Day...who knows of 21

So, I give up on the 21 day challenge. I intend to still go as often as I can to the gym, but I can't do it every day. My schedule and my body won't allow it.

I didn't go to the gym on Friday nor Saturday, just as I speculated, though I did get a bit of a workout cleaning on Saturday. Sunday, now Sunday I did great.

I did some errands and then got really lazy really fast on Sunday. By 5pm I was falling asleep in front of the TV. I was watching The N's Student Body, and something in it really inspired me. The person on the show who had been named that week's MVP said he felt so great about being MVP, and so great in general, that he felt like running a mile for fun. I thought, I usually feel great when I exercise, I'd love to run a mile for fun. So then I decided I would go do it.

Well not quite. I didn't really decide to go run a mile, but I did decide to go to the gym. I even went without Josh for the first time since we've been going. That MVP really, really inspired me. He had been working out 2 and sometimes 3 times per day. And here I am, unable to get off my lazy bum for even 30 minutes.

I decided to lift heavy. I went around to all the weight machines and free weights that I use, and determine what weight level allows me to just be able to complete the number of reps I wanted (10-12), but heavy enough so that I wouldn't be able to do any more than that many reps per set. I'm really strong. This is the first time I really, truly pushed myself with the weights. I kept going up and up and up and up until I hit that point. It took me 5 sets to find that on the leg press. In the end my appropriate level was nearly 200 lbs! Damn!

I repeated this everywhere, and I felt great. I had so much confidence after having just lifted this really heavy weight I never thought I could. I even pushed myself on the lower back machine - now I have a bad lower back (herniated disc + other discs in bad shape) so usually I take it real easy on that one. This time I pushed myself on it like I had on the others, and you know what? My back actually felt better after lifting 75 lbs for a couple of sets. Who knew.

On squats I decided to actually back down and work on form. For me, backing down means no weight on the bar at all, as I usually just use a 10 lb plate on each end of the bar. It was hard doing it with proper form even with just the bar! I felt great.

I was able to do 15 lb dumbbells for chest presses (previously I could only do 12). I wanted to try 20 too but I could only find 25 and I knew that would be too much. Maybe next time there will be a 20, then I'll try it. For all of my dumbbell exercises I stayed within 10-15lbs. Usually I have to drop to 8 on a couple of them, but this time I stayed at or above 10. Yeah that's not much for alot of people, but it's great progress for me! Plus, I'm a girl. A weak little girl. Who could leg press the hell out of you. Muahahaha.

Also something that really helped and actually made me want to continue instead of stopping, was that I wore my bike gloves to lift weights. Well I only needed them for the arm weights, but had them on the whole time. No calluses! No sore palms! Brilliant, I tell you. Now I just have to remember to bring them with me every time.

Then I did some elliptical, but oops! It's a Sunday, ie the gym closes at 9pm. Damn. So I only had time to do 30 mins + 10 min warmup/cooldown. But I spent 1.5 hours lifting weights, and yes, lifting weights made me sweat and got my heart rate up (as it should, all you non-sweaters, non heart-rate-up lifters!), so I figure that's still quite good.

Today, my glutes are sore. Very sore. I'm planning to go to the gym tonight for some light-medium cardio (depending on what my legs can handle after yesterday) which has helped in the past. But man, my energy is through the roof, my confidence is up there, I feel really strong, oh and I'm down 1% body fat! I'm now at 31% body fat. I've been at 32% ever since about 2 weeks into starting to work out back in March, and it's nice to break through that barrier. We'll see if that was a fluke though or if it really stays 31%. I can't even describe how happy I'm going to be when (not if!) I reach 29% and break 30 :O That is going to be AMAZING!

I just feel so great right now. Now if only I could remember this feeling and what caused it when I'm making excuses not to go to the gym.