Things that make it easier to ride the stationary bike:
- An iPod - and, specifically, upbeat music. I never realized what a ballad person I was until I tried to exercise to my regular "shuffle" playlist! In my spare time, haha, I will have to put together a bike playlist that will keep the energy level up. Recommendations for that list? Please post them in comments! It was unbelievable how much less painful the passage of time was with music. I'm thinking I may also download some podcasts to listen to on the bike, to see whether actually engaging my brain thinking about what's being said will help distract me from how sore my ass is from the damned bike seat, and how much I'd rather be doing just about anything else.
- Doing it first thing in the morning. It required a lot more cursing than my normal getting-up routine does, but I think I had more energy than I would've had at the end of the day. Plus, Child was still in bed. Score!
- Gloves. It sounds dumb, but it made a big difference when on top of everything else, I wasn't dealing with sore hands from the weight of my upper body bearing down on the handle grips. I guess because the trainer lifts the back wheel a bit, I ride sloping forward - my hands are still a little numb now, hours later.
Other things I learned this morning:
- Hydrate first. Though I'm not a big drinker of water at all normally, and especially not first thing in the morning, I had to wonder whether my energy might have held out longer if I'd had something to drink before hopping on. Will test hypothesis and report back.
- Leave lots of time to sweat. I was aiming for 30 minutes on the bike, so got up 45 minutes early, figuring I'd have 15 minutes to cool down before getting in the shower, getting Child up, etc etc etc to start the day. But after 15 minutes I was still sweating... 20 minutes... 25 minutes... finally I was out of time and had to get in the shower anyway, but kept sweating in and after the shower (only from my face, oddly enough, but that's where my makeup goes so it kind of matters). Tomorrow morning I'll give it at least an hour for both the ride and the cool-down.
I did make it to my full 30 minutes this morning, finally (yay!). And as a result, I started the day down 3 points! The banana I ate before work took up 2, so I'm still at -1 for the day. Now THAT's a good feeling!
Awesome! Yay for the a.m. exercise, I promise once you do it a few times, you won't go back. As for hydration, if you're hopping on the bike 1st thing, drink a few glasses of water a bit before bed the night before (not right before bed then you'll have to pee in the middle of the night), it'll hydrate you for the a.m. and it's better than biking with water sloshing around in your tummy - that may actually give you a stitch.
ReplyDeleteAnnie sez: Hey, thanks - good advice! (Though up to the bathroom in the night is a pretty normal thing for me!) Definitely don't want a stitch.
ReplyDeleteI was also wondering, do you think having had spaghetti for supper last night helped, haha?