Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

Who doesn’t love bright, shiny bling things?  Whether its diamonds, an expensive watch or highly polished sports car, most of us are attracted to and want beautiful things.

I'm so tired of winter, especially the snow storms we've been getting lately. But one thing is for sure, you can get a good workout in just cleaning up the snow!

I was stupid… I thought I would be able to make the YMCA yesterday to work out. I received an email from the YMCA saying they would remain closed for the rest of the day. At first I thought, why can't they be open? Then I looked outside. OK, I'm going to be shoveling the rest of the day, who needs to workout after all the shoveling!

The strength training is going well, but I got kind of nervous when I stepped on the scale the other day. I've gained like 5 pounds, but from what I've been reading, and judging from what others have been telling me, it's supposed to go up some when lifting weights.

I think I'm not going to weight myself but maybe once a week. No need to concern myself over the numbers, as long as my clothes fit!

I just thought I would post an update on the personal training I'm doing at the local YMCA. So far, I'm liking the new workout. I do think it's going to work as I can feel the soreness in my muscles… I know I worked them hard today!

As I was discussing with the trainer, the cardio has been an important part of my workout for so long. It's really hard to make that transition to focusing more on weights. I mean, the treadmill helped me lose over 130 pounds, so it confuses my mind to know that I have to cut down my time on it. I've been advised to use the treadmill just 15 minutes on days that I don't do the strength training. On days that I do the training, I can only do the treadmill for 5 minutes. It makes me feel guilty, in a way, thinking I'm not getting enough exercise. I've been averaging 30 to 40 minutes most days of the week so it's a big change.

As many of you know, I was in a walking challenge sponsored by United Healthcare. I was also in the same challenge last year when they ran one in the fall of 2012.

Yesterday was the final day of this year's challenge, so how did I do? I don't want to reveal my total steps yet until they announce the winners but I did comparable to last year. Last time around I had over a million steps in ten weeks. This year, I stepped over 800,000 steps in eight weeks. If the challenge were 10 weeks like last year's challenge, I no doubt would have the million steps again.