olivetalks » 30d-fitness-challenge http://www.olivetalks.com The Olive has arrived and it has things to say… Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:56:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 en 30 day challenge - today it ends http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/02/12/30-day-challenge-today-it-ends/ http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/02/12/30-day-challenge-today-it-ends/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:03:44 +0000 ZoltarStark http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/02/12/30-day-challenge-today-it-ends/ A month ago, on January the 14th I started my 30 days challenge. The goal was to exercise every day for 30 minutes and do it for 30 days. A few updates of how it went along the way can be found here. Today it ends. I don’t think many people were following the progress (maybe because the status updates were rather irregular). Anyway, for the few of you who did, here is the summary of how it all went.

Out of the 30 days I exercised 19. That means I skipped more than one third. Not good. I could say that half of the days I didn’t exercise I had the flu but that would be just an excuse I think, after all I was working during those days. Some days I just felt lazy.

So on one hand I didn’t really achieve the stated goal. Nonetheless I think I got pretty good results:

  1. I’ve exercised during this one month more than I did in the whole previous year.
  2. I know I’m going to exercise more in the future. I want to make it a regular habit. Maybe it won’t be every day but definitely every 2-3 days. Combined with walking to work and back (25 minutes each way) it should do me good.
  3. I’ve learned that the best time for me to do this kind of exercise is just after getting up in the morning. Since I’m getting up at 5 am I’ve got time to exercise before having breakfast and going to work. Later on it’s just more difficult to get myself to do it since I want to pursue other, more engaging, activities. But in the morning, just after getting up it can take some time to get my brain working at the right speed. Exercising makes this process faster and it doesn’t feel like a waste of time as if I was to just sit there for half an hour trying to wake up.

Overall I think it’s a positive result. Not exactly what it said on the box but still useful. The lessons I’ve learned are worth enough to compensate for those eleven missed days.

If you did follow the challenge I’d like to know your opinion about the final result.

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]]> http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/02/12/30-day-challenge-today-it-ends/feed/ After a French decade http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/23/after-a-french-decade/ http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/23/after-a-french-decade/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:31:00 +0000 ZoltarStark http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/23/after-a-french-decade/ Today is the tenth day of the 30-day challenge! The results so far are very good in spite of one missed day: I feel I have more energy, don’t get tired so easily and sleep better. LadyRostand probably will say that the last thing is not possible as I was falling asleep in less than one minute flat even before I started this challenge.

Out of the nine days when I have exercised as planned I’ve spent most of the time on our stationary bike. Since yesterday I’m on the most difficult level in the computer controlled training programs so I might need to start using the manual program which allows to increase the load even more.

By the way, we’ve been tracking our usage of the bike even before the beginning of my challenge. The reason for that was that we wanted to know how long would it take us to use the bike enough times as to recover its cost. Our estimate was that each of us needed to use it for 10 hours. This was based on the price of the bike (€300), the cost of a visit to a gym in our neighborhood (€7.50) and the average duration of exercise on a bike in the gym (30 minutes). LadyRostand disagrees with this calculation ;)

At the moment we’ve got a total of 16.5 hours done! Over half of that is thanks to LadyRostand who’s been exercising more regularly than me. At the same time, over one third is from this month which includes all I’ve been doing as part of the 30-day challenge.

My plan is to continue with the challenge but I want to use a bit less the bike and do more higher-variety exercises.

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]]> http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/23/after-a-french-decade/feed/ Challenge interrupted http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/19/challenge-interrupted/ http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/19/challenge-interrupted/#comments Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:33:19 +0000 ZoltarStark http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/19/challenge-interrupted/ I am still continuing with the 30 day fitness challenge although today I’ve decided to skip one day. Pure laziness. I’ll be back on track tomorrow. Maybe even I’ll manage to convince LadyRostand to join me.

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]]> http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/19/challenge-interrupted/feed/ The challenge continues http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/18/the-challenge-continues/ http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/18/the-challenge-continues/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:02:13 +0000 ZoltarStark http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/18/the-challenge-continues/ Some visitors wanted to know more details about the exercise I’m doing during my daily 30 minutes. So far I’ve done four days:

  1. Stationary bike program 7 level 8
  2. Stationary bike program 12 level 7
  3. Batuka combined with shadow kickboxing
  4. Stationary bike program 7 level 8

The programs for the stationary bike probably won’t mean anything to you but on my bike program 12 level 7 is a bit harder than program 7 level 8. Level 8 is the highest. The stationary bike is Ergometer Stamm »Ergo Thunder Pro«.

The exercise from day three (Batuka plus shadow kickboxing) had actually highest intensity - I still have sore muscles in places after two days. So I’ll be doing more of that ;) Because of the nature of this exercise it engages the whole body and uses short bursts of energy rather than working at a constant level. And it’s also more fun.

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]]> http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/18/the-challenge-continues/feed/ Day two of the challenge http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/15/day-two-of-the-challenge/ http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/15/day-two-of-the-challenge/#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:22:17 +0000 ZoltarStark http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/15/day-two-of-the-challenge/ After exercising yesterday I was expecting to feel full of energy and enthusiasm which usually follow after exercise. I was rather disappointed when it didn’t happen. It turned out that I got a mild cold and that suppressed my energy levels. I was even thinking about stopping the challenge right then. I did not :) I’ve just entered another thirty minutes of exercise in my log.

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]]> http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/15/day-two-of-the-challenge/feed/ 30 day challenge http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/14/30-day-challenge/ http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/14/30-day-challenge/#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2008 05:47:45 +0000 ZoltarStark http://www.olivetalks.com/2008/01/14/30-day-challenge/ Today, I’m starting my own 30 day challenge. The goal is to do 30 minutes of aerobic exercise each day. In the last few months I’ve been exercising about twice per month so this is bound to be good for me. Maybe it will even create some long term habits.
More about the progress later.

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