Fifth and Final Elliptical Update

Today marks the end of my very first Monthly Challenge and I have to say that I learned a lot! The things that I am most stuck by is how short a month actually is and how much working out doesn't suck! When I started this challenge I expected it to feel like it was never going to end and that it would be hard to motivate myself to keep it up but working out very quickly became part of my routine and didn't feel like a chore at all. I've lost just less than 10bs this month, which I am happy with, and I feel better overall. When I started this challenge on the low settings on the elliptical my heart was pounding out of my chest and I was gasping for breath, but now my heart pumps away happily and I just watch tv! I've also noticed this improvement in overall fitness in many other aspects of my daily life and I like it! It also feels really good to have laid out a challenge and to have met that challenge!

Looking forward I plan on keeping up the working out, probably not EVERY day, but I am planning on 4 days a week. I will post a little update here when I reach any important milestone with that effort. Thank you all for following me this far and be sure to check back tomorrow for the announcement of the next challenge!

Day 25 Saturday 1:00am:
Today we spent the day at Origins playing games late into the night so I didn't get to workout until 1am!

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	15:00
Calories	237

Day 26 Sunday:
We went back to Origins this morning and then spent 4 hours volunteering at ComFest in the evening. By the time we got home my legs were so sore I couldn't do the elliptical.

Day 27 Monday 10:30pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	15:00
Calories	228

Day 28 Tuesday 8:30pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	20:00
Calories	315

Day 29 Wednesday 10:30pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	15:00
Calories	229

Day 30 Thursday 1:30am:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	10:00
Calories	152

Fourth Elliptical Update

I weighed myself on Friday and I have lost an additional 2.2lbs for a total of 7.7lbs since I started this challenge! I am happy with that progress and hope to continue at that pace!

I have found that if I work out as soon as I get home it goes much better for me. I can do my workout, shower and then have a nice, relaxing evening. There are times when that doesn't work out for one reason or another, but I am going to try to do it that way as often as I can. I have noticed some visible change as well which is very encouraging! On to the details!

Day 18 Saturday 9:00pm:
I spent this day at the Columbus Pride Festival including marching in the parade which was a good distance. By the time I got home my legs were sore and I was tired so I counted the marching as my workout for the day. This made me realize that, in the future, I need to more clearly define my challenges and think through allowable deviations.

Day 19 Sunday 11:00pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	10
Time	20:00
Calories	324

Day 20 Monday 7:00pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	10
Time	30:00
Calories	487

Day 21 Tuesday 7:00pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	13:00
Calories	213

Day 22 Wednesday 10:40pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	15:00
Calories	231

Day 23 Thursday 11:00pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	20:00
Calories	316

Day 24 Friday 11:30pm:
It had been a very long week after a very busy weekend and I was just exhausted by Friday!

Crossramp	6
Resistance	11
Time	10:00
Calories	128

Third Elliptical Update

There were two days over this last week where I experienced a bit if a setback. I think was due to an adverse reaction from having an allergy test since the way they test if you're allergic to something is to inject some of the stuff you are most likely to be allergic to into your arm. The day of and the day after the allergy test I felt dizzy and light headed. There was even a moment when I was certain that I was going to pass out at my desk. I have never passed out so I could only guess that that was what was going to happen, but I stopped being able to hear and think and the room went kind of wavy and brown. I weighed myself and after losing 5 lbs last week I only seemed to have love 1/2 lb this week. I also decided that since I wasn't really making any progress with the higher resistance settings to dial that back a bit and increase the crossramp.

Day 11 Saturday 9:00pm:

Crossramp	4
Resistance	12
Time	13:30
Calories	238

Day 12 Sunday 10:30pm:

Crossramp	5
Resistance	10
Time	25:00
Calories	481

Day 13 Monday 11:00pm:

Crossramp	5
Resistance	10
Time	30:00
Calories	481

Day 14 Tuesday 10:00pm:
This was the day of my allergy test. Even though I only went for 5 minutes I stopped twice and had to force myself to start again!

Crossramp	6
Resistance	10
Time	5:00
Calories	72

Day 15 Wednesday:
This was the day that I almost passed out at my desk. Once I got home I couldn't bring myself to work out.

Day 16 Thursday 7:00pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	10
Time	15:00
Calories	252

Day 17 Friday 11:00pm:

Crossramp	6
Resistance	10
Time	15:00
Calories	242

Second Update

So this has been the first full week of my challenge and I have learned a lot! It turns out that there are a lot of tings that affect how your performance when working out! Some things that I have found that really negatively affect it are spending most of the day walking around in weather that is 90 degrees and nearly 90% humidity. Forgetting that you have to exercise and trying to do it at 1am really affects the next day! I have also found out that with just a little effort I have managed to improve my cardiovascular fitness significantly. Now the issues I run into are either that my legs get tired or I get really bored.

Day 3 Friday 11:30pm:

Crossramp	4
Resistance	6
Time	30:00
Calories	274

Day 4 Saturday 4:30pm:
I thought this was going to be my day! My wife and I had spent the morning at an arts festival and it was crazy hot but we came home and got some rest. I was getting an early start on my workout, I figured out how to put my name and height and weight into the elliptical. It was very nice and greeted me by name! But later I realized that it was being friendly so that I wouldn't suspect it when it tried to kill me! I put the setting on "Fat Burner" and it kept changing the ramp and resistance values and told me not to drop below 120 strides per minutes. I didn't make it very long that day!

Crossramp	??
Resistance	??
Time	13:00
Calories	146

Day 5 Sunday 10:30pm:

Crossramp	4
Resistance	10
Time	23:00
Calories	448

Day 6 Monday 10:45pm:
I came home from work and made a nice dinner. My wife and I watched some tv and cleaned up the kitchen. We put Bart (our Yorkie) and Gabriel (our rabbit) to bed. I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed myself when I remembered that I had not worked out yet! Talk about a test of resolve! But I managed, I went and ran on the elliptical.

Crossramp	4
Resistance	10
Time	20:00
Calories	324

Day 7 Tuesday 10:00pm:

Crossramp	4
Resistance	10
Time	30:00
Calories	448

Day 8 Wednesday 1:00am:
I was working on a project on my computer and before I knew it had happened it was after midnight! But I still had to run. I also decided that since I had done a fill thirty minutes yesterday that I should bump up the resistance.

Crossramp	4
Resistance	12
Time	15:00
Calories	235

Day 9 Thursday 10:30pm:
Exercising after not having gone to bed until almost 2am the previous night is hard!

Crossramp	4
Resistance	12
Time	13:30
Calories	236

Day 10 Friday 10:00pm:

Crossramp	4
Resistance	12
Time	20:00
Calories	326

Elliptical Mini-Update

I weighed myself this morning and I weighed 336.8 lbs, which means that in the first week of this challenge I have lost 5 lbs. I am going to start weighing myself on Fridays so that I can have the most recent information on my weekly posts. I just wanted to post this mini-update because I was excited by the progress!

First Update

It's already time for an update; this has been a short week! So far everything is going well, though I only have two days under my belt.

Day 1 (Wednesday 10:30pm):
I set the Elliptical to a Crossramp of 2 and a Resistance of 4 since I wanted to start out kind of easy to see how it went. I managed to go for 20 minutes and the computer said that I burned 161 calories.

Crossramp	2
Resistance	4
Time	20:00
Calories	161

Day 2 (Thursday 8:30pm):

I was feeling pretty good on Thursday so I decided to ramp it up a bit and see how that went so I put the Crossramp on 4, the Resistance on 6 and I managed to go for 21:00 burning 183. I started out pretty strong and feeling good but it got significantly harder as it went! I think that's a good thing though. I means I am going to get better at it!

Crossramp	4
Resistance	6
Time	21:00
Calories	183

I still have to do my run for today, but my wife and I are going to see a movie so it's going to be a bit late and I wanted to get this update out there. The update next week will have a lot more information and I should have a much better feel for how this challenge is going by then!

The Elliptical Challenge

I am a Software Engineer and that is a pretty sedintary profession. I wake up and sit in the car as I drive to work. While I work I sit at a desk until it's time to sit in the war and drive home. When I get home I usually either sit and watch television or sit at my desk and tinker about on my computer. This has lead to some weight gain. Recently I have been trying to lose weight by counting calories and making an attempt to eat right but I have decided that I need to pair this with some physical activity so, for my first monthly challenge I will run on the Elliptical everyday. It has been some time since I have done this so I am hoping to start out at 20 minutes per day and work up from there.

Rules:

1. I must run on the Elliptical every day.*
2. I must make make it a quality run, not just a bit to get it done.
3. I will keep track of the times that I ran and the calories burned during each run.
4. I will publish the above information in the weekly blog post along with any changes in weight.

Pertinent State:

I am 6'7" tall and at the beginning of this challenge I weigh 341.8 lbs.

* - For the purposes of this challenge a day will be defined as the time between when I wake up and when I go back to bed.