Day 23: Three breathless words

Tram. Po. Line.

Leaving you with the amazingly talented Meryl before she runs up all those stairs...

Link for now. Will embed later:

Winner takes it all!


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Location:Young St,Halifax,Canada

I'm a fave!

Ok, I know this doesn't go here, but this is big for me, so I had to share here too... A layout from over on my scrapbooking blog was chosen as a favourite over on Sketchy Thursdays!  This is sooo cool!

Day 17

Why is my motivation so low? Could it have something to do with this:



This has been the view from my office window more often than not since April. I happen to like the rain, but this weather is taking it's toll even on me!

But although I haven't been blogging in the past week (ok, ok, it's been more like 2 weeks!), I have stayed pretty active and haven't fallen off the weight loss wagon (yet). I've been doing a lot of (read: some/a bit of) cleaning and moving boxes, walking the dog (once counts, right?) etc. But no 'real' workouts per se. I don't even try to work out on work days, so that means tomorrow will be an important day for me to get back on the Wii (is this a deja vous, or did I say that last Wednesday?). Anyhow, I'm in that uncomfortable place between commitment and disinterest. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Here's some Glee for a rainy day:

Umbrella/Singin' in the Rain mash up featuring Gwenyth Paltrow



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Young St,Halifax,Canada

Day 5: EA Sports Active

It's been a wild past 3 days, with a thunderstorm that kept us all awake one whole night, a pink-eye scare (she doesn't have it, yay!), work, and a birthday party to plan. I was feeling gross that I hadn't worked out in 3 days, so tonight after the kids were in bed and the laundry was started I popped in EA Active and did a pretty intense but brief workout.

EA Sports Active: The most intensive Wii Workout I've found

This is a pretty good workout game.  I sweat bullets every time I do it, and I think a pool of sweat on the floor around you is a pretty good measure of intensity.  It has a combination of exercise types including some cardio (dance, boxing, running, tennis, baseball, etc) and muscle toning (classic resistance exercises using an elastic band for resistance).  An added bonus is that the trainer in this game acts like they are completely infatuated with your physical prowess.  They give you motivational phrases when you do the exercises well, and my favourite is "you, my friend, are poetry in motion!"  How can you not give those last 3 lunges your all when a buff trainer is cooing over your every move?  There are a few places where you have to do the lunges with the wrong leg in order for them to register, but other than that, there is pretty good feedback and coordination between your moves and the moves of the "you" on the screen.

Here I am, about to go for a quick run, although if I looked like this,
I probably would just sit down and have another beer.

So I get to watch myself run... or, well... the me who wouldn't need to lose weight.  There is a reason I stopped running, and it had a little to do with my knees and a lot to do with the fact that I couldn't get a total body sports bra.  Belly jiggle is a bitch.

Spreading a little Glee:

Reason #137 to love Brittany:

Santana: Hey Kurt, we’re really sorry about your dad’s heart attack.
Kurt: Thanks Santana.
Brittany: I did a book report on heart attacks if you want to give it to the doctor. I got knocked down an entire letter grade because it was written in crayon.

Days 3&4: rest

If by rest you mean two 14 hour work days in a 48 hour period, then yes, I've been resting yesterday and today.



I have a sedentary job... Writing on the white board is the most active I get here. And it doesn't help that the all time best pizza in Halifax is right below my office. I can smell the garlic all day and let me just say it is very hard to restrain myself. Yesterday I had a healthyish lunch (I'm workin on removing the "ish") and my snacks were a pink lady apple, a yogurt tube stolen from Livie's lunch stash, and a V8. I wanted a hero from Salvatore's downstairs all day long. It didn't help that I had my window open (the torture known as summer in the Hydrostone has begun already) and people dining on the patio below me were loudly exclaiming how delicious their pizzas were.

But I got through the day without pizza and was proud of my self restraint in the end. I celebrated by eating not 1, but 2 fudge ice cream bars. I am so nailing this weightloss thing!


Gleehab:
With season finale behind us, I'm experiencing some major withdrawal. I leave you with a link to the vid That I'll embed here tonight:

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Young St,Halifax,Canada

Day 2: Wii Zumba and Just Dance

Today I started with another 20 minutes of Wii Zumba.  It's a bit easier than yesterday from a technical standpoint, but that must have allowed me to push myself a bit more because I was dead at the end of those 20 minutes!  I tried the Party mode, which I can't really differentiate from the class mode.  I've just done the beginner level so far, but I noticed today that an intermediate class unlocked today.

The way the game works is you put the Wii controller in a little pocket on a velcro belt and groove away.  When you're moving as the game expects you to move, the Zumba lady on the screen turns green, and when you don't she stays an orangish colour.  I think she turns yellow when you're close to the right moves.  I've noticed that the more you move your hips, the more green you get.  It doesn't really matter if your feet are in the right position, as long as your body is moving as if they are.  This realisation helped me have even MORE fun with Zumba today!

The Zumba belt: The controller goes in sensor up and pushes all the way down
(it's not in all the way in this pic)

When Zumba was over, I got my groove on even more with over an hour of Wii Just Dance.  I have the first Wii dance, so not as good music selections as Just Dance 2, but I always really enjoy this game.  You dance along with a dancer and you get little cues for what moves are coming up next (unlike Zumba which gives you no cues).

Wii Just Dance: high in fun, low in cardio

 The cardio value of Just Dance is nothing compared to Wii Zumba, but it does keep you hip hopping around enough to keep you sweaty.  I try to march or hop between songs, but it's hard because you need to point the controller at the screen.

THEN I helped put together a trampoline for 2 hours, and as if my body wasn't achy enough from all that, I just HAD to jump in it for awhile!

Livie bounces a bit before the enclosure was assembled

"Wow, thanks so much for getting me such a cool box!"

Not sure if this DailyBurn app is gonna work out for me.  Last night the app said I had a little more than 100 calories left for the day, so I poured myself a bowl of what I thought would be 100 calories worth of party mix and ate it and then a bit more, even though I wasn't hungry.  I'm pretty sure that's not how the app is supposed to work.


Getting my Glee on:
Another Sueism:
You know, for me trophies are like herpes. You can try to get rid of them but they just keep coming. Sue Sylvester has hourly flair ups of burning itchy highly contagious talent.

Day 1: Wii Zumba & Daily Burn

Today I tried Wii Zumba.

Dear 505 Games,
How many times do I need to play this game before I look like her?

It was 60 minutes of humiliation and fun rolled into one salsarific bundle.  Thank god my only witness was my cat, who must have thought I'd finally lost it.  The game isn't the greatest.  The tutorial is buggy and skips forward in unexpected ways.  I worked my way through all the lessons, doing a few of them twice before finally moving on to the 20 minute beginner workout.  I've actually taken latin dance lessons in a previous life, so the first part of the workout was kinda easy from a footwork perspective, but I did work up a good sweat.  At about the midway point, the pumping/booty shaking moves start and then it really heats up/becomes hilarious, depending on your perspective.  At one point I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the TV screen and had to will myself to continue.  There is no way in gods green earth that I would ever do this in public.  But.  Once I let go of how ridiculous I probably looked, and embraced my inner Jennifer Lopez, I have to say, it was quite a fun workout.  Really fun, actually.  I find myself looking forward to my second Wii Zumba session, despite the dorky user interface.

Wii Zumba: More fun than it looks, and a great workout!

I also decided to try using the DailyBurn iPhone app.  This is a tracking app for diet and exercise that has a cool barcode scanner (cool gadgetry always=successful weightloss, right?).  I'm not usually one for tracking stuff, but I have found in the past that it helps me stay on track, especially in the early days.

So here I am, exercising and paying attention to what I'm eating.  Not a bad place to start a weightloss blog.  If I can figure out a way to have fun losing weight, I might be able to stick with it this time.

I don't know what my weight is today (I don't have a scale other than my wii balance board).  I'll weigh myself tomorrow and record it.  It's probably practical (albeit scary) to have a "before" weight.  Maybe some (*shudder*) measurements.


Spreading a little Glee to the world:
Will Schuester: Bring it.
Sue Sylvester: Oh I will bring it, William. You know what else I'm gonna bring? I'm gonna bring some Asian cookery to wipe your head with. Cause right now you've got enough product in your hair to season a wok."


...and a totally unrelated but timely video: