But it's a dry heat!

Well, I'm a little behind but here we go. I made it to In-Shape on Monday, congested and all and hit the treadmill first. I put in 30 minutes with my heart rate (HR) up around 140 for that fat burning cardio workout. The treadmills are nice at In Shape because you can set it to a cardio workout, plug in your info (weight, age, etc) and it will adjust the incline of the machine to work you harder or easier depending on where your HR is, so you just keep plugging along.

After that, and drinking plenty of water, I went to the Re-Shape circuit. It's a 29 minute workout that has that has strength and cardio intervals, followed by flexibility/stretching training; and what is the importance of each of these you may ask?

• flexibility for fewer aches/pains
• cardiovascular training for increasing energy expenditure
• resistance training for preserving and/or increasing lean muscle tissue

If this is fewer aches and pains, then I'm glad I flex'd. It has only been 4 days but I really can feel a difference - by cutting out sodas and drinking only water, I still have a low energy level but I don't have the dramatic dips, the sudden energy crashes that I used to have, and whether its me tolerating more or making progress (we'll say both), each day I can do just a bit more, push myself a little bit farther than the day before.

I'm still waiting for the intense craving for something sweet, but so far I'm good, and in the past I would have been thinking about it, waiting for it and probably caving into it, but now...not so much. God has always wanted me to take care of this temple but as I said in a previous post, my mind wasn't right; it wasn't ready to submit, now I am ready and I am submitting.

So you may have wondered about the title. Well there is the joke that talks about an area being so hot and we quip, "But its a dry heat"; meaning it could be worse, it could be humid also. Well this is hard, I spent years neglecting my body and its going to take time to repair the damage, but its a good work; so it is hard, but its a good hard!