![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Exercise, mostly
Mar. 14th, 2003 12:28 amI've been exercising three times a week with Pat for the past couple of years. These days, generally Tuesdays are cross-training (elliptical for me, bike for Pat) and running on Thursday and Saturday.
Only problem is, I'm moving backward instead of forward in progress. About the time I started with Pat, I'd worked up to where I could run three miles in 36 minutes. But I've gained weight over the past couple of years, and I've lost most of my endurance over the last several months.
Pat's trainer has been having her do walk-jogs (walk seven minutes, jog four minutes), and I'm going along with that. I'm hoping that I'll be able to build my time and speed up at the same time.
Today, in the last of the three sets of jogs, I actually got my second wind. Instead of the usual feeling like I was ready to drop, I felt like I could keep going, and was hardly out of breath when I stopped. It wasn't the first time, but it's always nice when it happens. I've never encountered the endorphin rush, but the second wind phenomenon is real.
I'm hoping that my performance will improve as the weight drops down -- always assuming I manage to keep to the damned diet. Every time I go grocery shopping, I try to remind myself how much those bags weigh and how they translate to extra weight I'm carrying in fat.
And then I wonder whether I'd enjoy life more if I just enjoyed eating what I liked and let my weight go to where it wants to go. Not sure there's an upper limit, alas. Used to have a set point that I could rely on, but breezed past that a couple of years ago.
Stupid evolutionary tricks. Why can't modern science deal with this somehow? I suspect what I really want is the disappearing menu items from Heinlein's "Magic, Inc." Forget the beer; I'll take the hot fudge sundae.
Only problem is, I'm moving backward instead of forward in progress. About the time I started with Pat, I'd worked up to where I could run three miles in 36 minutes. But I've gained weight over the past couple of years, and I've lost most of my endurance over the last several months.
Pat's trainer has been having her do walk-jogs (walk seven minutes, jog four minutes), and I'm going along with that. I'm hoping that I'll be able to build my time and speed up at the same time.
Today, in the last of the three sets of jogs, I actually got my second wind. Instead of the usual feeling like I was ready to drop, I felt like I could keep going, and was hardly out of breath when I stopped. It wasn't the first time, but it's always nice when it happens. I've never encountered the endorphin rush, but the second wind phenomenon is real.
I'm hoping that my performance will improve as the weight drops down -- always assuming I manage to keep to the damned diet. Every time I go grocery shopping, I try to remind myself how much those bags weigh and how they translate to extra weight I'm carrying in fat.
And then I wonder whether I'd enjoy life more if I just enjoyed eating what I liked and let my weight go to where it wants to go. Not sure there's an upper limit, alas. Used to have a set point that I could rely on, but breezed past that a couple of years ago.
Stupid evolutionary tricks. Why can't modern science deal with this somehow? I suspect what I really want is the disappearing menu items from Heinlein's "Magic, Inc." Forget the beer; I'll take the hot fudge sundae.
