Sunday, September 4, 2011

Fitter, Stronger, Longer

First day at the gym
My first day at the gym still sticks in my mind.  i lasted 5 minutes on the cross trainer, got sore legs and was out of breathe.  I moved to the bike so I could sit down and I only lasted 20 minutes on that and was gasping for air.  That 25 minutes was torture and I thought I would die.  But i didn't give up.  I kept training each day working out for a bit longer each week.  Now I can train for over two hours non-stop and feel awesome at the end.  I know I am yet to reach my training capacity and look forward to pushing myself a little bit more each week.

Burning 1000 calories
I have been training 6 days per week and eating 1200cals per day for about 6 months now.  I have found it really hard to have the mindset and physical strength to exercise for long enough to burn 1000 calories in one training session.  I have been burning 800-900 calories at most for the Super Saturday Sessions (SSS).

But in the last month I have burnt 1000 calories three times!  Today I did a BodyStep class and BodyPump and burnt 850 calories.  Seeing that i was just 150 calories away from quadruple digits was killing me so I then ran on the treadmill until I hit 1000 calories.  My Polar heart rate monitor is my best training buddy :)

I have proved to myself that by having a regular exercise routine and sticking with it, I am getting fitter every week.  Even on the mornings when I wake up with sore muscles, I just ignore the pain, still get out of bed, get to the gym and do a light workout of 400 calories.


Never miss a training session
I can confidently say that except for the 2 weeks that I was interstate in April and the 2 weeks that I had the flu, I have trained 6 times per week and not missed a training session in the last 6 months.  And a few times I trained on all 7 days of the week but that was because I am a little bit crazy!

Pretend tired vs Actual tired
In the last few months I have been able to tell the difference between "pretend tired" and "actual tired".  Pretend tired is when my mind can't be bothered training and tries to trick my body into stopping.  Actual tired is when my body physically hurts nearing the end of a training session, so I do a cool down for 5 minutes then stop.  Realising the difference has been amazing as I can now ignore my mind and I just keep going and going and going, when a few months ago I would have cut my training session short.
After today's training session of smashing 1000 calories in 2hours and 20mins I felt empowered and so proud that I did it.  I now know that my body can burn 1000 calories for every SSS and the only thing that would stop me is my mind... but that is NOT going to happen!!!

Strength
I can feel my muscles now, especially in my legs.  All those hours on the variety of crosstrainers have made my legs so much stronger and my butt is a hell of a lot smaller.  I can do endless jump squats now with ease.  Oh and my little biceps and triceps are loving the BodyPump classes as they are slowing getting bigger and stronger.

Pics
Here's pics of my heart rate monitor today (as it seems to be the craze at the moment).




And here's pics of me after my SSS today weighing 72kg.



A side note that has nothing to do with training!
Oh and I went out and saw a band then went dancing with my good friend last night.  I was wearing all new clothes and shoes and I was so confident.  I didn't care if people were looking at me, I didn't care what people thought of me, we just danced and danced the night away.  I used to always think people were looking at me and judging me on the dance floor because of my weight.  Now I genuinely don't care (and realised that they actually aren't looking at me) and I had an awesome night.  Thanks Margot for a super fun night and making me feel so special.

Feeling good, feeling great.

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