Refreshed

In honor of Spring, I have been making a few changes to sort of freshen things up.  I moved my furniture around last week, which not only feels refreshing, but also allows more space (for working out) and light in.  I have also reached the end of the programmed workouts in the South Beach Diet Supercharged book (for the second time) so I figured it's time to choose a new weight program as well.  I just chose moves a la carte, from fitness magazines, ones that either challenged me in the past, or that I haven't done in a long time.  This morning, since it is weight day, I did some cardio before breakfast.  I have really been wanting to try cardio boxing (Tai Bo or something) but there wasn't any on my Exercise-On-Demand progamming, so I chose a dance class that included Hip Hop and Bollywood styles.  For these kind of choreographed cardio dance classes, I usually end up disappointed, but wanted to try something different, cuz that's the kind of mood I'm in today.  I didn't love the class, it took too long to get into the high-intensity, and then it was mostly jumping, which irritated my knee a bit.  But I did a little more than a half hour of it, maybe only 10 minutes of that was high-intensity.  No big deal, the lower intensity is better at burning fat, so I did my job. 
The weights kicked my butt today!  And, I can see why people use stability balls, that thing was literally kicking me off it when I was trying to do my roll ups, it was a challenge just to stay on it, much less do the movement!  The moves I'm doing for this weight plan are:
Front squats with weights at chest height
Walking lunges
Stability ball hamstring curl
Standing reverse bicep curl
Stability ball chest flye
Kickbacks (triceps)
Stability ball roll up (abs)
I usually don't put much emphasis on ab work, because as we all know, you can't spot reduce.  If you have any fat on top of your abs, they are not going to look lean.  And I have a whole heap of ugly on top of mine.  But, it is important to strengthen your abs to avoid back injury, so I've added them in.  This is a new ab move that I've never tried, and is very effective and to me, kind of fun.  It turns out, switching things up was just what I needed to put a little pep back into my step with my training.  Now that I'm doing new moves, I realize how bored I was with the same old routine I'd been using for 8 weeks.  I am really going to be sore tomorrow!  I did go for a 12 minute walk at easy pace after my weight session, to help break up the lactic acid in the muscles (helps you to be less sore), but I can tell I will still be sore.  It's OK, in the right lighting, I am starting to see some muscles taking shape in my arms, shoulders and traps, and that is so exciting.  I am interested to see what kind of changes happen by the end of the month.  I keep expecting the measuring tape to disappoint me (or at least stagnate) every month, but it keeps on proving me wrong!  It makes me realize how uninportant the scale is (though I will continue to measure this way, it's already ingrained).  Even if my weight barely fluctuates within the course of a month, I am still losing inches.  That reminds me of when I was in college and had my body composition analyzed at a gym and they told me, with how "solid" I am (I was offended until I learned they meant "muscular") that my ideal weight would be 159, even though I am only 5 feet tall.  Seems a bit absurd to me, as I weighed in at 166 this morning, and am nowhere near looking the way I want to.  I guess the best way to measure is by how you look and feel, and when you feel you are finished.  Now that I've come this far, I am not going to stop until I am satisfied with how I look and feel, and keep pushing myself to grow inside and out!  What greater end can we wish for, right?  Happy Tuesday everyone!