March 13 Update

I have good news, and Bad news... 

The Bad News is that shortly after making that last post I came down with a really bad cold, and ended up opting out of working out for about a week while I recovered - this also included staying home from my pump and Groove class on Tuesday, because I had a horrific sinus headache (that even kept me home from work for the first time in 2 years as well).  All in all, I felt pretty crappy about the whole thing, not just the cold, but not being able to work out - I love working out.  I love how I feel when I workout, and I love feeling sore muscles the next day, and feeling my body change.  So going without that for the last week has had me a little down, however I don't regret taking the time off, because my cold only lasted a week, and I'm almost 100% right now as I type this, so clearly in taking the time off and allowing myself to get better greatly reduced the amount of time I was stuck feeling like crap. 

Now here's the Good News!  I have both maintained weight and inches lost through my sick week, so I didn't take two steps forward one step back, and now I have to do some catch up, I'm continuing on right from where I was!  I can deal with that.  Sure I didn't lose anything, but I didn't gain anything either, and I'm okay with stats like that. 



On Friday (once I was feeling much better, obviously) I proposed a challenge to myself - I wrote up a Facebook status that said "For every Like this status gets between now and 9am Saturday, I will do 3 pushups...Go"  in hindsight that was probably a mistake....

Within 10 minutes I had over 20 likes.  By that evening I was up to 40, and by the time I woke up the next morning, and counted down to 9am, I was sitting at a whopping 51 Likes.  Yup.  51 Likes...  that's 153 Pushups. 

... What have I done?  Looking back, 1 pushup for every like probably would have been more doable...  especially when some of my friends were sharing my facebook status, so as many people as possible would like it...  Bastards! 

The most pushups I've ever done in one continuous time was 38 - and it was military style, when I was a good 25 pounds lighter, and did pushups on every workout.  These days I'm doing about 11 pushups Military Style before my arms shake uncontrollably and I drop to my knees.  However I can do a decent amount on my knees.  So even though initially I was going to try my damndest to do all the pushups on my toes, once the numbers got past 20 I knew that wasnt' possible, so I resolved to do "girly" pushups for now. 

I also decided that I needed to break the 153 into 3 pushup sessions of 51 each, as I knew there was no way I could do all 153 in one day! 

On Sunday, Ben and I went for a nice 4K walk around out block, and when we return, I set up the video camera, and did my first set of 51 pushups.  I was actually surprised at how well I was doing, I got to about 46 before my arms started shaking, but with a little struggling, and some gasping, I pushed through to 51.   However in looking at the video, I probably could go down lower.  That's the thing about a lot of moves, you don't know how your form looks unless you have a large mirror, or a video camera handy. 

Don't get me wrong, I still go low enough for my arms to be in line with my shoulders in a right angle before lifting up again, but I'm not touching my chest to the floor, like I potentially should. 

That was actually the first and only thing Ben said about my accomplishment "you're not going low enough - I think you are going to be called on that"  Not, "Good for you, doing 51 consecutive pushups!"  Just that I didn't go low enough.  Oh well. 

In watching this video above - you can see that when she does the pushups from the side, she doesn't go all the way down - that's how I did my push-ups, however when they change the view from the front, you can see she is now going all the way to the floor.  Meh, I'll try to work on going lower to the floor, but in the meantime I'm not re-doing that first set.  They still count as far as I'm concerned. 



Last night, there was no workout, because just as we got home, we got a call from friends of ours inviting us to go to the Oilers game with them, so we ate and left.  We ended up getting home about 10:30, and I went right to bed.  No time for a workout there.

Tonight however, is another Pump and Groove class (my second last actually - but I do have a class I can makeup as a result of missing Pump and Groove last week, so I think I'll drop in to something later this week).  I'm excited for Pump and Groove, I quite like the class, I love the workout I get, and the fact that I end up whimpering near the end of the toning sessions!  I found that because I workout so often, some of the classes don't quite give me the burn that I crave.  Sure I sweat.  But I sweat in a warm room when I'm sitting perfectly still too - I want the sore muscles, the burn!  The Fatigue!  I love it!  Pump and Groove does that for me!  I can't wait!