Feelin' Groovy

Alright, first off, I have a confession to make.

I don't hate exercise anymore.

I know.

Me, of all people. Hater of All Exercise.

Don't you hate when they are right? They, the ones telling you that if you get into exercise you'll start loving it and blah blah. Okay, well, I don't love it. I promise you that. But sometimes I kinda like it.

I like the idea of being a healthy, fit person, someday. And I like the idea (theoretical as it may be) of being lean and muscular, someday. I love when Leslie Sansone talks about being 'functionally fit' ~ having enough energy to *do* stuff. But also, sometimes, when I'm walking, especially on the longer walks, I just have fun. Sometimes I do the 4 mile on a Saturday when I have extra time, and I rewind the DVD back a mile from the 3 mile marker to the 2 mile point, and do an extra mile! Okay, some of that is to get ahead of Rosanne, but some of it is just because it feels good to be walking and know I have the stamina for 5 or even 6 miles, repeating the fastest pace miles.

Sometimes I wonder, if my life weren't so busy, if my disorganization didn't keep me from bumbling out with 6 children in tow, might I walk every day, for the rest of my life? I'd like to be one of those people who wakes before dawn and walks 5 miles. Maybe I could even run ?? Okay, ha ha, I'm going off the deep end, now.

ANYway, where am I going with all this? Nowhere, you should know that by now. I'm just rambling.

So at WalMart the other day I'd set out to buy Leslie's 5 mile walk, having heard it was there, but it wasn't. So I bought a 2-pack of Billy Blanks Tae-Bo workouts. Crazy! I've always wanted to try them. Yes, yes, I was planning to borrow Barbie's, but I just couldn't wait any longer, LOL. Maybe she has different ones, so I can still borrow hers.

So tonight Iliacat and I did a 45 minute Tae-Bo workout and it was HARD WORK! Boy, do they move fast. We spent the last 35 minutes of it counting the minutes to the end and saying, "I might not make it!" but we made it! I am hoping I burned a ton of fat. Iliacat has no fat to burn, poor child. So I hope she survives the workout. She's gonna be one lean and mean nice kid, LOL. It was definitely harder work than the most pumped up 4 mile walk I've done. We'll see if I can walk tomorrow, with the poor burning leg muscles and the other ones that I probably pulled tipping over trying to kick. I'm not so coordinated as I'd like to think, but I'm catching on. The video was fun because it was full of energy, with the other participants shouting out the counts and, I believe, yelling "no!" in (perhaps feigned) disappointment when he stopped a move and yelled "walk it out!" ... I had fun and ended the evening tired but pumped, feeling good that I made it through.

In semi-related news, I made this yummy salad today, and my sister sent me a link to a Flickr group on posting recipes, so I posted it there. So you get to see the picture of my food. LOL! This is a variation on one of my standard lunches, I really like big asian-style salads. I'm sure I've blogged about it before. This is the dressing, just before blending it, isn't it pretty? (Oh, and Linda, I picked up some Agave Nectar at Meijer and it's pretty tasty! But expensive. But still! ) You can see the salad -- mostly napa cabbage and regular green cabbage, in the background.

As far as the walking/exercise goes, I've decided to count non-walking aerobic workouts as miles in 15-minute increments. So if I Tae-bo for 45 minutes, that's the equivalent of 3 miles. I figure since I walk non-aerobic steps around the house each day and don't count those, it'll even out. And that way I won't hold back on other fun exercise just because it's not walking. That's fair enough, right?

So ... to wrap this rambling up rather abruptly, here's my WalkOmeters for the month/year:

I have walked 55 miles -- 91.67% of my goal of 60 miles in January!!