Beating Hypertension

Rest day today. Instead of working out, I did another 2 hour of gardening. Gardening is a workout, too! Mixing compost into the soil was not an easy feat! Then as usual, digging out rocks from the soil is an extra bonus of workout. :) After gardening, I took my kiddo swimming at the rec center. I did some Shaun T movement in the pool, hopping left and right, front and back, doing knee high jog, etc. It was great as I didn’t feel my weight pulling me down. LOL. However, my legs felt like jello as soon as I walked out of the pool. So yeah I did some workout. After returning from lunch, I took a 2.5 hr nap today. Very unheard of coming from me but my body needed it as I felt refreshed. Then I took my BP and lo and behold...My BP was 131/72!!! Never been that low since I was diagnosed with hypertension in 2015. Let’s hope it stays that way or even goes lower.

Sadly my BP is still elevated, even though my diastolic has gone down to the high 80 instead of in the 90s. 

I had to skip workout again yesterday because I had to work at night. Sometimes I wish for regular office hour but it pays the bill so I can’t really complain. The plan was to do 2 T25 exercises along with CX burn circuit 3, but I ended up spending 2 hour weeding and cultivating my garden. No excuses, right? After I did the T25 circuit workout, my legs and arms kind of gave up (thanks to those lunges and planks!), so I changed my course and switched to Fix 21 Upper Fix before I did CX. That did the trick. I wasn’t doing as well as I would like to, but it still kicked my butt and I was sweating like crazy even with the fan on! 

Homework got in my way in the past 2.5 weeks (along with other things in life). So I broke my routine and having a hard time going back to commit to 60-90 min of P90X. Sorry Tony! But I borrowed several other beachbody workouts: PiYo, Chalean Extreme (CX) and I got my groove back with CX. However, I still feel like something is missing, especially because I can’t do CX every day and I felt like not burning as much calories with PiYo. So I signed up for 3 months BOD and tried Shaun’s T25 cardio workout. Cardio...my archnemesis! It was fast movement, fast switching from one move to another. I was struggling a bit to follow but I decided to just do my best and not try to match their rhythm to the T. Even at my own pace, it still kicked my butt, and I felt accomplished. My HRM showed that my heartbeat stayed in the green and yellow zones, which is great! Maybe I’ll stick with these two for now, and maybe I’ll get my groove back to return to P90X.

On AbRipper, now I can do the wide leg sit ups 6 times with pressing my feet against a wall. Woot!!

I have heard a lot of comments about the dreading 90 mins Yoga X, so I decided to pop PiYo and Ellen Barrett Fusion workout as substitutes. Happy to report, I’m down from 175.7 lbs to 172.6 lbs. Didn’t do the P90X diet, but I followed the portion and counting my calories with the LoseIt! app. Surprisingly, my fat % is about the same, between 43%-46%. Maybe I need to infuse more cardio in rest day like today.

My weight is still going up and down. Not sure why but I’m hoping it’s because my muscle is bulking up. I guess I need to pair more cardio exercises.

The dreading Plyometrics...it lives up to its name. I must thank the mailman for interrupting my session half way so I can sign my package. In short...so - much - jumping! I couldn’t finish the remaining half but I did get 30 minutes in. Maybe next week...

I didn’t sweat as much as in the previous 2 workouts - probably because I already gave up half way on each push up routines. Oh well... Better next time.

Because I made a mistake yesterday for doing KenpoX on a Friday instead of Saturday, today I tried the Legs & Back + AbRipperX. My legs turned into jello by the end of the leg exercises. Lots of squats, lunges. Who knew, calves raises with toes facing in were quite deadly. I modified the pull ups to use resistant band. Needless to say I could barely do 1/3 of AbRipper X. I wonder when I can lift myself from the floor and do sit ups...Tomorrow is rest day - yay!

I think I’m going to try to stick to P90X sans the pull ups because I don’t have the equipment for it.

So...I borrowed P90 from my local library to see what it has to offer. It didn’t have the workout calendar, so I started with Cardio 1-2. Overall, I enjoyed the pace, although the stretching parts were quite a drag. I still don’t like doing push ups. I’m getting better at lunges and squats, thanks to Ellen Barrett’s workout DVDs. I don’t like the jumping jack routines either, so I modified it to quick side taps. All the routines looked pretty basic and I was able to follow them all, and by the end of the workout my heartbeat was elevated and I was sweating. Now I need to download the workout calendar from somewhere. We’ll see if I could do this for 90 days straight...

I started my weight loss journey about a week ago with a goal in mind: to lower my BP. I have been paying more attention to what I ate, taking magnesium+potassium supplement, and I exercised daily. I started at 175.8 lbs, 47% body fat and 3% muscle. Today I weighed 173.4 lbs, 45% fat, 5% muscle. So there are some improvements. However, my BP is still swinging up and down. I’m still at 140-150/85-93. I’m starting to wonder if I do need medicine to manage my hypertension...