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Friday, March 06, 2009

whooppeeee

No, unfortunately not "making whooppee" but whooppee nonetheless.

Dogwalking 65 days straight (~ 9 weeks)
WiiFit 53 days straight (~ 7 weeks)
Pounds lost 11

It has been HARD work. Between the WiiFit and Dogwalking, it is 1 1/2 hours per day on weekdays and, with the personal trainer and yoga on the weekends, it goes up to 2 1/2 - 3 hours/day.

This is added to packing my lunch each day and cooking my dinners. Some days, I do have lunch or dinner with friends and those days are challenging (though extremely fun). I think that they may actually help as they provide variation in calorie count and food variety that keeps my body on its toes.

This is the hardest I have ever worked to lose 11 pounds and I am wondering why. Is it the long commute and the stress of the long work days? Or something else? At any rate, it is still 11 pounds in the right direction. Whooppee!

It works out to a little more than 1 lb/week so I figure if I keep it up for a year, I could lose 52 lbs! which is sure a lot better than putting on 52 lbs. And, believe me, I would not be too thin if I lost another 41 lbs. In fact, I would probably look quite right - not that I have seen that weight in at least 12 years but it would be nice to see it again (if just for a reason to clean out my closet and shop for new clothes).

The dog walking is working out and the dogs and I do love it. Thomas is finally figuring out heel although I have had to compromise and let him do it at half a step ahead. He doesn't pull and walks quite nicely, sniffing profusely every now and then. It has really helped us to pick up our pace in the morning. This morning, the regular 1/2 hour circuit took only 27 minutes (for 1.5 miles).

WiiFit is also fun. I started to get a little bored as I had completed over 20 hours and opened most of the additional poses and exercises so started to mix it up a bit. Do one of the aerobic exercises and then go over and do a strength exercise and its paired yoga exercise. I find that this mixing it up actually helps more since it blends the stretching and the strength with the aerobics to get more benefit from the workout. At the end, I do the balance exercises. This new approach has now lengthened the workout to 1 1/2 hours and I am enjoying the challenges of "beating my own times and levels".

Aerobics
Basic Step - I haven't perfected it yet but have managed to continue to raise my score and now have a much higher level of "perfect" as opposed to "ok" steps.
Basic Hula Hoop - I can consistently get them to throw me all 5 Hula Hoops and am still beating my own times.
Island Run - A 10 minute "run" (actually jogging in place) around the Island. I am working at about 116% of efficiency and do get quite warm and sweaty. It is fun to watch the other runners and pretty funny when they trip and fall.
Advanced Step - I am also getting pretty good at that one. Finally made it through a set without missing any steps and "perfect" steps far outpace "ok" steps. This also works up a sweat.
Boxing - Haven't done enough of it to know how to advance myself.

Strength
Pushups, Leg Raisers, AbVees, Arm Raisers - Lots of good stuff here. Maximum points on all are 100 and I have achieved that on a few while coming close on others. As you get better, more reps are opened up and I am now reaching those levels. Also opened the Ab Crunch challenge where you challenge the trainer to see who can do more. (It is a killer).

Yoga
I had an advantage here and started at a high level on most positions. Still, I keep bettering myself and some of them are darn hard.

Balance
Love the Soccer balls although I hate getting hit by the shoes and the stuffed panda bear head. i am really lousy at this one. "Unbalanced" is the word used by WiiFit. I keep getting better although not good enough for the game.

Ski Slalom - Another fun one. I have reached Pro at the Beginner level and haven't dared to go higher yet. Still working to beat myself.

Marble balance - Tilt and twist to get the marbles in the holes at every level. I love this one so much and got so good at the beginner level that I have moved to the advanced level and trying to master that one.

Penguin tilt - Another fun one. Apparently, my penguin gets enough fish to eat although I have only advanced from "Unbalanced" to "Amateur" level (2 more to go).

Tightrope - Can get across and learned to jump over the chomping jaws but really haven't spent too much time on this one.

Bubble walk - A real frustration. Took forever for me to master it enough to make it all the way down the river once. I haven't spent much more time on it but will get back to it as I master the others.

Snowboard - Oh boy! The forward and backward leaning balance on this one is just beyond me. I am always going the wrong way and running into walls. This one is going to take some time.

So that is the summary. I do the Body Test every day and check my WiiFit age. It is usually between 30 and 40. The lowest I have ever gotten is 25 (not bad for a 50 year old) and the highest is 57 (really bad day). I am extra challenged because a lot of the test has to do with balance and stability and, since I don't have a lot of feeling in my toes (due to Chemo), it is hard to maintain a stable balance. You don't realize just how much your toes have to do with your overall balance and standing.

I am grateful every day for continued motivation (and fun) and hope that I can come back to this blog with more successful weight loss stories.

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