Sunday, March 9, 2008

Stairway to Fitness Heaven?

As I noted in my last post, this week my goals are to do some sort of cardio exercise for at least thirty minutes everyday and to make it to three BodyPump classes. I got a good start on the cardio tonight when I met Karrie and Jennifer at the gym. We spent about forty minutes on the treadmill and then moved to the stair machine. I'd never done the stairs before, and it was tough! I did maybe about fifteen minutes of climbing total, spread out over about twenty-five minutes. After about seven minutes I realized what it reminded me of: the cathedrals towers in Europe that "you just have to see the view from," which of course never had elevators, and you had to climb up and up probably 500 steps, usually in a winding staircase and it felt like it was never going to end and you're in the middle of a huge line, so you have to keep going or the Japanese tourists behind you will poke you in the back with their umbrellas or push past you and your friends all pass you by and you're the last of your group to get to the top and then by the time you do get there you're so worn out you can barely hold your camera up to take a steady picture and then just when you've caught your breath your tour guide announces that "time's short and we have to move on to the next stop" and you have to go down the 500-step winding staircase, which should be easier but is actually harder, because your head is so heavy and your weakened body has to hold it up to keep from tipping over and rolling head-over-heels down the stairs.

Anyway. In case you didn't pick up on it, I'm not a huge fan of the stair climber machine. It'll probably be a while before I do that one again. I'm just starting down the path to physical fitness, and the stairs seem like at least an "advanced-intermediate" level activity.

I've also started a food journal, writing down everything that I eat each day. I've seen several articles that said that the key to achieving and sustaining long term weight loss is keeping a food journal. It makes total sense: seeing everything you eat written down in black and white is good motivation to eat right. The same advice is given to people who want to start and stick to a financial budget. I've never been very good at journals, so I'm mentioning this here to give me some accountability.

2 comments:

Karrie said...

Sorry you didn't enjoy the stairs. What I like about them is that they're hard. I mean, I can walk on a treadmill for hours before I get really tired like I do in 10 mins. on the stairs.
I write down everything I eat too -- and it does help. And if you join the self challenge you can do it online!

Unknown said...

Too bad you hated the stairs so much... at least you can use them to gauge how much more fit you become. Although they will probably always be hard, you could try them after a few months and see if they've gotten any easier.