Working Out…

I like working out.  I just can’t convince myself of that every day.  Sometimes it’s just too cold to change into my gym clothes.  Other days I’m just too tired.  Or lazy.  Once I’m at the gym, though, I love it.  For real—love it.  I like to get sweaty.  I like to see the calories burned (and think seriously about the ease of taking them in and difficulty of getting them out).  I like to workout at home and at the gym.

At home, I’m a big fan of the following:

At the gym, I’m for real in love with the treadmill.  I used to like the elliptical back at Purdue…but recently, I’m not a big fan.  I think it’s just not enough bang for my buck.  I’ve been using the 5K training plan from Runner’s World.  For my walking portions, I go 3.5 MPH at an incline of 1 or 2, and then I run at the same incline and either 5 or 5.5 MPH (depending on how strong I’m feeling).  Or on off days from running I do a walking program where I walk for 10-15 minutes at a flat incline, then do 2 minutes at an incline of 5 and 2 minutes at zero until I get to about 45 minutes.

Then I alternate between the arm machines and the leg machines.  I try to do about 3 sets of 12 reps on each of the different machines.  I don’t worry too terribly much about the weight….I just go until I’m tired.  I don’t really want to build muscles…I’d rather just strengthen and tone what I already have.

As for food…we’re kind of boring eaters.  I can’t really eat gluten because it gives me terrible stomach cramps and bloating, so for the most part we have either chicken/fish/turkey with steamed vegetables and brown rice.  Or no rice and some fruit or low-fat cheese.  I try to stick to about 1400 calories a day (I use www.thedailyplate.com to keep track). For lunch I’ll have salad or yogurt or cheese or fruit or a protein bar.  Breakfast is usually plain oatmeal with some peanut butter and sugar free jam.  We try to snack on almonds or pistachios, dried cranberries, fruit, veggies, hummus and the like.  If I didn’t have a ridiculous sweet tooth and sabotage myself with chocolate, I’d be much better off :)