The Exercise Motivation Thread - 2016

[jtbo]

So as it was 8am of Christmas Day, I decided to fell a tree and this is how it looks:

25_12_2016_felling_a_tree.png

• jtbo
• Dec 24, 2016

Had issue with a chainsaw, so had to walk back up the hill to garage and try to find tools to fix the issue, then I continued to cut that large pine to rounds, so that it is easier to carry uphill to firewood processing area.

You might think that when felling and cutting a tree with a chainsaw it is not so heavy job, but it felt quite hard work for me, walking alone in snowy forest is lot more than walking stairs for example, chainsaw is close to 15 pounds then and it is constantly trying to bite your arm or leg so it is bit of wrestling with the thing :lol3:

e: First 30 minutes I spent sharpening the chain and refilling fuel + oil tank, still chain was not the best, but I got very bored doing that, doing it really well would take at least 45 minutes and my patience is not enough for such usually. I have sharpening machine, but it does not make chain really a sharp, I'm getting better results with filing by hand, however it is quite slow to do after cutting nails with a chainsaw...

 

[Norachan]

So as it was 8am of Christmas Day, I decided to fell a tree

Had issue with a chainsaw, so had to walk back up the hill to garage and try to find tools to fix the issue, then I continued to cut that large pine to rounds, so that it is easier to carry uphill to firewood processing area.

You might think that when felling and cutting a tree with a chainsaw it is not so heavy job, but it felt quite hard work for me, walking alone in snowy forest is lot more than walking stairs for example, chainsaw is close to 15 pounds then and it is constantly trying to bite your arm or leg so it is bit of wrestling with the thing

 

That sounds like a very romantic way of spending Christmas morning JTbo. I imagine your lifestyle to be a lot like a modern day version of The Revenant, with chainsaws to wrestle instead of bears.

No snow here at the moment but it's very cold. The ground water freezes and pushes out of the forest floor in ice crystals, looks like flowers coming out of the earth.

Walked for 90 minutes today.

 

[Norachan]

90 minutes yoga today. Too cold and windy to go for a walk.

 

[Norachan]

One hour of yoga and two hours of wet and muddy walking today.

Walking in the mud burns more calories, right?

 

[jtbo]

One hour of yoga and two hours of wet and muddy walking today.

Walking in the mud burns more calories, right?

Of course, walking on the swamp burns even more as it is mud in steroids and here most of the forest floor is more or less swamp.

 

[Winchester]

Started walking again on Wednesday.....we were both off work for the holiday and busy doing holiday-related things. So while I didn't officially get any walking in, we were at stores and doing shopping and cleaning house, etc. I know, it doesn't count, but we were still busy.

Wednesday: 2.5 miles on the treadmill and 3 miles walked during lunch

Today: 3.5 miles on the treadmill, nothing during lunch (I am working over lunch and leaving work early today)

I also started wearing my Fitbit Blaze. I like it, although it's taking some time to get used to it. I'm trying to get in some extra steps every hour, in addition to my walking. I have the Blaze set to notify me 10 minutes before the end of every hour between 9 and 6 to tell me to get off my butt and get in 250 steps. It may not sound like much, but I sit at my desk a lot during the day, so every little bit helps. I also started wearing my Fitbit to bed again (I had stopped), to see where I'm at for sleep. While I seem to stay asleep this week during the night, I'm very restless during sleep.

Rick slept out on the sofa in the living room one night; he's off work this whole week, so he's staying up later at night and then in falls asleep in front of the tv. Anyway, the night that he slept on the sofa, I didn't awaken once. Nor did I have much in the way of restless times. I pretty much slept straight thru and I don't do that very often anymore. We think it was because Jackie was in the living room with Rick, so there wasn't anything to wake me up during the night.....the cats must have even been more tired than normal, because they were pretty much down all night long, too. Molli, Tabby, and Muffin were all still sleeping in bed with me when I got awake the next morning. That doesn't happen often. Usually around 4:00 or so, the cats start to stir.

Anyway, the Blaze gives different exercise choices. So if I'm on the treadmill, I can hit Treadmill on the watch and set it. If I'm walking outside, I can hit Walk and set that. And when I'm doing weights, I can hit Weights. It has Elliptical, too. That's pretty neat. It seems to be keeping track OK. I want to check it on Elliptical and see how it does. I know, it's not perfect, but it's what I have.

It also shows my resting heart rate. Interestingly, on the days that I make it a point to walk, my resting heart rate is lower overall than on days when I don't walk. I guess that's a good enough reason to get in a good walk every day.

 

[jtbo]

It was so hard, heavy, slow ride yesterday:

bike_ride_28_12_2016.png

• jtbo
• Dec 29, 2016

6 times had to stop as that car tire track was narrow and always had to stop and put foot to ground in order not to fell over, when front tire did go little bit side to car tire track, of course there was new snow on top so that tire track could not be seen very well.

Found nice new motivational music though, band called Hysterica, not sure if their songs are 100% family safe though, but they do sound really good, some girrrl power, look it up from YT if you would want some extra motivation

 

[Norachan]

Mr Husband rode Fujikaze.

Horses37.JPG

• Norachan
• Dec 29, 2016

Sou and Fu are both intact. They like to sidle up to each other then squeal and jump sideways. Boys!

@Winchester  That new Fitbit sounds good. Glad to hear you've been able to sleep a bit better.

 

[jtbo]

Started walking again on Wednesday.....we were both off work for the holiday and busy doing holiday-related things. So while I didn't officially get any walking in, we were at stores and doing shopping and cleaning house, etc. I know, it doesn't count, but we were still busy.

Wednesday: 2.5 miles on the treadmill and 3 miles walked during lunch
Today: 3.5 miles on the treadmill, nothing during lunch (I am working over lunch and leaving work early today)

I also started wearing my Fitbit Blaze. I like it, although it's taking some time to get used to it. I'm trying to get in some extra steps every hour, in addition to my walking. I have the Blaze set to notify me 10 minutes before the end of every hour between 9 and 6 to tell me to get off my butt and get in 250 steps. It may not sound like much, but I sit at my desk a lot during the day, so every little bit helps. I also started wearing my Fitbit to bed again (I had stopped), to see where I'm at for sleep. While I seem to stay asleep this week during the night, I'm very restless during sleep.

Rick slept out on the sofa in the living room one night; he's off work this whole week, so he's staying up later at night and then in falls asleep in front of the tv. Anyway, the night that he slept on the sofa, I didn't awaken once. Nor did I have much in the way of restless times. I pretty much slept straight thru and I don't do that very often anymore. We think it was because Jackie was in the living room with Rick, so there wasn't anything to wake me up during the night.....the cats must have even been more tired than normal, because they were pretty much down all night long, too. Molli, Tabby, and Muffin were all still sleeping in bed with me when I got awake the next morning. That doesn't happen often. Usually around 4:00 or so, the cats start to stir.

Anyway, the Blaze gives different exercise choices. So if I'm on the treadmill, I can hit Treadmill on the watch and set it. If I'm walking outside, I can hit Walk and set that. And when I'm doing weights, I can hit Weights. It has Elliptical, too. That's pretty neat. It seems to be keeping track OK. I want to check it on Elliptical and see how it does. I know, it's not perfect, but it's what I have.

It also shows my resting heart rate. Interestingly, on the days that I make it a point to walk, my resting heart rate is lower overall than on days when I don't walk. I guess that's a good enough reason to get in a good walk every day.

Muscle doesn't know why it is contracting, energy doesn't know why it is being used, of course any movement counts!

Even if you don't burn quite as much energy when walking in supermarket than what you burn in threadmill, remember that time it is power multiplied by the time, you must walk really fast for 30 minutes to get same energy burn as when you walk 2 hours shopping, then intensity might be even better for fat burning when walking in shops as harder you push, more it helps with fitness and less with fat burn, it is burning carbs vs burning fat.


@Norachan, walking on snow burns lot more calories than walking on solid surface, there has been hills that I barely have been able to get up walking when snow happens to be most annoying type, 5cm is enough to make walking really difficult then, kind where is icy layer on top and tiny ice spheres under that is really frustrating to walk on as taking step normally will result only foot sliding.

I guess it is so with bicycling too, it tends to get bit heavy when there is snow, but also spike tires at low pressure are adding a lot of resistance, it is very annoying during the winter, but at spring when I swap normal tires, that all pays off.

 

[Winchester]

Muscle doesn't know why it is contracting, energy doesn't know why it is being used, of course any movement counts!

Even if you don't burn quite as much energy when walking in supermarket than what you burn in threadmill, remember that time it is power multiplied by the time, you must walk really fast for 30 minutes to get same energy burn as when you walk 2 hours shopping, then intensity might be even better for fat burning when walking in shops as harder you push, more it helps with fitness and less with fat burn, it is burning carbs vs burning fat.


@Norachan, walking on snow burns lot more calories than walking on solid surface, there has been hills that I barely have been able to get up walking when snow happens to be most annoying type, 5cm is enough to make walking really difficult then, kind where is icy layer on top and tiny ice spheres under that is really frustrating to walk on as taking step normally will result only foot sliding.

I guess it is so with bicycling too, it tends to get bit heavy when there is snow, but also spike tires at low pressure are adding a lot of resistance, it is very annoying during the winter, but at spring when I swap normal tires, that all pays off.

That makes sense, JTbo. I just need to make sure that I do something every day. That should be my New Year's resolution, to do something every day. I'm really going to make an effort to get those 250 steps in every hour that I can, especially during the time I'm at work, simply because of sitting on my duff. (I also need to re-start yet again another exercise routine.)

4 miles on the treadmill this morning. 

Norachan, those boys are beautiful! 

 

[foxxycat]

Got 20 minutes of light jogging in place done. Didn't make it to the gym this week. I was down with a medical issue and wasn't able to workout.

Yesterday I wanted to go after work but it was snowing and just wanted to bug out to my home and get off the road with the crazies.

Tonight gonna do the gym and tomorrow shovel snow off the roof.

Once we get back to work I can resume my normal gym routine of 4 times a week. So far I have held my weight steady. I have ate some junk but I have been eating light calorie lunches to try to make up for it.

The holidays disrupt my routine so much. I almost don't like time off because I become a slug and of course with the issue I had to deal with there was no way I was exercising. Fun time!

 

[jtbo]

Combine these two images, that is nearly perfect bike ride

icy_road.png

• jtbo
• Dec 31, 2016

bike_ride_31_12_2016.png

• jtbo
• Dec 31, 2016

Pulling wheelie on ice? Why not, because it is possible it has to be done!

wheelie_on_ice.png

• jtbo
• Dec 31, 2016

Sadly not all places were quite as fun, there were places where no one had visited during whole winter, but as snow melted quite a bit yesterday it was quite easy to ride on.

 

[jtbo]

I guess we would need new thread for this year?

I don't like how Polar's web service sometimes scales altitude stupid way, this time it was ok (I would prefer scale to be locked to 300 meters), same route as in previous post, but I rode only half of it today, altitude graph from yesterday just makes you think that it would be almost flat, when today's altitude graph looks much more real:

bike_ride_1_1_2017.png

• jtbo
• Jan 1, 2017

 

[Norachan]

I guess we would need new thread for this year?
 

I think you're right.

New thread here. I'll lock this one now.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/332020/the-2017-exercise-motivation-thread