Fitness Journey - Week 3 (Day 13 to Day 19) & Day 20

Keeping a journal of your activity does take time, and I lose an hour of my sleep time doing this. So even when I want to be regular at this I feel I will keep giving in to my ever sleepy self ( just like Nobita from the cartoon Doraemon :-D ) and sleep off rather that write about my exercise hobby. :-) 

Week 3 was a super duper flop though the week began very well. Day 13 and Day 14 I worked out hard in the gym with Day 13 for shoulders & back and Day 14 for  back & abs. These good days were followed by two terrible cramps day when I was not able to straighten my arms. My younger brother took full advantage of my helpless condition and trouble me by twisting my arms :-( Siblings are descendants of the Satan :-P So Day 15 and Day 16 were flop days. On Day 17 I was ready to get back on track but then a work meeting was set up during the lunch time which is the hour dedicated to gym. The gym silently took the back seat and let work guide the way. Day 18 was Saturday so no workout day and only cardio session at gym. No No.. I didn't go for that too. Why? JLT :-D Three days off from gym were quite enough to make me lazy. Day 19 being Sunday is the official day off from workout. Thus a distance was maintained from the gym. Not only that I even came close to junk food as I got a chance to party twice during the week. Therefore, week 3 was a flop week.

Today, with the day 20, week 4 begins and I am back on track. Again, due to work I skipped gym but exercised as hard as I could at home for an hour. My happy moment was when I completed 35 full sit ups in one go :-D My target for the week is to exercise for an hour daily for the coming four days. I CAN DO IT!

Fitness Journey - Day 11 and Day 12

I skipped workout on Day 11, there is only cardio session at the gym on Saturdays but I did not go for it. :-( Day 12 is a rest day but I did some exercise today and watched what I ate.

In the last post I shared about a detox drink and I have been having it from past two days. It does not taste as I wanted it to taste, it is little sweet and little bitter too. The body cools down by the moment you gulp down the last sip :-) I have to try making a better version of the same drink or else it is better to bite into a fresh watermelon rather than sipping this bittersweet pinkish drink.

Week 2 ends with the status as below :

• Worked out on 9/12 days
• Ate junk in this week - 1 time (noodles )
• Days without any exercise - 1
• Current weight - 62.5 K
• Am I happy - Yes
• Am I satisfied - No

On recap there have been days during this time when I pushed my limits, felt strong, and delighted on my own performance. The days when the body ached were hard but the mind kept repeating, "better sore than sorry". At home I am still asked to stop exercising and neighbors say it too because It seems from my face that I have reduced a lot. But if you ask me I have only lost some weight but not achieved that near perfect shape. I have a long way to go yet and I won't stop. :-D 

Fitness Quote: Strength - Anyone can workout for an hour, but to control what goes on your plate the other 23 hours... that's hard work. (Taken from the web)

Fitness Journey - Day 10

The day was pretty normal and smooth at the gym today but at home I did something new. I tried making a detox drink after reading about it on the web. It is extremely simple to prepare and seems quite refreshing. The ingredients are watermelon/cucumber, lemon/lime, mint leaves and water. Yeah! I know the voice in your head is saying that is actually simple. If you want to know the benifits of the drink you can read the article by following this link - Fresh Detox Drink

I am going to have it tomorrow morning and will let you know about the taste in the next post. :-)

Fitness Quote:
Energy and persistence conquer all things - Benjamin Franklin

Fitness Journey - Day 9

Nothing is better than realizing that you have gained some strength and you are stronger than the person you were yesterday. The glory moment of my gym hour was when I completed 30 reps of leg raises without any break. I will admit that last 10 reps were not quite perfect but I did all in one go. :-D Before this the maximum that I did was 20 reps. I tried to even push myself today, after the prescribed workout was over I did 100 side dumbbells to tell myself that I can still go on :-D I love my small victories. :-)

Another thing that I felt today was the power of persistence. We have read about water cutting rocks with its tenacity but have you given a thought to the similar power of the wind? The invisible air can also shape the rocks, and transport things when it persists. I first learned about it in class nine and I was awe struck. I had never thought that air possessed such strength. Today, while I am on my journey to health I think the air and the water, how soft hey are and how flexible they are yet with persistence they gain mystical powers. We are born of the same elements. 70% of our body is water and air is what flows in and out of us 24X7. Are we not equally powerful? Won't persistence grant us the same superpowers that the elements hold individually. We are nature - we are mystical, we are fierce, we are gentle... We need to think about connecting to these powers.

Enough of blabbering for today. Its half past midnight and I should crash now. I will sign off for now with the hope that we all find the strength hidden within us. Tata for now!

Fitness Quote:
"Every living cell in your body is made from the food you eat. If you consistently eat junk food then you'll have a junk body" - Jeanette Jenkins

Fitness Journey - Day 7 & Day 8

I didn't do any workout on Day 7. I have excuses but what matters is that I did not exercise. And on top of it I ate an unhealthy dinner too. So there was no special blog for day 7. It was the day when I just wandered into the side fields rather than sticking to the fitness highway.

Day 8 turned out to be more productive than any other day. I was infused with the positive energy when I hit the gym and tried to put extra effort into every exercise I did, e.g. I did 12 rounds of 20 stairs in one go and another 6 in between the training, 2 sets of 100 reps of side dumbbells with 5 kg weight, 2 sets of 30 reps of full sit-ups on a decline bench, which was my glory moment :-D ( 60 sit-ups sound cool, don't they? :-D )  there more exercises after that and some weights training too. I ended the session with a 20 min of light cardio.

Special thing that happened today is that I recognized one of my school seniors at the gym. Every time I saw her I felt I knew her, and today when the trainer took her name the confirmation bell rang, I knew this girl. It is strange how our appearances change with time. Even on the day when I was on a hunt find a gym to join I crossed paths with my class XIII classmate, she did not recognize me but I did. Lets call her J. J was an overweight kid in school but now she has all those sexy curves :-D The funny part was when I recalled the memories I share with J. We once had a science exhibition in our school and I, along with another friend of mine, performed 'distillation of water' experiment. J had lent her water bottle to us to store the distilled water. After the exhibition was over we had our regular classes, and we were given only few minutes to join the class. We hurried to the class and thought that we would empty the bottle containing the distilled water later. As soon as the class got over J came to my seat and took away her bottle. I did not get a chance to tell her to empty the bottle as the next teacher was in the class already. Now J felt thirsty and she drank the priceless water of our experiment which tasted yuk :-P She immediately started coughing and felt sick, though she recovered quickly from it.

That was nice side story to tell, now back to our main topic - fitness. I don't have much to write today, I tried reading about cauliflower, which is my favorite veggie, but due to lack of interest I could not get into details of the nutrient power of this vegetable. All I understood was that it has very less amount of calories, and more of fiber and protein. Thats all for now. See you tomorrow with better things to share with you :-)

Fitness Quote: I don't workout because I hate my body. I workout because I LOVE it. (Taken from the web)

Fitness Journey - Day 6

A slow progress is on the way. Really? May be not. I weighed myself today and the scale questioned my efforts when it showed 63Kg which is 2 Kg more than last week. :-P I am not discouraged with that as I might have (hoping that I have) gained some muscle that resulted in the increment. Weight is not a problem for me as long as it stays under 67Kg. So, I consider that to be a yellow light for me. Also, even when I am saying to myself eat mindfully I am ending up eating a good heavy dinner on most days of the week. By the rule I am not suppose to eat meals after 7 p.m. and if I feel hungry I should go for salads or fruits. To conclude, my eating regime is showing its effect on the overall goal. No matter how hard we workout our eating habbits dominate the outcome of our efforts to get lean.

The day at gym was good. The regular start with cardio and then some resistance training. Something new added was the weights training for the chest and the back. Did I tell you that I love working out the back muscles :-D To me the back is the most attractive part of a male or a female body. In addition to getting a flat stomach I have a target of shaping the back too. I can still feel that I worked out my back today :-D

In one of the previous blog post I wrote a quote on 'Mind and Body' combo. I experienced it today. I was doing a circuit of 200 bent over twists, 30 leg raises, 30 full sit ups, and 100 bent over jumping jacks. When I reached 16th sit up the lower side muscles of the back got extremely tired and I was unable to do the next sit up without stopping for 5 to 10 seconds. I somehow managed to finish the first round. In the second round when I reached the same stage in the sit ups part I decided not to let my mind give way to weakness. I said to myself that I can do it and abused those tired muscles a little :-P This time it was easy to finish the exercise. The body IS capable of performing if it is forced to. I know doing this on just one day won't help, I have to do this everyday to push my limits. Don't give into the weakness of  the mind. 

Another thing that I enjoyed today was feeling your particular muscle workout when you do the weights training exercise. The last time when I did this type of training my focus was always on weights and repetition count. I hardly paid any attention to the muscle that I was trying to work on then. Today's experience was more like mindful exercising :-D

Before leaving the gym I had a dialogue with one of the coach, I asked him about two articles that I had read. One was how building muscles help in burning more calories and second was benefit of cardio. The jist of the conversation was that generally the fat gets deposited above the muscles. When we don't use the muscle it loses it regular size and shape. The fat accumulation on top of these muscles makes skin of the area look soft and loose. If you start to workout the muscle it tries to regain its form and for this it uses the fat stored on top of it. That is how building fat burns more calories and that too from the storehouse of fat. Excess of cardio degenerated the muscles that you have build, so if you are doing weights training do consult your trainer on how much cardio is necessary. For women weights training helps to tone the body, which is tightening that loose skin of your arms, thighs, abdomen, etc. In case you think you will get masculine look by lifting weights then you should read about it more on the web. Women do not have the hormones that men have which cause the enormous increase in the muscle sizes. It is only with very intense training and supplements that a woman can have that masculine look.

This has turned out to be quite a long entry. :-D I will stop here. :-)
Keep up the good work buddies.

Fitness Quote: Strength is the result of struggle. (Taken from the web)

Fitness Journey - Day 5 : First Week Ends

The first week ends with not so perfect ending. I had to skip gym due to some work but I managed to workout at home for 45 minutes, 20 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of exercises for the core and the back. The workout was good but what followed was a mini disaster. I had to eat out :-P Yeah.. Yeah...! I could have controlled getting indulged into that tasty food but I couldn't. I did managed to avoid the Lachha Parantha (a special type of bread prepared in North India) and go for plain tandoori roti. So, it is not even that bad from my point of view. :-)

First week completed!

Fitness Quote: Don't stop until you are Proud

(taken from the web)

Tomorrow is the rest day. Lets recover and get back to business on Monday.. :-D

Happy Sunday to you folks :-)

Mental note: Eat Mindfully

Fitness Journey - Day 4

Everything in place day! Reached gym on perfect time, did HIIT (only on treadmill), did workout, and wrapped up the session with 7 minutes of cross-trainer. There are days when you wait for the clock to strike the time for you to do your favorite thing, I was waiting for my gym time today :-D I don't know how effective this routine will be in reaching the target but I am already having fun. :-)

The trainer today said that I will have to put in a lot more effort if I have to shed that fat. Controlling the diet and working extra hours act like catalyst in the process of getting lean but how far will it be effective if you get back to your homely routines? I mean I don't wish to give up on my tasty meals for the whole life or take in the supplements to achieve my goals because I cannot do these for my whole life. I don't think it is impossible to see the results if I substitute the fatty stuff in my diet with the healthy stuff and eat mindfully. This is what I am experimenting with. I drink green tea and milk, use olive oil in cooking, eat egg whites, walnuts, almonds, whole wheat bread, brown rice, salads, fruits, paranthas made in olive oil, oat meal, muesli and drink at least 2.5 liters of water per day.  I do drink sweet tea twice a day and eat noodles once or twice a week. This seems like a normal diet to me and one should be able to get lean and stay lean with this. Whether this works or not I will tell you in couple of months.

Apart from the regular gym I did some exercises at home also today. Planks are becoming my favorites. I did planks, superman exercise, pull-over, triceps dips, single triceps extension, one arm dumbbell row, and bent over row. It does feel good to feel your muscles working through exercises. :-) I need to build a lot of strength in the coming days to be able to do more reps.

I hope you too are having fun in your journeys to health. Keep it Going Buddies!

It's more about the mind than about the body

Fitness Quote: I may not be where I need to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be. 

                      (Taken from the web)

Fitness Journey - Day 3

It was boring day at gym today. I missed my regular time slot and ended up going at a time when the gym is jam packed. I thought I will enter the Aerobics class today as I never tried it before. Ten minutes into the class and I knew I had made a wrong choice. I didn't want to go to the weights training section as it would have been hijacked by the guys.

What did I do today? I did 7 minutes of warm up session on treadmill, aerobics for only twenty five minutes, followed by another 20 minutes of cardio where I tried to do some interval training - 2 minutes of slow walk followed by 30 sec of running. This is also called HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). The benefit of HIIT is that it programs your body to burn fat for next 48 hrs, provided you do it correctly. :-D

Link to some good articles on HIIT - HIIT Articles on Bodybuilding.com

In the morning, at home, I tried doing plank and I couldn't strain my core at all. Was flat on the ground in 2 seconds. I tried same on returning from gym and I was able to do plank for 30 seconds :-D It is funny how muscles move in the gym but stay stiff at home. May be our body moves only when it has no option other than moving.

Fitness Quote: Strength - A river cuts through rock, not because of its power but its persistence. (taken from the web)

Fitness Journey - Day 2

What an I call it...? Cramps day? Yup! That is what it was. When you hit the gym after 3 months and try to stretch those loose muscles you should expect the company of cramps the next day :-P So, today's challenge was to exercise with cramps and I was up with full energy to twist those crying muscles. Even one of the gym trainers came to me and said he was expecting me to stay back home and rest. I replied, "Never!" (with a big smile :-D )

One thing that I am expecting to be same throughout the course is the beginning of the workout which is climbing stairs. I have to climb, up and down, 20 stairs for 10 times, i.e. 10 times climb up and 10 times climb down. I never really thought of gravity until today, whenever I reached the 17th step it became tough to lift the feet to the next step. I felt gravity pulling my feet down just like you can feel the force of attraction between two magnets held in your hand. :-P My goal was to complete the 10 rounds and I did complete them diligently. No cheating. :-) Rest of the exercises went fine, the best one being sit ups on a downward inclined bench. I always wanted to do them. The worst was leg raises on an inclined bench. They squeeze every inch of your abs, and it takes a lot of strength to keep your legs straight. Unlike yesterday I did not experience any dizziness today and I managed to get through the routine just fine.

When I came home there was a delight of making another day fruitful.  I have even more sore muscles now and I go"ahh..." "eee..." every now and then due to the pain. I hope I can gather the strength to get to the gym tomorrow :-D

Fitness Quote: Fitness is not a destination, its a way of life.