Honestly, I'm a little bit disappointed with the session we did last night. We spent the first 15 mins talking through stuff - multi-tasking though, which I liked, as we did it while sitting gently spinning on the circle of bikes that the spin class use.
We talked through some basic nutritional stuff, and the approach that this challenge aims to take - basically, that just food or just exercise isn't enough - that it needs to be a balance to get the most efficient loss. I'm absolutely in agreement with that, although it is stuff I already know. We then went on to talk about working in your fat-burning zone for maximum weight loss. I vaguely know about this - how you have percentage zones of maximum heart-rate which are supposed to be optimal for either weigh loss (mid-range) or cardio training (high zone) because the body accesses different energy sources - fat stores vs glycogen etc. The instructors have worked out our optimal heart rates for fat-burning activity based on our ages and weights and other mystery stuff - we were all told our individual numbers and then the aim of the session was to go and do 30 mins continuous exercise in that range on a piece (or pieces) of cardio equipment that we wouldn't usually use.
And this is where I get disappointed. Because for me, my max heartrate to stay in the zone was just 135 - at 135, I'm barely breaking a sweat, and am in no way out of breath. I was expecting the session to be a real calorie-burn ass-kicker, and instead I got a walk in the park. I kind of feel like I'd wasted a session. I like getting really hot and sweaty in my cardio sessions - things like running and Body Combat, or even a spin session, so it seems completely counter-intuitive to me to be going so slow. I guess this is another way in which this challenge could really force me to shake up my thinking. Since I'm now resigned to the fact that I need to start doing Body Balance / yoga / pilates to try and strengthen my core muscles and support my back, I guess I'd be really interested to see what sort of average heartrate I come out with during an hour long class.
I'm going to be buying some toys over the next couple of days which I've wanted for a bit, so I'm quite excited about that! Going to be getting new headphones for running, the Nike clip-on pedometer that will then link up to my iPhone and provide me with Nike+ data, a sports armband for my iPhone / iPod, and a proper Polar heartrate monitor. I luuuuurve geeking it up with new toys! One of my goals for the 6 week challenge is to take my resting heart-rate now and then see if I can reduce it over the next 6 weeks.
Food was fine yesterday, and the scales have bounced back down again today. Ankle's feeling sounder, although my muscles are still tight, tight, tight from the gym. Hopefully, I'll go for a quick swim or walk this evening to get some activity in, and then I'm going to slob at the boys house and play geeky board games with them ;o)
1 comment:
I have wanted a chip for so long... I heard it's a great tool!
Although sometimes we don't like to hear about all the stuff and just get to the task at hand, we can learn a thing or two :-)
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