Thursday

I left my son home yesterday because I hate rushing through my workouts. Plus, he's not entirely happy with being left in the Child Care room since it's full of toddlers. Our school district doesn't start school until after Labor Day, but we're surrounded by renegade towns who have opted to start days before the long weekend. WTH?

The Nexersys is acting funky, but that's nothing new. It's not registering a lot of my kicks, and that's annoying because that lowers my Accuracy score. I'm not even wearing my leather trainers. Instead, I've decided to chance my feet with the raspberry Asics that are substantially stiffer than my "cardio" sneakers (older mesh Asics, and Rykas). The leather shoes are too uncomfortable when I'm pedaling the elliptical afterwards, and I'm not going to bring a second pair of trainers to the gym. That's just too crazy! My toes aren't happy that the Nexersys only registers front kicks when I use a pointed toe to hit the X on the lower pads. A ball of the foot strike just won't do it. In real life, I wouldn't use a pointed toe unless I was wearing boots.

Afterwards, I do 20 minutes on the elliptical just to get the kinks out of my hamstrings. It helps counter the abuse from doing Sweep and Knee movements. My arms are tired, and my shoulders even more so. Perhaps the Cuban DB Press is having this negative effect? My right elbow feels wonky and I'm barely able to get my nose to the bar for the 41st rep. Sigh. I've discovered that my hair will stay in place with a big toothy clip, although it's not pretty, or neat. But it keeps the hair out of my way when I'm punching and jabbing. Problem finally solved for the waist-length hair short of getting an actual haircut. I've trimmed my son's bangs because they were down to his nose. I warned him that it might make him look much younger, but he said it was okay. He just doesn't want a full haircut. So my son went from looking like a teenager, to looking like a little boy. Except he's still bigger than I am. But awfully cute.

In the locker room, I'm surrounded by middle-aged women who have just exited the Core X class. The instructor AM is busy telling them what they should eat, or not eat. She has a lot of rules. Women over 40 shouldn't have long hair because it doesn't look good. Women should never drink fruit juice. Only eat fruit sparingly. But she's also the person who talks about laying rice out on a sheet pan so that it doesn't clump. I'm Chinese. Rice is suppose to clump. It's how you eat it with chopsticks, or even a fork. You can't eat rice individually, unless you want to use a spoon. AM is my age but taller, and skinny. And in spite of teaching several conditioning classes like Body Pump, Core X and Cybo 45, she looks frail and worn. Maybe even undernourished.

She really doesn't appear to have any muscle tone but that could be misleading. I overhear the women talking about troubles falling asleep. One lady has resorted to sleeping pills and bourbon. And apparently that's okay with the group. I'm surprised but I keep silent. Because they're a hard-drinking group of grandmothers, and they look it. Never mind drinking chamomile tea and taking ZMA before bed. Never mind prone meditation. Another woman discusses making a watermelon punch while her friend admonishes her that it's a belly-flattening detox that she doesn't need. Good grief.

But I like watermelon, and the supermarket has seedless ones for under $4 this week. I've had a craving for watermelon salad lately, and it's a good substitute for tomatoes since they contain vast quantities of lycopene. I'm not concerned about my vitamin C levels. I am concerned about my weight creeping up, and I can see in the progression of selfies that it's probably subcutaneous fat. Ugh. Changing up my workout can't come too soon!

Thursday Workout

10 min X trainer
41 cal
1.27 miles
7.61 average speed

15 rounds kickboxing

20 min Precor
Prgm 3
1.62 miles
179 cal

HGPU 40.5

2.89 miles total cardio



Photos posted for actual stats

5 rounds Beginner (great warm up!)

5 rounds Intermediate (I've had better rounds)

5 rounds Advance (at least my power is good!)