Hallelujah

Saturday's exercise:

10 mile run, felt great the whole time!

Sunday:

Rest day

Monday's exercise:

Kathy Smith's "Lift Weights to Lose Weight" DVD (45 minutes or so at home)

After the giant piss and moan fest, Saturday's run was no trouble. The weather was beautiful, the route was interesting (and mostly flat, another deluxe bonus) and I didn't even need to listen to the audio books M had downloaded for me. I ended feeling good and strong, yeehaw!

Sunday, of course, was rest day -- no news there. And yesterday was supposed to be my usual Monday: full body weights at the gym followed by 45 minutes on the stairclimber. But circumstances conspired against me. I had a pile of work to do (in my non-exercise-obsessed life, I'm a freelance copywriter), a huge box of tomatoes from the farmers market to transform into roasted tomato sauce, laundry to do, a house to tidy, kids to ferry around and an 18th wedding anniversary to prepare for. By the time I'd gotten everything squared away, I was down to less than an hour before my husband got home and our anniversary love-fest could begin.

Let me pause a minute to say that I don't generally put exercise at the bottom of my to-do list. It's usually my top priority. But occasionally I just have to take care of other things first. And when that happens, I am very thankful for my Kathy Smith DVD. Here's a link to it her website:

http://www.kathysmith.com/s/kathy-smith/kathy-smith-timesaver-lift-weights-to-lose-weight.html

If that doesn't work, you can just Google "Kathy Smith" and find it that way.

I've had the DVD for years -- so long that the one on her site has different, updated packaging. I read about it in a newspaper article that reviewed a variety of exercise DVDs; it got top marks, so I ordered it. When I first started doing it, I used 3- and 5-pound weights; now I use 8s and 10s. And there were some exercises that I flat-out couldn't do: tricep dip and Kathy's version of the plank included. But despite the terrible music and Kathy's sometimes over-the-top cheerleading, I did and still do like the DVD. It's divided into three sections: 20 minutes of upper body, 20 minutes of lower, and 7 or so of abs. The lower and ab workouts continue to be challenging for me, which I love. The upper, not so much -- but I still feel like I'm working, so I'm content.

Kathy's not on my regular exercise rotation, but I am glad to have her in my back pocket for those days when I'm supposed to lift weights but can't get to the gym. She did pave the way for me to relax and enjoy a romantic night with my husband while feeling like I'd gotten at least a little bit of a workout in. Now I just need to figure out when I can make up those 45 minutes on the stairclimber that I was supposed to do ...