Listening: Peel Sessions, Meat Beat Manifesto

I realized a while back that the time for exercise just wasn't going to show up on its own. I'd have to create that time and just go to. It's really tough cause I just don't feel like I have one to two hours to spare every day.

I heard about the 10,000 step plan a couple years ago and as it's been catching on I've been trying to find the right comination of exercise that works for me. I really like going to Curves gyms because it has an excellent mix of cardio, strength and stretching exercises that you have to do on its circuit that I know I would never have come up with on my own. The only thing is you're only supposed to go for 30 minutes/day, 3 days per week. Some of the franchise outlets won't let you go longer and that bugs me. All the exercise research I've done indicates three hours per week is where you want to be if you have sedentary job and you should do more if you want to get in better shape.

At least my "home" gym lets me go for longer and while they don't openly encourage women to come back more than three times a week, they're happy to see you whenever you come in.

I've never done more than an hour of a workout at a time. I start to get really worn out at that point plus it's just damned hard to get two hours together when I don't need to get to work or to dinner or to bed or something. Last fall I was doing ok with a system of walking in the morning for an hour and later hitting the gym for at least 30 minutes, if not more. I pretty much never got to doing 10,000 steps per day but I was more focused on calorie burning than anything else.

I still am very interested in burning calories but the added monkeywrench is that I have less time now that I've moved to Long Beach. Work keeps me going at such a pace I don't have time to break for any exercise (I used to be able to use a cardio machine for 45 minutes at lunch).

Now I figure an hour of walking and an hour at Curves is my best bet. Factoring in commuting, however, and I pretty much can't. If I take the Metro I can't do anything between 6am and 715pm (approximately), so if I hurry I can get in a half hour at Curves. Then I can either move my walking to 430am to 530am and shower and get ready for work between 530 and 6am, or I can walk for an hour and a half after Curves and wrap everything up at 9PM. Both of these are very non-optimal. I either get up at 420am(!!) and walk around my neighborhood (more later) in the predawn darkness, or I delay getting home and starting my evening until 9PM (and still have to get up the next day at 5am).

Oh well. So as long as I work in Pasadena and live in Long Beach things aren't going to be optimal. Life sucks. moving on.

I bought a pedometer at Big5 last Saturday and that's how I found that walking for an hour is about 6600 steps and a 25-minute circuit at Curves is about 1400 steps. Then I lost my pedometer. I think. Anyhow, it's how I figure a double circuit at Curves plus an hour's walk comes pretty close to 10,000 steps.

The only thing that I haven't yet factored in is that I bought a mini-stepper a few weeks ago and have been stalling constructing it for a variety of reasons.

I think I'm going to use it instead of trying to walk in the morning but I don't know how to convert a workout on a stepper to so many steps taken on a walk. It has an electronic gizmo to keep track of a lot of data so hopefully it'll come up with a "steps taken" number.

It's going to crowd my apartment more than it already is, which is unfortunate. I was originally going to use it on the mornings I woke up at Molasses' house because I could watch TV there and not wake anyone up with coming and going. But I know Signal Hill has actual hiking trails so that might be worth trying instead of walking around my neighborhood in downtown Long Beach.

Now. I don't feel angry or insulted, disrespected or demeaned. But I feel a little bit irked that I was out for a walk without an ounce of make up on, with hair that hadn't seen a brush in over 20 hours, in a sweatshirt and jeans and I still got propositioned. twice. By the same guy. It's irritating and only scary because first thing in the morning I don't have my brain screwed on tight and I don't know what to do when someone says "hi" to me. Really, I just want to be left alone to persue better health and fitness. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

This happened before in my last old neighborhood and made me strongly consider getting some pepper spray. Actually, I should still get some pepper spray. But at least walking along Olympic through Koreatown men didn't follow me with their dogs. Of course, they followed me in a van going veery, veeeerry slowly. Ok. that was damned creepy.

So if I'm going to get up at five to exercise before hitting the road I think the stepper will have to do. *sigh*