This Week's Goals

Last week, I'm happy to say, I kept up with all my goals. I did not have any high calorie sodas, I only had sweets once (a mini dessert while dining out), I stayed away from fast food places, and I got in my three bouts of exercise that incorporated the resistance training for all my muscles.

I have to say, it was nice following my own advice in dealing with exercise. I really changed it up this week. I walked Buddy, I played some basketball, and I got in some time on the treadmill. Luckily, I recently got a gym membership so the facilities offered up a lot. The only thing that I did wrong was push myself a little too hard during the resistance training. It had been a long time since I had worked out my legs thoroughly and with that in mind, I should have started out pretty light. Instead I simply went in line with the intensities that all the other muscle groups received and have been paying the price the last couple days.

Though soreness is almost inevitable (especially when starting out a resistance routine), if you push yourself too hard too soon, the level of pain can get pretty high. In starting out a routine, you want to receive as many positive feelings from the experience as possible in order to increase the likelihood of future adherence. Being extremely sore for a couple of days after a workout is just another potential excuse for not continuing with an exercise regimen. Granted, you probably shouldn't do any resistance training on those muscles for that couple of days but it's no real excuse to avoid exercise altogether. You can continue with your cardio and continue resistance training on other muscles.

What I'm trying to say is that do not be afraid to take it easy in the beginning. I would actually suggest focusing more on setting up habits rather than worrying about seeing improvements. Once it has been a solid month or two of simply doing it, then you can think about bumping up intensities. This advice is for those of you that are simply trying to live a healthier lifestyle. Those that are training for an event or need/want to lose a certain amount of wait by a specific date, may not be able to afford such a gradual increase in intensity and I completely understand this. However, in these cases, there should still be some sort of progression and hopefully the goal at hand will be the extra motivation to keep them going.

Anyway, on to this week's goals. The goal that I want to add on to the dietary side of things would be to only eat out once a week. On the exercise side. I will be starting marathon training on Monday along with following the same guidelines for resistance training.

Wish me luck!