later than 10:30PM – I get up at 4:45AM most mornings, so I really need to get to bed by 10, 10:30 at the latest. The more sleep I get, the better able I am to get up at the ass-crack of dawn the next morning and get a jump on my day. This really matters to me.

Get outside 2-3 times a week, for at least 30 minutes – gardening, yard work, playing games with the kids, taking a walk. I need to do all these things. Of course, it’s unseasonably cold the past coupel of weeks, so I’ve been a real weenie about this one so far. I’m thinking that maybe what I could do is leave the house half an hour early to pick up the kids and use that time to go for a brisk walk or to do some quick clean up around the yard. I’d rather do it after the kids get home, but my resolve always seems to break down when we walk back inside to get hot cocoa and a snack. You see my problem. In any event, I plan to pull out my book on herb gardening and start looking at plans for spring yardwork and gardening.

Get a physical, annual pelvic exam and pap smear, mammogram, dental exam, and eye exam – VERY IMPORTANT. I don’t want to get caught by surprise by any diseases or health conditions, and this is the best way to avoid that. I’ve already had the pelvic exam and pap smear this month. My physical is today. My mammogram is next month, and the dental exam is too. I still need to schedule the eye exam, but I will get that done this week.

And that’s pretty much my goals for 2010. I realize it’s a big list, but keep in mind, a lot of this I was already doing or had a good start on last year. Note I did not list losing weight. Yes, I weigh 10 lbs more than I would like, but I’m not going to beat myself up about that. I’d rather focus on taking care of myself, eating right, and getting plenty of activity than on counting calories and fighting with my weight. Maybe this will be enough to take care of the weight, maybe this will just keep my healthy in other ways. In any event, I’m NOT giving up the occasional dessert and my Friday night pizza.

Have fun this week, and I’ll let you know next week how things are going.

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Move It Mama Monday! The new EA Sports Active

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Guess what I got for Christmas! The new EA Sports Active. You know, the one labeled “More Games!” My younger sister gave it to me as a gift, and it has been very much appreciated, let me tell you!

If you’ve been following Move It Mama Monday for a while, you’ll probably recall I had a love/hate relationship with the previous incarnation of EASA. I liked that the game included plenty of strength exercises, but I lamented its lack of cardio activity and the damage it seemed to do to my knees. After completing my one and only 30-day challenge with the original EASA, I wound up having to take 2-4 Advil a day for a week to deal with the knee pain I suffered. In the end, I pretty much shelved EASA in favor of Wii Fit, although by that point I’d played Wii Fit to death.

Well, out comes the new EASA, and so far I’ve completed 6 workouts on it in the last two weeks. I definitely think the new game is an improvement. For starters, all the preprogrammed workouts now include a warm-up and cool-down session to help loosen up the old joints. Many of the original exercises that caused me so many problems with my knees have either been replaced or reworked, although this game does still include a lot of jumping around and lunging, so be careful if you have bad knees. Many of the strength exercises have been reworked too, making them more effective and easier to do in my opinion. And the biggest change? The scenery. No longer are you stuck at the local park/track doing your workout. Now the game centers on a beach resort, which I think is an improvement.

For my first three workouts with the game, I picked sessions from the preprogrammed workouts menu. I stuck with either the medium or easy workouts, recalling how much I had hurt when I first started with the original EASA. The workouts at these levels are still intense enough to make me really sweat, which made me very happy.

On New Year’s Eve, I started my 6-week challenge. Apparently too many people (including yours truly) had trouble completing the old 30-day challenge within 30 days, so the time frame was expanded to 6 weeks. It’s still a demand on the schedule though, requiring 4 workouts a week to meet that 6 week goal. I can do it, especially since I’ve started doing shorter workouts in the evenings anyway, but if you’re already on a regular workout schedule with some other activity, you might want to think twice about the 6-week challenge.

I’ll keep you updated on my progress with my 6-week challenge (and once again, learning from prior experience, I opted for the medium intensity challenge, not the hard!). Meantime, here are a quick list of the pros and cons that I see so far with the new EASA.

Pros:

  • The exercises I hated most, the ones that really killed my knees, appear to be gone or replaced by exercises that aren’t as painful to do.
  • The new scenery is much nicer. Quite frankly, I was getting pretty dang tired of that park in the old game. If I’m going to work out in a virtual world, then I’ll take a virtual tropical island any day.
  • The new EASA now uses the balance board to check your weight every week! And you don’t have to put up with any snarky attitude if you gain a couple pounds. The game just tracks your weight; it doesn’t try to destroy your soul (like a certain Wii Fit game that shall otherwise remain nameless…).
  • There are some interesting new games, like squash, water skiing, an obstacle course, etc., that are fun to do.
  • The challenge now takes 6-weeks as opposed to only 30 days. I can handle 6 weeks.
  • No more freaky inspirational videos from Bob Whatshisface! I don’t know about you guys, but that very nice man who pimps EASA really creeped me out every time he showed up on camera. The way he grinned, I was afraid he was going to jump out of the TV and eat me!

Now for the cons:

  • The game is still rough on the knees. I’m hoping that getting back into my regular water aerobics class will fix this. Water aerobics seems to go a long way toward strengthening the muscles that support my knees. I’ll need that to keep up with all the lunging and jumping that still shows up in EASA.
  • The new EASA doesn’t seem to have “More Exercises” so much as “All New Exercises.” In other words, a lot of the old stuff is gone. While they updated and improved the boxing, I have yet to see the tennis, volley ball, or baseball games. I can’t say yet if those are really gone, but from comments I’ve seen on line, it looks like they may be. This would be a shame, because those were the games that I enjoyed the most on the original EASA.
  • The warm up and cool down are the same for every single workout. I was hoping for more in the stretching department. Instead, every workout starts and ends out with the same exercises. That’s not just boring, it’s a waste. They couldn’t put together a few more warm up and cool down routines? How about more stretches for the arms and legs? Neck rotations even! Bah! I will never find a Wii game that really includes stretching.

And that’s about it. I’m hopeful that between my regular daytime workouts (water aerobics, karate) and regular evening workouts (EASA, Gold’s Gym Cardio, Wii Fit Plus), I’ll be able to get myself back into shape. We’ll see what the results are in a month, I suppose.

Next week, I’ll make a list of New Year’s health and fitness resolutions. I should have done that this week, but what can I say? I was just too danged excited about the new EASA.

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Move It Mama Monday! Sneaky ways to exercise this Christmas

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I was looking at my schedule for the upcoming week and I realized that there is pretty much no way in hell I’m going to make it to any of my usually scheduled exercise classes. Princess has a party today, which is early enough that I can’t make it to water aerobics. Then she comes home early tomorrow from school, which means I can’t go to karate class. My sister is showing up Wednesday, again early enough to kill any chance of me slipping in a water aerobics class. The dojo is closed on Thursday, the Y is closed on Friday, etc., etc., etc.

So I need some alternate ways to sneak in some exercise this week. Here are a few ideas I’ve come up with.

1. Clean the house. I’ve got family coming, right? So I should clean from top to bottom. If I throw on some heart racing music and really get into the swing of things, I could break a sweat and bust a move while chasing dust bunnies out from behind the fridge. Never mind that my sister doesn’t give a hoot about how clean the house is. All she cares about is whether there’s a place for her to sleep or not.

2. Chase the children away from the tree, the presents, the fridge… Basically, run after the kids and keep them out of trouble. I’ll have both home, and will need to be on my guard to make sure they aren’t getting into things they shouldn’t be. Last thing I need is for Pixie to topple the tree on herself, or Princess to go digging through my closet to find out what “Santa” brought her for Christmas. I figure if I do a few laps around the house every hour, that will produce a low but steady calorie burn and let the kids know someone really is watching to see if they’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!

3. Slush ball fight. It snowed here this weekend. Not a lot, just enough to foul up traffic and turn our yard into a mud pit. If I’m really desperate for some exercise, I can take the kids outside and we can throw slush balls at each other. I’d rather throw snow balls, but hey, this is Virginia. Snow in December wasn’t going to last anyway.

4. Sex with the Hubster. He is home this week. We just need to put another holiday special in the DVD player and let the kids zone out while we go get jolly in the bedroom.

5. Post Christmas morning clean-up. Given the number of boxes currently sitting under our tree and the number of presents still waiting to be wrapped, I’d say it’s a sure bet my living room is going to be completely trashed by the time the last gift gets open. If I want a workout Christmas morning, I can pull on my sweats, grab a trash bag and a box cutter and set to work. I guarantee you I will be busy all day this way.

Any other good ideas for a holiday week workout? We could always walk through the neighborhood to look at all the lights and displays, I suppose, and I could maybe even go for a jog or just turn on the Wii. But I’m looking for the creative route here. What do you guys plan to do to squeeze in a little exercise this week, huh? Let me know!

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Move It Mama Monday! Holiday exercise

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Do you or don’t you? Exercise during the holidays, that is. I have to admit, it’s getting to be a struggle to find the time to do everything I would normally do, and I’ve missed a couple workouts and I know I’m going to miss a few more in the upcoming weeks. But still, I’m trying to fit the exercise in wherever I can. I’m afraid if I don’t, I won’t fit into any of my clothes come New Year’s Day. That and the fact that taking time off and having to dive right back into exercise after the holidays are over is just a real bitch to do.

Right now, I’m keeping up with 2 days a week of water aerobics and 2 days a week of karate. On top of that, I’m doing mini-workouts, about 15-30 minutes long, in the evenings a couple times a week. It’s still not enough to fight off the holiday flab, but it’s enough to ensure I don’t spin completely out of control healthwise over the next few weeks. And I have to admit, it also helps me stay calm. When the holiday stress really starts to get to me, I can just work up a real sweat and then be too damned tired to care.

I’m curious to know what other folks are doing, exercise-wise this holiday season? Are you cutting back, or putting more time in the gym? Are you being ultra-super-careful to eat healthy, or like me have you already given yourself a nasty case of heartburn by eating too much greasy fatty food? (You folks have no idea how much I miss my gall bladder at times like that.) Let me know what you’re up to!

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Move It Mama Monday! My Fitness Coach

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Since I reviewed Gold’s Gym Cardio for the Wii Last week, I thought I should take a look at the other game I got myself last month – My Fitness Coach.

I’ve been playing My Fitness Coach for the last couple of weeks, to give myself time to decide if I like it or not. My Fitness Coach is an apt title for the game, because it’s all based around a personal trainer character, Maya, who guides you through the workouts. Maya asks what equipment you have (balance ball, weights, step, heart rate monitor), how long you’d like to exercise (15, 30, 45, or 60 min), and what you’d like to focus on. The first time I played the game, I was prompted to take a fitness evaluation; pushups, sit ups, jumping jacks, stretching, etc. I was also asked to measure myself at various points, give a resting and active heart rate (that’s where the jumping jacks come in), and a few other odds and ends. Then Maya made a recommendation for what my primary workout goal should be. The game focuses on areas like cardio fitness, upper body, lower body, flexibility, etc. Maya will work you through all the areas, but the workouts will focus more heavily on whatever the primary goal is. You get the option to go with her recommendation or to choose your own.

After all that – the set up took about half an hour (yeesh!) – I was ready to workout. My Fitness Coach is just like having a real personal trainer put you through your paces. There’s a cardio warm up with the usual aerobics and step moves, then on to weight/resistance training and a little cool down and stretching at the end. After a certain number of workouts, it’s time to do another evaluation, and yes, you go through the whole schmiel all over again. I’ve been do 30 minute workouts three times a week since mid November, and so far had one re-evaluation. Do I like the game? Have I seen results?

Eh, to the first question, and maybe to the second.

Eh, because My Fitness Coach is almost exactly like having a personal trainer… but one you can’t really interact with. Maya does ask at various points in the work out how you feel. Was that section too hard, too easy, or just right? Then she stores that feedback for reference when building future workouts. But that’s about it for interaction. The game barely uses the Wii remote, and never uses the balance board. Although I wish it did use the balance board to at least check my weight during the evaluations.

Beyond that limited interaction though, My Fitness Coach is a lot like working out to an exercise video. It’s more varied, obviously, because the game switches up the workouts every time, based on the evaluations and the feedback. So it’s never the same thing twice. But it’s kind of dull, and the most I can stand to do is 30 minutes at a time.

Having said that, I get a solid workout in 30 minutes with My Fitness Coach. The warm-up segs right into a cardio session so I’m jumping and dancing around for 15 minutes or so. That gets my heart rate up pretty dang quick. So far, I’ve only been asked a couple of times to pull out the weights for the resistance training, which follows the cardio, but I’ve been using them anyway, otherwise I’m not getting any workout there, even though I’ve repeatedly told the program, “That was too easy.” Hopefully, Maya gets the hint soon. The cool down and stretching at the end last two minutes at most, but then I am only doing 30 minute workouts. But even on the days when I’m supposed to be working on flexibility, I’m still not doing a lot of stretching. Again, I keep telling Maya, “Bump it up a notch, bitch!” She’s slowly getting there.

So, results? Yes, I’ve seen some, but I honestly can’t say if it’s because I’ve been playing My Fitness Coach for the last month or because I’ve been doing water aerobics for the same period of time. It’s probably a combination of both. I do like that I’m getting plenty of strength training and that I don’t have to fiddle with an elastic band to do it (I’m lookin’ at you, EA Sports Active!). It’s much easy to follow along with weights in hand and the remote on the table. But then again, My Fitness Coach can’t tell me if I’m doing things right or not because it doesn’t use the Wii remote to get any feedback.

I will say that so far My Fitness Coach hasn’t killed my knees, but again this may be because it doesn’t rely on the feedback from the Wii remote to see if I’m doing the move exactly right. EA Sports Active did kill my knees, and doesn’t really allow me any way to modify the problem exercises to a level that’s comfortable for me (although it does let me skip them; My Fitness Coach doesn’t have that option).

I’ll stick with My Fitness Coach for a while, mainly because I had to make a commitment to do so many workouts a week. I’m slooooooooowly unlocking the new environments to work out in (another downside, there are so few goodies in the game for continued participation, and earning a new environment isn’t nearly as fun as earning new outfits to dress up your trainer in; I’m lookin’ at you, Gold’s Gym Cardio, and your hottie trainer Alex too!).

Honestly, so far, the best fitness game has been Gold’s Gym Cardio, although the focus there is almost entirely on the cardio. It’s fun, like Wii Fit, but it offers more of a heart thumping workout. EA Sports Active just kills my knees, although I do like the sports games and the ability to make my workouts or modify a premade workout. Wii Fit Plus spent too much damned time developing new mini-games and not enough time focusing on upgrading the cardio and strength training portions of the game. And My Fitness Coach is challenging, but dull.

With no perfect fitness game out there, what’s a gal to do? Continue to mix and match between the games I already have, and keep trying out new ones. At the very least, I’m getting some good variety in my exercise routine this way.

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Move It Mama Monday! Water, water everywhere!

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So, water aerobics. You’d have thought a class dominated by senior citizens would have been easy, but no way Jose. I have been getting my patookie kicked in the pool the last few weeks trying to keep up with the grandmas and the grandpas while we jog and lift our little foam weights and in general churn up the chlorinated water like rabid mermaids. At the end of three weeks of this (at two classes a week), I now have more muscle definition than I’ve had in a while, and I definitely look and feel slimmer. But do I weigh less?

Of course not, because I’m now mid-cycle!

Around the middle of my menstrual cycle, I pack on about 3-5 pounds of water weight. There is nothing I can do to prevent it. I’ve tried drinking extra water to flush the excess fluid out of my system. I’ve tried sticking to a mainly veggie diet and cutting back on high fat foods. I’ve tried doing extra excerise around that time, getting more sleep, etc. Basically, none of it has prevented me from packing on the extra weight, so I’ve just learned to live with it. I keep hoping if I drop a couple of pounds that will counter the effect, but I haven’t had much luck losing weight, and at this point, so long as all my clothes fit, I really don’t care.

But Wii Fit Plus cares! Oh does that little sucker care. It never fails that I get to this point in my cycle, or I get to the end of my cycle (the other time I pack on the water weight), and suddenly Wii Fit is calling me “Fattie Fattie Two by Four” and demanding to know why my ass is so big. The damn thing actually gives me a list of reasons to choose from, but do you think hormones and water weight are anywhere on that list? Noooooooooo! Because that would mean Wii Fit is sensative to issues like that, and I’ve learned from experience that one thing Wii Fit is not is sensative.

Is it me, or is anybody else tired of Wii Fit’s snark? It shows up when you miss a day or two of working out, and again when you weigh in and show up a few pounds heavier. Oh, and if you don’t excel on some portion ofI the fitness test there are these little comments like, “Hm, looks like walking upright is not your strong suit!”

Between the snark and the fact that Wii Fit Plus failed to include any updates on its cardio games, I’ve pretty much relegated my workouts with it to one day a week. Oh, I still use it for fit tests, because I simply can’t do without my daily dose of snark and abuse, but otherwise, I’m focussing more on Gold’s Gym Cardio and My Fitness Coach.

And water aerobics. Because in the pool, it doesn’t matter how much water weight my butt is hauling. It’s just one more drop in the bucket 😉

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Move It Mama Monday! Gold’s Gym Cardio for Wii

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First, a word of warning. If you ever go to the swimming pool at your local Y, and you see all the senior citizens doing their water aerobics class, don’t sneer. Those folks may be old, but if they can keep up with water aerobics, they are more than capable of tearing you apart! I say this because I’ve taken three water aerobics classes now, and I’m still not sure how I’m able to stay upright after an hour in the pool. Yeesh!

But on to today’s topic. A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of new fitness games for the Wii. One of these was Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout. The premise behind this one is pretty simple. You “shape” box along to a routine presented on the screen and work up a sweat. There’s a trainer character who walks you through a tutorial on how to move, and then during the routine, he puts you through your paces while various punches and other techniques scroll up the screen ala DDR style. You can do the boxing either using a Wii remote and a nunchuk or by using two Wii remotes, one in each hand (the later is preferred according to the game manual). There are also a selection of gym exercises like push-ups, leg lifts, etc., that you can do. Some of these later exercises use the Wii balance board, but you won’t need one for the shape boxing, which is the meat of the program.

Once you set up your personal data – height, weight, age, and some basic fitness testing – you can start into the program with a few very basic routines. The routines run between 6-15 minutes. The higher up you go in training levels, the more techniques are included in each routine, so you’ll move from basic punching to bobbing and weaving and so forth. You have the option of doing an ala carte workout where you pick and choose what you want to do, or you can let your trainer choose a workout for you. One nice point, the trainer does ask you how hard you want to exercise when putting together a workout for you, so if you’re feeling a little on the blah side that day, you can take it easy.

After each portion of your workout, you’re given a count of how many punches you did. This is used to track your progress. The more punches you accumulate, the more “gold” you earn, which you can “spend” on clothing and other items for your character in the gym “store.” Also, as you workout with the program, you unlock the option of using other trainers and dressing them in different outfits as well. I had no idea why this last option would appeal until I earned a new outfit for the trainer I’d been using. I chose “Alex,” the bishonen hottie, for my trainer, and when I found I could dress him in just boxing shorts with no shirt, my interest in the game did shoot up. Nothing like looking at a half-naked virtual stud muffin while working out to get the old motivation going.

So, do I like the game? Yes. It’s basic, with the main focus on the shape boxing, but there are plenty of routines to work on and I have definitely been working up a sweat. The gym exercises aren’t really all that interesting, but they do provide some muscle building to a mainly cardio workout. The music is cheesy (in both the gym exercises and the exam portion of the game, they insist on playing an instrumental version of “Eye of the Tiger”), but it’s fast moving and I can choose what cheesy tune I want to box to before I start a boxing routine. Oh, and there are also 3 work out locations I can pick from while boxing – a beach scene, a dojo, and a gym.

Basically, there’s plenty of variety in this simple game and it burns calories and makes me sweat. I wish Wii Fit Plus had bothered to revamp their cardio boxing game, because it really is a great workout, but since they didn’t, I’m more than content to workout with Gold’s Gym Cardio instead.

Especially when I’ve got the option of working out with a half-naked bishonen hottie. Yum!

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Move It Mama Monday! Getting my figure back!

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Okay, so I mentioned yesterday that I had been undergoing fertility treatments the last three months. The treatments didn’t work, which is okay. I knew going in they might not work, and now we can move onto other plans, i.e. adoption. What isn’t okay is all the extra pounds I packed on during the last three months thanks to the medications I was on. Geeze Louise! One day I suddenly weighed an extra 9 pounds! Nine pounds packed on in just one day! Then I’d drop maybe 4 or 5 the next day, only to shoot up another 2 pounds the day after that. It’s been nuts, I tell ya. I’ve had to wear the same three pairs of pants the last three months because I can’t fit into anything else. Ugh! And of course, since I had to spend so much time traveling to and from the doctor’s office, not to mention the time actually spent in the doctor’s office, I missed a lot of days at the dojo and in the pool, so I barely worked out some weeks. Oh, and those meds gave me massive cravings for salty foods and chocolates. Hmmm… maybe those extra pounds aren’t all water weight after all.

In any event, now that I am free of fertility meds and doctor’s appointments, I need to get back on track with my workouts and yes, my eating habits. I’m not going to be too strict about the eating habits becaue hey! The holidays are coming, and I want to do some serious baking and candy making this season. But I do need to get my tushie back to exercise, so here’s the plan for that.

A friend of mine, Patty, took me to a water aerobics class two weeks ago. Did I mention this already? It was killer. Patty and I were the youngest people there and we got put through the wringer. So naturally, I loved it. If I feel like I’m getting a workout, then I’m happy, ya know? Plus water aerobics have two big benefits. First, it’s very easy on my knees. And B, the water aerobics class always takes up most of the pool, so there are no swim lanes left. If I can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

So I will be going to water aerobics classes two mornings a week. That’s two hours of exercise. I plan to get back to the dojo at least two days a week, so there’s another 2-3 hours of exercise a week. Aaaaaaaaaand my good buddy, the Wii, has some new games for me to play.

I know I mentioned that I was getting two new workout games for the Wii – Gold’s Gym Cardio Boxing and My Fitness Coach. I’ve had them both two weeks now and I am a happy little camper. I enjoy Wii Fit, but Wii Fit Plus spent too much effort on the new minigames and not enough on upgrading their original components. I mean seriously, would it have killed Nintendo to through in a few new step routines, or add something new to the cardio boxing and hula-hoop games? Sheesh!

I still want to do another week or two with the two new games before I give an actual review, but suffice to say, I’ve got something to help round out my workouts, something that I look forward to doing along with karate and water aerobics. So here’s to seeing if I can lose those pesky pounds I’ve put on in the past three months. This mama is seriously ready to move it!

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Move It Mama Monday! Bored with exercise?

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Oops! This was supposed to be posted early in the morning. Instead, it’s going out a wee bit late.  Sorry, folks. Still getting used to WordPress.

I have to admit, I’ve been feeling pretty bored lately with all my usual workout options. Between kids being sick, me being sick, doctor appointments and car repairs, I haven’t been able to make it to the gym much in the past couple months, so I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Wii. I’ve done so much Wii Fit Plus and EA Sports Active that I feel like I’ve got those two games memorized, and I hate that. It just kills all the fun in my workouts.

When I’m bored with my workout choices, I tend to slack off on the exercise, which I really shouldn’t do right now. I’m on some medications that cause my weight to go up, so now more than usual I need to get up and get moving. To ensure I do that, I finally bought a couple of new Wii workout games. After all, that’s where I’m most likely going to be able to work out these days, thanks to a constantly disrupted schedule. So I bought My Fitness Coach and Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout.

I’ve only had the games for a couple days so far, so I can’t really give a good review on them yet, but I am very relieved to have something new in my repetoire of workout options. But these games aren’t the only new things I’m doing right now. I also decided to start going back to the Y at least once a week, twice if I can, and take water aerobics classes. That’s right, I’m going to join several very active senior citizens at least once a week in churning up the pool with a pair of foam dumbbells. I’ve already been to one class with my friend Patty, and had a great time. It was harder that I expected it to be, for which I am very grateful because I really do need something to get my heart rate up and help me burn calories. I’m looking forward to my next class, which unfortunately won’t be until Monday after this due to more upcoming doctor appointments this week. Bleh.

But at least I’ve managed to stave off the boredom for now. I’ll do a review of one of the new games I picked up next week, once I’ve had more time to spend with it, and let you know if I’m still feeling not bored by my new workout options then 😉