Why am I doing this?
Well....I don't think I gained the freshmen 15, although my butt was looking a little bigger than usual these past few months. It's really my injury (I sprained my foot and my ankle), and being on crutches and in a wheelchair for the past 2 months, that I think really made me gain the weight. (A lot of my blogposts recently have been about my daily struggles and my healing process, so please go check them out!) I went to the doctor over Thanksgiving break (yes, before the feast) and found out that I weighed 10-15 pounds more than I usually do. I've never gained that much weight in such a short amount of time in my entire life, so I've been a little humiliated about it. Instead of being upset and grumpy about it, I've decided to do something about it. My physical therapist cleared me to go to the gym and do things like ellipticals at my last appointment, and I've been itching to go to the gym for my entire injury, so off I was today!
It's also about to be the start of finals (mine start Thursday), so I have tons of nervous energy about that that I'd rather get out in the form of exercise than eating everything in my room. I've just had a lot of energy in general lately as well, because I've been unable to move for so long. I also was able to walk across campus without my crutches today - I've been taking just 1 crutch with me for long cross-campus journeys lately, but today I got myself up the hill to a cappella practice without it, and I was thrilled, so I just kept going!!!
What did I wear to the gym?
My friend Emily said my skin looked really clear today when I wasn't wearing makeup (thank you St. Ives Green Tea scrub!), so I didn't want to jinx it, plus exercising with foundation on probably isn't the best for your skin, so I went bare-faced, after I moisturized my skin and put on a Color Whisper lip balm. It made my lips look shiny and had a little bit of sparkle, so I didn't feel completely naked.
For my hair, I just French-braided it to keep my hair out of my face, and had a lace-and-elastic headband that looked a little fancy that I put on to keep away flyaways. Surprisingly, all of my hair stayed put the entire time I was there.
For clothes, I wore some athletic, smooth-fabric leggings that I got at JC Penney, ankle socks, the New Balance sneakers that I've been wearing everyday for support for my injury, 2 sports bras (none of mine have padding and my boobs are on the erm...jiggly-er side....so Miranda thought it would be a good idea for me to double up. I need a new one for Christmas that actually has support! Does anyone have suggestions about where to find such a thing?), and a boxy t-shirt that I sometimes wear to bed. I was getting suuuuper hot while working out, and probably had some horrendous pit stains, so next time I think I'll wear a wife-beater style tank top. God knows I have plenty.
The work-out:
I originally planned to be there for 45 minutes, 15 minutes on 3 different machines. I ended up being there for about 1 hour and 10 minutes...I always surprise and out do myself once I actually get on the machines! Here are the workout summaries from the machines:
The Bicycle
I started out on the seated bicycle, to ease into it for my foot's sake. I ended up spending 20 minutes on this machine, instead of 15, and I burned 99 calories and went 3.47 miles! Whew! The resistance was pretty high, so my legs definitely felt like they were building muscle.
Arc Trainer Elliptical
I actually did two rounds on this one because it's my favorite, and once wasn't enough. I put my goal as 175 calories, which I got to pretty fast. The above two pictures are from the first time on this machine. I burned 175 calories, went .95 miles, and my average spins per minute was 116! I can't remember and it's not in the picture, but I think this workout took me around 20 minutes. I put it on the "Glute Camp" workout because I have a thing for improving my butt. The inclination goes up and down the entire time, so you have some variety to keep you interested.
Arc Trainer round two
On my second round of this, I set the time for 15 minutes, went .77 miles, and burned 134 calories! I burned about 40 calories per 5 minutes, and then the last 2 minutes were a cool down. I was going pretty fast this time around, and my average spins per minute was higher, at 138.
Treadmill
I was pretty exhausted after 35 minutes on the elliptical, but I decided to do a slow cool down on the treadmill. I had it at a pretty steep inclination for the benefit of my butt, which was around 9.0 as you can see in the first blurry picture. The highest I went was a speed of 3.5, which was like extreme fast walking. I don't usually run or jog on treadmills anyways, just walk really fast, and especially with my foot I didn't want to push it. I was just going to do 5 minutes, but I was having fun so I ended up doing 8 minutes, had an average speed of 3.0, went .4 miles, and burned 62 calories. They were kind of like free calories because it wasn't very hard work at all
Total workout summaries:
Total distance gone: 5.59 miles (WOW)
Total time: 63 minutes or 1 hour and 3 minutes.
Total calories burned: 470 - that might be an all-time per gym trip record for me! WOOOO!
My goal is to go everyday this week while it's finals, since I probably won't have gym access at home, unless I re-activate my membership which I'm sure will be a pain in the ass. The exception will be tomorrow, since I'm packed with mandatory things all day long! (Unless I wake up at around 9 and go...hmm...), so maybe that's why I went extra hard today!
But the workout doesn't end there folks...
I power walked back to my dorm since it's freezing out tonight, and did my ab routine. I did a little extra than I usually do, and you can compare my usual routine to tonight's below:
Regular ab routine (I've done it about 3 nights this week): this usually only takes me the length of one song, so 3-4 minutes
15 regular crunches
15 crunches to right
15 crunches to left
*Stretch out*
7 criss crosses
Today's ab routine: it took me about the length of 2 songs, so 5-6 minutes
15 regular crunches
15 crunches to left (right elbow touches left knee)
*Stretch out*
15 crunches to right (left elbow touches right knee)
15 regular crunches
*Stretch out*
15 criss crosses (lying flat on your back, you point your toes and cross your legs over each other repeatedly until your body is at a 90 angle, and then you cross them again until they're just about to hit the floor- the lower you go, the stronger the stretch. Up and down once counts as 1)
*Stretch out*
Sitting up at a 90 degree angle, I did 15 crunches laying my body flat down on my legs. (I'm not sure how much exercise this really is, but my muscles definitely felt stretched doing it!)
The gym was practically empty when I got there, which I took a panorama of. A few more people joined me on the top floor as time went on, though.
I think that's it for today! I had a few more topics I wanted to talk about, but since this is long enough already, I'll just include them in the post next time I do a Fitness Diary post- hopefully tomorrow or Monday! I picked up a salad on the way home, even though I wasn't hungry after my workout at all. I've barely eaten all day, so that's weird. It's in my fridge though, for whenever I want a midnight snack.
What is your workout like when you go to the gym/ if you do one at home? LET ME KNOW, we can be virtual gym buddies <3
I also uploaded a beauty video today on my channel!
Thank you SO much for reading!
xox, Elle
MissGlamBam.com
Youtube Beauty Guru & Blogger
ooh I love a fitness blog post! I'm too lazy to workout properly at home so I tend to buy workout DVDs and use weights
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Mariah
xoxo
Yay I'm really glad you like it! I also just started watching videos by Blogilates on Youtube..she does the entire workout with you! I did the Skinny Leggings one!
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