150 minutes...and I'm a new woman

That's how long my workout was today. Let's face it, it was a hell of a week for me. I had a lot of frustration and anger going on, and I wasn't in a very good place when I woke up this morning. I was moping around, all teary-eyed. Finally at noon I decided to go to the gym. My husband thought it was a great idea. Go, take your time, and come home when you're back to being you.  

I was at the gym until almost 3 p.m. A full 2 1/2 hours of working out. I've never done that in my entire life. Maybe two hours, but that's rare. Usually after one hour I can't wait to get out of there.

Today I started out on the elliptical, usually I only do 30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes weights. My mind was on this guy and how he often does a full 60 minutes on the elliptical. I've never understood how he does it because even though I have great music on my iPod, I'm bored out of my mind after 30 minutes. 

Today I did my 30 minutes, then thought, let's try for another 30. If Tony manages to do an hour, I bet I can too. I have about 400 songs on my iPod, so I put the music on shuffle and went to town on that elliptical for another 35 minutes, pushing myself harder than I've ever pushed myself. Level 14, heart rate average 141. According to the elliptical I burned 930 calories. I know that's impossible, but it was a nice number to see. Probably my heart rate monitor was more accurate at 452 calories. 

It was amazing how fast that 65 minutes flew by, but it gave me time to think through things. To figure out a lot of negative stuff that's happened lately. After an hour on the elliptical and a bucket of sweat, I declared last week officially over at 1:15 p.m. I'm done with last week. I don't want to dwell on any of the bad stuff that happened. Time to move on.

I also got in an hour and a half of strength and core exercises, focusing on my lower body. I'm trying to get in some "last chance workouts" before the big rock climbing event on February 5. Please God, just let me get up that friggin' wall. Can you imagine how embarrassing it'll be if the girl that works out six days a week can't pull herself up that wall? I think I'll be okay, but I'm really going to focus on working out my lower body during the next two weeks. 

As far as not blogging anymore, that was crazy talk. I really started this blog for me. It's cathartic to write what I'm feeling about my struggles as I try to lose weight. I decided if I stopped blogging the only person I would really hurt is myself. I already have enough self-inflicted mental torture going on in my head, I certainly don't need to add to it by quitting my blog.

If I give even one person a little hope that losing weight is possible, then that's a huge bonus for me. I know I'm not any big inspiration and my posts aren't always encouraging or even happy. Sometimes I'm a total grumpy pants. I'm going to try my best to be a bit more upbeat, and I'll definitely be practicing that golden rule: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.