Excercise
Regular exercise does not come naturally to a Type B Minus. There’s just this natural inertia, causing us to sit around on our bums all day. There’s hardly any motivation at all to move, much less to get up and go to a gym, especially when that costs money! Or go out jogging when it’s either too hot or too cold, or humid or too rainy.
However, for the sake of our good health, we do need to get up and move around, get our heart pumping, and work our muscles so they don’t atrophy.
The compromise I’ve made is to spend just 20 minutes a day Monday-Friday doing some kind of (semi)challenging exercise. I’ve found DVDs and exercises on YouTube that work very well. Then on weekends, I rest.
Here’s my exercise plan. They are all only about 20 minutes, get my heart pumping, lungs working, and work up a pretty good sweat.
Monday: The 20 Minute Hotel Room Workout Level 1, and don’t skip the warm up. I alternate this with Pahla Bowers’ Tabata Workout to really work up a good sweat
Tuesday: An Aerobicise workout. There’s a free download at http://www.aerobicise.com/order.html. Or, search “20-Minute Workout Bess Motta” on YouTube. The ones 20 minutes and over are the complete workouts, and very challenging. Confession: I don’t do all the moves exactly like they do. I usually just gently bounce in place, or keep one foot on the ground. Still, I end up huffing and puffing, and sweating like a hog.
Wednesday: Yoga Burn with Denise Austin. This is available on DVD, or again on YouTube (see link).
Thursday: Jessica Smith’s Low Impact HIIT. This is 9 minutes long, so I go through it twice. And, I follow this up with a little upper body weight lifting, with 5 to 8 lb weights, just to tone up a bit.
Friday: Another Aerobicise (see Tuesday’s links).
And, that’s it. The above exercise routines have kept me pretty fit with a minimum amount of effort. Just my style.
Happy workingout!!!
******************************
UPDATE 02/12/2017
I’ve been finding that as I get older, I’m more liable to hurt myself. A while back, I posted on having a broken foot. Then later, I posted on being laid up. Just to update this exercise page, I replaced all the above exercises with this one, Caroline’s 30-minute Hurt Foot Workout, and this Smash fit one during my recovery. I did one workout, rested for a day, and then did the other one, rested for a day, etc., back and forth. The movement got my blood flowing, and it really helped my foot to feel better and heal faster.
Now, last week, I was in the grocery store and bent over to pick up a gallon of milk. SNAP!! My ol’ back went out. It was probably just a sprain, as I feel it in my lower back muscles. UGH! It hurts. So, for now, I’ve done away with the twice-a-week Aerobicise (20-Minute) workouts, and replaced just those two with Jessica Smith’s cardio exercises for a bad back, (I go through this video twice) and her resistance training workout for bad backs (once). I’ve kept the other, daily, low impact workouts above, and it is helping a bit, though I do have to be very careful with the yoga.
So, here I am, an old lady, complaining about all my aches and pains. That is something I swore I’d never do, but, hey, at least I’m working through it.
Be careful out there!
~B-
*********************************
UPDATE 12/31/2018
To simplify, here’s what I’m doing now, and have been for the past year. I work up a good sweat:
Monday: Pahla Bowers’ Tabata Workout
Tuesday: Jessica Smith’s cardio exercises for a bad back (2X) and resistance training workout for bad backs
Wednesday: Yoga Burn with Denise Austin
Thursday: Jessica Smith’s Low Impact HIIT (2X) with some upper body resistance training
Type Bea Minus 