Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

I just completed the Greater Waterbury YMCA ab challenge, a 30 day challenge where you increase the number of crunches, leg raises and planks by increments of 5. The last day of the challenge meant I had to do 160 crunches, 64 leg raises and a 2 minute, 35 second plank! As you can imagine, it was not easy.

So was it worth it? Definitely! My abs feel a lot tighter, despite having a pouch of loose skin. I can see some muscle there, so I know my abs are strong. I never imagined being able to do this many crunches, but that's the purpose of these challenges, to accomplish goals and increase your fitness level.

I'm back in my workout routine completely, after suffering from tendinitis last month. It really slowed progression as my body fat remained virtually the same as the previous time it was checked.

But after a few weeks of working out my arms again, I notice that I am getting stronger again. When I had the tendinitis, I avoided any kind of arm exercise, and I couldn't do any chest press, etc. I am happy I waited until I was completely healed before I returned to my normal workout routine.

I am on the 6th day of a new challenge... 30 days of ab exercises. I saw a 30 day challenge posted at the Waterbury YMCA and thought I would give it a try.

The challenge includes crunches, leg raises and planks. Leg raises are my least favorite exercise but I'm doing them anyway! The number of exercises increases everyday, until the last day of the challenge, when I would need to do 160 crunches, 64 leg raises and 255 second plank. I'll take it one day at a time as it's too overwhelming to think of how many I'll need to do by then.

I always get nervous when I see the doctor. I don't know why either. I should have been super confident walking in the office today as I know I take good care of my body. I eat the right foods, exercise 5 days a week, get a minimum of 10,000 steps a day, don't smoke, etc. But yet, I always get anxiety over seeing the doctor.

Over four years ago, I avoided the doctor every chance I got. I didn't have a job that required physicals every two years. As a result, I avoided physicals for years. I was severely obese, pre-hypertensive and probably pre-diabetic. I wish I had my lab work done back then. I would have loved to have compared the numbers back then to what they are now! The only thing I can confirm about my health four years ago was that I was pre-hypertensive. When I read the symptoms of pre-diabetes, I'm almost certain I was.

I had a few set backs when I first set out to do the push-up challenge last December. First, I had a lower back pain from doing dead lifts in too much of a hurry. That lasted for about a week or two. Then I got a stomach bug, which knocked out another 5 days or so. Finally, last week I had golfer's tendinitis, an extremely painful condition where I couldn't move my arm without pain for a few days.

I rested my arm and it was getting better each day. I still continued to workout my legs, did the treadmill, ran the track, etc. I avoided any upper body workout for about a week. I slowly got back into it earlier this week. By yesterday, I was able to really get into the upper body workouts again. In fact, I was finally able to accomplish my goal of 50 push-ups! It may be a month later than I planned, but I got through it!