YAY!!!

So my elliptical has been broken for a few days... in an attempt to tighten the bolts on the machine (after over a year of zero maintenance), one of the bolts for the arms died. The head twisted right off of the screwy base, and thus, the arm came off. Not a very safe machine to exercise on. My hubby promised to fix it for me right away, but we didn't have an opportunity to pick up a new bolt until last night, and even then after it was fixed, I wasn't really in the mood to get on and go.

In lieu of that, I picked up a foam exercise mat and a pilates kit from the 'happiest place on earth' (aka WalMart) so that even if I couldn't do my cardio, I was still getting some genuine exercise time in.

Let me start off by saying: HOLY CRAP. Am I outta shape, boy.

I could barely do a push up, or a reverse crunch, or a frogger... ugh. And I somehow managed to bruise my tailbone the first night I did it, which made the next few days an agony to do floor work on. Thankfully the mat I picked up is uber cushion-y, so it's a lot easier on my back - especially with our tile flooring. I've mainly been focusing on a beginner's ab and arm workout, followed by a stretching tutorial for being able to do the splits. All the Pilates videos I use are by Cassey Ho, on the YouTube, for her channel Blogilates. Each day I'm improving - I can see the difference. The first day I did her arms workout, I did less than 1/2 of the portion dedicated to "golf ball" and "soccer ball" arms... today I did more like 3/4 of the move. I did a few pushups even, though hardly graceful. I'm getting more flexible, and will hopefully be able to do the splits soon...

I'm looking forward to using my new stability ball, tension bands, and hand weights as well... including the instructional DVDs. I just haven't found a time to break those puppies out yet. I mean, Cassey's tutorials are super upbeat, fun, and encouraging. I don't feel like such a loser in my living room when I can't finish the entire tutorial. I merely try to study and memorize the moves so that when I am able to participate, I will know what to do.

Today I stepped onto the elliptical for the first time in 2 days. I was worried that I lost my stamina and endurance and self-motivation for the cardio workout, but I got on and KILLED that workout. Seriously. I burned 212 calories in 20 minutes. I took a break after my first 10 minutes, and after 15 minutes, because I was going anywhere between 68 and 71 RPM. Intense. Super glad to have it back though. Combined with the Pilates, I'm sure I'm going to be getting a better workout. The strengthening from the pilates is sure to help my endurance on the elliptical - or at least, that's my thought anyways.

On another note, I've been bombing with food choices lately. Oh, I haven't been going over my calories, but I've been taking in WAY too much sodium. I mean, I've noticed that eating over 1000mg of sodium does unhappy things to my body... namely bloating and swelling in the finger and waistline regions. So I lowered my values for sodium on MyFitnessPal to 1150 mg/day. I think that's pretty reasonable, considering it's set by default to like 2500 mg/day, and that's simply outrageous in my opinion. What the heck are you doing eating that much salt!? To me, that's like on par with eating a bunch of refined sugar. Your body definitely doesn't need that much salt. Unfortunately, I went WAY over acceptable limits for my body today - totaling in at a ghastly 1920 mg today. Ugh. I'm going to be feeling that tomorrow. Fortunately, I've been drinking lots of water - by the end of today I should have finished about 20 cups of water. So hopefully that'll just flush out my system....


Now a day later, my belt is down to the SEVENTH NOTCH, people! This is stellar news!! I managed to pull in my belt to the last notch for the entire day, and I was so encouraged by these results!!! It means I'm losing inches and I'm getting better :) SO EXCITED!!!