Week Four: Danielle

I’ve now been through one full month of exercising and have learned a couple things during my gym experiences. First off, I’ll never have a workout routine with a significant other after experiencing gym PDA from the outsider’s point of view. I’ve never felt more awkward then being on the mat next to the couple who has one person bending over the other to give a kiss — and about ten minutes earlier, the girl was displaying her flexibility to her boyfriend by doing a peculiar stretch of extending one leg beside her head while lying on the mat. After feeling extremely awkward, I arranged myself so my back was turned.

The second lesson was about machine cleanliness. After witnessing someone doing their weight routine and not wiping down a single machine they used, I decided to be more aware of what body parts are in contact with the apparatus. If my face is going to be anywhere near the bench of a machine I’ll be wiping down the machine before I use it.

As for my progress: Wednesday morning I weighed in at about 162 lbs., which technically means I lost weight, but it’s such a small amount I could just regard it as being normal weight fluctuations. To be honest, this is probably the case, because this past week ended as a complete failure for my exercise routine. I skipped almost every day at the gym, and to boot, on Thursday night I devoured half of a medium banana pepper, and chicken pizza, and a box of cinna stix. Let’s just say I was having a bad week.

Minus last week, my workout seems to be going pretty well. I’m feeling better, and I’m starting to feel more toned and less fat. My core and weight routines are working the best so far, but I find that my cardio day needs either more effort or some sort of change. I usually bike and work myself pretty hard, but by the end of the half hour, I’m not quite tired enough. I also haven’t been going swimming lately. So, to kick up the cardio a notch, I’ll be trying to hit the pool at least once a week and maybe try the treadmill instead of keeping to the bike. This will help me a lot on my path to success.

To get more serious about reaching my goal, I’m going to have to control my bad eating habits as well. Although I kept my pizza craving off for most of the week, I should probably think about appeasing my cravings. It would have probably been healthier if I had baked a frozen pizza instead of ordering dominoes. That way I could have also eaten it with something like salad and not with cinna stix.

However, after getting through the first month of delayed starts and slowly adjusting to my new routine, I believe the next month will be smoother sailing.