Day 81 - Is exercise work? (Take 2)

YES! We all know this to be a fact after 3 months (or 51 days, or 20 days) of hard work. We're all seeing amazing results and feeling the payoff from our hard work. Is it worth the hard work? Well, I had this epiphany last weekend at the Tampa Bay Rays baseball game. I was sitting in the very last row, DD (opposite of my bra cup size). It was a good hike up stadium stairs to get to my seat. For me, it was easy. I bounced up the stairs without breaking a sweat. I mean, really, after pistol squats, floor jumps and the CREEP, what's a few stadium stairs? PUH-LEASE!

While sitting there, I started paying attention to the people around me. There was this woman, overweight, older. I watched her struggle to get up the stairs. Breathing heavy, as she got higher, she would stop at every step to catch her breath and work herself up for the next one. I really felt for her. I mean, she was working so HARD just to get to her seat at a baseball game. I observed her at least a couple times. She probably had to pee after drinking the bottomless 32 oz. soda in a souvenir cup. $8 for all you can drink soda till the end of the game. And, if you're sneaky, like my friends, you hide it in the bottom of your bag and drink bottomless soda for multiple games. 32 oz. of soda is a lot the first time 'round. Now, maybe if it were 32 oz. of bottomless beer....

Getting to the point. My epiphany was, we have a choice to either a) work hard at keeping an exercise regime and controlling our eating to maintain a good condition so that routine and fun activities are easy or b) sit on our butts, eat and drink whatever we want but sacrifice our health thereby making our routine and fun activities WORK. I know that there are various shades of grey in between these two options, but the older we get, the harder it is to choose option B and actually do the everyday things with ease. I don't know about you, but I want to be able to bound up those stadium stairs for a long time to come. Huffing and puffing up them looked like WAY too much work for me.

A sicky-poo update. I'm feeling at about 60-70% today. I did a 4/5 workout this morning. I actually feel good while I'm working out. It's after that I get tired and rundown. I came home early and slept another couple hours this afternoon. I plan on spending the weekend sleeping, sleeping and sleeping some more. No socializing this weekend. This will also make my bank account happy. Really, I think the key to keeping up the workouts while I recover from the cold is sleep. I hope tomorrow I'll be up to at least 80%.

On pull-ups. I'm so close. I'm there, really. It's just the last bit of the motion that I'm struggling to complete, getting my chin over the top of the bar. I've got my chin to a height that is above the bar. I've decided to drop the incline pull-ups completely and use a chair to help me do assisted pull-ups. I can use my legs to take some of the weight off the back and get in the full motion. I still reach failure using this method, and my back muscles, especially the ones to either side of the neck, were extra sore today. I WILL do one unassisted pull-up by Day 90.

Last but not least, if you just can't get enough of 8 minute abs guy, try 8 minute buns. BUNS!!! So 80s! I mean, his enthusiasm gets me every time. "Guaranteed to burn the buns!" "These are FUN!" "Squeeze tight and concentrate!" "What do you want the buttocks to look like?" "Your jeans are gonna look better in no time!" So much goodness! Are you sold? Did I just ruin it for you? I doubt it, it's just not the same without his spunkiness. :)