Dang I Love Fridays!

I was really kind of sore and tired when I got up this morning, probably from yesterday's double cardio leg day AND last night's kickboxing class. But the thought of boxing the Nexersys is incentive enough, and before I can ponder the vagaries of winter weather, I'm at the gym. And because I'm a glutton for punishment, I start with Interval 8, the program I hate the most. I'm not on my favorite elliptical either so I know my mileage is going to suck. I'm just happy to make over four miles. And instead, of taking the win and running with it, or rather, running away with it, I punch in another 30 minute session and hit program Interval 7, which is waaay harder now because I'm already tired. I cut my self some slack and actually slow to a crawl, okay down to 150 Strides Per Minute (SPMs) during the troughs. I'm not used to losing so much ground. I hate the growing numbness in my toes, and my achy wrists. When time is up, I"m surprised to just miss four miles by a skosh. Okay, not so bad, and in total, I've still made my eight mile quota. Yay!

I do a brief stretch at the Cage and then plop myself in front of the Nexersys to wrap my hands. Last night at kickboxing, I just had my gloves and no time for wraps. I found myself pulling my punches because my knuckles were getting raw from sliding around inside. Mostly that class was an exercise in push ups and deep-knee bends with a few punches and roundhouse kicks tossed in for fun. I know from the Nexersys website that the machine can go to 15 rounds, but these here only go to 12 rounds. So I do 12 rounds of Follow Me, and follow it up with three rounds of Sparring. I stay with the Beginner Level because I'm hesitant to move into the Intermediate Level where knee and elbow strikes are required. I hate knee and elbow strikes because it requires being right up on the opponent, and I prefer to have a little space.

When I'm done, I'm so drenched that I don't want to lay down on the Mat. I just want to shower, so I actually skip Mat Stretch today. Egads! But the gym scale reads 110.4 lbs and I'm more than good with that. What's disturbing is that my home scale tells me that not only has my body fat increased (yeah, I can sort of see that in photos I've taken of my back and arms), but that my muscle mass has decreased, and so has my bone mass. Okay, now I think my scale is broken because the scale has always shown my bones to be 4.6 lbs. Sometimes 4.8 lbs. Today it says 4.4 lbs and that's the first time since I've owned this scale (just over a year). It tells me muscle percentage has dropped from 38-39% down to 36.5%. OMG, WTF?! Paranoia whispers that it's menopause wreaking havoc on my body and I immediately wonder if I'll wake up one morning as a middle-aged, rolly-polly dumpling of a woman. Good grief.

Friday Workout:
35 min Interval 8 = 4.29 miles (366.9 cal) + 35 min Interval 7 = 3.99 miles (341.1 cal) 
Grand Total = 8.28 miles Yay!

Nexersys: 12 rounds Follow Me Avatar program, Beginner Female
  Accuracy 86% / Strikes 103% / Avg Power 125%

Nexersys: 3 rounds Sparring Avatar program, Beginner Female
  Strikes 188% / Avg Power 82% / Points 875

I've done better in the Sparring program but it's been a while so overall, not bad. 

Photos posted for actual stats: