Gym is Open (Finally Friday 6/6)

There are some toning and strength training exercises that you can do with the exercise ball.  I do modified pushups with them and of course crunches.  It's very effective because it works your entire core because you are concentrating on your body's balance as well.   I think I'm going to subscribe to Self magazine.  I picked one up the other day and really enjoyed the articles in there.  It's really focused on diet, nutrition and exercise and there were some really good routines in there.  Like lunges while you are walking.  I'm not at that level yet.  My knees still are giving me trouble. 

I'll have to check out Self magazine.  I was thinking about subscribing to Prevention for similar reasons -- lots of articles about diet, nutrition, and exercise, but maybe I'll do Self instead.  Or maybe I'll throw all caution to the wind and do both!!!  Thanks for the suggestion -  Kellie

Walking three miles is nothing to sneeze at!  You could alternate your walk and do a fast walk for part of the way, then a slow walk, then a fast walk.  Do you belong to a gym or rec center?

I try to walk  at a steady pace alternating speeding up but mostly never slowing down--or at least I think so.  I do have a gym membership but haven't been in several months.  My most recent excuse is gas prices; it's 25 miles one way.  I do try to incorporate some activity daily. Ree Ree

Karen, you work so hard with your 2X a day workouts.  I still can't get off my butt to do that even though I know it will help. Ohh, girl, you are going to be sore after spreading that topsoil this weekend.  And it looks like it's going to be a scorcher all over this weekend. I didn't charge my ipod again so I sat my hump on the cross trainer and only did 10 minutes but at level 10.  My arms are very tired.  I worked them more than my legs today on the crosstrainer since today was upper body strength training.  Did 30 minutes of upper body and still didn't get to two machines.  But I did make it to work on tiime!

I did 2.5 miles of running on the treadmill and felt a whole lot better about it - I could of gone longer but i ran out of time. It helps me with my confidence for this weekend, I've got an Adventure Race Sunday that I was worried about. I'm finally getting out of this funk - I don't think all of it was my sinus infection either. As of this week it has been a year since my dad had his disasterous heart surgery and I do believe that was getting to me. I can't believe it's been a year since all the drama began - so many changes since then. It's funny how it can creep up on you when you least expect it.

I know what you mean about stuff creeping up on you.  My late brother would have turned 58 today.  We weren't close at all, and I have to admit I don't think about him too often, but he has been in my mind all week because of the anniversary of the RFK assassination (my brother graduated from high school earlier that evening, so we were all awake waiting for him to come home from his grad party and watched RFK murdered on TV).  My brother died in 11/98 from a faulty furnace in his home (carbon monoxide), hard to believe it's ten years already. Glad to hear you are climbing (or perhaps running) out of your funk!  Funks suck. Kix

They now have lessons on Friday nights (grumble) so the lap pool was taken, but I went to the outdoor pool and swam & did water aerobics for 45 minutes. For those of you sweltering in the heat wave back East, it was soo cold getting out of the outdoor pool in the wind when today's high was 60!