I DID IT!

I finished my 30 day challenge, just a few days later than expected. Here is a picture of the screen with my proof.

I took a few extra days when I wasn't feeling well. All in all, I liked it. I still can't get my elbow to stop hurting, but the price you pay to get 1% healthier than you were. I'm not sure how much good you can do in a month, but I do feel that I can get through most of the exercises without dieing, which I couldn't do at the beginning. I think I'm going to try another 30 day challenge, but wait until next week to start it. I can give my elbow a bit of time to recover and the guy who works for me is out this week, so I need to get in early.

Ouch.

I learned a little new math this morning, let me brake down the formula for you.

low ceiling + jump lunges = serious head trauma

I have to keep my wits about me when I work out. The basement I finished has a low spot where the air return comes down. I know it's low, so I try to keep closer to the TV so it doesn't become an issue. This morning, I lost track of where I was and worked into my jump lunge which cracked my head on the ceiling. Knocking myself unconscious would be very bad at that time of the morning, seeing as how my wife doesn't get up for another 2 hours and might not notice I'm still home for another hour after that when so goes to leave and would see my car is still there. I would have bled out before that or at very least, have wet myself, which would be just as bad. Having your wife find you laying in a pool of your own urine, having knocked yourself out, is not what I want on my resume. The good thing is, since I'm older, white, out of shape and a bit overweight, my vertical leap is low, so the actual force of my head into the ceiling was light. Today's lesson? You don't want to learn new math from a concussion.

Almost there!

I'm in the final stretch of my 30 day challenge, having completed 14 of the 20 workouts. This morning, I came as close to passing out as I ever have in a workout situation. To say there were a lot of squats would be understating my misery this morning. The squat and holds had my legs shaking violently, but I didn't stand up and pause the clock this time. My jump lunges were a bit higher and my regular lunges were balanced, so I'm improving there. A new squat was added, you squat and then lift your foot up so you are on the ball of your foot, almost on your toes. This is a calf workout, but your thighs get a benefit as well, I can assure you. My thighs were burning and really tight, I'm guessing I'm really going to feel this tomorrow morning. I can tell my physical fitness is improving, but I have a long way to go. My weight has dropped by about 6 pounds since I started and I jiggle far less than when I started. My knee's are doing pretty good, but my right elbow hurts alot. I'm guessing I hyper extended it in one of my boxing exercises, but not sure what I actually did to it. Makiah came down this past weekend and joined in. I was glad that he stopped, exhausted, after a short try, that made me feel better about my efforts. Mason came down and told me it looked easy, but the little shit walked out when I challenged him to a dual workout, chicken. Makiah and Max like to do some of the exercises while I'm doing them, but if they were actually hooked up to the Wii, they would get yelled at by my trainer. I did learn a valuable lesson today, and that is, be sure the controller has good batteries when you work out. I was half way into a run when my dude on the screen started walking, I was running, but my trainer started giving me crap. I was not very nice and shook the controller and the leg strap violently trying to get it to register. So as the screen showed my guy walking around the track, I continued to run and catch a verbal thrashing from my trainer. I'm guessing we were one minute away from her call me a total pussy, excuse my language, when I moseyed across the finish line, only to hear how I should have done much better and to not give up. Give up hell, I was more tired from flinging myself around trying to get the controller to register than if I had just walked like the Wii thought I was. I swapped out batteries and the rest of the stuff registered, so my stress level dropped considerably.

On another note, my spell checker knows what "sharted" is. That makes me laugh. I assume you all know, but just in case, shart is a fart with a bonus. If you want to see the funniest time I have ever seen it used, watch Along Came Polly with Ben Stiller. His friend says it and I nearly sharted when he did, hilarious for those of us with a 5th grade sense of humor.

Over the hump.

I'm half way through my 30 day challenge, and that is what it is, a challenge. After today's work out, I was told in a little video that they were going to step up the work outs. That's good because I haven't felt nauseous since yesterday morning. New least favorite exercise, squat and holds. Doesn't sound that bad, but when you have all ready run twice, have all ready done squats and lunges, then to have to squat and hold for 45 seconds, not easy. My legs were shaking so bad that the sensor thought I had stood up and told me to squat down again. Shit, I was still squatted and pissed that the timer had shut off. I finally finished that, and what did the Wii have in store for me next, why my last least favorite exercise, jump lunges. If I thought my vertical leap was low before, try squat and holds, then make me do jump lunges. I'm surprised the sensor even picked up that I was moving. We'll see how the back stretch on this is and whether my knees will hold up or not. I've started to apply ice to them after each workout which seems to be helping.

On another note, we spent last weekend at a hotel here in DSM that just added an indoor water park and remodeled the rooms. It was really nice and the kids loved the water park. They have 2, two story slides, and Mason was the only kid we could get to go on them. Marcy and I rode them and thought they were pretty fun, but Makiah and Max thought it was too scary, so they wouldn't ride. There were several other pools for them to play in plus a large hot tub, which Marcy and Makiah liked a lot. Makiah couldn't understand why I didn't want to get in the hot water, then back into the regular pool. No thanks, way to cold for me. There were several kids that were unsupervised and a bit crazy, but for the most part the other kids were behaved. I got up Saturday morning to run home to work out and there was fricking snow on my car. I hope this isn't a sign of our winter to come.

Wii Active, you lie!

I was a bit disappointed in my Active trainer this morning, she lied to me. I was told at the beginning of my workout that they were going to give my legs a rest and just work on upper body. Not true, I did 2 different lunges, twice. I did the inline skating which is basically getting into a crouch position and then jumping as high as you can, then getting into the crouch position to do it again. I'm not saying that your upper body doesn't get any workout in those exercises, but I'd hardly call them upper body exercises. Then they made me run, long, again. I swear I sound like I'm dying when I'm done, breathing like I'm running in the Alps or something. Hopefully that gets better. When I run, and I think I am tired, I just think of Jillian on Biggest Looser and I keep running. I think that woman would make me cry if I had to work out with her, but I'd do it in a heartbeat, she could whip me into shape in no time. They added a new thing today, forgot what it was called, but it took me awhile to get the motion right, so I was scolded for not completing the exercise, but I actually did. If you wobble, it detects that and tells you to concentrate on completing the exercise. I wobble. I'm happy that my body seems to be holding up. I have bad knees, so I was concerned that they would give out before I could complete the challenge, but so far so good. My right elbow is sore, but I think that is from over extending my arm while doing boxing, which I am adjusting. My water intake is WAAAAAAY up, so I have to pee constantly. I hope once I adjust to the decrease in Coke and increase in water, I will spend less time at the urinal. I am down to 2 Cokes a day. I started that on the first along with the workouts and that is hard. I love Coke and was drinking 5 or 6 or more a day. Now, just 2, then a lot of water, now with lemon and I started Crystal Light and am liking that. Dump a little packet in a water bottle, shake, and enjoy. Tastes pretty good, cuts my pop intake and increases my water intake, win, win, win. They give you little trophies when you accomplish things, today I got one for completing workouts on time. My next one is for burning 1000 calories in 6 days, which I'm on track to do. So far, I'd say I would recommend Active, but I'll wait until I finish the challenge before I give it a complete thumbs up, if I can even lift my arms.

Am I dead yet?

Today was day 5 of my 30 day challenge and I'm happy to say that I'm still on track to finish in 30 days, if I don't keel over and die first. You may be saying to yourself, how can a video trainer be that hard? Let me say, first, shut the hell up, you have no idea. If you do the workouts like they tell you too, its fricking hard. Doesn't help that I started out a bit over weight a big bit out of shape. Secondly, have you seen this game/program? They ain't screwing around, they want to kill you. Now you can cheat, I've all ready seen ways to do that, but what's the point. If you aren't going to do it correctly, you might as well just not do it. I would love to just sleep in and tell my video trainer to kiss my ass and she can lunge herself right off that dock I see in the background while I'm working out. At the beginning of each workout, they show you a list of the things you will be doing. I scan quickly looking for those f'ing lunges, but today they threw in my new least favorite, the jump lunge. Call it what it is, the barely jump and try not to fall lunge. I started out great, jumping high and lunging like a pro, then they made me do it a second time later in the workout. Lets just say my normal 2 inch vertical was cut significantly, to barely clearing the carpet fiber vertical, hardly NBA worthy. If I wasn't breathing so heavy, I surely would have given my trainer a few choice words. But alas, I was more concerned about not throwing up, so I decided to try and keep my mouth closed as best I could so as to not blow chunks all over my recently paid for carpet. I was so excited to see "Last exercise" come across the screen, that I almost missed what it was, Run. The run part wasn't as bad as the word right after it, Long. Oh shit, this can't be good. As you run, there is a diagram of the track in the corner with a little dot showing where you are on the track. The finish line pops up on the diagram, but if you are making multiple laps, it doesn't show up until the last lap. I don't know how many laps I did, my eyes blurred over and the heavy breathing was making it hard to focus on the screen, but I made it. Tomorrow is another rest day. I never thought I'd be so happy to have a morning where I didn't feel like I was going to throw up, when I'm not even sick.

Happy Birthday to me.

So today I turned 41 years old today, ahhh where did the time go. I started my day with a 30 minute workout with my new trainer, Mrs. Wii Active. I chose the female trainer because I thought she might be less intimidating and more encouraging. She is very encouraging, for a computer generated Mii, but that hasn't stopped me from calling her a bitch on several occasions. I'm figuring out how to hold the controllers so I get credit for the action I just completed. Hold the controller wrong and the bitch, I mean trainer, thinks you didn't do the exercise or didn't do it correctly, when I most certainly did. I have punched my low ceiling on an over the head stretch, that I have now modified to meet my trainers requirements and my knuckles safety. I have turned my TV so my side lunges no longer slam me into the couch. The little resistance strap they give you pulls the hair off your arms, so you have to hold it a bit differently than I first thought to avoid this most uncomfortable workout injury. I guess if you are really hairy, this is a way to drop a little more weight when it rips a pound of hair off of your arms, but my arms aren't hairy enough for me to take advantage of that feature. There was less nausea today, so I had that going for me. Tomorrow is my day of rest, which hopefully will allow my inner thighs to recover from their now burning state. It feels like someone has kicked me there, repeatedly. There is a questionnaire that you have to fill out each day. They ask questions like how much sleep did you get, how many glasses of water did you drink, how many fast food meals did you eat, what is your stress level, but the one that I know I need to work on is, how many sugary drinks did you consume? I'm not proud to say that 5 is my daily norm, I'm so ashamed. In my defense, I don't drink coffee, so this is my caffeine intake. OK, that is not helping me at all, to claim that pop/soda (lets just say it, Coke) is my way to get another chemical in my body that I don't need. On that note, I've cut my Coke consumption to 2 a day, and it's killing me. Plus, Coke is free at work, so the temptation will be even harder. Since today is my birthday, I'm allowing myself a third Coke with dinner. My main goal in all of this isn't to loose weight, although that will be a good byproduct if it happens, but getting more fit is my main reason. There is a line in King of Queens that always makes me laugh and is appropriate to my cause. As you know, Doug is a bit overweight. He was discussing getting back into football with Carrie, who was trying to talk him out of it because he was in such bad shape, which Doug denied. Carries response was classic, "Doug, you get winded peeling an orange." Welcome to my world, for now.