Last week, I wrote about my family's aspirations to eat healthier and shared some of my meal ideas. I'm happy to report that both my husband and I have lost several pounds already and are getting tantalizingly close to our goal weights. Aaron is resisting carbs, while I'm just trying to eat a balanced diet to fuel my newly active lifestyle. Aaron has shared that he feels healthier without sugar in his diet. This isn't to say that he hasn't craved carbs at all, because he definitely has, but the trick has been to stay busy so that he doesn't have time to think about food. And luckily, BBQ fits within his diet, so we were able to splurge on Rudy's last night. Mmmmm.
On the fitness front, I have a new Polar heart rate monitor and am trying a different training approach to prepare myself for an upcoming 5K. I'm doing target heart rate training for cardiovascular/aerobic fitness, using the monitor to keep my heart rate between 70 and 80 percent of its max. A couple days a week I will push to 80-90% for an interval workout. So far, I've found that I can't see progress as easily as I did when I just pushed myself as hard as I could, and I tend to get frustrated when my heart rate forces me to slow down. However, I think this approach will have a more significant benefit in the long run than pushing myself too hard and exercising at an anaerobic level that produces lactic acid, etc. I also appreciate being able to see how many calories I'm burning-- it's pretty motivating!
I'll try to remember to keep you posted on our progress.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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3 comments:
What kind of interval sets are you doing?
@dave - Since I don't run on a track, I can't really do my intervals the official way, with consistent distances (like one lap). I guess what I'm doing is more like fartleks. I mostly keep my heart rate between 70-80% of max, but every few minutes I run harder (@80-90% hr max) for about a minute, then back off again.
I do timed intervals, which works out quite well. Right now I'm on 10 sets of 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest. Do that about 5 times and it just kinda kills you dead.
It is of course a last step of a step-by-step interval program, it started off with like 5x 90/30
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