Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Hotel

After the SD County Fair, we stayed overnight in San Diego so we can go to Sea World the next day. Several days before the trip, I told S that we'll be staying in a hotel on our mini family vacation.
S: "What is a hotel?"
Me: "It's a place that people stay over when they travel"
S: asked again "What do we do in a hotel?"
Me: "We sleep and rest. You'll understand it when we get there"
When we got to the hotel, she was very excited. She jumped on the bed
S: "I've never been in a hotel before.. It's nice. mommy"
Me:" You've been in hotels when you were 1.5 years old remember?"
S: "Oh yeah.. I was too little to remember" "How many days are we going to stay here?"
Me: "One night."
S: "Only one night? Can we stay longer?"
Me: "May be next time"

After checking in, we went out to dinner and did some window shopping. While we were shopping, she was bored and wanted to go back to the hotel. She was excited about taking a bath in the hotel tub and after bath she was jumping from sofa to bed back and forth and at one point she missed the sofa and hit her chest on the sofa arm. I pretend that I didn't see it and she didn't make a big deal out of it either. When it's time to sleep, all of us were tossing and turning on the bed and finally got some rest.

Workout log:
Exercise time: 58 min
Ave heart rate: 159 bpm
In zone: 53 min
Kcal: 491

Monday, June 28, 2004

San Diego County Fair

We spent the pass weekend in San Diego. We went to the SD County Fair (SDCF). SDCF had the Dr. Seuss theme and there was a biographical exhibit that showed his life from a child to an adult. He was a very creative person. There were performance of Dr. Seuss's books on Stage by college students. It was entertaining for both adult and children. We also saw art work and wood work done by high school students. One that really impressed me was the wood work of one high school student. He made a bedroom set that is better than what I've seen in some retail stores. S really enjoyed kiddy carnival rides. She's old enough now that she's interested in roller coasters (kiddy ones). I went on with her to make sure she's ok. She enjoyed it more than I did. After that I let her go on her own. She's growing up too fast. She also liked riding the pony. Now days, pony rides cost $5.00.

Monday Workout log:
I did the stair master today and I was having problem with the heart rate monitor. For some reason it wasn't picking up my heart beat. I fuss with it while I was on the machine but then I stepped down and went to the locker room to fix things. The moment I stepped off the machine, I got a heart rate. That's when I realized that the electronics on the stepper was interfering with my receiver. I stepped back on the stair master and put my left hand which has the receiver on the side of my body, then I got a reading. Will all the fussing, I had to start over so in reality, I burned more than what was recorded. One key observation while exercising, the stair master also produce how much calories you burn when you input your weight. When I compare the numbers, the stair master tends to show higher calories than my heart rate monitor. I know that the hear rate monitor is more accurate since it calculates by my heart rate where as the stair master goes by only weight and assume you are working out at a certain level. After 23 min on the machine, I tried the 30 min. circuit training that claims to work upper and lower body in 30 min. I did the reps that were recommended. Will implement in to workout schedule for the month of July.
Here's the stats
Time: 38.19 min.
Ave heart rate: 147 bpm
In zone 36 min.
Kcal: 283 at least

Thursday, June 24, 2004

Busy week

Workout update:
This week, I have not been myself. Twice I screwed up on the calorie counter gadget so I didn't really get actual energy spent on two workouts but I'm not hung up on it. Today, I went in to work early so that I can spin a little bit longer than usual. I promised myself that I will focus on spinning and not fuss (obsess) with the watch too much. The instructor played some new music today which was great and inspiring. I'm bored of the 70's music so I distract myself by checking my watch and hope the song will end. At the end today's workout, I check the gadget and I had a pleasant surprise.
I hit my goal of 500 cal/spin workout. Here's the details. Note that I start the clock right when I'm on the bike.
Time: 59:15 min
Ave heart rate: 157 bpm
In zone: 56:45 min
Kcal: 510 :)
The stats help me set my target heart rate and time.
What did I do differently?
A) I put more tension on the bike on a climb at the beginning instead of gradually increase the tension.
B) During the sprints, I start and stay at a speed that I can sustain through out the entire song. Normally, I get all pumped up at the beginning of the song and sprint faster than anyone else but then I run out of steam after a minute or so and had to slow down.

Next weeks goal:
Target heart rate: 157 bpm
Time: 60 min

Games
Thanks to Noodle, I've inherited his PS2 recently and I got a 3D Pacman game for my Bday. I was hoping for DDR2 but hubby didn't get the hint so he got me flowers instead.
I've been playing with it this week and it's different than the Pacman I'm used to back in the days. S likes to watch me play. She pays attention to the scene and tells me where to get the fruits and coins. I bought puzzle fighter with the help of a friend and I did not recall the poor graphics. I'm stuck on stage 6. It's more fun to play against a real person than a computer. Hmmm...may be I'll have a gaming party.

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Father’s Day weekend

I didn't get to spend much time with Dad this pass weekend. On Saturday morning, we spoke briefly about the interest rate and cleaning up the back yard before he left for work around 8:00 AM. I gave Dad a 5 lbs CO2 fire extinguisher for father's day. Why on earth would you get that for dad you ask? Well, recently, I had fire extinguisher training and the trainer said "No matter what brand of extinguisher you buy, please don't get the Kiddie brand fire extinguisher". Apparently, the quality is poor and lacks reliability. Rewind back to last year about the same time, after I had my 1st fire training, I went to my parent's house and noticed that dad had a small fire extinguisher in the kitchen area. I checked it out and it was a KIDDIE!!! Oh..No.!! not a KIDDIE! I said to myself. What am I to do? I must swap it with a more reliable extinguisher but then forgot about it. So.. a year later, I got one for dad since the fire safety training and father's day happend to be close to each other. Now he has a CO2 extinguisher that is not messy and it only needs to be refill when it is empty.
On Sunday, I read the ads section of the paper and Lowes ran a full-page advertising Kiddie extinguisher. Don't fall for the trap.
The trainer said that ideally one should have 4 extinguishers.
1 for the kitchen in case of a kitchen fire.
1 for the bedroom so one can use it to get out of the house
1 for the garage
1 for the car

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Rome wasn't built in one day

That's what I kept telling my self, Rome wasn't built in one day so don't be disappointed when you don't reach your goal of 500 cal/ session of spinning after trying for 3 times.
Today I tried something different where I start the clock as I walk toward the spin class hoping to be able to capture more calories on the counter. That the reason why the work out seem longer but in reality it's only 50 min. Note that ave. heart rate is lower because when I started walking up the stair, heart rate is only about 92 bpm. Today she played lots of Prince music which was ok. Over all I'm closer to my goal. Will try again next week.

Time: 1:00 hr
Ave heart rate: 147 bpm
In zone: 54 min
kcal: 464

I finally got the pedometer from Micky D. I test it out but it's not that accurate.

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Personal goal

Before hitting the gym, I had the goal of burning off 500 cal today. Midway through the class I check my gadget and I was only ~ 200 cal. At the end of the session, I hit 420. I timed the songs today and it takes about 2 songs to burn 80 cal so I would have had to stay longer to hit 500. One co-worker suggested that if I had walked to the gym, I would have hit my goal and then some. He's right but it'll be a two hours workout. Today's ave heart rate is 7 bpm less than last week. Will push harder Thursday.
Time: 52 min
Ave Heart rate: 150 bpm
In zone: 50 min
kcal: 420

Back to food. Thinking back when I had Panera Bagel for breakfast this is how much I consumed:

Everything Bagel with out cream cheese has
300 cal
1.5 g of fat
60g Carb
12g of protein


Everything bagel with reduced Fat Honey Walnut Cream Cheese 2oz ( What I had)
300+150 = 450 cal
1.5+11g = 11.5g of fat (4 blocks)
60+9g = 69g of Carb (7.5 blocks)
12+4g = 26g of protein (3.5 blocks)

Monday, June 14, 2004

No pain no gain

My 1st jogged of the month was Sat. On Monday, my quadriceps, shins, calfs, inner thigh muscles, ankles, feet are still really sore. Obviously, I’ve over exerted my self, again so I’m blogging about it as a reminder to start slow next time. I rested on Sunday and gave my body a chance to rebuild it self. Going up and down stairs was painful. I forgot how many muscles are involved in jogging. Still, I’m puzzled by the fact that spinning did not prepare me for jogging. I think, it’s because when I spin, I have certain resistance on the bike that carries my weight and my legs are used it. Even though, I work out at a reasonable heart rate and feel temporary short term strain in my legs, my legs are in a comfort zone when it comes to spinning. When I asked them legs to run/jog & carrying my whole body, they said “Wait a minute, you think you got muscles for this? Think again.” In a painful way it’s good that I challenged my legs to be stronger by introducing different type of exercise.
I did taebo hoping to loosen the muscles and work out at 60% capacity.
Time: 38 min
Ave Heart rate: 125 bpm
In zone: 28 min
kcal: 218

Saturday, June 12, 2004

Morning Jog

Yesterday, I had the craving for noodle soup but there's really no noodle house around our neighborhood so I had to settle for Thai stir-fried noodles. It's not the same.
For some reason, I wake up at 5 AM every morning this week. Today, I decided to go for my 1st jog/walk of the month. OK, 30% jogging, 70% walking since I have not jogged for years. The air was clean and crisp and I saw other joggers hitting the pavement @ 5 AM. I thought with spinning, I've trained my legs to be stronger and strong legs would make jogging easy. On the contrary my legs felt heavy and weak when I jog. I wasn't wearing the right shoes resulting to a blister on my foot.
Here's the data from today's workout.
Workout time: 46 min.
Ave. Heart rate: 143 bpm
In Zone: 46 min.
kcal: 340
Note that it says kcal instead of cal. I couldn't have used up 340,000 calories in 46 min.
Weekend wrap up, I’ve accomplished the goals I've set as far as working out.
Mon: Taebo
Wed: Taebo
Thu: Spin
Sat: Walk/jog
As far as food, I ate out twice: Once with a vendor to a Mexican restaurant. I had seafood burrito without the flour tortilla and broccoli with some chips and salsa. We had Thai food last night. I also had some dark chocolate.

Summer has a birthday party to attend at noon and we are having dinner with the parents tonight.

Next week's Goal
Mon: Taebo
Tue: Spin
Wed: Taebo
Thu: Spin
Sat: Walk/jog
Eat healthy for 5 days.

Recent tip from the gay: To be in shape for the bathing suit season, people should be working out in the spring. This is very true.

Friday, June 11, 2004

New toy

I recently was inspired by a 10,000 step article from the skinny post daily that I went to shop for a pedometer at a local sporting goods store. As I was walking towards the pedometer section, I passed the sport watch section and they had the polar watches that can track how hard you work out and how much calories you burn. There was one guy at the store who was buying the watch for his pregnant wife so I listened in all the features. When he left, I went up and talked to the clerk and the next thing you know, I bought one. It took me a while to figure out how to work this high tech gadget and I wore it to my spin class yesterday. It recorded the following info.
Workout time: 50 min.
Ave heart rate: 157 bpm
kcal used: 485
Note that I've entered my personal data so others might burn more or less. Spinning is an efficient work out. If I had stayed for the cool down, I would have burned 500 cal. If I spin 7 days/week, I will burn 1 pound of fat. Unfortunately, that's unrealistic so my goal is to spin twice a week and do other stuff twice a week.
The watch was beeping the whole time because my heart rate was out of the 65-80% of max heart beat range. I hope I didn't annoy my fellow spinner too much.
I tried wearing it for weight lifting but it didn't count calories because my heart rate didn't hit 65% or lower limit.
Next week, I will wear it as I do taebo and see how many calories I burn/session.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Wisdom from the gay

As I drive home from work everyday, one of the things that I look forward to is listen to a radio segment called "queer tip from the day from the gay"
Here are 5 that I thought was funny and never thought of

1. In homes, use soft lighting instead of fluorescent lighting. Apparently, fluorescent lighting is too harsh and everyone are more attractive under soft lighting. Here's a direct quote "fluorescent lighting to the gay is equivalent to the sun to the vampires" LOL.

2. Cats are gay peoples' children and I was told that the number one killer disease for cats is obesity so the gay had consulted with two veterinarian who said that it's ok to put cats on Atkin diet. Feed them tuna, chicken and beef. No carb! His cat had lost 3 pounds which is equivalent to 30 human pounds.

3. If one (male or female but mostly male) decides to tuck the shirt in, make sure one wears a belt. It really annoys gay people when they see belt loops with out belts. I heard this from more than one gay. Carson from the fab 5 recommend using an old tie as a belt. I don't think that works for the universal male.

4. Pink is in, so men (straight or gay) should invest in a light pink shirt not hot pink. Wearing pink shirt doesn't make one gay. It just bring out skin tone well. One can start with a white shirt with pink stripes.

5. Jean shorts and shirts are out (male or female) Note: I had some jean shorts in my closet from the nineties which now I'm thinking about donating them charity.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Garage Sale

We had a community garage sale last Saturday and it was fun. It officially starts @ 7:30 am but the early birds started cruising for bargain as early as 6:00 AM. It's not easy preparing for garage sale, I had to iron some pants & dresses so it appeals to the customers. Sort the clothes based on pricing and sizes. Pricing all of them which was the hardest part. I had lofty goal of pricing items @ $5.00 to $10.00 range. These bargain hunters are expert negotiators.
Buyer: How much is this?
Me: $1.00 (Thinking it's a fair price)
Buyer: How about 50 cents.
Me: No. $1.00.
Buyer: 50 cents.
Me: OK.
Next time around when buyer B asked for pricing, I up my price to $2.00 so I at least have negotiating room for the potential haggler; however buyer B is not a haggle so she put the dress back on the rack and looked at something else. I wasn't good enough to read people to tell the difference between haggler vs. non-haggler.
When I realized merchandise wasn't moving as fast as I liked, I had to price them between $0.50 to $3.00. At that price, everything was a bargain and merchandise were moving faster. Note that most of the things I was selling were my clothes and S's out grown clothes. Brother in-law family was there too. They had lots of baby toys so people were really into them. At the end of the day, I got some cash in my pocket. Was it worth my time? it was exciting trying to sell things but not really in the global sense. It was fun to see peoples buying and haggling behavior but I rather be on the other side on the fence. Next year this time, I will go shopping because it's a better investment of my time and money. I know hubby will be furious when I bring home other peoples unwanted things. I rather bargain hunt and give out stuff away to charity and get a tax write off.
It was quite a learning experience. I think twice now when I'm paying retail prices for things when I go shopping.

Friday, June 04, 2004

Coffee

Since I've blogged about coffee and garage sale, the two ads I've seen so far are
Gourmet Flavored Coffees and Taste of Home (furniture related site).
Nifty!

Thursday, June 03, 2004

Survivorless Thursday

Now that Survivor is over, I'm not glued to the TV on Thursday nights anymore. It gives me time to reflect on overall performance for the week in accomplishing my goal of healthy eating and increasing the frequency of exercise.
Over the holiday weekend, I basically ate what I wanted. To name a few fries, pineapple fried rice& ice cream. Pineapple fried rice never tasted so good. I felt that I regressed a bit but on Tuesday, I was right back on the program. This week I gave up on brown rice since it takes extra effort to cook brown rice for me and jasmine rice for the family. It takes advance planning and patients. I just eat less jasmine rice based on the principle why eat food that you don't like. I've also modify my goal to eat healthy 80% of the time and splurge 20% when needed.
At work, some of my co-workers started a support group to get in shape for the Summer. There are 7 ladies and 1 man. The goal is to motivate each other to move and loose some pounds for the bathing suit season. It works out great for me because I've been wanting to workout more than twice a week but have not yet done it consistently on my own. This way, I'm accountable for the other 3 days with the group and by the end of June, it will be come another healthy habit off the check list. This week, I did taebo class and planning to do yoga tomorrow so that will be 4 workouts/week. The side effect of lunch work out is it forces me to bring home made lunches. I've been thinking about buying a pedometer but have not had time to research it. One article I read is that if an individual walks 10,000 step a day, that individual will be in really good shape. I recall seeing an adult happy meal commercial that gives away a pedometer as the "toy". When I went to McDonalds I didn't see it on the menu. What's the deal?
This weekend I'm participating in a community garage sale. Hopefully, it'll be a big turn out.