h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok, so now that I've posted my news on the other thread...


I'm still going to the gym most days every week. I usually take at least one day off, simply because I need a break every now and then. If I've been out of town for a couple of days, I'll go every day that I"m home, if at all possible. (Sometimes life just happens, and I don't get to go one day, for one reason or another.)


When I first arrive, I put in about 20 minutes on the targetted muscle machines.

Torso Twist: I'm up to 75 pounds on that one, with two sets of 15 in each direction.

Triceps: On the one that you push down from the side, I"m up to 90 pounds*, and usually do about 15 or 20, sometimes a couple of sets of 10 or 15.** On the one that you prop your arms over your head and press forward, I only do about 10 reps, with about 15 pounds on each arm. I'm new to that one.

(*This sounds like a lot more than it really is - the weight is divided between both arms, so really only 45 pounds per arm.)

(**How many reps or sets of reps I do often depends on how much time I have to spend at the gym on any particular day)

Crunch Machines: I'm up to doing 4 or 5 sets of 10 reps, with 50 pounds of weight resistance on the one that you pull down with your arms, and your feet just rest behind pads under you. At one time I was trying to use the more difficult crunch machine that you have to pull up with your legs while pulling down with your arms, but that one would cause a sharp pain on the one side of my abdomen. (I finally determined that it was transferred pain from an old rib I'd popped years ago, and that the back of the machine was hitting that rib in such a way as to cause it to pop out constantly.) I tried using the one that you rest your chest against a pad and push the pad forward, but it's obviously designed for thinner bodies, so I had trouble getting the proper angle on it and always felt like I was going to fall out the back of it.

Biceps: I do 15 or 20 reps of 40 lbs on the biceps curl machine, sometimes dividing it into two sets of 10.

Leg Curls: On the one that you push down with your legs on the bar, I do two sets of 10 or 15 with about 55 pounds resistance. On the one you need to lift with your legs, I only do 35 or 40 pounds (depending on how my knees feel that day), and one or two sets of 10 or 15.

Hip Abduction: There's two machines for this too - one that you push your legs apart, and the other where you squeeze them together. On both, I do two sets of 15 (or sometimes 3 sets of 10), with 75 pounds of resistance.

There's a couple of other machines I use on a regular basis, but I can't remember what they're called. One is to stretch out your back, where you just lean back against a pad and push the weight with that, another where you pull down bars from over your head, and another that is supposed to tone both abs and pecs by resting your upper arms on pads, and pulling an overhead bar down to your stomach. Each of those machines gets about 20 reps.

I had to stop using a couple of machines where I had to lift the weight over my head, because they were causing my back to creak and crack like crazy, making the sharp abdominal pain on the hardest crunch machine worse. That's ok though, there's plenty of other stuff to do there.

After I"m done with those machines, I move on to the cardio machines. I had been doing 25 or 30 minutes on the eliptical machine, but as it's gotten so much hotter and more humid this year, I'm finding I just get far too hot and can't keep up with it for that length of time. Even though the gym has AC, it's not set to nearly low enough of a temperature to prevent me from feeling like I'm burning up.

(I don't sweat as much as normal people do, so I tend to turn beet red before even becoming slightly damp with perspiration, and there's not enough air circulation to cool me off. I take a little battery operated fan with me, but even that's not enough to really cool me).

Anyhow, I cut the time on the eliptical to about 15 minutes, and am doing an additional 15 minutes or so on a bike. Each one registers a little less than a mile in that time.

Then it's off to the pool, where I can finally cool off with a 40-45 minute swim. I asked the gym manager if she knew how long the pool was, and she said that it was 25 yards (75 feet) so that 36 laps equals a mile. I swim approximately one length per minute, so I'm swimming about 5/8 mile each day.


As far as food is concerned, I'm still eating a fairly low carb diet: Lots of non-starchy veggies, and a reasonable sized portion of meat for most meals. It's not as boring as it sounds, I have lots of good non-starchy, non-sugary sauce recipes, with lots of different herbs and spices to use to keep things interesting. For snacks, I'll eat nuts of various kinds, or use a sugar free protein shake mix most of the time. I've just recently started baking a very high protein, low carbohydrate bread, so we'll see if I can tolerate the little bit of starchy carbs in that without puffing up like a balloon. I wish I could remember how to make some of the snacks I used to make back in the 70's when I was on this diet. I've searched the internet, and can't find them there either.

Ok, I've given you all a rundown of what I'm doing... anyone else game to give that much detail?

Any detail?

A quick overview?

Anything at all?

Well, all I'm willing to say at this point in time is 'blimey! I'm so impressed with you Lady Scott! Very very good for you - an example to us some. Me, certainly.'

I've just had my parents over for 10 days, but strangely the eating hasn't been too bad this time. Oh, and dog will be joining us shortly so walkies will become routine. New GP has been approved and life seems pretty good at the moment. (Suddenly I wonder why I'm so grumpy, realise it's cause I've just dropped my parents off at the airport and I miss having them already. Then again, I haven't begun sorting the house out - they're messy!)

Just need to tackle weight, world peace and making the things I want to be when I'm a grown up, as well as the garden. D*mn contractors that take ages to even bid / quote on a job.

cheers ismarah <= very impressed!

ooooh, this thread may help too..

Breakfast:
1/2 Honeydew Melon

Lunch:
1/2 bowl of healthy wheat & gluten free muesli (has lots of nuts & seeds in it).

Dinner:
1/2 bag salad with a few new potatoes, olives, can tuna and a couple of eggs, with a bit of extra virgin olive oil as dressing - plus chucked in some seaweed, sesame and hemp seeds.

Snacks:
1 egg
1 apple
10 cherry tomatoes
1 ginger biscuit

Drinks:
stacks of water, glass cranberry (light) juice.. 1/3 can bitter ... finished off the can after making the bf a shandy..


Exercise:
15 minute warm-up from my Dance DVD!