health journal: target heart rate & exercising

Well hello, health journal. Here I am again to deeply ponder and analyze the previous week. If you’re new, I’m participating in BlogHer’s Inspiration to Fitness Program. You can read all of my previous posts here.

The goals for this week that I made with my heart health trainer, Alysa were:

1. Find my target heart rate zone, and be aware how my body feels at different levels while exercising.

2. Exercise for at least 30 minutes, 6 days a week.

For the first one, you can got to lots of different websites to find your target heart rate. I like WebMd~and my target heart rate zone is between 93 and 140 beats in a minute while I’m exercising, not to exceed 193. I have the coolest gadget I will share with you next week that helps me track this while I’m working out, but basically it’s good to be aware of how you are feeling when you are exercising, so you can know when to push harder, or take it down a notch.

I just hear Jillian’s voice in my head: “you’ve got to PUSH your body to adapt to change…it’s mind over matter…” or whatever it is she says. If I’m just la-la-laing my way through exercise and my heart rate isn’t being pushed up, I know my body isn’t changing. If I’m not feeling sore at all this week when I wake up, I know I need to change things up a bit. It has really helped me be aware of how my body is feeling and hard it’s being challenged during the workouts.

I made the exercise goal, but with a little “adaptation.” One of the days, I woke up late (we stayed up way too late catching up on some Downton Abbey), the kids were out of school and we had stuff planned, then it was too dark to go running, and then I was too darn tired to do an exercise video and didn’t feel like facing Jillian, so….I skipped that day and ate 4 peanut butter oatmeal cookies my daughter made for family night to round everything off. Bad Melissa.

he tries to do Jillian with me~my favorite is when we do high knees!!

I was feeling extra guilty, so I fit in 2 the next day~I went running in the morning and then did an exercise video in the afternoon. That’s basically what I do for exercise: run or do a dvd, because it can happen anytime: in the morning, afternoon, or at night. No excuses, right? I love getting out to run and that is my first choice, but winter weather can be tricky, so it’s good to have Jillian as my back-up. I’m actually kind of getting to the point where I miss exercise if I don’t fit it in. I *love* the feeling afterward, isn’t the hardest part just getting your buns up to go? It is for me…

So, my question for you this week is: what is your favorite workout dvd? I’m ready to switch things up a bit, and I would love to know which ones you LOVE and have had good success with.

The Perfect Portions Food Scale Giveaway is still going on here!