30 day trial

Trial: Spend at least 30 minutes exercising every single day.

2/22:
From now on, my 30 day trial updates will be posted in the Twitter block on the right-hand sidebar.

2/21:
I walked 2.8 miles today on my weekly trip to my house. No arm exercises today.

Walking: 2.8 miles (~1 hour 15 min.)

2/20:
Today I walked half a mile to the post office and 1.2 miles to get dinner at KFC. No arm exercises.

Walking: 1.7 miles (~1 hour)

2/19:
I walked about 2.5 miles this afternoon, and another 2 miles or so this evening. No arm exercises today.

Walked: 4.5 miles (~2h)

I’ve also decided to stop spamming my journal with all these posts, and instead update a single post each day. So, with that in mind…

2/18:
Today I got in my 30 minutes with a trip to the supermarket. No arm exercises today.

Walking: 1 mile

2/17:
Today was my birthday, but no rest for the weary — a trip to the supermarket and arm exercises!

Walking: 1 mile (30 min.)
Chest Dip Initial Pose: 15 sec.
Downward Facing Dog: 15 sec.
Plank: 15 sec.

2/16:
Walked 1.4 miles today, for well more than 30 minutes, but at a slower pace than usual. No Fast Circuit or arm exercises.

2/15:
I went to the supermarket today to get in my 30 minutes. I also looked into some yoga poses and thought about ways to increase my arm strength to where I can do the Fast Circuit arm strength exercises more reliably. I decided to try doing some less strenuous arm strength exercises to get my arms used to simply supporting my body weight before making them do more. I performed two yoga poses for 15 seconds each (Downward Facing Dog and Plank) and held the initial pose from Chest Dips (supporting myself on my arms between two chairs) for 15 seconds as well. My arms were vibrating and trembling and shaking the whole time. This seems to be a more reasonable place to start than a goal of 15 chest dips. So, then, here is my entry for today:

Walked: 1 mile (30 min.)
Chest Dip Initial Pose: 15 sec.
Downward Facing Dog: 15 sec.
Plank: 15 sec.

2/14:
Today I got well more than my target 30 minutes, thanks to a trip back to my house and a quick walk to the post office. I’ve decided to start mapping things out on Google Maps to see the distance I walked, as that’s a lot more informative than “to the post office” or the like. For my reference, here are some one-way distances:

Post office: 0.2 miles
Supermarket: 0.5 miles
El Camino (from where I’m staying): 0.6 miles
El Camino (from my house): 0.8 miles

So, today I walked a total of 3.2 miles between my two trips.

2/13:
I took a walk to the supermarket for my 30 minutes. It was a little rainy, but I don’t mind that too much. It’s been a long time since I’ve done the Fast Circuit routine, and I’m starting to feel a little bad about that. I don’t mind the exercises, but I find it difficult to motivate myself to get through the stretching that I do first. If I could just start with the real exercises, it wouldn’t be so bad. I’ll consider ways to overcome my resistance, and I’d appreciate any ideas you might have on how to do that.

2/12:
2/12: Took a longer walk today, to a friend’s house and the supermarket. This was quite a bit more than 30 minutes. 🙂

No Fast Circuit.

In other news, please pardon the changes around here — I’m customizing the layout of this site right now, and there will continue to be bugs and oddities until I’m finished. Thanks for your patience!

2/11:
Walked to the supermarket today, making my 30 minute goal.

2/10:
I only made 15 minutes today, a quick trip to the post office.

2/9:
As expected, I got in the walking today, though it was not when and where I expected. It was later in the day, a trip to the supermarket. Also as expected, Fast Circuit is off the menu — I’m exhausted! Eleven hours at the hospital will really sap your energy. I expect to return to the Fast Circuit tomorrow, though.

2/8:
On day 8, I got my 30 minutes of walking in the form of two quick round trips to the post office. Weekends seem to be harder than weekdays, probably because of people being at home more. Tomorrow I’ll be spending a good chunk of my day waiting at the hospital — there should be plenty of time to walk, but the Fast Circuit exercises are unlikely to happen. 30 day trials are tough!

2/7:
On day 7 I didn’t complete my exercise goal. It was a busy day with a lot going on.

2/6:
Today I walked to the supermarket and did the Fast Circuit routine I wrote about yesterday:

3 Chest Dips: 3
10 Squat and Heel Raises: 10
13 Bend and Raises: 13
11 sec. Arm Hauler: 11 sec.
5/side Hip Twist: 5/side

Actually, I did the Squat and Heel Raises twice, because I realized after the first set that I’d done them wrong, so I repeated them correctly.

Other than that, not much to say. Tomorrow I will maintain the trial at least with the walking, but I am considering taking the day off from the Fast Circuit. I will, of course, update here and report what I did either way. If I decide to do the Fast Circuit anyway, I will likely repeat today’s workout exactly. Till next time…

2/5:
I almost didn’t do this today, but at the last minute decided I didn’t want to break the chain, so to speak. So I did it. Not much walking today, tho’ I did do a bit of wheelchair-pushing at the hospital. Tonight, I did the same five Fast Circuit exercises as yesterday, but more repetitions. Here are my numbers, with the longterm goal, then tonight’s goal in parentheses (i.e. how many needed to beat yesterday), then how many I actually did after the colon.

20 Chest Dips (3): 3
30 Squat and Heel Raises (6): 10
25 Bend and Raises (12): 12
30 sec. Arm Hauler (11 sec.): 11 sec.
10/side Hip Twist (6/side): 6/side

Tomorrow I’m going to set out to do about the same number of repetitions as I did today, with a couple of slight adjustments. I want to work on my form and get to where I can hit these numbers with less strain. There’s no point in adding reps of an exercise that you can’t do properly in the first place. My medium-term target is 50% of the long-term target, so I will reduce the Hip Twists back to 5 and increase the Bend and Raises to 13 (12.5 rounds up, after all, not down). So the goal for tomorrow is:

3 Chest Dips (on the way to 10)
10 Squat and Heel Raises (on the way to 15)
13 Bend and Raises
11 sec. Arm Hauler (on the way to 15 sec.)
5/side Hip Twist

After doing these tomorrow for form, I’ll see if I can adjust the reps upward the following day, and when I hit the medium-term 50% goal, I’ll probably plateau there for a little while to try to actually get good at doing that workout before increasing further. Or perhaps that would be a good time to add another exercise and work on getting it to 50%? We’ll see what happens when the time comes.

2/4:
Today I walked to the supermarket and back for about 30 minutes worth of walking. Then in the late evening I finally got around to trying out some of the Fast Circuit exercises.

I tried the following exercises, with the goal before the exercise name and my actual count after:

20 Chest Dips: 2 (low arm strength + high body weight = ow)
30 Squat and Heel Raises: 5 (I lose my balance doing this.)
25 Bend and Raises: 11 (This seems pretty easy compared to the others — maybe I’m doing it wrong?)
30 sec. Arm Hauler: 10 sec. (An endurance exercise rather than a bodyweight exercise.)
10/side Hip Twist: 5/side (My best performance, 50% of the goal.)

I passed on these exercises for various reasons:

Jumping Jacks (In a second-floor condo at midnight? Let’s piss off the neighbors! Also I’m too self-conscious to do them outside where someone might see. I should probably work on that too.)
Dive Bomber (Looks intense — not sure I’m up to this one yet.)
Triceps Push-Up (Actually, I tried this one, but I couldn’t do even one, and it felt bad for my abs.)
Half-Squat (Similar to the Squat and Heel Raise, and I’d already lost my balance enough times for one night.)
Atomic Sit-Up (This would be MURDER on my abs and would contravene doctor’s orders.)

I’ll try to add those in later, after I’m comfortable with some of the others. For now, I’m happy with the ones that I was able to do, and I want to concentrate on getting them up to speed. Hopefully that will help me get in a little better shape overall so that the ones I wasn’t able to do tonight will be a bit easier.

The goal for tomorrow, aside from walking, is to do these same five Fast Circuit exercises and at least match my performance today on each one. Till next time…

2/3:
I walked a ridiculous amount today, due in part to mistakenly heading the wrong direction when I left the house. I probably clocked a coupla hours on foot today, between my trip to the post office, walking from there to my house, walking back to the bus, walking to the supermarket…

The bad news is that I didn’t find time to work in anything from the Fast Circuit, and I probably won’t before bed — that will have to wait till tomorrow.

I’m enjoying getting out of the house a bit. As my circumstances presently require my presence here most of the time, I need to make sure to find reasons to get out and about a little bit when I can. It’s important to keep cabin fever from setting in — a topic I will explore a little more another time.

2/2:
Today I walked to the post office and to Togo’s and 7-Eleven for lunch. This was a quick trip, and didn’t get me over the 30 minute goal, so I also walked to my doctor’s appointment, which was about a 30 minute walk each way. So I wound up with nearly three times my goal. 🙂

I asked the doctor about calisthenics, and he said it should be fine, but that situps are generally not the best idea for people who have had abdominal surgery (which I have), so I should look into some less intensive alternatives. So tomorrow I will review the exercises in the Fast Circuit workout and see which ones seem like the best fit for me, and add in at least one of them.

Two down, twenty eight to go…

2/1:
Today I started my first 30-day trial with a walk to the supermarket to do some shopping. Just about 30 minutes of walking. I also did laundry, which involves going up and down the stairs a few times — good exercise there! I got my 30 minutes in, and read a little bit more about the Fast Circuit workout I want to try.

Tomorrow I’ll walk to the post office and then to get lunch, and maybe round it out by walking to the doctor’s office for my appointment. That will get me far beyond my 30-minute goal. Off to a good start!

On the advice of several of my favorite bloggers, I’m going to do a 30-day trial. My first trial will be to spend at least 30 minutes exercising every single day. At a minimum, this will be walking, but I plan to include some other activities as well. I’d like to try a calisthenic workout — I found one that looks pretty good at Men’s Fitness — though I expect I’ll need to cut down the reps significantly based on my current physical condition. In any case, I’ll need to run it by my doctor first to make sure it’s safe given my surgery wound, and if he says no, I’ll stick to lighter forms of exercise such as walking.

As part of the trial, I will be updating here daily to track my progress. I’m looking forward to reporting positive results! I already have some things in mind for future 30-day trials — an hour a day of reading and improvements to my diet would go a long way, so one of those is likely to be on the agenda for March.

As always, questions and comments are welcome — you know what to do!