Tuesday, April 9, 2013

head first

In the past, I've foiled my workout attempts by going too hard too soon. I'm overly eager, overly ambitious, and I burn myself out. Granted, all these previous attempts have been with running and we've discussed how that's just not my jam. Maybe one day. But today is not that day.

As I mentioned last week, I activated my pole dancing Groupon and took a Level 1 class last night, to brush up. When I left last time to deal with CPA stuff, I had just moved up to Level 2 and I wanted to make sure I could handle it/had the muscle strength to handle Level 1 still before moving back up to Level 2.

Yeah, I'm fine.

They've instituted a new framework for their classes which I both love and hate simultaneously. Before, you would sign up for your appropriate level class (which could be taught by any number of instructors), go in, and you learn different things every time. Some classes would be stupid easy and some classes would be pretty challenging. There wasn't much consistency to it. Since I left, they've implemented 'routines'. These six routines build upon each other to gradually prepare you for the subsequent level, and it appears as though each routine is taught for about 2 weeks at a time. So, Routine 1 is always the easiest, and Routine 6 is always the hardest. Luckily for me, this is a Routine 1 period so I'm able to jump back into Level 2 on the easiest notch. I reviewed the Level 1 - Routine 6 list and am confident in those, and of the Level 2 - Routine 1 list, I've done all but one of the 13 elements before. I'm in a good place there.

I really enjoyed my Zumba class last week. Definitely sweaty and exhausted afterwards, but in the best way possible. And my ass hurt for days. A++, will Zumba again. In fact, I plan to go both Wednesday and Thursday of this week (even though my legs are going to murder me). I'm bringing a friend on Thursday who happens to be a Zumba connoisseur... I think she'll like it!

I've also signed up for a Pilates class at Brass Ovaries for this weekend. I don't think I'll be able to use my 10 classes within 2 months without doing non-pole things there, and I've always been curious about Pilates. Might as well give it a go, I suppose.

On top of utilizing MyFitnessPal (check out my new little badge in the sidebar!) and Fitocracy (which isn't as helpful as I thought it would be?), I've built myself a Fitness Budget.  In it, I keep track of my calories consumed, calories burned from exercise, calories burned from normal daily activities (which is based on an average of 5 different calculators), and the net daily and weekly deficit/surplus. I also have a tab for my goals and progress, tracking weight and various body measurements. I took my first measurements on a Tuesday (inconvenient, whoops) so I'm just going to wait until Saturday to check-in again and continue doing so weekly thereafter. I don't own a scale, so I have to go to the apartment gym to weigh myself. Their scale is a medical style one, too, so it's probably more accurate than anything I would buy.

I've also started putting my exercise classes into my google calendar. I even imported the Zumba class schedule calendar into mine so I can see all of my options! Now that I'm putting  this all on paper it seems a little obsessive. But, like I said in my very first post, reasonable goals and accountability are quite important. And, you know, I'm an accountant. I like spreadsheets. I like seeing the numbers and comparing the trends. I think it will help me get into a groove. It also helps that for the first time in my life I find myself looking forward to working out. Seriously. That's a completely foreign concept for me.

Now to watch the clock until I get to go to my pole class!

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