Mixing up the routine

As I've said recently, my weight loss has come to a stubborn halt again. This happens often, due in part to my reluctance to diversify. I find incredible security in my routine and I do not like change.

Story of my life.

I used to try to be spontaneous. I wanted to be that fun girl whom you could call on a moment's notice for some crazy, awesome plans. But I always ended up being that girl who said "yes" without thinking, and then went along and pretended to have fun, secretly regretting it.

I really am fun at parties, I promise. Just give me a little notice. (Really!)

When I hit the gym tonight, I decided to change it up. I started with weights, which I don't think I've done on my own in weeks. I went for upper body, doing a smattering of exercises that touched on multiple muscle groups. Tricep dips on a bench, Arnold presses (15lbs), bicep curls (20lbs), tricep pulldowns, and lat pulldowns were all covered.

As much as I love routine, I have a hard time putting my weight training into a routine. It's all just here and there, lifting things until my muscles exhaust. Perhaps that needs to be a goal of mine!

The treadmill was next, and I decided to go for long, slow distance, which is commonly abbreviated as LSD running. While this kind of running isn't very effective for increasing performance, it's a good way to mix up the speed intervals I usually do. According to J, this minor change could be enough to bump me out of my plateau. I don't need to get off the treadmill, he said. I just need to change what I'm doing on it.

So I stuck to a slower jog, the speed I was running about a month ago, and held it for as long as I could. It wasn't more than a few minutes, unfortunately, but that's okay. I walked for a bit and picked up the slow pace again. I finished my mile in 12:24.

Elliptical was next, and I finished a mile there as well in a little over 11 minutes.

I considered staying on the elliptical longer, or swapping to the bike, but ultimately I headed back to the treadmill for some speed work. It wasn't sprinting, I don't have the confidence in my feet to push myself to a sprint on the treadmill. My knee is too delicate for true sprinting, anyway. But I pushed myself a little faster than I've run before, choosing to do one-minute intervals of high speed. I finished this mile in 12:43.

A pretty good session, all things considered. I hope I've mixed things up enough to start making progress again on the weight loss front, but only time will tell.

I'm planning on taking the day off tomorrow. I've recently had some soreness in the sole of one of my feet. I'm hoping it was from wearing worn-out shoes and it'll go away now that I have good shoes again. I pulled out of a 5k I was planning this week so my foot can rehab.

If it's not one thing, it's another. Thank goodness the body is resilient!