Raising the Bar...

Alright, what's going on here? I was never a health nut at any point during the 1st 30 years of my life, but in addition to my new love for running, I've been using the days previously reserved for rest, to tone-up as well lately. I still loathe the gym, so instead I've been working out at home on my core, chest, arms, legs, shoulders & back with 15 & 30-pound dumbbells in addition to an exercise ball.

Last night, I found some fitness videos to stream to my tv (via Netflix) & actually ended up developing my 1st workout plan afterward. It took me the better part of yesterday evening to test each dumbbell weight, activity & rep count. Then I still needed to breakdown 21 activities into separate exercise groups to complete over 3 days time.

The plan is to perform 3 sets of each of those 21 activities I've came up with. I figure I'll be tweaking the rep count & weight sizes over the next couple of weeks until I get a better idea my current strength level in each area. But I'm telling you - some woman is gonna end up with 1 fine, chiseled piece of man-meat by the time I' done here, lol.

To maintain at least 1 day of rest, I had to remove a day from my previous cardio routine. I'm not so happy about that since I've come to enjoy running so much, but 3 days of weight training coupled with another 3 days of 3-mile runs sound like more than enough to do during a given week.

What I like most about my proposed workout plan is that it gives me the freedom to do it from just about anywhere. Whether I'm home, at work, out of town, or yes, even the unthinkable -visiting the dreaded gym, I can manage a decent workout with very few adjustments (if any) to the routine.

I'm a huge NFL football fan & with that in mind, I thought it'd be wise to reserve Sunday as the new rest day since I'm down to just 1 now. My previous off-days had been Monday, Wednesday & Friday, now I've got 7 activities scheduled for each of those days & I plan to continue running each Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday.

It's clear to me now how working out can be so addictive. With any luck this WON'T just be a phase, but a far healthier lifestyle, rather. What feels the best about this healthier living over the past few months is that nobody pushed me, the encouragement from watching those close to me provided more than enough spark to get me out there on my own.

Off to get today's miles in, until next time kiddies...