I'm back on the stepper. I thought about ten-minute increments but five minutes looks more realistic and in line with a Harvard Medical booklet on balance exercises. In hindsight, I might be better off today after four months having done 30 minutes of the stepper a day instead of an hour of Pilates. Looking back, I made a mistake in not spending a little more and getting a stepper with handles. The stepper is elevated enough if that you lose your balance you can have a nasty fall. I've backed mine up against the wall and rest my hands against the wall for insurance. One possibility with a handle is putting a tablet on it. The stepper is kind of a stop-gap. I'm waiting to see what the recommendations of" Age-Defying Fitness" are.
I like bike riding because it doesn't activate my plantar fasciitis. I'm still thinking about stepping up, so to speak, with a stationary bike that offers more resistance. Another possibility would be to convert my folding bike into a stationary bike. I will try the ankle weights first.
I'm still on the every-other-day diet. My goal is to lose another five pounds and then stabilize or plateau, then take it down another five pounds. It doesn't take much calorie intake for me to kill any advances I've made. Kattay talks about preparing her menu. I don't need to prepare much of a menu because I can add weight just by looking at food - LOL. I just read an interesting and inspiring article about the benefits of weight loss: "
6 Reasons To Lose Weight That Have Nothing To Do With Fitting Into Your Skinny Jeans": Sleep better, save money, less stress on your joints, etc.
I just saw a public service announcement that dramatized weight gain by showing people lugging around ten and 20 pound bags of sand. I can testify to that from hauling around dumbbells. I've been using 18 pounds for the sumo squat but I went up to 20 pounds yesterday, which wasn't much of a strain, which is why I went from the 15-pound hex to the adjustable dumbbells. I'll stay at 20 for a week and then go up to 23. I'm thinking about getting a step to use with the dumbbells but given my lack of conditioning I may stick with the phone book. The phone book is too easy and the stool is too hard. Sigh, such is life. Tonight's the first night I take the ankle weights for a spin on the stationary cycle while watching tv.
I'm still doing the Harvard Medical gentle core exercises and stretches, a 45-minute session today. Those planks will really iron you out. One basic exercise uses a 12-inch playground ball, which of course I don't have, but I just do the more advanced version, which doesn't use a ball. One of the baseline measurements requires a yardstick - once again, don't have. I also dug up the Harvard Medical booklet on balance exercises and started reading it. The gentle core exercises are a placeholder until the "Age-Defying Fitness" book arrives. One of the authors in an interview referred to the "deconditioned." That's a more clinical way of saying out-of-shape, heh, heh. I'm looking forward to running the assessments and coming up with a plan to remedy my deficiencies. If you believe some of the reviews on Amazon, it's a great book.
The 14-inch HP Chromebook arrived. It has a great screen but web pages load slowly. I've noticed sometimes it takes a while for Chrome to get going when you first sign in. Extensions take a half hour to sync and show up. I don't know whether it's my slow connection, the graphic processor, or the larger screen which means more pixels have to be shoved down the pipeline. The Dell desktop powers a 17-inch screen and it isn't as slow in loading pages. I'm back to using the Acer 720.