Wes Fitness Challenge – Week Two

It’s a tad late in the week, but I wanted to get this on the site.  I completely missed Wednesday night as the past few weeks have become but a blur in my mind, mixed up with tax knowledge and thinking about the recent court decision which might affect me having to take the RTRP exam.  Let’s hope that I don’t have to take it.

Week two has been much better than week one.  I guess, for the most part, I needed to give myself a swift kick in the ass to get myself motivated.  I’m happy to say that I liked it and it worked.  Since Sunday, I have been in the gym each night after leaving the tax office.  I am able again to run a mile on the treadmill without feeling as though I’m going to die halfway through.  I run a ten minute mile which is staying at a speed of 6.0 mph.  I feel wonderful when I complete my mile and sometimes, even though I should always, I stay on the treadmill for the cool down period of about 1.5 minutes at 4.0 mph.

I have also started lifting weights again to revive the muscle definition I have left.  I can feel my chest getting tighter and my arms are starting to show signs of growth.  This morning, it feels as though someone is sitting inside my calves and poking muscle tissue with a knife.  It’s been a while since feeling that, but I know it’s a sign that something I am doing is working.

To help me this week with nutrition, I have downloaded an app onto my iPad and iPhone called My Fitness Pal.  It’s worked great with the food portion of my weight loss program.  I’ve found that it’s much better to input your food intake on the website (www.myfitnesspal.com) instead of entering it on a device.  The one thing I don’t like about the app is that it doesn’t calculate the calories you burn while weight lifting.  It allows you to enter the exercises you completed (sets, reps, and weight), but it exists only for a diary of what you accomplished.  It does, however, allow you to enter your cardio exercise by entering the time and the number of calories burned and deducts that amount from the total amount of calories you digested throughout the day.

I think I should end this post with an outlook on what’s to come.  Staring on Monday, January 28th, the tax office will be open till 9pm each weeknight.  The gym closes at 10pm and is at least a mile or more from there.  If you’ve ever worked with the public, you know that a “closing time” means nothing except that at that time, you don’t accept anyone into the location.  We can accept clients up till then and we have to stay there till the return is complete.  Happily, of course!  There’s also getting paperwork completed, breaking down the cash register, and tidying up a bit for the next business day.  By that time, it’s 9:30 or later and you can’t get anything done.  That said, I will have to learn how to get up earlier and get to the gym before work or go during lunch at my full-time job.  Getting to the gym is something I really need and want to do, so whatever I do needs to allow me time to accomplish that task.

Good luck to all that is participating and I hope that our changes motivate readers and set them on a track to better health and better living.