Today is a good day, but ooh the pain!

This morning I went to Target to buy a sweat band. Yes, I sweat when I work out. It runs in my eyes and my hair is all over the place. I decided I needed something to help in that area. I went into their sporting goods area. WOW They have so many cool things. I was really surprised. I found a nice pink one to match my sweat suit. (which I bought last week at Fashion Bug, way cute and affordable) So then I just browsed. They have heart monitors to use for when you work out. Well, they have the ones that you do not have to have a chest strap. I have one with a chest strap that I bought years ago to use while swimming. I tried it on the other day and it was just uncomfortable. It dug into my skin. I want something that I will wear and that will be comfortable. So I bought a watch that you touch and it does your heart rate. This week I had been doing some research online and found some I liked. However, they cost more than this one. Now granted it is not pink, but it is a nice blue. I can deal with that.

If you are curious as to why I bought a heart monitor. Here is the deal. I have suffered from anxiety attacks for years. I decided years ago that in order to alleviate the anxiety of exercising, I should monitor my heart rate.(but instead of wearing the monitor, I just quit exercising. LOL) When you have an anxiety attack your heart races. It is a very uncomfortable feeling, you panic and feel like you are going to die. So when I am working out or in pain my heart rate goes up. So in order to let my brain know that it is alright that my heart rate is going up; that it is not an anxiety attack, I keep track of my heart rate. The doctor gave me a danger level, and Mandy gave me a heart rate to shoot for when working out. That way my work outs are also helping my heart. YEAH for a faster heart rate. It is weird, I have spent years trying to keep it down and now I am working to get it up. :)

I went to my work out today. I arrived a little early so I jumped on the treadmill. The treadmill has a heart monitor too. So I checked it against mine, they were pretty much the same. So that is good. I put in 15 minutes on the treadmill at about 3 miles per hour. Not too bad. Then Mandy got there and we started the pain. I mean today I am in pain. I was sore to begin with and now I just ache. I am going to take a hot shower in a minute. Anyway, Mandy wanted me to balance on 1 foot while doing bicep curls with 5 pound weights. OK not hard right? Wrong! I could not maintain my balance. It was really funny. So she eventually had me work on my balancing. She got out one of the disc things. You know the ones that look like a ball cut in half and flat on the floor. Well they look pretty easy to stand on right? Wrong! She put it up by the wall and had me try and balance with both feet a little apart on the disc and use the wall to get my balance and hold the balance without the wall for 30 seconds. I could not do it that long. I worked and worked, I did get better, but still need work in that area. It was really funny. Because I really did not expect that to be the hard part. We did some weight work on our biceps and triceps and I did about 5 laps on the track. She had us do these leg lifts on the weight bench. Bend your knee, kneel on the bench with arms for support, one leg on floor. Taking the leg on the floor and extend out and up. The whole time maintaining your balance on the weight bench. HaHa, more work on balance. My weakness. I kept trying to extend the leg on the bench. It was easier for me to maintain my balance. So when we completed the exercise Mandy's way, she had us do them my way. I gave her an idea! woohoo. how funny. anyway, it was great fun. After our workouts we spent a good amount of time stretching and relaxing. It was nice, our group can be pretty talkative. Won't fit in there! lol

Mandy asked me how my battle with the Dew is going. I did not have one yesterday and none today.But it is hard. I think it is harder to give up the pop than working out. I get to work out with other people. I am fighting the battle of the pop on my own. Today I did really good, because I went into the 2 places where I usually can buy a dew and didn't even think about it. Target sells dew at their fountain and so does Quik Trip, I went to both stores today. No dew! YEAH!

Well I need to shower. Later.

Kathy