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Your personal fitness

3K views 14 replies 12 participants last post by  Mr. H. 
#1 ·
I'd love to hear what challenges you're working on these days, or what areas of growth you're most interested in exploring when it comes to your personal fitness?
 
#2 ·
Hi Kcharts and welcome!

There is an ongoing thread right now where people talk about their exercise goals and what they are doing:
http://www.veggieboards.com/forum/3...sters-post-your-exercise-activities-here.html

Personally, I am working towards greater functional strength and one particular goal is to be able to lift and carry my husband's and my 42 lb 18 foot Wenona Sundowner canoe across mile long portages in the wilderness. We have done canoe camping trips for years, but always my husband would carry the canoe and I would help with carrying our 30 to 40 lb packs over the portages between lakes. Now he has rheumatoid arthritis and struggles with the canoe, so I want to be able to take over doing it at least part of the way. We have a trip planned for September. I can carry the canoe once on my shoulders for a short distance, but getting it up over my head is another story.

I do some weight lifting three times per week and can now lift a 50 lb fixed barbell or an olympic bar overhead which is a big deal for me (I am small, have osteoporosis, and am in recovery from an eating disorder). I also cycle to the gym and to work most days from May to October and sometimes do some light mountain biking in the woods. When I am not cycling, I do a little trail running but mostly hiking and of course cardio at the gym four times per week. I have a desk job 40 hours per week so these activities are so important to me as I love to move and be active. I am a former dancer.

Do you have any specific goals you are working towards?
 
#15 ·
Hi Kcharts and welcome!

There is an ongoing thread right now where people talk about their exercise goals and what they are doing:
http://www.veggieboards.com/forum/3...sters-post-your-exercise-activities-here.html
LOL. I've seen that thread. Never opened it. I just assumed that a lot of vegans here must like hamsters as pets (they are naturally vegetarian). I thought the thread was just hamster lovers sharing photos of their hamsters on their hamster wheels.
 
#3 ·
Naturebound thanks for sharing, inspiring what you are working on. Also, thank you for the link.


Personally, I am working on proper posture and increasing strength where weak to support my flexibility. All to be able to do the things I love of travel, yoga, slacklining, hiking and acroyoga for a lifetime. Also working on healing a shoulder injury.


How did you decide the training program you are doing for your fitness goals? Is it hard to stick to or are you getting proper support?
 
#4 ·
Good to hear from you kcharts! Sorry to hear about your shoulder injury.

I have been exercising consistently for about 8 years but over the years have changed and tweaked my exercise regimen. Many years ago I was a dancer (ballet, modern) and trained every day for three to eight hours, but I quit dancing in my mid twenties and went through a terrible depression followed by some unhealthy ways of coping (alcohol, then eating disorder). For a while I got out of shape and had some health issues. In 2007 I was in a pain program and was introduced by a physical therapist to a fitness center attached to the medical complex where my pain program was. He helped me get started on the weight machines and with calisthenics and free weights, and I just took off from there, reading lots of books, watching videos, watching and asking people who were really good at what they were doing on how to do stuff. Being a dancer, I have always loved exercise and movement as a form of expression and stress relief so motivation has never been an issue. But at times I got stuck for a variety of reasons. At one time I was very very underweight and lost a lot of muscle and I knew the only way to improve was to eat more, which was no easy task for me. I actually think that exercise is what has kept me from literally killing myself because I can not give it up for any length and it has always been more important to me than pairing my body down to impossible standards. I know I need to fuel myself well to be able to do the things I love doing...cycling, hiking, running, being out in nature, dancing and toning my body etc.

My schedule has changed depending on my job or school etc. For the last few years I have been exercising from 6:15am to 7:45am at the gym and/or cycling in the early morning or running. During work I walk on my afternoon break for fifteen minutes. If I cycle to work, I cycle home after which is a nice way to unwind after a hard day. Occasionally I take a dance or yoga class in the evenings a few days a week, and in summer my husband and I take an evening walk once per week. On Saturdays we go for long hikes. He likes to geocache which gets us out to some great trails and so on. Sunday mornings if it is nice I go for a longer bike ride, several hours, or if it is not nice I have a longer morning at the gym. I have a home gym also and use that from time to time in the early mornings. But I love the space to dance and move at the fitness center, and I have made a few friends there. I also look forward to those quiet morning cycling commutes when the world is just waking up and everything is fresh and crisp and cool. The sounds of the early morning birds is one of my greatest joys. And fresh air!

Slacklining...is that where you walk or balance on a kind of rope?
 
#7 ·
I'm currently working on earning my 2nd Degree Black Belt in TKD. I had a back injury last year (dislocated 3 ribs from my spine), and the recovery has been a challenge, so I'm working on that too :)
 
#10 ·
I would love to do yoga at least 90 minutes per day 3 X per week to add to my regular daily walks and occasional longer hikes. I used to do yoga 3-6 X per week for 90 minutes each class, but got out of it for a while and now I'm not sure why ...I love it so much. Last semester I had a two hour yoga class at my college once per week and since I knew that was coming to a close, I purchased a Groupon at a vinyasa studio. ..since I'm on break for the holidays, I am able to do 3 90 minute classes this week really easily. ..the problem is continuing to afford that many classes after my Groupon is up.

I signed up for rock climbing once per week in the spring semester, but I need to find a really good online source of YOGA classes if I can't afford to keep going to the studio. It's just so much better for me to do yoga more frequently. ..I mean doing a few postures for 15 minutes per day and/or doing breathing meditation helps me, but it's not the same as the full vinyasa classes.
 
#11 ·
I am struggling to find a type of exercise that I can enjoy and do regularly. I used to bicycle everywhere - work, shopping, recycling, everything. However, in the neighborhood where we live now, the traffic / roads are very unsafe for cycling, so I haven't bicycled regularly in over 4 years now. Bicycling is so great for everything - fitness, transportation, enjoyment, managing depression. Other types of exercise just don't motivate me at all.
.
 
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#14 ·
hello, my daily routine consist of 4 meal in a day and I workout for 90 minutes daily in which 10 minutes warmup and 10 minutes cardio are included I started gym 5 months ago at that time my weight was 121 lbs and now 140 I'm performing differ exercise on each day I'm diet conscious. first two months I started a gym with low weight and focused mainly on techniques to avoid injury no i\m gradually increasing 1 pound lifting weight weekly
my diet consist of fruits and vegetables and oatmeals and cereals
 
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