Getting Started in Karate

A quick break from the normal Add Deal promoting and updates… we’re pleased to say that last night we attended our first karate lesson.  As some of you may know, the whole keep fit routine has fallen by the wayside and as for getting on that Wii Fit, we reckon that would take a lot of bravery at this present moment in time.

So yesterday, we took ourselves along to the long karate dojo for our first sample lesson… now given the fact that we don’t have great coordination at the best of times, us trying to do a wide range of moves tended to look more and more like we were mocking the other people more than taking it seriously.

Looking back on it now, we must say that we learnt a fair bit, although trying to remember what we learned this morning is certainly proving to be somewhat difficult.  Our next session will be tomorrow morning between 10 and 11am, so we’re going to go along and see what happens as it were.

So from here on in, the exercising begins as well as learning a new skill, it is certainly different from the web development world.

More on this soon…

Day 9: Busy Stuff #blogboost

I think this morning must have been one of the busiest morning I have had thus far.  It has just turned 10 past 11 in the morning GMT and all I have managed to get complete from the time I woke up is get the kids off to school, wash up, have breakfast and I’ve not long finished my 30 minute work out and I have now finally got round to updating my blog – think tomorrow I may have to get up slightly earlier… hmm 7am??

I’d also just like to point out that the bananas were bought yesterday along with some fresh orange juice – hmm will be careful with this as it can be quite lethal.

Anyway, so today, how did the work out go.  Well excellent, if I’m honest, although there were parts of the work out that I found a little bit difficult as I was rather stiff this morning, possibly from yesterdays work out.  However, this morning, I thought the best way to be able to loosen the joints would be to start off with a 3 minute jog… just to warm up the body… this seemed to do the trick just nicely.

So once the running was done, and I was firmly warmed up I thought I’d get down to some twists and turns, focusing on both the torso twists and the elbow stretches.  By the end of it I must admit I certainly could feel the pain, however I didn’t have too much time to worry about it and got straight into the step up challenge.

I was now up to the end of my first 12 minutes.  My next step would be to get into my boxing, I didn’t do too bad at this giving it near on everything I had and coming very close to beating my highest score that I set yesterday.  I wasn’t too happy with this result as I came 5th, so I decided to have another go at this and did a lot better coming 2nd overall.

I was now up to my 20 minutes, so rather than doing another set of step up challenges I thought I would do a long jog.  I managed to do really well at this and got an average burn out rate of 80%, my highest to date, even the Wii Commented on how great my rhythm was.

To round off my full 30 minutes of exercise I did another 7 minutes of hoola hooping, with all my legs and joints clicking and snapping into place.

Overall the workout was certainly a good one and I am hoping that tomorrow I will be able to build on my successes today and turn them into excellent overall results.

Day 8: Weighing In and Working Out #blogboost

With today being the 8th Day, today was the big day in which I would go for the weighing in to see if all my hard work was really paying off.  So morning routine get the children off to school, have some breakfast and get myself onto that Wii fit for the all important weigh in, partner home today so all being well should prove an interesting day.

So with breakfast eaten, a bowl of Weetabix and the coffee drank, it was now straight onto the Wii, turning it on, even I was slightly nervous, even knowing what I had seen on Friday.  As I went through the motions of the body test, I finally took the necessary step of opening my eyes to reveal that I had lost a further 3lbs.

My weight is coming down at a nice even pace, all I have really changed in my diet, thus far is my activities – I am now carrying out my 30 minutes of daily exercise in the morning, I am also meeting my partner from work which is also taking another 20 minutes of exercising time, so I’m out and about for at least one hour.

This accompanied by the alteration of diet, I am now well into my first box of Weetabix, and today I will be picking another food to stop myself from snacking (or rather if I need to snack I can reach for this piece of fruit).  So without further a do this weeks healthy choice for me will be a banana.

Working Out

So with my head firmly set on the loss of 3lbs I got straight into my workout this morning, with some torso twists and some upper arm bends.  I did really well on both of these.  This was followed by some boxing taking me up to my first 10 minutes being completed.  With the body now fully awake and ready to get active I thought doing the step ups would be a great way in which to get my lower half moving.  

I’ve been talking about my partner at number one for a couple of days, well today I finally knocked her off her top spot with a score of 324 points, after a good 3 attempts at trying to beat her.  I then rounded off my second set of 10 minutes with carrying out a bit of hoola hooping.  I did 6 minutes overall, and I must admit my hips, back and joints were all clicking and crackling as I moved myself (or tried to) in a round about circular shape.

With both my left and right hip circles, looking a little better I got an excellent score and managed to, unknowingly, knock my partner off her top score with a massive 1500 spins .

Once complete, I went straight back into my boxing rounding off an excellent work out with not only beating my score but getting another star on the overall performance.

So this weeks exercising has achieved a 3lb weight loss and an excellent set of results for me.

Day 7: Back to it #blogboost

So it has been a week since I started doing all of this Wii fit exercising.  Over the weekend, I have to admit I didn’t think it all through.  As I didn’t eat healthy and as for cutting down on the alcohol well that didn’t happen either… so not a good end to a really progressive week.

Anyway, today I thought I would spend my 30 minutes doing a wide range of exercises, my sides weren’t hurting as much as they have been and I have to also admit I don’t feel as groggy as I have done these past few days.  So this morning normal routine, get the kids sorted, and the missus out the door – no need for me to pop to the shop this morning as we had done a weekly shop yesterday.

Once kids had been sent out the door, it was a case of have a bowl of weetabix and then get straight onto the Wii for my 30 minutes of exercising.  With that said, I unplugged the Xbox 360 and got myself onto the Wii balance board for what would prove to be a highly interesting and successful work out.

Last week I was talking about not doing too well on some the tasks, such as boxing and press ups, today was the reverse of this.  My boxing I did 3 or 4 times today resulting in 12 minutes of constant battling with a punch bag.  Each occasion I kept beating my previous score, I have gone from a score of 319 to 324 .  I’m really pleased with this.

Once I’d done this it was onto my twists and turns… now I didn’t beat my personal best however, I did do really well on the overall performance.  I then completed 20 reps on each arm of the upper arm stretch… which did rather hurt.  However, I did that and it felt really good to have achieved this.

I then thought, right let’s do some step ups, I had a good 3 or 4 tries at this… but I still have been unable to beat my partner at this…she still holds number one for this… but that will all change over the next couple of days.

After this it was a case of a quick go on the old hoola hoop, I did really well at this knocking one of my partners children off number one.  :D

Excellent work out and now ready to really start the day!!

Making a Start – #blogboost

As some of you know, we have been looking at trying to get ourselves a bit more healthier this year and unfortunately, thus far, we have been unable to achieve this due to one reason or another, perhaps it’s mainly excuses as to why we haven’t started the fitness regime.  The other area that also needs focus on is the diet, eating chips and sausages, although very tasty, doesn’t really do much for our bodies in terms of the whole fit body and leads to all sorts of complications.

So with this in mind, we thought, we would make a start on our fitness program by taking the following steps:

Water

If there is one thing on this planet that makes us all feel better after a really crap day in the office is Water.  So over the coming weeks we’ll be drinking quite a bit of this wet stuff.

Weighing In

We’ll be honest, we haven’t been on the scales since the end of New Year, why?? hmm well because we’re scared too, over indulging at Christmas is not uncommon.  So with this in mind, and with a deep breath we’ll be carrying out a weighing tomorrow, 17/01/2012 and subsequently every Tuesday there after – look out for our blog posts thereafter.

Exercising 

Ok so what exercising regime have we got, well in all fairness we haven’t got one, according to medical news, at least 30 minutes of exercise a day should be sufficient enough to keep things in check.  With this in mind we’re thinking of this sort of regime:

1. 5 Minutes warm up and some nice gentle exercises – the sort of stuff that really does hurt your back and arms – but gets you in the mood for the main bit
2. 10 Minute free style run – we were considering going out running – but upon checking for the whole running trainers and gear.. hmm we’re a bit short on this – so the Wii will have to do
3. 10 Minutes of hoop the hoop – aka circling your hips in a big circle mimicking the concept of a big ring around your body
4. 5 Minute worth of boxing, or punching thin air depending how you look at it.

So how are we going to get started on this well, we have been thinking about aiming to get up and about for around 0600 in the morning ready to start the day off with a good old exercising session followed by a nice healthy breakfast… toast anyone??

Healthy Eating

Ok, now lets look at this, we want to keep in good shape and the exercising will help, but how about the eating frontier.  Before we go into too much detail we should say we have a very sensitive stomach, and when we say sensitive we mean that.  So we’re planning on introducing a new food each week, substituting one meal per day with something healthy.

So here are the plans for the next 4 weeks, these will run Sunday-Sunday

• Week 1 (Jan 22nd Jan-28th): Weetabix will replace our traditional breakfast of nothing at all or something less healthy i.e. a fry up, we will also reduce our alcohol consumption.
• Week 2(Jan 29th Jan-Feb 4th) Introduction of one piece of fruit to subsidise snacking so a Banna will replace crisps and chocolate
• Week 3(Feb 5th – Feb 11th) Introduction of another piece of fruit possibly grapes, we will also cut down on quantity to decrease weight gradually
• Week 4(Feb 12th – Feb 18th): Brown bread introduced, we would like to point out that this maybe delayed due to the high fibre within.

We’ve also added a new category called weight loss – and you can track all of our progress within that category