My Workouts, Part I: Free Weights

I started working out on a regular basis as part of a 2009 New Year's resolution. For all of last year, I did nothing but cardio workouts. Wii Fit, walking, various workout DVDs and the like were the crux of my activity for the year. For the first 7-8 months, they worked great. I consistently lost weight and, therefore, never varied my workouts. Don't fix it if it ain't broke, right? But that all came to a halt towards the end of the summer, when I hit a plateau and stayed there. And stayed there. And stayed there.

I didn't understand how I could be doing the very activities that had been so effective only the week or month before, and see absolutely no results. It was beyond frustrating. I just kept doing the same workouts and waited for them to start working again. I even did two 1-hour workouts per day one week thinking that would help break the plateau.

Nope.

As the holidays approached, I just gave up. I stopped working out altogether and allowed myself to indulge in all the decadent, naughty treats that Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas had to offer. As a result, I gained back about 15 of the pounds I had worked so hard to lose.

But now it's a new year. 2010, baby! I'm completely recharged and recommitted. I've done my research and understand that varying workouts is important to shock the body into responding. I'm doing more than just cardio, incorporating free weights into my routines and trying to change things up every couple of weeks, or so. And, I'm already seeing results.

Several of you have asked about my workout routines, so I'm going to start blogging about them. I've added a box on the sidebar that shows my current workout schedule. For January, it looks like this:

Weeks 1 & 2:

• Monday: Upper body free weights and 30 minutes cardio
• Tuesday: 60 minutes cardio
• Wednesday: Rest
• Thursday: Lower body free weights and 30 minutes cardio
• Friday: 60 minutes cardio
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: 60 minutes cardio

Weeks 3 & 4:

• Monday: Upper body free weights and 30 minutes cardio
• Tuesday: 60 minutes cardio
• Wednesday: Lower body free weights and 30 minutes cardio
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: Upper body free weights and 30 minutes cardio
• Saturday: 60 minutes cardio
• Sunday: Lower body free weights and 30 minutes cardio

My current weight routines are pretty simple. For weeks 1 & 2, I'm doing two sets of 15 reps using high weight for each exercise.

Upper Body:

• Dumbbell Bench Press
• Two-Arm Dumbbell Row
• Standing Twisting Dumbbell Press
• Overhead Dumbbell Triceps Extension
• Dumbbell Curl
• Double Crunch

Lower Body:

• Dumbbell Squat
• Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift
• Dumbbell Side Lunge
• Dumbbell Reverse Lunge
• Dumbbell Unilateral Calf Raise

If you'd like to know more about these exercises and routines, check out the January 2010 issue of Oxygen as that's where I pulled the information.

I'm excited to be exercising again, excited about the change to my routine and super-excited about the results I've already seen in such a short period of time. I'm committed to sticking with things this year, even if I hit another plateau, and I'm doing everything in my power to avoid that scenario.

I can't tell you as I approach that dreaded plateau weight that I'm not going to be a bit nervous. I'm sure I will. But I'm confident things will be different this time around. I'm better equipped, better informed and I'm certainly more fit than I was this time last year. Everything's in my favor.

This was Part I of what I think will be a 2-part, initial series on my workout routines. I hope to be back sometime very soon to explain what I'm doing for cardio and how I use my Wii Fit (and now Wii Fit Plus!) to full advantage.

If you have any questions just let me know and I'll do my part by blogging as I go with reports on how I'm doing, what's working and what's not.

I'm am here.

Wowsers.  It's been a long time since I posted.  Sorry to disappear so suddenly like that and thanks to those of you who checked in on me while I was gone.  What happened?

Well...

As my regular readers know, I've been trying really hard to lose weight for quite a while.  I'm much larger than I'm comfortable being and as I get older, things are starting to hurt.  Oh my aching knees.  Yikes, my poor back.    

It occurred to me that I need to redefine my relationship with food if I was going to make any progress getting healthier, so I up and stopped blogging about food as an attempt to get inside my own head and parse out what I needed.  Admittedly, it took a bit longer than I expected.

Anyhow, I realized I needed three things:

1. A form of exercise I can do at home, with my son in the same room.
2. Camaraderie masked as competitive motivation.
3. An eating plan that's not really a plan at all.  No counting, measuring, figuring points, calculating grams, none of that shit.

Wanna know what I came up with?

Well, first we had a big garage sale and The Husband and I used the money we made to purchase a Wii Fit.  So now, every afternoon I can be found in my living room, acting a fool with my son eagerly requesting that I play the running game or boxing game or whatever he's in the mood to watch.  Every day I do a minimum of one hour of cardio vascular exercise on the Wii.  If I have time, I also do strength training and yoga, but the aerobics always gets done first.  It's working out quite well (no pun intended) and I've got to say the Wii Fit is an extremely motivating little thing.  I love all the charts that clearly illustrate my progress for me.  I also love the motivation the little animated balance board provides, though I do find it a bit creepy at times.  Like when I fire it up first thing in the morning and it comments how early I'm up that day.  But there advantages to that as well.  For instance last week I was having a rather crappy birthday, and when I hopped on the Wii, I got exuberant birthday wishes complete with confetti.  Nice.  

Second, I devised a way to use my competitive nature as fuel to reach my goals.  The Husband and I challenged our neighbors to a "Biggest Loser Throwdown."  The four of us are working on losing weight and getting fit and we're using the friendly competition as motivation.  We feel accountable to each other because we weigh-in together every Sunday morning and we support each other through our slip-ups and, more often, successes.  They are the Red Team and we are the Blue Team.  So far, the Red Team has three wins and the Blue Team has two.

Third, I've figured out an eating plan that's not too structured and it seems to be working for me.  Each day, I eat nothing but fruit until midday.  For lunch I enjoy a large salad with beans or tofu and a low- or non-fat dressing.  I get my cooking fix in by creating delicious meals and most of them have been coming from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites.  The recipes are delicious (we can't stop eating the roasted asparagus) and much, much lower in fat and calories than any other low-fat vegetarian or vegan cookbook I own.  On nights I don't have time or energy to cook, we've been eating Boca burgers with beans and veggies or some of Amy's Organics Low-Fat and Non-Fat soups.  When I need a "fix" I have a small bowl of organic kettle corn or, if I'm really feeling needy, a square of chocolate.  I've also drastically increased my water intake, which is easy to do when you work out, and cut my diet soda intake to one per day.

Wanna know what sort of progress I've made?  I hope so because I want to share!  

Since I started trying to lose weight at the first of the year I've lost at total of 32 pounds.  18.4 of those pounds were shed over the last 5 weeks as a result of our Biggest Loser Throwdown.  I'm so excited!  I feel like I'm finally making progress in an area I've struggled with for years.  And as I told some dear friends of mine recently, I used to diet and work out because I hated my body and now I do it because I love and appreciate my body.  What a difference that makes!

So, I'm ready to start blogging again but I'm sure the flavor of my content will change.  I'll post updates on our Biggest Loser Throwdown weigh-ins every Sunday or Monday so you can track my progress if you are at all interested in that.  I'll also share healthy recipes I find or create and there will probably be other changes, I just don't know what they'll be yet.  For now, however, I'm just happy to be back.