Mostly b/c I'm bored to tears w/my DVDs, but mainly b/c after seeing people doing weights hardcore @ the gym, I want to be just like them. So I did it, crude as it may be, my first weight training routine.

I got most of the exercises from a combination of workout DVDs I already own. Back in the day, I always filed it in the back of my head that Lee from MTG and Brenna from lexysmash.com were like weight lifting girls. I know of Krista from stumpuous.com and while I've browsed thru her workout routines, like calculating WW points, my eyes always glazed over. I even ventured to exrx.net, that site gave me a headache. So I made do w/my tapes and DVDS.

My routine is simple, 2 days a week, non cardio days. The first 3 weeks I'll do 12 reps/2 sets. The last 3 weeks, I'm adding one more set and will vary that exercise. That move is very body for life-esque. Like now I do chest flyes, in the last 3 weeks, the first 2 reps will be flyes, the last rep will be pushups.

Speaking of which, I suck @ pushups. Always fall flat on my face, so my end of year goal, is to do 10 solid pushups in a row. Each week from here on out, I will do 1 and add 1 more ever other week.

So like I was saying, based on DVDs I have and reading about weight lifting for as long as I have, I have a fair idea on how it should go and the major muscle groups I need to hit. My personal problem comes b/c I tend to overthink things. Shut up, I already know that.

So when I used to think of the ultimate routine, everything MUST be perfect for me, I'd think of all these obscure muscle, my wrist, my forearm, what about my lower knees…*sigh*

W/every fiber of my being, I had to resist the urge to make it all inclusive and be satisfied I get the major groups, knowing that as I do them, I'm using smaller muscles too.

All that in mind, this is what I came up with:

Daily Weigh In: 195.4

As mentioned yesterday each AM I'll post my weight for the WWW (whole wide world) right @ the top so no need to scroll to find it and I'll chit chat about whatever is topmost on my mind. @ the end of the day, I'll update food and workouts in the same post. Both will keep me accountable. This is my unofficial 6 week challenge, which is really a 4 week month long July challenge, but I started yesterday, which'll make it 5 weeks and no one has a 5 week challenge so I tacked on another week @ the end. Follow?

I won't do a Day 1 or Day 25 type title b/c psychologically when I hit a certain # I get fatigued, instead, I'll count backwards, going up to day 38 seems like a chore, working down to day 1 seems victorious. Don't ask.

But, I also won't do it everyday either, only when I'm out of witty titles, will I post "25 days to go" or "11 days to go".

As for the pudge pics, they'll get updated nightly, I think that's how I did it before, plus I'm pressed for time in the AM now that my gym commute is no longer a 4 min walk but a 5 min drive. And I'm thinking, during the day, if I have any upcoming or pending dramas, the nightly podcast will pick up where I left off and tie up any loose ends. Like say, I'm doing battle w/a butterfinger crisp, sometimes I forget to update the end result, in addition to posting every morsel I ate for the day so you'll read if I did eat it (which I totally wont!), the podcast will provide that info…and more *shameful plug*

I also do very good w/checklists so for the next 6 weeks here's my to do's, later tonight, I'll post a chart @ the top of the site to track the following:

Today I did battle w/the elliptical machine and all I can say is holy moly, I bow down to those of you who can wrestle w/that thingamabob for an hour.

It was my first day @ Golds. I wanted to be there on time, as soon as it opened the doors @ 9 AM, I'm such a teacher's pet. The goal was originally to get in a solid 60 mins on the treadmill, but when I woke up this AM I decided to use today to test out the cardio machines, doing enough mins on each machine they have so that I can end the morning w/60 mins from all.

There were about 5 other people ahead of me, and I got there @ 9:05, showoffs!, in Cardio Alley, I climb aboard the elliptical. A girl was behind me. I observed her gait and gave it a go.

Nothing.

Ohhhh…gotta turn it on first.

Um…it was already on.

Back of neck is getting hot…cheeks feel warm.

Stepping on it made the lights come on.

Whew.

I went for Fat Burn, entered my weight (ugh!), minutes and age. Lippy told me my target ♥ rate is 122. Obakaybee and we were off.

Except that we weren't.

I fumbled around w/it.

Nothing.

The minutes would tick by, but then the machine would pause itself.

What the deuce?

Finally I gave up, @ this point, I'm sure if I were any other color but dark brown, the back of my neck and cheeks would be bright red.

I've hinted to having family drama, got into more detail on one of the podcasts (don't ask which one you know how wordy I am, I forget) anyhoo, I nipped one of the situations in the bud.

'Member the Big Girls gym I was all geeked to get my sweaty pudgy fingers on? Yea, the Y, well, I'm backing out.

Over the weekend, I had a feeling my aunt pawned my membership off on my cousin. The deal is a family pkg, for one child and 2 adults over 18, which was to have been me, her and my godson. Since my cousin hasn't vacated yet and the amount of time that went by till I moved, I think she gave him my membership. @ first I was a bit hurt, but dontcha know, things always work out for a reason.

As I was driving around, finding things for my abode, I found 3 gyms. A Curves, a Ladies Workout Express and a Gold's Gym. My initial thoughts were as follows:

Curves: Hrrrm…they have a controversial image. Plus, I am really looking for cardio machines, I can do weights @ home in the AM.

LWE: Basically a 2nd rate Curves. I'm not too bothered by working out w/dudes. Meh.

Gold's Gym: What am I muscle girl? Jeebus I don't wanna be mixing it up w/testosterone induced freaks. Bah.

So what'd I do? Where'd I end up?

To go along w/my grub, now that I'm ensconced in suburbia and will be faithfully attending the Big Girls gym (ie the Y) here's my workout routine. One of the downsides of driving to the gym is, it doesn't open till way later than I'm used to going. That throws me off a bit. But, I found a way to make up for it. I'll still wake up @ my usual insane AM, now I'll do weights @ home in the morning. Which works out pretty good since doing PM weights in a hot apartment was not cute. @ all.

First I do 10 minutes of stretching/yoga. Then I do 15 minutes of arms/abs and the next day buns/legs. Finally I head to the gym and do 45-60 minutes of fat burning cardio. By fat burning, I mean I keep my ♥ rate in the 140-155 bpm range. I'll end it w/a mini jump rope challenge. Starting w/25 jumps and each week adding 25. By the end of 8 weeks, I hope to jump 200 jumps 7 days a week. Future boxing workout, here I come.

4 afternoons a week, I head back to the gym and do 60 mins of cardio. This time more intense, keeping my ♥ rate in the 160-170 range. B/c I get crazy bored crazy fast, I broke it into 20 min blocks, elliptical, bike and stairclimber...hee…yes I am totally showing off now that I have so many toys to play with.

I do the PM thang M/T and Th/F. Wed is my night @ the movies.

I'll follow this routine, in conjunction w/my current eating plan, for the next 8 weeks. Then I'll start a new training block and eating plan based on where I'm @ and how I feel.

What about the weekends?

Ah yes…these are exciting times in the Renee corporation. Quarter 1 has ended, the 4 week challenge has ended, some lbs have vacated the premises. A new quarter, which takes me thru Spring into early Summer, has began. Another challenge is on tap and every exercise routine I'm doing is showing increases across the board.

As w/most things I do, it's not for the faint of heart but I made a public pledge to kick my own ass from now till the end of June, so I can't slow down now. By the way, I'm revising the original goal. I planned to be @ 179 by the end of June, now I'm going for 175, it's still a modest 1lb loss per week from now to then but w/going over my 4lbs in 4 weeks last month, I'm a bit ahead of the game. Gotta keep it challenging over @ headquarters.

Firstly a brief recap: Q1 started lackluster, nosedived to rockbottomville by the middle and started making a turn in the right direction towards the end. By the final 30 days I was a bit all over the place as I was solely concerned w/getting my workouts done by any means necessary. Sure I had a plan I was following but not strictly. More times than not, I'd find myself doubling up a missed routine or "making up" a day. But it got done and left me some energy to focus on going to bed early so I could wake up @ insane AM and get my cardio done in the morning.

In Q2 I'm going back to perfection, but not in a rigid way. I just want be more consistent about doing my cardio in the AM. If I need to, now that I've gotten over my fear, I can run in the PM. I also want to keep eating cals reigned in the 1500-1600 range. More on food later this week or next week.

Q2 will also be emotionally stressful. I'm going to see my momma in a few weeks, My auntie is moving, I'm getting ready to move, a few holidays will be thrown in for good measure oh and the heat, the #!^%$ hotness, of the ATL has returned, BUT, I am focused. I have my eyez on a larger prize and I made a pledge I damn well intend to keep.

That said, let's take a look @ what I have in store for Q2 to melt away the fat.

In the back of my head, I dedicated the power week to my She-Ro and as of today Hell Week is over, it feels like I hazed my own damn self. Here are the stats, you may have to read them thru your fingers as they're not for the faint of heart:

total mins sweated: 537 or 72 mins/day
total miles hoofed: 23.61 or 3.37 miles/day

lbs melted away: 3.6

Was it worth it? Hell fuckin' yea. Enough to do it again, Dude did you not read the screen?!?!? Open your fingers...3.6lbs melted away, damn skippy I'll do it again for 20 more weeks to be @ my goal that much faster!!!

I keed...I keed...

I didn't work out like a demon solely for a huge net a loss, but b/c I missed week 1 start date and didn't want, once again, to push my schedule back another week so things could be perfect. I looked @ the doubling up not as a punishment, but as a penalty. My penalty to me for missing the official back-on-track-for-good-this-time start date.

The penalty idea came about due to my thing for sports related movies...such as Miracle, Coach Carter or even recently Glory Road.

For the next 4 weeks, my morning run will be a ½ miler @ a nice leisurely pace of 2.5mph, which I'll gradually increase every so often. The last time I ran that distance, I thought I did it in 8 mins, so the plan was to get a playlist around that length of time and @ Jeni, I *finally* got around to coming up w/the playlist. Make that 2, to avoid boredom this week, I wanted some variety.

Popular convention is to share these files, but w/the podcast going (a new episode will be up Saturday) my bandwidth is getting its own workout (Hi-Ohhhhhhhh!). Once I get the hang of this, I'll post my playlists on a more regular basis and @ that point, I'll make them available for 24 hours. Hmmm...I s'pose I can make it up to you by humming the tunes in the upcoming podcast. No? Fine.

Well, in lieu of actually providing the songs for you to download, gather round as I regale you w/the story on why I ♥ each tune so much. Grab your hot cocoa, be sure to blow on it to cool it off a bit, can't have you burning you tongue now can I?

Comfy? Cozy? Good!

Here goes:

I'm still irked I can't find my original post about my challenge, but oh well, what can I do? In 365+ days of blogging, I may have lost or had posts eaten 3 times. I think I can let this go. Moving on...

If I said take a guess @ what I'm really good @ and you've read my site for longer than say 6 months you'd know the answer to this one. If you read my site for about 6 weeks, you're guess may be, "Making Subway sandwiches?"

*SLAP* ::

I'm good @ designing workout routines, I love plugging exercises into monthly charts and strategizing how I'd increase my strength and stamina overtime.

Tuesday I finished writing up my workout routine for the next 3 months and it's a doozy. I may not do the eating thing well...or staying consistent w/workouts...or always drink my water...or get enough rest...bloody hell why am I even doing this site?

I digress.

Hmm...I can't find the post I originally wrote detailing my challenge. And I don't feel like going thru all my Word docs to get to it so here goes. While I complete the fatfighterblogs.com yearlong fitness challenge, doing it @ the beginner level so I have personal experience doing each one, I'm going to tie it into my actual workout plan which looks a little sumthin like this:

6 days of AM cardio, starting out @ 60 minutes and by the end of the 90 day challenge I'm aiming for 90 mins. Throughout the day I'll be more active, more long walks to restrooms on different floors, perhaps some light treadmill time 2-3 days in the pm, or a walk in the nearby park if it's nice out. I'll also wear pedometer, but won't go crazy w/the 10,000 steps thing. I'll wear it for an entire week and each week try to increase it by 50-100 steps.

Two weeks ago, to ease myself back into the swing of things, I tackled food first. Back to 5 squares, water and weaning myself off the need to stay up so late. Last week, to get back used to walking, I did PM walks for about 30 minutes for 4 days. This week, I'm reluctantly bumping the PM walks back in the AM so by next Sunday when the cardio intense part of my 90 day challenge I'll be ready to go.

It really bugs that I can't find that original post w/all the challenge stuff, this isn't coming out like I wrote it up before, so I'll end it here. In the meantime, I'll keep looking for it.

Similiar to Operation Crease Begone, Mission Meltdown Back Fat(MBF) gets it's name from my desire to have a back flab free zone (side note, I know the body doesn't spot reduce, naming is purely for my late night cackling pleasure).

First to bring everyone up to date. I haven't set foot in the gym in 2 weeks. Ok I have, but only to fill up my water bottle. No real reason. Back aches hit around week 5 and by week 6, emotional drama and an overall funk thru me off. So technically I ended that challenge way early and didn't even do a week 6 recap.

Last week I took off and used the time to get stuff done around the apt, work on my site and plan what I'd do next. As hokey as it sounds to say I took a week off after basically chucking the last 2 challenge weeks, well I did. It was a mental thing. That being the case, one could say I really haven't been to the gym in 3 weeks, but since I don't see that person, I'm sticking to my story. 2 weeks. 'sides, I got in a few walks/runs @ some point.

*cough*

Now that my soul has been sufficiently bared, the past has been forgiven what on earth does Mission MBF entail?

So since training routine #2 abruptly ended with a whimper and not a bang, there'll be no big to do w/progress pics. Later today, for posterity, I'll throw up some comparison pudge pics and crunch the numbers. They aren't pretty. At all.

But to ignore them would be doing myself an injustice. I *feel* I missed a lot of workout days, especially Fridays but I *need* to see it on paper for it to sink in.

My original planning, way back @ the start of the year, was to do 3 training routines that'll tide me over till the end of June. Back then, June was going to be a month of great upheaval and changes. Not any more.

Now that I'll have the gym for a few months longer, the internal pressure to use it as much as possible that's been nagging @ me has subsided a bit. Also b/c June was to be the month of upheavals I reserved the last week as a rest week so I could take care of stuff.

Since I cut training routine #2 short and I'll no longer need that final week off, training block #3 is now 8 weeks instead of 6. If you were able to follow that brief recap, here's my plan:

It's taking me much longer to get the #'s crunched for my stats. In the meantime, here's my new workout routine for the next 6 weeks. The daily schedule is posted in my training journal.

My training plan

The first ½ of this year, I'm focusing on exercise with slight attention to eating consistently and more attention to staying hydrated. The last ½ of the year I'll turn my focus towards food.

I've broken up my routines into mini training blocks, starting slowly and building in intensity every 4 weeks or so. I have enough DVDs to keep it interesting. Combining them with a couple of training programs (like Couch to 5k) I'm going to complete, I'll have variety. Last year I was all about cardio and weights, this year I'm adding yoga to the mix.

By Sunday I'll have my 2005 health goals finished and then in the big white empty space above, post my *gulp* progress pictures. My training journal will list the daily stats and just for giggles I'm in the 05 for 05 challenge (I like a pound a week) and going nowhere (can I cover 500 miles by the end of the year?).