It’s a lucky thing I didn’t leave as planned. I ended up spending Monday at the hospital. I’m now on high blood pressure medication. Which is good, because it’s managing issues, but it’s hard not to be frustrated and let down by the fact my efforts in the last few months didn’t even dent my health issues. I guess I’ll have to try harder. My goal is to get off these medications in a year. We’ll see if I can manage it… I was told it’s possible, but that many people just go on the meds and have to stay on …
Tag: fitness & health
Weights, Endorphins, Bike
I’ve been lifting them, after increasingly long stints on the stationary bike. (Today was a half hour, which doesn’t sound long but a good chunk of that was on a high setting, simulating riding up an incline.) Then the weights. I use pretty much every machine there, but I’ve come to pay attention to what the rest of my body is doing when I used them. For example, my breathing — I had to learn to exhale when exerting, ie. when bench-pressing. I had to learn to firm my abdominal muscles so that they would support the work that my …
Random Things
Over the last eighteen months or so, I’ve become pretty good friends with my co-worker Gwen and her husband Mike. Well, they’ve just had their first baby, a little boy! (I’ve yet to visit, for various reasons including a niggling cold I wouldn’t want to pass on — though don’t babies have a strong immune system? Er, I dunno. I’ll call and ask Gwen.) Anyway, congratulations to them! And suddenly, the balance of weight has shifted back to me being the one who looks more pregnant. This afternoon I’ll be heading across campus to sign my contract for my current …
Hitting the Gym
I haven’t mentioned it here — unlike on Facebook — but I have been hitting the gym for a little while lately. While, yes, the endorphins actually do kick in once I’ve been doing it a while, and yeah, I do feel a bit healthier after a few days of it, I’ll be really honest: I hate exercising. Everything about it: the sweatiness, the aches and pains, the irritation to my very vulnerable Achilles tendons, the bother of going and doing it, the guilt that kicks in at not doing it (and not having done it enough for most of …
Damn You Little Old Ladies!
Damn you, little old ladies! How dare you hike up Wonmi Mountain at a pace that puts me to shame! Damn you and your smiling faces as you head back down past me, having passed me on the way up, while I’m still struggling along. Damn you, fellas with neon-yellow- and hot-pink-eared poodles who go along the mountain trails without a drop of sweat in sight, whilst I leave a veritable trail of stinky dew behind. Damn you, teenaged couple who, having reached the top, do not take ten minutes to stop dripping and catch you breath but immediately start …
Ran Like a Bastard
I took Lime to the campus gym. 20 minutes on the treadmill, 15 minutes on the bike. She forced me to do more stretching than I usually do, but that’s good: I ought to. I also did some weights — mostly upper-body stuff, mostly to pass the time while I cooled down. Tomorrow, I think I’d like to hike the mountain instead.
Walking
Went for a two-hour walk on the evening of the 4th with Lime, and a 1-hour walk on the evening of the 5th. We discovered a lovely little countryside-looking area right by the University — lots of stuff growing in fields, frog orchestras croaking like mad, trees all around. This is a good hint why the area is a lot cooler than usual. Anyway, LONG walks. We’ll be hitting the gym again soon, though.
Recommencing
I’ve started again, after way too long away. I never got a really satisfactory explanation of the whole continuous-awareness-of-heartbeat thing but anyway I’m less freaked-out about it now. Did 15 minutes on the treadmill and 20 minutes on the stationary bike. That’s enough for a first day back.
Not Bad, But Taking It Easy
I haven’t posted here in a distressingly long time. On Thursday, 28 December, I was finally finished grading and over the very congesting cold I’d caught, and I decided to go to the gym. I did 20 minutes of oscillating speeds on the treadmill, and about 10 minutes on the stationary bicycle. However, I’d been noticing something weird, which has prevented me from going back in the last few days. About my heartbeat — mostly that I’m aware of my heart beating in my chest something like 60%+ of the time these days, and that the slight tightness in my …
Not So Bad, For Sometime Tired
Twenty-some minutes on the treadmill and varying paces; some weights for the upper body; about five minutes on the exercycle (I couldn’t handle any more of it); and a bunch of situps. I’ve been havinf aches and pains since, from the weights, but they good aches and pains, not bad ones.