Exercise – Oh yeah, THAT

Reading this blog, I am seeing that I write a lot about the eating and diet end of things but not a lot about the exercise. Happily, the exercise thing is the part that has come most naturally to me. Since being diagnosed, I’ve gotten into a groove of running three times a week and doing strength training twice a week with one day of doing no physical activity.

The hardest part has been keeping myself from doing cardio two days in a row. The funny thing is the day off and the commitment NOT to do high impact cardio two days in a row has kept be on this exercise routine. I will say that on occasion I “cheated.” On my strength training days I will actually do the elliptical for 20 minutes just to loosen up and get warm. But that is pretty low impact.

Where I am most proud is traveling. Going to training in Hawaii didn’t derail me. Going to visit the in-laws during Christmas didn’t derail me. Getting tendonitis in my foot didn’t derail me. I’ve known that the hardest part of keeping healthy living is when you go off the plan. Usually what happens for me is that when I miss a day, I miss two months. The wheels come off. This time things are different. There are some strong negative motivations that keep we from going off the deep end. The thought of injecting myself with insulin. The thought of losing a limb. The thought of going blind. All of those are pretty strong incentives to keep on keeping on.

My training has been gradually increasing in length and intensity.

Running
2 short runs of 4.5 miles
1 long run of 7 miles
Both at 9 ½ mile pace

Strength training
Increasing reps for weights to two sets of 15 (from one set of 10)
Increasing reps for ab work from 15 to 25.

So where am I now? I have registered for Bay to Breakers, that 12k (7.4 miles) race. My friend June and I are going as Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-San complete with headbands and kimonos. Our cheering section will have t-shirts that say “wax on, wax off.”