Here I am, four days into the Healthy Lifestyle Challenge and I feel I’m doing pretty good. I’ve exercised every day this week (Monday thru today) and I’ve even tried to be well rounded in my workouts. Monday and Wednesday, I did intervals on the elliptical machine and Tuesday and today, I did a workout with weights. I even stretched three of the four days. I will probably be able to get all of the bonus points for this week, which is nice.
I still have to say that I’m not expecting to win or even be in the competition for the win. Which means that the competition is no motivation for me. But I’m hoping that just knowing that all I have to do is 30 minutes each day, will keep me going. Ever since the marathon, I haven’t had much motivation to do any exercise. It’s only been lately when I gained weight and constantly feel the rolls on my back (yes, it’s an ugly thing), that I’ve been motivated to do more. I know that it’s different things that get different people to exercise, for me it’s some kind of goal or upfront motivation. Although I usually don’t exercise just to make myself healthier, I do have points where I feel as though I just can’t stand myself any more. This is one of those times. I just hope that when I lose a few pounds and the rolls on my back, I don’t lose my motivation, too. I’m hoping that once I get into the routine of doing 30 minutes, I can push it to more when I’ve got my work schedule figured out better. I guess the best I can do is work at it and wait and see.
Well, I decided to try this Healthy Lifestyle Challenge again. I tried it last year but never got into it, not really my type of competition since I don’t really think I have any chance of winning.
But this year I thought I’d do it just to get myself going. I’ve put on weight since the marathon and over the holidays. I feel so fat around the rib cage and I really can’t stand it.
So, today I did 30 minutes of interval training on the elliptical and about ten minutes of stretching. The idea is to do 30 minutes a day (30 minutes is considered a workout) but you get more points if you do 3 aerobic workouts, 2 workouts with weights and 3 x 15 minutes of stretching.
Since I’m so busy this year, with my new job, this might be the motivation I need, just to do 30 minutes, five days a week. This is what I’m hoping and with luck, it just might work.
So I went out skiing today. Boy was it cold! It was 1 degree outside when we left Garmisch and by the time we had gotten to the parking lot of the ski area in Austria, it was -8 degrees. And that was only in the parking area, I’m almost scared to know what it was at the top of the ski lift.
But, we didn’t lose any bodyparts … or, at least I didn’t. I went with a couple we met when we first got here. They have a four-year-old boy whom A. loves. Anyway, they’re quite a bit more advanced than I am at skiing, so when we first got on the lift, the hill looked so steep, I thought I would kill myself. Obviously, I didn’t. In fact, I was scared but I didn’t do horribly bad for my first time of the season (since I wasn’t incredibly good last year, this is a plus).
I think one of the reasons I did as well as I did, was because we got there so early, there was no one to see me fall (or do well, for that matter). For some reason I saved all my falls for my last run when there were plenty of people on the slope to see me embarass myself.
But we did have a great time when we got there and had the runs all to ourselves. I went slow but there was no one to crash into me if I stopped in the middle of the slope.
And now that I’ve done my first skiing of the season, I feel I’m ready to really get into it and make use of that outrageously expensive ski pass that I talked Joe into buying for me.
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Finally, here are some photos of A. and stuff going on around our house.
This is a coke truck that set up in front of our house on the pedestrian zone. Santa came with it and listened to all the boys’ and girls’ request for Christmas.
This is a photo of A. wearing a Christmas gift that was a princess costume. She loves to pretend to be a princess (actually a fighting fairy princess, but that’s another blog) and having a wand and some subjects, just makes it better.
This is a picture of A. on a sled out in front of our house. Yes, that’s a lot of snow, but it’s not normal for it to be there. What I’m trying to say is that they usually have the pedestrian zone cleared of snow, but once a year, after Christmas, they have some crosscountry ski races down it. So, they bring in the snow, make it nice and level and they race. It’s a big event and they even have a concert at the end of the race (thank goodness it’s not at our end of the pedestrian zone). So, before the snow is carted back out, we love to pull A. around on her sled in the snow.