March is teasing us all once again. A week or so of warm 60+ degree days and then back to around freezing. It has deterred my outdoor workouts- and those that I have done are very low impact and don't raise my heart rate very much- not to the fat burning zone that I'm shooting for. The lack of heart rate increase would explain why my weight hasn't budged. So I'm stuck between 176.8 and 178 lbs. One benefit that I have noticed from walking (when done with a stroller you burn a lot more calories! So that's always good.), is that I feel so much better mentally and emotionally.
To keep track of my heart rate, and how long my workout has been, I acquired a heart rate monitor and watch. This has been very helpful, with a regular watch or my phone I was always wondering- 'OK, what time did I start?' or 'How long have I been walking'. And of course what that meant to my caloric burn count for the day.
Yesterday, I was feeling a bit 'blah'. I wanted to go for a walk outside, but thought that might be a bit much for my son, who is only 6 months old. After I had put him to bed, I armed myself with my hr monitor and watch. Before I started my medicine ball workout, I tracked my "calories burned" for 14 minutes, it was a mere 20 calories that I had put out while I was folding and putting away laundry. I then kept my watch running while I completed my medicine ball workout, which lasted about 48 minutes. I was surprised when I checked my heart rate between sets that I was in my "fat burning zone", of 153-173, for the majority of the time. At the end of the 48 minutes, I had burned an additional 453 calories- just from working with a medicine ball! That is crazy. I had no idea that the workout was so effective. The down side of this new found knowledge was that I was excited and couldn't fall asleep afterwards.
Today, it is supposed to be 41 degrees out and sunny. Sounds like a great day to take a run/walk.
Today, I'm also going to wear my hr monitor/ calorie tracker watch all day to see how many calories I am actually using. So far, at 1 hour and 45 minutes I have burned 446 calories. That sounds like a good start.
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