The Gym Versus the Weather

For these last couple of weeks, my workout story has been mostly about the weather.  It's been cold and snowy.  Some days, it was not about desire or motivation.  It became about clearing a path through the snow.  Last week, I cleared my driveway three times.  As I type this post, the temperature is -4 degrees F.

Fortunately, when I've made it to the gym, I've been able to do some quality workouts.  I even reached a few personal bests:  I worked through the entire stack of plates on the pec deck, curled 110 lbs on the preacher curl bench and moved up to 40 lbs on my standing dumbbell flies.

My diet has been okay.  I made better choices and practiced portion control.  My weight seems to have plateaued again.  I'm considering doing seven to ten days of Daniel's Fast to get things moving again.  For now, I'll continue to tweak the plan and stay the course.  Full disclosure:  I did treat myself to a late dinner splurge meal on the way home from a dance, last Friday evening.  It was a decadent and delicious Po' Boy with Cajun chips.  I regret nothing! LOL!

I upgraded my phone to a Samsung Note 4.  It came with S-Health fitness apps installed.  I've turned on the pedometer to track my steps.  The goal is to reach 10,000 steps per day.  That's been pretty hard to accomplish in this weather.  I'm averaging about 4,000 steps per day, not counting the steps in my fitness classes.  The app sends a notification if I'm inactive for a long period and reminds me to move.  This has come in handy at work, where I ride a desk.  I get up and walk for a couple of minutes instead of sitting.  I've also used the heart rate monitor.

Overall, I feel good about how things are going.  It's great to feel strong and healthy.   I thought about that on trash day, oddly enough.  In the first picture, you can see some trash bins.  I'd piled up so much snow from shoveling that I couldn't reach my tree lawn from the sidewalk to place the trash bin.  I took the bin to the street side, grabbed it by the bottom and the handle that the garbage truck uses to empty it.  I then hoisted it onto the snow mound.  The shape of the bin made the lift a little awkward, but the weight was not a problem.

Well, now I need to decide whether I'm going to brave this wind chill warning of -25 to -30 degrees and hit the gym or do a more limited set at home with the weights that I have here.  To be honest, home gym is looking pretty good!

Reps and steps!