Warning: This entry is entirely about exercise.
I met with one of the trainers from the Muay Thai gym and he did a fitness evaluation (VO2 Max test) along with a Body Fat index thing. My body fat I knew was going to be high but I didn't expect the 18.5% I got, it's not an alarming number, but I want to be between 15 and 10 by June, and ideally somewhere between 7 and 10 by let's say October. It's going to take a lot of hard work but he gave me lots of pointers as to how/when to eat, how to exercise (outside of Muay Thai) and even how not to overdo everything. I'm being very good and learning how to ration my food to eat more frequently in less quantities.
I'm doing a 5K in Nutley on May 5th, not sure what it benefits but there's a fee. It's just 3.1 miles and I'm running around 2.5-3 every morning (including sundays, have only taken about 3 maybe 4 days off since I started in late march) so I shouldn't have any problems with it, but I want to do it because it represents a small milestone. When I started I could only go for about 15 mins covering roughly 1.5 miles and I've doubled that number and that distance in just 3 weeks, so I'm proud of myself and this will just further cement that belief in me that I can achieve longer distances if I just keep at it.
In case anyone's wondering, a month's worth of continuous running hasn't made me lose weight as long as the scale is concerned. One thing to "watch out" for when taking up a running regimen is to be aware that your legs will develop muscle and that will show in the scale. I feel its more important to see how your body is changing, my jeans are loser at the waist, shirts fit nicely again, etc. Numerically though, I still hover around 156-158 lbs which is only 2 lbs less than I was before I started running. Also, safely you should only be able to lose 1lb of FAT a week, which is only 4-5 lbs every month, that is probably happening with me but the muscle I'm putting on (my abs have started to develop nicely thanks to the 50+ sit ups we do at Muay Thai every time) is more dense than the fat and so my numeric weight is still high for somebody my height. I'm not stressing on that though, I feel a lot better overall and I can tell I've lost some fat.
It doesn't take much time out of your day to start doing any sort of exercise regimen, half hour every morning can go a long way if you're patient enough not to get discouraged because you didn't lose 10lbs after the first month. Later.
I'm doing a 5K in Nutley on May 5th, not sure what it benefits but there's a fee. It's just 3.1 miles and I'm running around 2.5-3 every morning (including sundays, have only taken about 3 maybe 4 days off since I started in late march) so I shouldn't have any problems with it, but I want to do it because it represents a small milestone. When I started I could only go for about 15 mins covering roughly 1.5 miles and I've doubled that number and that distance in just 3 weeks, so I'm proud of myself and this will just further cement that belief in me that I can achieve longer distances if I just keep at it.
In case anyone's wondering, a month's worth of continuous running hasn't made me lose weight as long as the scale is concerned. One thing to "watch out" for when taking up a running regimen is to be aware that your legs will develop muscle and that will show in the scale. I feel its more important to see how your body is changing, my jeans are loser at the waist, shirts fit nicely again, etc. Numerically though, I still hover around 156-158 lbs which is only 2 lbs less than I was before I started running. Also, safely you should only be able to lose 1lb of FAT a week, which is only 4-5 lbs every month, that is probably happening with me but the muscle I'm putting on (my abs have started to develop nicely thanks to the 50+ sit ups we do at Muay Thai every time) is more dense than the fat and so my numeric weight is still high for somebody my height. I'm not stressing on that though, I feel a lot better overall and I can tell I've lost some fat.
It doesn't take much time out of your day to start doing any sort of exercise regimen, half hour every morning can go a long way if you're patient enough not to get discouraged because you didn't lose 10lbs after the first month. Later.