Spinning

I have a weird relationship with spinning. I'll go a bunch of times, think that I am all into it, and then I don't go for 6 months or more. I went to two spin classes last week. On Friday I went to Cycle Tech with Melissa Soss and on Saturday I went to Studio Cycling with Damian Vella. I wish I could explain to you the difference between Studio Cycling and classes with fancier names, but honestly, it's all the same to me. My favorite spin instructor is Craig Eisenberg. His enthusiasm is contagious, which is really helpful when you are huffing and puffing up an imaginary hill and praying to the fitness gods that the class will end.

I never invested in a pair of cycling shoes. I hear that they make all the difference and I would probably have more efficient peddling strokes. Tim McNamara, also an Equinox cycling instructor, recommends Pearl Izumi shoes. He also says that Zappos.com is a good place to order cycling shoes from because you can order a pair in multiple sizes and return the ones that don't fit free of charge.

Sun Salutations with No Sun

So I'm not really a yoga person, but today I decided to go to Vinyasa Flow Yoga taught by Michael Aronoff. My legs have been feeling super tight lately and I have been having trouble sleeping. I've never gone to one of Michael's classes before, but he is a knowledgeable instructor and I really enjoyed it.

Today I learned that you are supposed to pick something you are grateful for when practicing sun salutations. I picked my sister. I haven't really liked my sister in the past, and I know the feeling was mutual. However, she and I have gotten along better this summer and we spent an awesome day together at the beach on Saturday. I don't think I take enough time each day to be grateful for the wonderful people and things I have in my life. If you find yourself rushing from one chaotic event to another, trade a yoga class for your normal cardio, and do some sun salutations for someone you love.

Tap & Track

I have started using my favorite iPhone app Tap & Track again. This app really helped me to hold myself accountable and lose a lot of weight this past winter and spring.
The program is very simple. You input your weight and choose a weight-loss or weight-gain program, i.e. lose 1/2 lb a week, lose 1 lb a week, gain 1 lb a week et cetera, and the app tells you how many calories you can eat that day. There are thousands of foods in the database to choose from that you add to your log. One of the newer features is a list of supermarket brand foods. It's so easy to add brand-name snack foods or your favorite cereal.
I use the Biggest Loser brand food scale to measure out items that don't come in packaged servings.  Today I ate sliced banana and sliced peaches with Fage Total yogurt. The container of yogurt said 90 calories, but I measured out my fruit slices and weighed them in grams. A food scale also makes buying in bulk much simpler. When I buy the big container of Fage yogurt, I'm obviously not going to eat the entire thing in one sitting. I can put a few spoonfuls into a bowl and figure out how many calories my serving is. The Biggest Loser food scale has a tare function, which is great for weighing out salads. You just hit tare between each ingredient and then you don't have to dirty a whole load of dishes to measure everything out.
Tap & Track has an Add Exercise function.  You choose from a list of exercises and input the duration of the activity and it calculates the number of calories you burned.  The app then recalculates how many calories you have remaining for the day.  I now use the Quick Add Calories because I get a more accurate calculation from using my heart rate monitor, but if I go for a long walk or do a fun activity, I still choose from the list.
For $3.99, this program more than pays for itself in the long run.

I actually am out of my mind.

This evening I went to the Equinox in Great Neck. Yes, I know I ran 4 miles this morning. I started with Yves' 45 minute Total Body Sculpt class. I want to push myself and develop bigger arm muscles, so today I sucked it up and threw a set of 12 lb weights out with my normal 5s, 8s, and 10s. I was able to do most of the heavy weight exercises using the 12s. I knew not to even try to do flys with them though because I ended up hurting myself when I first started using 10 lb weights. There's being insane and then there's being stupid. If I have to miss workouts because I injured myself, I get really pissed.
The hour of Cardio Kickboxing came next. I was really psyched because my friend T was there and we worked out in the front together. She motivates me to work harder. I am really impressed by how good she looks these days. Yves' kickboxing class is an amazing workout because it targets every part of your body. He added resistance bands to our mat work and I'm sure I'm going to feel it in my glutes tomorrow.
Yves' Dance Fusion class in on Tuesday nights. I don't like any of his other dance classes, but I love this one. I don't know if it's the people or the routines, but it always puts me in a good mood. I always end up leaving in the middle of the other dance classes in an awful mood. I blame the people. I am a horrible dancer and it's not like I don't know it. I stay in the back, try to stay out of people's way, and laugh at myself the entire time. Dance Fusion lets me work on improving my rhythm.  It's been slow progress.
I finished up my workout with a few sets on the abductor and adductor machines. This older gentleman was incredibly impressed that I had 185 lbs on the machine. He asked if I were a jock. I had to say no, even though I was very tempted to say yes. I burned 1,600 calories at the gym according to my Polar FT7. I burned a little over 400 calories running, but I don't trust the iPod as much as my HRM so I round down. All in all, 2,000 calories burned from exercise is something to smile about.
I had 16 ounces of coffee and a protein shake made with almond milk before I went to the gym (205 calories) so I figured I should have a substantial dinner. Not eating enough actually screws with your metabolism and you thwart your weight loss efforts. My family had tacos for their dinner so I used the leftover ingredients to create this:

So I ate my dinner out of a mixing bowl.  Shoot me.
Please ignore my cat Coly's behind in the background.

Nike+ iPod

Back in February I bought myself a new iPod Nano and a new pair of Nike+ running sneakers.  Then I used them twice and that was the end of that.  My successful Central Park run has inspired me to start getting my money's worth out of my running gear.

On Thursday I ran 11.23 miles according to my iPod.  I am out on Long Island and I thought it was going to be a pleasant experience.  Unfortunately the village of Matinecock is not meant for outdoor running and I spent a good portion of my run trying not to get run over.  I ran back towards Mill River Road and then continued my run into the town of Oyster Bay.  I hit the 10 mile mark when I reached CVS on Route 106 and managed to struggle through the remaining 1.23 miles home.  My feet were so torn up after this experience that I hobbled myself into Angel Tip Nails for a pedicure the next day.

Today I decided that I would go over to the Vernon School track to calibrate my iPod.  This turned out to be a failure.  The distance markers on the track didn't match up to the distances on my iPod.  If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, I would greatly appreciate some feedback.  I am going to be mighty disappointed if I find out that I did not in fact run 11.23 miles on Thursday.  Although I was unable to calibrate the sensor, I did run 4 miles.  I then walked around my block as a cool down.

I'm looking for a running partner for the month of August.  If you're interested in running with me in Central Park or along the East River, send me a note.

Out of Shape Out of Mind?

Unfortunately I achieved my best beach body in March, and no one got to see me in a bikini.  This summer I have spent more time drinking beer than doing cardio.  Basically I'm getting fat.  I'm still hitting up the gym regularly, but not with my former intensity, and I am definitely not eating clean.  My summer job provided me with a college dining hall-style all-you-can-eat-in-one-sitting dinner and I attacked that buffet line like it was going out of style.  I can eat thirteen oatmeal raisin cookies.  After three plates of pasta.  Sometimes I even ordered another dinner after I got home from work.

I am up 10 lbs, which is so not okay.  Starting today, I am publicly announcing (to my -3 readers), that I am going to eat clean, cut down on the alcohol, and take my workouts seriously.  Instead of a carbtastic lunch, I had sliced peaches with Fage 0% yogurt and a drizzle of honey.  Like the Nutri-Grain bar commercial tells us, one good decision leads to a whole day of them.

Just a Civilized Day with My Coworker

Despite an awkward argument over a performance review last evening, A came to stay at my apartment.  We were able to ignore the siren call of karaoke night (thankfully the argument via text message made us a little too late to attend) and get to bed at a reasonable hour.  We had planned the ultimate civilized day since tonight is my last shift at work.

I got up on time.  A did not.  After finishing my morning coffee, I was able to convince him to get out of bed and into his sneakers.  We ran down York and hung a right on 81st Street to check on my car.  Petunia was safely still parked where we had left her and I am happy to report that there was no orange envelope tucked under her windshield wiper.  We continued towards the Park and entered at 79th Street.  A and I ran down through the Zoo and towards Columbus Circle.  We kept going, dodging couples, tourists, and baby carriages (is the Bugaboo still in?) up towards the Reservoir.  I will admit that by the time we had reached the Reservoir run, I was feeling the grit in my lungs and debating if I should quit smoking.  This was no recycled Equinox A/C.  Fresh air hurts.  We ran around the Reservoir and exited the Park at 85th Street.  Our route was at least 5 miles according to Map My Run.

On the way back to the apartment, A and I went to Best Buy for some new headphones.  (Do you feel nauseous yet?  Because writing this is making me realize how grossly coupily this sounds.  I hate people who do this actually.)  We each got a pair of SONY BUMPIN BUDS.  Mine are blue and they are beautiful.  I wanted to take a look in JackRabbit Sports as well.  The staff is so nice in there.  They inquired about our run and weren't pushy at all.  I think I will go to them next time I need a new pair of running shoes.

After showering and packing the car for work, A and I went to Alice's Tea Cup Chapter III for lunch.  I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am with that meal.  We started with white chocolate blueberry scones and a pot of Alice's Tea.  Now A claims he's not a tea or a hot beverage drinker (no coffee ever?!), but even he liked it.  I thought it was delicious.  I had the curried chicken salad sandwich and A had the grilled chicken with goat cheese and granny smith apples sandwich.  Mine was great, but A's was better.  Overall, the day was productive and civilized.

I (still) Need New Cross-Trainers (again)

The amount of time I spend thinking about, obsessing over, stressing over, and feeling mildly nauseous about purchasing new cross-trainers is actually a little sickening.  These are the pair I am eyeing today.
http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/?sitesrc=usns_share_link&sitesrc=uslp#l=shop,pdp,ctr-inline/cid-1/pid-310407/pgid-310408

I've lost definition in my tricep.

The BOSU is NOT a Towel Rack

Granted I should have come 20 minutes earlier to secure prime real estate.  Yes, I am aware that Yves' classes fill up fast and that it's a dog eat dog world in group fitness.  But what really pisses me off, like tempted to throw my hand weight at you pissed off, is when someone takes a piece of equipment that others would like to use and then just stares at it.  This overweight woman, wearing extremely unflattering workout pants, used her BOSU trainer as a TOWEL RACK for the duration of Muscle Tech this morning.  I could have killed her.  Once, just once in the entire 60 minutes did she even put her foot on it (during body bar triceps rows) and then she got off and didn't even use it for the other side!  Here I am using the mini-step, which I CANNOT stand, and she's got a towel rack.  Said towel rack also took up a lot of her workout space so she was forced to do her half-assed floor lunges in mine.  Unfortunately half-assed effort will not halve her ass.  She did loan me her 8 lb weights (she had 3 different sets) after she was prompted to by the instructor.  So she's not completely evil.

Lessons learned:

1. Show up 30 minutes early because people are beasts.

2. Stay away from overweight people who wear ugly workout clothes.

3. Be considerate and don't take things you're not planning on using.