Phase II - the gym
It's been about 5 years since I spent any time in the gym.
In the old days I was going for weight loss. Now I want endurance and cardio.
Day 1 was Saturday, 8 hours since last smoke. I lasted 4 minutes on the elliptical machine, and 10 in various other stuff, and I was done.
Day 2 was Monday. 12 minutes on the elliptical, 15 on the other machines.
Day 3 was today. 28 minutes on the elliptical, 20 on the others.
In the old days, I was going for fat burn, which meant LESS pushing and simply burning slowly. When going for cardio, you are supposed to push harder so your heart is getting pushed. But the damn machine doesn't pick up my heart rate from my fingers (covered with thick burned callouses) so I've got to get some type of monitor.
Ok, I think I have another 30 minutes of expansion, but I've hit my stride.
M watches me. She gets annoyed. She believes in no more than a 20% increase in time or weight when adding. I simply haven't hit my baseline. I'm very careful, and then add in 50% chunks until I hit stress, then back-off so I can have a difficult but not impossible 10 reps.
After 10 reps (the last couple not easy), I'll get up and walk around very quickly for 20 seconds, then get back to the machine to do it again. Works out any kinks that showed up.
Back in the apartment, I'm speeding along from the adrenaline and want to go back for another hour. Uhoh, I feel the addiction kicking in.
