Monday, January 25, 2010

At Least Five Hours

Brad is a cyclist, and he's probably the fittest person I know. But when we met, over 11 years ago, he wasn't. I mean, he was always in reasonable shape, but he was not the muscley-legged, cardiovascular anomaly that he is now. In the past 6 years or so, his body has completely changed shape.

I want that.

I have recently discovered that I have a rather high body fat percentage, even though I'm technically only about 1-2 pounds overweight. In discussing this last night (my desire to change my body shape dramatically), Brad suggested I up my time spent working out to at least five hours a week for now. And that, as I get fitter, I should increase that time. Since I have begun to work out in the mornings during the workweek, I have a limited amount of time that I can spend at the gym and still make it to work on time. So my plan is to get three hours of cardio in on the weekends; at least an hour and a half both Saturday and Sunday.

This Saturday, I hiked at our beloved KSF for an hour and a half, and yesterday I spent the same amount of time on various cardio machines at the gym -- treadmill, elliptical, stairmaster. I nearly fell asleep during the Vikings game last night and, walking up stairs is a bit of a struggle. But Monday is my rest day, so hopefully I'll bounce back by 545 tomorrow morning. I have a date with my favorite treadmill.


4 comments:

  1. I've been doing the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred and it's brutal! My legs hurt every day, but I consider that a good thing! Good luck! :-)

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  2. Ooh, yes. Thirty Day Shred IS brutal -- all that jumping kills my knees.

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  3. If you guys are ever in the Buckhannon/Elkins/Phillipi/Weston area... Contact me! I'd love to go for a ride with you guys and cross pollinate blogs, etc!

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  4. Aside from eating right a bit key is getting your heart rate up for more than 30 continuous minutes and I recommend over 45. It takes time to get your body into the right mode and cutting an exercise short of 30 minutes really limits that. Break past 30-45 and your body continues to burn calories even after you stop exercising. Eating more meals per day and less at a sitting has a similar effect. You may even want to consider a heart rate monitor.

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