Had a setback, or more correctly, a sit back last night. Finished 50 minutes of rowing and noticed that my butt was really sore, more so than the session the day before. Woke up in the middle of the night and discovered I had a blister on my rear which had popped. Sorry for that image, but if saves one person from this rowing machine affliction, it will have been worth it. A Google search reveals this isn't uncommon. The rowing machine seat is fine. I'm now think maybe it's not a good idea to row in street clothes which can constrict and chafe. If it were winter, I might have been wearing sweat pants.
I had an intuition about this because I ordered
a pair of minimal running shorts which may arrive Monday.Today I ordered [url=http://smile.amazon.com/Baleaf-Coolmax-Bicycle-Cycling-Underwear/dp/B00CWVP9YC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1405781710&sr=8-4&keywords=bike+shorts]a pair of Baleaf Men's 3D Padded Coolmax Bicycle Cycling Underwear Shorts[/url. In all my hours riding bikes, I've never gotten blisters, and I've ridden some uncomfortable and worn-out saddles. This leads to suspect the board shorts I was wearing were the culprit. (I call them board shorts because they're almost mid-calf). We'll see how the running and bike shorts work out. I suppose if worse comes to worst, I can always row in the nude (once again, sorry for the image). From my reading, cotton isn't a good idea while doing this kind of exercise.
In the mean time, the stationary cycle comes back out of the closet. I can put in two hours tonight watching "Father Brown" and "The Blacklist." I will say this: the stationary cycle doesn't offer much resistance but it does wear me out enough at the end of a couple of hours that all I'm pretty much good for is lying down and sleeping. The stationary cycle only cost me $26. I'm thinking about moving on up a notch. The next step has mixed reviews but it is maneuverable and you can adjust the resistance. I may keep the $26 stamina by the balcony so I can go for a spin outside while watching a show on my tablet with bluetooth headphones.
Possibly because of the blister, I woke up around 5:30 in the morning which meant I only got five hours of sleep which caught up with me in the afternoon. Lay down and did a 23-minute guided meditation (stress=cortisol=fat). Listened to a podcast and briefly dozed off. Later this afternoon, I really felt worn out and rather than fight it, lay down and listened to a podcast and was out like a light for about 45 minutes.
Those Morning Star California Turkey Burgers are loaded with sodium. Googled Morning Star and sodium and that seems to be the case with their entire line of meat substitutes. I'm going stop hitting the Morning Star case at Kroger and find a healthier alternative. At least I'm clearing out the freezer. After I do, no more Morning Star. The Tyson's Grilled & Ready chicken pieces are even worse.
The Omron body fat monitor arrived. My next door neighbor, who never locks the front door to our steps, did so this morning after we got visited by Jehovah's Witnesses. Fortunately, I saw the FedEx Ground guy arrive and managed to retrieve the package from my other neighbor's doorstep.
Body fat clocked in at 30.7 which confirmed my suspicion that wiggling mass on my abdomen isn't Jello, not to mention the love handles. I'm going to try to get into the 13 to 24 percent range. According to the calipers I tried, I was at 12.5, which didn't seem realistic. I'm thinking about taking photos to map my progress. Unfortunately, doesn't look as if my running shorts will arrive until Monday - checked the mail when I retrieved my package - no joy.
I'm now thinking about upgrading my scale to one that measures body fat, muscle and bone mass, and hydration, partly as a backup, partly because I don't want to just track body fat - I want to track muscle gain. I like the Withings scale but it's expensive at $149. I will probably start out with the EatSmart at $35. This whole fitness tracker thing is getting a big push but I don't think they're ready for primetime. Maybe one day smart phones will eat this category the way they ate point-and-shoot cameras and GPS. Once I get to 130 and stay there, I'm going to focus on gaining muscle mass. I'm also going to clean up my food intake and switch to the Mediterranean diet.
Today I played cleanup/catch-up with a strength exercise I didn't get around to yesterday. Bumped the sumo squat weight up from 20 pounds to 23 after a week at 20. Did two sets of 20 squats. I'll wait and see before increasing it to 25. Didn't do anything else except stationary cycling - either I was tired from yesterday's strength and cardio or from lack of sleep or both.
I'm researching heart rate monitors to use with the rowing machine. Right now, I'm leaning towards the Polar RT60. I got the Runtastic Heart Monitor app which measures your heart rate with your smart phone's flash and camera and uploads it to the Runtastic web site. Hey, it was only $2 and I already have the Runtastic Pro Pedometer.
I went on Free Cycle to see if I could get rid of some of my computer junk.