Let there be light

Yesterday's post was pretty depressing. I almost deleted it when I read it this morning. I guess we all have days where we're a little off (I was way off!). The day actually got a lot better, the sun came out and that always cheers me up.

I bought my ankle weights yesterday. The store only had three and four-pound ankle weights. I thought that wasn't going to be heavy enough. I was hoping to buy heavier weights, more like eight or ten pounds for each ankle. I purchased the pair of four-pound weights and headed off to the gym.

When I got to the gym and pulled the weights out of the box I thought, wow, this four-pound weight is actually really heavy. Four pounds sounds like nothing to me. Well, it turns out that four pounds on each ankle is really HEAVY!

I strapped on the weights and as I walked to the StairMaster I could really feel the heaviness of the eight pounds. It was like walking through mud. I climbed on the StairMaster and had the workout of my life. I did thirty minutes on the StairMaster where I thought I was going to die. Then I did my 45 minutes upper body workout.

Again, there were only guys in the heavy weight area. Where are the women? I lift 15, 20, and 25-pound dumbbells, and the Olympic sized barbell without weights (it's 45 pounds by itself - I know because I weighed it on the scale). It's not like these are super heavy weights, but usually I'm the only woman in this area, with a bunch of bulked out guys. I guess I'm use to it but why aren't more women lifting free weights? They all seem to stick to the weight machines. Anyway, just a rant of mine.

After the weights I decided to get back on the StairMaster with my ankle weights on. Normally I can never get my heart rate up past 144 for any length of time. Keep in mind, 1.) I'm 55 and 2.) my resting heart rate is 50. Yesterday my heart rate got up to 151 the second time on the StairMaster, and I kept it there for 15 minutes! I hit some sort of weird, sweet spot where it didn't hurt and I wasn't panting like a dog. The sweat was pouring off of me but I was breathing almost normally. I even thought maybe the machines heart rate monitor was broken but my own Polar said the same thing. 151. Really weird.

After my workout I was ravenous. My HRM said I'd burned 606 calories and I'd only eaten breakfast and a banana (it was 5pm). I overate on chicken, veggies and fruit. My weight this morning was 180.2. Not what I wanted to see.

Today's another day and today I'm back to tracking my food. I haven't tracked for the last few days. Who wants to write down cookies and candy in their food journal? It's embarrassing.

My new plan is just that, if I "cheat" and eat more than I should or eat something I really have no business eating, I'll post it in my online food journal and then on here for the whole world to see. I'm deleting the food diary blog. I'll add the food journal pages to the bottom of my post for that day. I don't like having two blogs that need updating every day. Too much work.

Okay, so it's a new day, a new me. Let there be light!