cardiobunny’s BodyBlog

My first gym; the old-school one, bless it, closed down about 3 months ago. Now my new gym, the spas and saunas one with a decent free-weight section has closed down too. My backup plan for if the spas and sauna gym closed was a university gym; is also closing, in fact it is going to be demolished! Thank goodness I didn’t do anything silly like pay annually upfront!
My other option was a big commercial chain gym, they offered a very good deal, but I went and tried it out and I hated it. The weights area was so cramped with machines everywhere, there were 4 leg press machines but only one squat rack, in the 20 minutes I was there I saw at least 4 different people use that squat rack working in with each other or whatever you call it.  Meanwhile some of the leg press machines sat untouched wasting space. wtf is up with all the leg press machines! Probably for the weekend-certified personal trainers to use because that is all they are trained to put clients on. The gym had a good range of dumbbells, but no floor space to use them! Criminal!  Sorry for that, end of rant…
So since it is summer and the weather is beautiful, I thought to myself, why not make the most of it and the great outdoors. A few new toys from ebay are on their way - a doorway chin-up bar and some kettlebells (one 8kg, and one 12kg). I am going to get creative with the kettlebells, a skipping rope, the chin-up bar, some bands, a couple of 5kg dumbbells, a sturdy box, some DVD’s and the local park and nearby hills. I am putting together a program now. Can’t wait for all the goodies to arrive! Christmas is early this year!

Friday afternoon I tried out a gym across the road from my work. I also found out the same day that I am being moved to a new building soon, maybe as early as next week; so this gym won’t be across the road for much longer, but still it won’t be far from my new workplace, and will probably be the closest gym to my new work anyhow.
It is fantastic! I don’t want to say much more because I don’t want anyone reading this getting ideas and asking me where this marvelous gym is - because I want to keep it all to myself.

I got a cheap trial pass for a womans only gym in the city close to work. There is a power cage and olympic sized bar with plates, which is good, but the cage is small and squishy, it isn’t very comfortable to squat in. And you can’t do deadlifts in it due to safety bars on the bottom, so I have to load the bar on the floor which is a bit awkward. The floor looks a bit precious to drop weights on, no rubber matting just polished wood so I have to be extra careful.
The atmosphere is depressing.  No one looks like they are putting in any effort at all, most people in there strolling on the treadmill reading magazines. On the good side it is very clean and has a nice colour scheme, and a nice tea room.
I have found a new-found creativity in trying to do my old workout on rather limited equipment, eg. doing good mornings and swiss ball back extensions rather than weighted back extensions.

I can’t wait till my two-week pass is finished, I have had enough. I am going to try gym number 2 tomorrow.

So I trotted down to the gym tonight and it looked unusually dark inside, the carpark was empty, and a sign on the door said it is closed until further notice due to legal proceedings.

I am shocked. I feel like someone has died. This gym opened the same year I was born - how can it close? I walked around the block a few times dazed and wondering what to do. I have to ring and cancel the direct debit. Where am I going to find another gym with a decent squat rack for $11 a week?

One month since I started on my program upon returning from overseas. Fat-loss-wise I have not seen much progress. My weight and measurements are pretty much the same.

Nutrition: My behaviours and developing habits is going very well. Nutrition has been a main focus for me and I have never eaten so well in my life. A comment I got at work today made me smile - "Are you eating again! Aren’t you trying to lose weight?" I have kicked the sugar surge yo-yo.  My complexion is very nice, no zits or that annoying rash on my upper arms. And I am almost working on auto-pilot as far as preparing meals is concerned. A few minor planning stuff ups (eg. tonight for dinner I didn’t have any broccoli left so I had capsicum instead).

Weight training - coming along well. Making good progress with most lifts - am breaking PB’s most times I go to the gym. Except the bench press, which I have stalled on, at a rather pathetic 27.5kg’s. I don’t know what is wrong, but I just can’t seem to make it past 8 reps, for the last 5 or so attempts. I will substitute with push-ups for a few weeks, as they are challenging for me, then go back to bench press later. Push-ups are probably better anyway being more of a full-body excercise, and they are definitely not too easy for me at this stage.

Cardio: Given the lack of weight loss I think it is evident I am not doing enough cardio. To be honest it hasn’t been a priority, I only run 3 times a week at 40-50minutes a pop. I think my stubborn body needs more, so gradually over the next month will increase this to 5-6 times a week, 40-60 minutes a pop until I start seeing some weight come off.

massive fail… ate too much, didn’t eat good food over the weekend. In my defense it really was not practical as I was away from home and needed to pack cold weather gear, tent, sleeping bag and food for 5 days, and I needed to be able to carry it all myself and be able to walk with it a few kms. I ended up taking food for 2.5 days, and the other days bought food. Plus I had 3 birthday bashes during the week put on by various workmates, friends and family.

I felt like what I ate. I am so glad to be back to real food now.

One of the things I am doing differently is weighing myself (with bodyfat/water scales) everyday. Before I only did it once a week. Once a day has been very insightful so far. I think I can see the effects of having a high-carb day, and the effect of womanly cycles. I think looking at the overall data gives a better idea of how I am going, rather than just rather random once a week weighing. I weigh in the morning after my run and before eating, so hopefully hydration will be consistent.

The week just gone I concentrated on my problem of not getting up early in the morning - my diurnal body clock is now where I want it. The week before that was for setting goals, visualisation and planning things.

This next week is nutrition week. My goal this week is to have meals prepared in advance. So I am cooking today. It is also my birthday this week (my bb.com profile is set to 1 jan for privacy, it is wrong!) so I am shuffling cheat day around to compensate.

I am starting out right away after getting back so bad habits have no chance of manifesting. I have everything planned out well this time, I have clear, written goals. I think I know everything I need to know for the next few months, and my aim is to spend less time on bb.com reading about how to get fit, and more time actually getting fit!

I have learnt a lot on my last ‘try’. This time I have more experience and determination.

Each week I will have a specific aspect to focus on.
This week I focus on motivational stuff like goals, visualisation, and affirmations. Every night before bed I think about what I want to achieve. I picture reaching my goals, I hear it, smell it, taste it… In vivid detail… until it becomes real!
Next week I will focus on cardio, to do it 6 days a week, because I know with my body I need to do a lot of it to burn fat.

I am going on a holiday to China, Hong Kong, Macau and Mongolia for most of July. I hope to be fit when I go so I can walk around with my backpack all day without getting too tired.  The fitter I am the more I will enjoy my trip. See… being fit isn’t just about looking good, that’s just the tip of the iceberg - it has have many practical purposes. An example - mothers day I lugged around timber, pulled out weeds and shovelled dirt all day; with ease and to the amazement of some others (LOL); to help build my other-halfs mum a vegie garden bed.

My trip itinerary is pretty full-on, lots of overnight train trips, lots of landmarks to tick off. The highlight of the trip for me will be a total solar eclipse from Shanghai on 22 July. I am really looking forward to it, and it’s sort of hard to stay motivated in the gym when I have other things on my mind. I am of two minds - if I work hard now - the trip will be physically easier. On the other hand - any work I do now will be ‘undone’ because I won’t have a gym and limited control of food at my disposal for a whole month. So it is sort of a half-hearted effort at the moment. And I realise now I am not going to get to my goal of doing a pull-up before I go. But I am looking forward to getting back into it for real when I return to Australia, and eventually doing that pull-up.

Just checking in to let yaz all know I am still here. Work has been a shocker with a merger happening, my best friend just had a baby so I have been helping her out because she lives just around the corner from me.  Diet has fallen off a bit, but going to the gym and running like clockwork. Getting really strong now, I can leg-press the entire weight stack at my boyfriends buildings multi-gym. I can ’sort of’ do unassisted dips (can’t do full range of motion) and I can do incline pushups, and pushups with kids crawling on my back.

Now just trying to clean the diet up again. It’s not too bad, I just get carried away occasionaly and have too many ‘treats’.