Birthday Fitness
As you guys know, this last year has been up and down for me in the fitness department. I’ve been maintaining my current weight range to get other things squared away before focusing on the final stretch of weight loss. Here’s a quick history for anyone who stumbles across this post and wants to catch up.
March 2011: spherical and sick at 230 lb.
June 2012: less spherical and much healthier at 185 lb.
February 2013: strong and smarmily healthy at 154 lb.
Then Bunzilla happened, I gained ten pounds during recovery, and here we are. Maintenance has been surprisingly easy, but I’m ready to get back to work and drop this last 30.
Weight training is an important component of my strategy and I was trying to figure out how to reincorporate it since we cancelled our gym membership earlier this year. We did so to save money and because we weren’t getting full value while just using it for cardio. Also, to be honest, I hate sharing equipment and having to wait on people. It’s a personality flaw.
So, when Brian asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year, I told him I’d like a set of dumbbells. They’re versatile enough to work in a big variety of strength routines and don’t take up much room. Well, he went a step better and got me the Best. Birthday Surprise. Ever.
Behold, the new Orks and Cats Strength Station (complete with pre-existing Crinkle-Tube cat toy that our cats studiously ignore)! Not only did he get me an adjustable dumbbell set that will last forever, he got me something I’ve always wanted: my own weight bench and barbell set.
I didn’t ask for one because I thought we didn’t have room for it, but he went all Psychic Mode and made room because he’s freaking awesome. I lifted weights that night (before we went to Sonic for birthday dinner, ha) and built a new routine to follow. Did I get sore? Oh my, yes. It is so worth it. No other exercise has ever made me feel as good as weightlifting. Happiness quotient: high!
We’re also keeping up the cardio on off nights. Right now the routine is three days weights, three days cycling, and one day to rest and do house-related chores. We live in the land of heat advisories, so it’s been too gross for outdoor evening rides the past couple of weeks and we’ve been using the stationary bike instead. This routine is working out well and I’m happy with it. The next step is to tweak my intake to complement. I’ll post progress as we go.
In Other News
Work is still going pretty well and we’re staying busy between our fitness routine and general amounts of required adulting (which was autocorrected to adulating, snork). Between tasks lately I’ve made a few observations that will probably turn into blog posts.
Virtual house-hunting is fun. For reasons I can no longer remember, I decided to look at Zillow a few weeks ago. This decision was probably a tactical error because looking at houses you can’t afford is a terribly entertaining time waster, but I don’t intend to stop any time soon.
Food adventures are good for the soul. A new friend at work has been broadening my taste-bud horizons by introducing me to a different ethnic cuisine every Friday, and it is awesome. Bulgogi is my new favorite nom.
Surprise garden visitors can cause squee. We saw our first hummingbird in YEARS yesterday afternoon as we were getting started on a woodworking project. He also visited our morning glories and catnip, and he came by again later in the evening. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Let Me Sum Up
It was a great birthday, I’m really excited to get back into a strength routine, and the adulting is going quite well. Ride Reports will probably give way to general posts again as summer winds down, but I can never tell where my brain is going to flit next. How about you guys? Been up to anything new or fun lately? Visit our spacious, clean comment section and let us know!
Wow, what a great birthday surprise! And sure seems like you are on a roll with the whole life balance thing. How many people excel at adulting while simultaneously making gains on the health and fitness front? Like, 3 in the whole world? Usually those two are mutually exclusive.
Yay you!
Thanks, Crabby! I’ve not mastered it yet by any means, but it’s definitely going better.
By the way, I popped by Cranky Fitness and read DRG’s update. So happy to see that she made it! What a boss! I loved your post on harnessing your inner weird, too. Keep cranking away (see what I did there?) on that novel; I wanna read it! :-D