Week One: Totals and inferences. Lesson One: Interpreting your data.

Tracking Sheet, on the fridge so I don't forget, lasts a month so I am encouraged to keep tracking (don't want to waste my past efforts)

Let’s start with the raw numbers, shall we?

• Average Calories (kcals) eaten per day: 2,615
• Average Calories burned during exercise per day: 544
• Change in weight (lbs) Monday to Monday:  -1.5
• Largest fluctuation in 24hrs: 2
• Distance between heaviest and lightest weights: 3.5
• Change (one week) in body fat %:  -.2

A one pound loss of fat would equal a loss of 0.25% body fat (based on my starting total body weight and percentage of body fat). So it is reasonable to conclude that MOST, if not all of the weight lost this past week was fat and not water or muscle. This is a very nice thing. In fact, it’s ideal. I don’t necessarily want to lose “weight” but I do want to change my body composition to one that is more athletic and thus will perform better. So if next week the scale said my weight was the same, but my fat % was less, then I would have gained lean mass (erm…muscle), and that rocks! (I am not measuring my waist etc. but if I were you’d likely see a change there in such a case)

Here is how to calculate these figures:

1. Weigh yourself
2. Find out your body fat %. If you don’t have a scale or other device that will do this, ask at your gym. You can likely ask a trainer to do it for you. If they are smart and looking to gain clientele, they will do it for free.  (of course, you need to do this weekly, or monthly, so you may want to just purchase a device)
3. Calculate how many pounds of your total weight are fat. Take your total body weight and multiply it by the percentage of body fat (don’t forget to move the decimal place).  For example, if you weigh 150lbs and your body fat % is 42: 150 x .42 = 63
4. Further divided that 63 pounds of body fat to see how much weight equates to 1%. Same formula. 63 x 0.1 = 6.3  For every 6.3 pounds you lose, that’s 1% of body fat, gone….or vice verse.
5. Shift your focus from losing pounds overall to shifting your percentages from body fat to lean body mass….   we’ll discuss this further in the future.
6. Check my math….I failed algebra twice in school (seriously).

You may have noticed that I eat a lot. I do, it’s no secret, and I do not to feel bad about it. I am not setting a goal to reduce my calorie intake at this point because I lost body fat this week while eating around 2,800 calories most days. Also, I am aware from past experience that when I set a low calorie target I develop a pattern of binge eating and exercise purging, which is very unhealthy and borderline pathological, and I have plenty of pathology to go around, with an eating disorder. That said, based on the data from this week, there is a clear positive relationship between how many calories I eat, and my weight the next morning.

You may be wondering how it is possible that a woman who is (a little over) 5’5″ and of an average physique could possibly lose weight while eating so much! Well, I don’t know, but here are some things that could be affecting my composition (only more data collection will tell):

• I lift weights, and I like to lift heavy
• I watch my heart rate, and set in-session targets, every time I do cardio
• My daily calorie intake is cyclical (I think….we’ll need a couple more weeks of counts to be sure), every 3rd day my intake is at or below 2,000 calories
• my data collection might be drifting. For the first half of the week I measured and counted everything, meticulously, and calibrated the calorie counter (but still tried to over, rather than under, estimate figures). The second half I was not as diligent (but still recorded in real-time). So, the counts for the last 3.5 days might be inflated. But maybe not, no way to know for sure.
• I have lymphocytic colitis. So, um, well, I poop a lot. And my body has an immune response to many types of foods, so I reckon there are times when things like fat and protein are not processed at all.
• I am always hungry! I realized that this week, I really don’t often eat when I am not hungry…I am just very often hungry.

Interpreting your data

All of the information from my tracking sheet is also recorded in an excel sheet and graphed on my computer. It is A LOT easier to see trends, cycles, and changes in graphical form than by staring at a long list of numbers. Also, you can break things up in several different ways to see relationships between you variables.

**As soon as I can figure out how to convert my graphs to image files (times failed to date: 14) I will post them to really help you see what I mean.**

This first week on the graphs will mostly serve as a baseline, but I can see that many of my variables seem to be cyclical, how much I eat, how many calories I burn, my weight…I am looking to see, in the next week if there is a visible relationship between how much I eat and how much I burn via exercise. Also, it will be interesting to see if, as I get stronger, whether I burn more or fewer calories per session.

A few interesting findings from tracking my heart-rate

1. I always burn fewer calories during exercise when  I workout first thing in the morning versus at any other time. ( I am NOT a morning person, it takes me for-EV-er to wake up and be alert….my boyfriend thinks it’s hilarious, and probably annoying too, how little sense I make before 8am)
2. When I do my resistance training after cardio I burn more calories (in session) than when I lift first. It is unclear whether this is because I am more warmed up and thus lift better/harder, or if it is an effect of “afterburn“.  I am a skeptic of afterburn theory. I will definitely be looking into this more.
3. Setting calorie burn, and target heart-rate goals for a workout really helps with motivation to keep going in the face of boredom, stress, or general malaise.

Where to go from here

At this point you have your plan (as discussed in my last post), you have which measures to track, and you have some data (yay!). The next step is to keep tracking and keep working. Look at your data and if anything (depending on your goals) is going in the wrong direction (not completing workouts, weight going up rather than down etc) make a change (calorie goals, increase in exercise duration and so on) and put a note on your tracking sheet that you made a change on that day.

Good luck!

AB

Plans and Contingency plans: seat-belting yourself into the healthy and fit wagon.

Reinforcement is great, and can be effective to increase how often you workout or make good food choices. But arranging your environment for success is about more than consequences (rewards, punishment, results), it involves antecedent interventions. What’s that? Planning, my friends, planning. In other words take time to set yourself up for success and the rewards will follow naturally.

This post is a long one, so here are the steps to planning and sticking to a successful health and fitness plan. I will be covering some points very briefly, others with more depth. Mostly using myself as an example.

1. List your goals
2. Outline your current obstacles as well as motivators
3. Figure out how much time per day and days per weeks you have to workout, grocery shop, and prepare food
4. Create a workout schedule
5. Create the workouts (or ask a fitness professional to help you)
6. Take baseline measures
7. Self-monitor as you go
8. Adjust the plan based on how you perform/stick to it
9. If you fade or fall off, look at what went wrong and pick it right back up
10. Repeat your measurements periodically
11. ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spent some time last weekend creating a 9 week plan for myself. I have spent sufficient time grieving over bowing out of Boston, and am ready to set my eyes on being able to run happily through the summer. I made a short list of my fitness and healthy living goals and then looked at them through the figurative lens I would use when developing a plan for a client. The end result is a 9 week plan of resistance training, cardio workouts, dietary goals and guidelines, measurable variables, and contingency plans for when things don’t work or I fall off the wagon.

I have some baseline measures for comparison and will share weekly updates here for those of you who decide you might want to follow along with a similar plan. Within those updates I will report any data-based decisions I make, what I am measuring, and how I measure it.

Below, I will outline my 9 week plan, please let me know if you want to join in on the challenge, I would love to compare our data collection effort to further illustrate the importance of selecting the best variables for YOU, as an individual!

Laying out an individualized plan, that is doable, capitalizes on your strengths and preferences, and will give you the results you want is not an easy thing to do. It is important to begin your plan based on where you are currently, your current health concerns, fitness level, schedule, energy level, and motivations MUST be taken into account. This takes experience, insight, and a candid look at yourself. It is totally doable, but it really needs to be done right.

In fact, even if you have hired a personal trainer this may not be a service they provide. Not really. Because it takes time, attention, and it needs to be updated frequently. That said, it IS a service you should feel totally comfortable requesting of your trainer, and if they cannot provide it to your satisfaction: hire a new trainer. I realize this may sound harsh, but I have worked a lot as a trainer, so I can say it.

If you ask your personal trainer to make a plan for you to follow outside of session, please be prepared to compensate them for the time they spend working on  your plans and analyzing your data and progress. That does not mean handing them a wad of cash under the table. Please keep things legitimate and professional, perhaps by suggesting that you use one of your sessions, bi-weekly (or whatever suits your needs), to write, edit, and review your program and progress. If your trainer is a real cracker-jack they will be able to work these tasks right into your normal appointments.

Here is my plan for the next 9 weeks. I am including the rationale behind many of my choices and other tips to help you in your own planning.

I will doing my resistance training via a split schedule. That means that each day of the week is assigned a different muscle group. I do not recommend jumping into a split schedule regimen if you have not been resistance training consistently 2 or 3 times per week for the past 3 months. If you do not have a resistance training foundation currently and want to start, begin with 2 or 3 sessions per week of circuit training or split upper and lower body workouts.

Split Weeks 1-4

• Monday: Shoulders/Abs, Cardio 30-60 mins
• Tuesday: Chest/Biceps, Cardio 60 mins
• Wednesday: Abs and Flexibility, Spin (instructor) 50mins
• Thursday: Legs, Cardio 30-45 mins (easy)
• Friday: Back/Triceps
• Saturday: Rest or Pool workout (e.g. water jogging or lap swimming)
• Sunday: Spin and Body Blast (instructor), Flexibility

Each day in the split has an assigned workout. They all have between 6 and 10 exercises, and I am not performing the workouts as circuits, but rather each exercise on it’s own (typically 15, 12, and 10 reps) so that I can work more accurately and effectivelyto exhaustion and build muscle and strength while in the weight room. The endurance will come because I have bunches of cardio scheduled as well. Each resistance workout should take between 30 and 40 minutes to complete.

It’s really not as complicated as this might seem. I simply repeat the same workout every Monday, Tuesday and so on, for 4 weeks. Each workout has a “card”, I haven’t laminated (yup, I have a laminator, I love crafts!) my split cards yet so here is a picture of a “workout card” I made for a friend ages ago:

Custom made, discrete, and reusable.

Week 5: Based on past experience with working out on a split schedule I will most likely struggle to get through the workouts on week 4. I should be stronger, but will probably be bored with the routine. So week 5 is meant to be a vacation from the super-structured routine. It will also be a step-back or recovery week.  The workouts are as of yet to be determined but the main focus is to have fun!  Here’s the basic structure:

• Monday: 45 mins Step mill & Fun core workout
• Tuesday: Rest, Flexibility training
• Wednesday: Spin (instructor)
• Thursday: Swim 2,000 yds  :)
• Friday: Rest, Flexibility Training
• Saturday: Total body circuit training: 60 mins
• Sunday: Spin and Blast (instructor)

Split Weeks 6-9

• Monday: Back/Abs, 60 mins Cardio
• Tuesday: Chest, 60 mins Cardio
• Wednesday: Spin (instructor), Legs
• Thursday: Flexibility, Swim or Rest
• Friday: Shoulders/Abs, 60 mins Cardio
• Saturday: Biceps/Triceps
• Sunday: Spin, Blast (instructor)

This is much like the first four weeks but with a different distribution. The workouts are made already, but depending on how I feel and how my progress is going they may be tweaked. Also, I hope to be use running as most of my cardio for weeks 6-9.

I have a chart to check off each day what I have accomplished (Printed at the start of each week and slapped up on the fridge). I am wearing my hear rate monitor during all workouts and record in an excel chart (and an iPad app that I am playing with) how many calories I burn through exercise each day.

Date	Resistance	Cardio	Weight	Calories
3/21/11
3/22/11
3/23/11
3/24/11
3/25/11
3/26/11
3/27/11

Baseline (comparison) Measures

This Monday morning before working out I recorded my:

• Weight
• Body fat %
• Muscle %

I kept a complete food log Monday and Tuesday that will serve as baseline for my average calorie intake per day. I likely will not record my food every day over the next nine weeks. For two reasons 1)  calories BURNED is a far more accurate measure because it is from my HR monitor based on my performance and my metrics 2) in order to keep the calorie count calibrated it is tedious and time consuming.

In retrospect, I wish I had performed some 1 minute timings of several exercises, a heart rate recovery test, and a timed challenge workout to provide some comparison measures for fitness. Time permitting I will do the timings tomorrow before my schedule workout. Then, if I have the energy on Saturday I will do the challenge workout.

Ongoing measures:

Resistance training: I am not keeping track of exactly how many reps and at what weights I do the exercises each day. That said, I will typically follow the prescribed 3 sets (15,12, and 10 reps) of each exercise. The tedious nature of recording every weight I use and any extra or missed reps takes away from the overall enjoyment and flow of workouts, so I won’t be doing it. Additionally, to do so post-workout is likely inaccurate. For the most part I (and you) remember what weight I use one week to the next and will progress pretty intuitively.

Body Weight: I am weighing myself every morning (at least, that’s the plan). No, I would not recommend this to anyone else, it’s overkill and not necessarily meaningful. I am doing it to follow the fluctuations associated with having colitis (I have seen my weight go up or down 6lbs over the course of a day because of responses to food). Additionally, tracking the eb and flow of weight will make a great looking graph to share, I suspect.

Fat and Muscle Percentages: I will be measuring these (with my awesome scale), each week on Monday morning to monitor whether any weight loss or gain is due to a change in body composition rather than hydration/dehydration or inflammation.

Fitness measures: The tests I mentioned above (that I have yet to collect baseline for), will be repeated at the start of week 5, and at the conclusion of week 9.

Nutrition: I don’t have a real concrete plan here. I don’t have any faith in the fidelity of calorie counting and to be honest don’t subscribe to the law of thermodynamics when it comes to training. AND my focus here isn’t totally on weight loss, but rather, on fitness and improving athletic performance. I will be setting weekly nutrition goals based on how my digestive system, energy levels, sleeping patterns, and mood are. For now, I am keeping a food log with calories to illustrate my point about accuracy and reliability.

Caloric Expenditure: I will wear a HR monitor for all (hopefully) workouts, both resistance and cardio, and record calories burned via exercise each day. Should my weight change, I will change the settings on the monitor to reflect it (for accuracy of calorie burn).

The Contingency Plan

Please forgive my confusing terminology here. I don’t mean a plan of contingencies (if I do this, then I get this, or this happens), I mean a backup plan for when/if I “fall off the wagon”.

I like to think of a fitness plan a little bit in the way you would plan a persons recovery from addiction (no, I am not saying we are all food or laziness addicts). What I mean is a plan for relapse. In this case relapse equates to anything that leads to missing workouts and/or not recording data (as outlined above). These things could be stress, boredom, eating poorly, not sleeping enough or anything else that knocks me (or you) off the plan.

So what to do if workouts are missed. This is why I am keeping the tracking sheet (checklist) on the fridge. If I miss one or even three days of scheduled workouts, the plan just shifts down and I continue to do the “cards” in order. Clearly, this will get confusing and hard to manage if I miss a lot of workouts. If more than 3 workouts are missed for 2 or more weeks in a row, then that is cause to review the plan and revise, because it was likely not realistic.

The beauty of keeping all this data is that you can then make, say it with me: data based decisions! That means that if the plan isn’t working it will be visibly reflected in the data, and you can adjust your plans to get things going back in the right direction.

Still with me? If you have read this far then I have confidence that you have what it takes to plan, self-monitor, adjust, and succeed!

To recap, here are the steps to creating and sticking with a fitness regimen:

1. List your goals
2. Outline your current obstacles as well as motivators
3. Figure out how much time per day and days per weeks you have to workout, grocery shop, and prepare food
4. Create a workout schedule
5. Create the workouts (or ask a fitness professional to help you)
6. Take baseline measures
7. Self-monitor as you go
8. Adjust the plan based on how you perform/stick to it
9. If you fade or fall off, look at what went wrong and pick it right back up
10. Repeat your measurements periodically
11. ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I look forward to hearing some of your goals, plans, and outcomes!!!

-AB

A lesson in mindful measurement.

It occurred to me this week that in order to get into a steady training routine that will be consistent, rehabilitative, fat burning, mood enhancing, and also provide a strong foundation to begin a new round of marathon training in late May or early June, I need set up an environment that supports enjoying exercise and training. I have been speeding along in the wrong direction and am looking for a U-turn permitted sign.

When working out, I usually try to maintain a focus on my body, the in-session goals, and my performance. I typically do not employ distraction techniques unless I am really crunched for time and need to multitask during cardio (usually this involves reading articles for school). In which case I usually use a gym-boss to keep my intensity high (it vibrates every 2 minutes and I check and correct my performance, based on HR).

This morning I decided to set no workout session goals other than to enjoy the act of moving, sweating, and breathing. I cued up “Stranger Than Fiction” on my DVR and hopped on my spin bike. While watching the movie I rode for about 30mins, then did 12 sets of lower body exercises, got back on the bike for another 25 or 40 minutes, then did a short core circuit, then stretched as the movie finished.

I did indeed use my HR monitor, but my target was to stay BELOW 145 bpm. Typically my goal is to warm up in the 130’s, then remain ABOVE 145 for the duration of the session. My calorie burn for 90 minutes of activity was 550. In a typical spin class (50mins) I burn around 500. So in term of efficiency, this would be a terrible workout. But, I enjoyed myself. I feel refreshed, and I am looking forward to the next time I can workout again.

Can you really ask for more?

clicking the image will take you to amazon.com (I am not affiliated)

The idea to maintain an element of joy in training is not something that struck me from nowhere. I began reading Ryan Hall’s book about 5 weeks ago but stopped about half way through and likely won’t finish it (exuberant religiousity really turns me away). His main point is that to be successful an element of pleasure (joy) and passion is crucial and fundamental. I recommend the book, and I admire the work he and his wife are doing to supply clean water sources to those who lack access.

The lesson I would like to share with you all is that selecting when to focus on a particular goal is an underestimated element of success. There is a time to focus on strength and power, on speed, on form and accuracy, on weight loss, on further goal setting, on intensity, and there is a time to focus on the moment and yourself and on the joy of action. The pleasure of having a body that can do so many different things, and a mind that can wander or be wholly present, and that can create.

For the past year I have been working on creating systematic ways to help people select what to measure and how to measure it in their fitness and healthy living programs. My own experience today only further encourages my drive to continue working toward my dream of opening and operating a behavior analytic training facility. Because without that perspective I would never have realized that for the last three weeks I have been selecting the wrong measures. I have been under the impression that I was failing because I was gaining some weight back and losing fitness and motivation, but what I was gaining and should be measuring is a renewal in my love of sport, my love of working out, the joy of movement, and that my injured foot is growing stronger each day, even if I am not able to plug high mileage numbers into my charts.

Running in the woods always makes me smile, so as soon as my foot is strong enough I am going to sign up for some of the Chicago Trail Series races. Is there an exercise that brings you joy?

-AB

Boston Marathon Bib Numbers Posted

If I were running on April 18th my bib number would be 14716.

Separating the forest and the trees.

The past few weeks have been rough. I wish could fake it better and say that whilst side-lined from running I have focused on my goals of clean-eating and strength building. But I haven’t. The last two weeks, upon realizing that I wasn’t recovering quickly enough to prevent losing any training ground for Boston, I let my eating habits take a nose dive, and I got pretty lazy. Then I caught a cold. Not just any cold, but a can’t lie down without either choking on mucus when you fall asleep or coughing so much you have to sleep sitting up on the couch kind of cold. It’s been 10 days now and I still have a chest thumping cough. It’s a grand excuse to be a sloth. I have been working out, but only every few days, and at about 40% of my usual gusto.

My foot is recovering very slowly. I think perhaps because this injury is a rather cumulative one. I developed serious planters fasciitis over two years ago and it has never completely subsided (I have 3 different night splints, aka “boots” that I rotate and sleep in), because that injury when untreated for a long time I developed a small bone spur on the bottom of my right foot. Then, somewhere between miles 19 and 23 (I remember the moment, but the moments around it are a blur) during the Portland Marathon last year, I sprained my right ankle. Because of that injury I didn’t run at all between completing that race and beginning to train for the Boston Marathon. So, yes, I broke the golden rule of running (of training at all!), which is to increase your mileage (or workload) by increments of 10%. I went from ZERO miles per week to FIFTY within little over a month.

But it felt so good!

Until I couldn’t even walk, that is.

To run the Boston Marathon is on my list of life-time goals. And I have not wanted to give it up for anything. I have many goals, and right now my list of goals is growing so fast that I am overwhelmed and it’s hard to focus! I am a strong advocate for small goals, daily ones, as well as goals for individual workouts and projects. I think breaking larger goals into smaller milestones is of paramount importance. But sometimes, it’s a huge mistake to forget about the big picture.

Sometimes you have to step back, sit down, close your eyes, and think about the big goals. The goals that you feel silly calling goals, because you may never get there, but they make you grin to imagine. The dreams.

Although I want to run Boston, and I want to run it this year because I qualified at my first marathon attempt, my bigger (running) goals are to 1) run a marathon in 3hr15mins or less and 2) Win first place as an age-grouper in a 10k 3) run daily when I am 60 and 70. It is possible that by pushing through this injury and going to Boston this April, I will be sacrificing these bigger goals. So I will be sitting out.

Sometimes, courage is not to push through pain and hobble across a finish line, but to step away, start over from the beginning, and finish strong. Although I feel heartbroken rather than courageous, I am ready to set my eyes on some shiny new short-term goals.

-AB

Welcome Fitbloggers!

If you are visiting from Fitblogger welcome, welcome, welcome! Please, browse through posts, leave a comment to say hello, and enjoy!

I hoped to have a few new informative posts up by today, but alas, I am sitting with 6 drafts (and a really disgusting chest cold) instead.  This blog is still in it’s infancy and I expect many exciting additions and improvements in the coming months, I hope you decide to stay tuned!

If you have been reading for awhile and/or are a subscriber, today this blog is being featured on a great blogging cooperative website called Fitblogger! What’s that you ask? Well, first, it is a great starting point to find blogs you might enjoy following. Additionally, Fitblogger provides resources for bloggers, has a great library of articles on a broad range of healthy living topics,as well as a newly formed reviews section.

Check out my featured post here! I just realized there are 2 annoying typos in it. My apologies.

I’d like to keep this post brief so here’s some news from the past week:

1. notice above that I have added a new “ABA” tab. There you will find a basic introduction to applied behavior analysis. In the very near future (aka: when I figure out how to), you will find downloadable content to help you on your self-management journey!
2. I am going to be adding product/book/service review to the “tricks of the trade” tab.
3. Did you know Borders bookstores are closing? (ahem, clearance sale) Stock up on clean eating cookbooks and fitness guides! I went to the store in Lakeview tonight and came home with 8 new books! (I am not a huge shopper, but when it comes to books and clothes I am very impulsive)
4. I have set up a store at Amazon.com where I am going to add many of the products I use for training, education on healthy eating, keeping my colitis symptoms manageable, and many others things that I received frequent questions about. This is another small project that is growing everyday. There is a link to the store on the right side bar of this blog so you can check it out anytime. Feel free to email me if you want more information. I am only selecting items that I have myself used/read etc. Check out the little shop and please let me know of products you’d like my view on.
5. Aaaaannnnd, drum-roll please! I am going to run this Saturday! I can’t wait! I will be joining the Boston Bound group, finally, for the first time. They are running 13miles. I am planning to just run until my foot hurts, but I of course hold out hope to complete the distance, I will be exhilarated to make it 4. I can’t wait to meet everyone!

Have a great day!

-AB

Refocusing: don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.

My intention is not for this blog to become a training log but I had such a great leg session tonight that I want to share for those who might want to try it out! I have several go-to workouts that I use when I am in a rut or want to test my fitness. This actually isn’t one of them.

Since I haven’t been able to run I am really getting an urge to do some strength building. I have been lifting 2 or 3 days a week all along during the marathon training for Boston but my focus really wasn’t on building more muscle, just on maintaining what I already have, and keeping my joints supported.

I set a goal to workout a minimun of 1hr with a goal of 2hrs, 6 days this week to start to simulate what I would be doing if I could run my regular program (and stop being bummed-out), so far so good. Yesterday and today my foot felt improved, but not run-ready.

Spin class at 6am today went smooth, I could stand on the bike without discomfort. YAY!

Before work I spent some time watching video’s of Nicole Wilkins Lee, who always inspires me to work hard!

An Arnold Champ!

The leg workout I did was me smooshing together some of her moves and combinations with some of my favorites.

Without further delay, here’s the workout:

Everything was done in pairs of exercises (sort of like supersets). 3 sets before moving to the next pair. Rest was just long enough for my heart rate to drop to 125bpm, or until I felt my breathing was easy (whichever came first)

1. 10 min. warmup (stepmill)
2. Smith Machine Reverse Lunges x12 ea. leg @ +50lbs / :30 Wall Sit
3. Squat holding 30lbs x 15 / Switch (jump) Lunges x 30
4. Bench Step Ups x15 each Leg / Stability Ball Laying Hamstring Curls x 10 double leg x 8 Right x 5 double x 8 Left
5. Leg Extension x 12 @45lbs / Sumo Hops x 15
6. Single Leg Straight Leg Deadlifts x 12 ea. holding 15lbs / Skater Steps (jumps) x 30

My plan was to do another high intensity 15 mins on the Stepmill to round things out but my foot started to hurt during the second set of skaters…it was great until then. I kept the weights lower than I would if I were a) not injured and b) not hoping to return to endurance running very soon. Also, I did this after work at 7pm. I am not a morning person. I love to workout in the late afternoon or evening, I always seem to be able to work much harder later in the day.

STATS:  :)

Elapsed time = 39 mins (not including warmup)

Calories burned in session (including warmup) = 428

Average HR = 141  Maximum HR = 168

Session Lesson: Use what you can, just because one body part is injured doesn’t mean you can’t still get an amazing workout and continue to make progress!

Oh, and, my butt is going to be killer sore tomorrow!

Finally it’s time for dinner: pork chops and veggies, hot apple-sauce with cinnamon for dessert. YUM!

-AB