The Fellowship of the Blog

To my fellow bloggers,

Thank you for inspiring me to get up off my ass and actually do something this evening. I'd been waffling on whether or not I should do some exercise when I eventually decided to spend the rest of the evening ensconced on the couch, eating food* off my chest. That is until I read my evening's fill of blogs, got inspired, and realized that if you all can do it, so can I. So I'm off to do my half-marathon cross-training: 30 minutes on the exercise bike.

with gratitude,

Tiny T.

* Low-fat food of course

Biking the good bike

Today was the first day this summer we got our bikes out from storage and went for a ride. We rode a lot last summer but it was a sweaty, blotchy, often unfun affair. Remembering these I-want-to-pass-out rides, I was somewhat dreading going out again this year. But you know what? I kicked ass. Like, seriously. Those hills that gave me so much trouble last year? Not a problem. I guess all those kilometres logged on my exercise bike have really helped!

100 km!

I reached the 100 km mark this morning on my exercise bike. That didn't take long at all! It's amazing how far you can go in 45 minutes. I clocked 14.65 km this morning alone.

I've decided my reward will be....more activity points! I ordered a 10 Minute Solution: Blast Off Belly Fat DVD from Amazon. Although I know that you can't spot reduce specific areas, I ordered it because I really haven't been exercising the ol' abdominal muscles. I figured 10 minutes of ab work after every exercise bike workout will be the perfect combination. My muscles will be warmed up from biking and then I can hit the mat and start strengthening that stomach of mine!

My next goal on the bike will be to reach 1000 kilometres. As a reward, I'll get a pedicure since my feet will have done most of the work.

I ♥ my exercise bike

Although I've had it put together for over a week now, I haven't written about my new exercise bike. In short, I love it.

It makes a great kleenex box holder (see picture, right) and it's very quiet. I really like the programs on it (6 in all) and that I can vary the length of them for variety.

I had to take a break last week because I developed a chest cough, but this week I've been really using it. Normally it takes herculean measures to get me out of bed in the morning, but I've been surprising myself by hitting the bike first thing. So far, I've done five workouts altogether using either the Fat Burn program or the Max Fat Burn program.

I've even been keeping track of my workouts with an Excel spreadsheet. I'm tracking length, distance and calories burned. When I get to 100 kms, I'll reward myself!

In short, I'm really enjoying it and I'm glad I got it. It's an easy way to get exercise in :)

Exercycle Update

I finally got the confirmation email, my exercycle is officially in-town and ready to be picked up! Too bad I'm sick :(

I want to ride my exercycle exercycle exercycle

Way back when in the days of skinnyness, I used to have an old clunker of an exercise bike that I picked up from Goodwill for $10. It clunked, it squeaked and you had to tighten the belt every few minutes. Regardless, I pedaled the summer away on it and had a good ol' time with it no matter what my bum might've said at the time.

Recalling these good memories, I've been researching bikes at Sears. I eventually picked out a mid-range Free Spirit exercycle. Although not top of the line when it comes to exercise bikes, this one has all the features I want: very quiet, built-in HRM, and computer-controlled tension. After trying it out in-store I came to a grudging realization: my old exercise bike was an instrument of torture. It's funny how memories can be so rosy and ignorant of the Geneva Convention at the same time.

I've been hemming and hawing over this new bike for a while now. I even resisted purchasing it when it went on sale a month ago or so. When it went on sale again this weekend and for even less than last month's sale, I knew it was a sign.

If the delivery gods are kind, it'll be ready for pickup this Thursday. And, as Queen so aptly put it, "Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today!"