Healthy Me

After a few days of feeling discouraged, I exercised tonight and I feel wonderful! I did TURBO JAM DVD by Beachbody tonight. It includes several workouts. I grabbed a bottle of water, squeezed some fresh lemon juice into it, and put the 20 Minute Workout in. I like the boxing and the music. It's actually fun to do (and I usually hate exercising). You can choose whether you want to do high impact or low impact. It really gets your heart pumping. I love the way I feel after I exercise! It's just the "getting motivated" part that has me stumbling but once I do it, I really enjoy how I feel afterward. Now that I'm sitting still, I can feel it through the abs! Yeah! This is supposed to work the abs without having to get on the floor with the usual sit-ups.

Here is what's on the Turbo Jam Beach Body DVD (taken from Amazon):

Turbo Jam's Chalene Johnson packs each workout with calorie-blasting kickboxing, body sculpting, and the hottest dance musicall guaranteed to give you jaw-dropping results, no matter what your fitness level. INCLUDES 3 WORKOUTS ON 1 DVD:

• WORKOUT 1: LEARN & BURN (25 minutes) - Start blasting pounds and inches right from the start as Chalene leads you through her signature "Elite 11" moves. Also includes an amazing 15-minute ab routine.
• WORKOUT 2: 20 MINUTE WORKOUT - Pump up the volume with this calorie-burning workout featuring some of the hottest music around. You'll see fast results that will keep you motivated and coming back for more.
• WORKOUT 3: TURBO SCULPT (40 minute) - Tighten and tone your muscles using Chalene's signature moves. Get sculpted abs and glutes, strong arms, and lean legs with this fun and innovative workout.
  

I haven't done too well the last couple of days. I haven't binged on anything...nothing like that. I just didn't do anything to make my health better.

I asked my husband the other day if it was better to do MORE sit-ups and hold them for less time or LESS sit-ups and hold them for more time. He said less. OK, that's what I thought. So I only did 15 sit-ups the other day, holding them for a count of ten. I thought that was pretty mild stuff. Hubby said I was overdoing it and was going to hurt myself. *pick up chin off the floor* I only did 15! That's discouraging to me. I think I know when I can feel that I am hurting myself and believe me, I am the last person in the world that is going to push myself so hard, fitness-wise, and cause damage. I'm lazy! I didn't think 15 was that big of a deal. I was actually going to do a set of 15 a couple times a day, every other day, but I didn't tell him that after I got a lecture after only doing the first set.

The last time I started exercising, he thought ten minutes of Turbo Jam was too much and I was going to hurt myself. My face gets red easy so maybe that's why he's so worried. He sees that as over-exertion. I am very pale so ANY change in blood flow is going to show. A couple of our kids are the same way so you'd think he'd realize? *sigh* I got discouraged and put it away. I didn't want a lecture every time I took the DVD out or talked about it. He was overweight as a child and his family thought it was "cute" - - you would think he would be the one person who would understand the need for encouragement?

It just gets discouraging. I am not a fitness buff. At all. I need encouragement! I don't think he wants me to remain 20-25 pounds overweight? I don't know. Maybe he likes the extra weight it brings to my chest, lol. Just kidding. Maybe.

What I don't get is this: Why are 15 sit-ups too much but he has no problem with me shoveling snow. My husband knows I won't leave it (like he would leave the snow...he just four wheel drives over it)? Boy if he could have felt my heart rate this morning! I went out there today and only got a small section shoveled, big enough for the mail car, so the mail could be delivered today (about 3 ft. deep that the road crews pushed into our driveway) before I felt like my heart was going to explode and felt nauseous. I had to stop before I sent myself to the ER with an asthma attack. Shoveling snow is a lot harder on my body than 15 sit-ups!

I don't understand. I just get discouraged.

I've added a weight change ticker to my blog so I can track where I am in relation to my goal weight loss. I've also decided that instead of just keeping a daily blurb on my sidebar to the right about what I did that day, I'd also leave up several previous days' worth. Maybe it will encourage me to build on what I put up the day before. (Here's hoping anyway.)

What I should do is take some measurements so I have a starting point. Will have to think about that one - if I want to go there!

Have you ever thought about the cows milk that we drink and how we are the only species that drinks another species' milk?

Kind of gross when you think of it that way.

I am up in the air about the necessity of drinking milk everyday. I know it hurts my stomach and the doctor says I am not supposed to be drinking it. I also know when I stopped drinking it for several days, I saw very noticeable improvement in my asthma. It makes me wonder.

Then there is the whole pasteurization thing. I did a post about the controversy over raw milk last year.

I wish there were some concrete answers as to whether once we go past the breastfeeding age, if it is healthy for us to continue to drink the milk of another species or if we should be getting the nutrients we get from milk from other sources.

Think about this: How many babies have been allergic to cow's milk as infants? Two that I know of personally within the family alone. Now, how many babies have you heard of that were allergic to their mother's milk? Perhaps we aren't supposed to drink cow's milk. ? I wonder.

~*~*
While I'm posting, my "once a day health booster" for today was sit-ups. Ouch. Those didn't feel very good. I guess that means I should be doing more of them.

According to an article in USA Today and the Chief Medical Editor of WebMD, 80% of infections are transported by touch. What does this tell you?

YOU HAVE TO WASH YOUR HANDS!

It's amazing (and kind of gross) how many people don't do this.

According to this article:

"Here's the drill: Scrub vigorously with water and soap until lather appears, making sure to get between your fingers and fingernails. Use a nail brush if you have one. Briskly dry with a towel.

Do it often and you'll stay a lot healthier — 24% less like to get a respiratory illness and 45% to 50% less likely to get a stomach bug, the World Health Organization says."

Not only should you wash your hands after using the restroom, you should wash after handling anything that others have handled for at least 20 seconds vigorously with lots of friction.

We don't have nail brushes and I'd hate to see what kind of germs would be living on those after four kids got done with using it once. That leaves a new issue of how to keep nail brushes sanitary in a bathroom environment - far from the most sanitary room in your house. Each person would have to have their own plus have some type of sanitizing procedure for each brush after it was used. I can't imagine how many kids we'd be able to get to do that! I also can't imagine how many busy moms would be hitting the bathroom after each child to do it for them. Then there is the "dropping them on the bathroom floor" like kids do, etc.

I hope vigorous washing is enough because there's no way I can see us having six nail brushes used and regularly kept sanitized in our bathroom.