January 3rd

So I did it today! I finally got myself a gym membership. Actually I renewed my fake UALR membership that I got a couple of years ago back when I was playing a lot of racquet ball with my co-workers. Its only 25 bucks a month which is totally affordable and their facilities are really quite good. I had intended on working out with my friend Lisa who works for UALR but she forgot her workout clothes and totally sucks because of that. Its ok though, she would have just slowed me down with all of her antics anyways. So I biked on this exercise bike for 20 minutes. I plugged in some kind of automatic routine and the bike tells me when to exert more energy such as a hill or less energy (going down a hill). I set the thing for level 12 and that seemed to be the ticket. What pissed me off though was it only said I burned 200 calories!! WTF? That cant be right. Im guessing its calculations are based on how much energy I produce using the thing (its self powered). According to my Interactive health Calories burned Calculator , vigorous stationary biking should have burned about 430 calories. I'm going to use that amount. I then went downstairs and did some lower weight higher rep weight machine work. I did bench presses (2 sets of 10 reps at 60 pounds), then 1 set each of those machines that make u push your legs out and push your legs in (15 reps at 50 pounds). I did this circuit twice. I then went and did a circuit of lower back extensions (15 reps at 180 pounds), abdominal isolation machine (10 reps at 50 pounds) and whatever the machine is that is like bench pressing but in reverse (10 reps at 60 pounds). I did this twice as well. Id say this all took me about 15 minutes. I tried to do them all together with no breaks but i didnt time myself. Tomorrow I will time myself and make sure that whatever i do downstairs takes me 20 minutes to accomplish. I estimate this burned about 200 calories. I'll have to be careful with the weight lifting. Though I want to gain some muscle mass, im more interested in just toning what I have already to increase my metabolism. If i build up too much muscle i'll likely end up weighing more than when I started. So it will be high reps/low weight and hopefully that will help me tone up instead of bulk up. I have a history of building a lot of muscle fast from weight lifting and im trying to avoid that.

It wasn't the most strenuous workout I could have done but it was a start. I'm going to try to get to the gym at least once a day from here on out. I may take a day or two off each week but the eventual goal will be to get a workout twice a day, one at the gym and one at home or office doing the simplefit exercises. They are basically self regulated exercises u do with your body like pullups, pushups, and squats. I cant imagine meeting my goal of 20 pounds in a month unless im doing that.

Breakfast
one packet Sturms village farm whole grain oatmeal with cranberry and a tbsp of honey
calories - 180
Yoplait lowfat strawberry yogurt
calories - 170
Lunch
2 onces pistachios (in shell)
Calories - 200
Exercise Snacks
Sobe Life water
calories - 100
2 TBSP of trail mix
calories - 100
Dinner
2 baby cucumbers with creole seasoning
calories - 30 calories
Thai rice noodle soup with spring vegetables
calories - 270
2.3 oz Smoked Lowfat Turkey and pork sausage
calories - 100
1 small banana
calories - 100

Excercise
20 minutes stationary biking - 430 calories burned
15 minutes weight lifting (vigorous) - 200 calories burned


Totals
intake - 1250 calories
output - 3000 calories + 630 calories = 3630 calories
caloric loss - 2380

Weight for today (this morning) - 274.2 pounds!!! Whoo Hoo!!