Okay, so my first seven days by myself at the gym is complete, and I'm feeling good about this so far. I still find myself not wanting to go but then I'll think about all of the benefits I'll reap and before I know it I'm in my work out clothes walking out the door. I've been progressing little by little each day while there, and just trying different things to see what works best for my burn.

At first I was working on the treadmill, lifting weights, and riding the cycle for an hour each day but the calorie burn wasn't satisfactory to me. So today for the first time I spent the entire hour on the treadmill and alternated my speed and incline up and down all throughout the workout to get a better burn. I liked what I saw and more importantly was able to maintain all of this without issues controlling my breathing.

My base speed has always been 2.7 Mph with an incline of 0. Today I'd do 15 minutes like that and then I'd increase the incline to 1.5 and walk 1 minute before returning to 0, and then every 5 minutes I'd go back to a 1.5 incline. After 45 minutes I started to increase my speed to 3.1 Mph for 1 minute which would shoot my HR from 145 to 153. I would repeat this until about 50 minutes into the session where I would then combined a 2.0 incline with 3.1 Mph pace. Finally finishing off the 60 minutes with a 5 min cool-off session for a total of 537 calories burned, 2.67 miles walked.

I feel that if I just concentrate on building endurance on the treadmill will be best for me right now. Out of everything I've tried it's the one thing I like the most so far, it also helps that it burns more than any other machine I've used. That's my goal right now, to burn! burn baby burn!!! I need to get into the 350's either by weigh-in on Monday, or by the end of next week.

This is my progression from day 1 to day 7 of the beginning of my new lifestyle change. Treadmill (Life Fitness 2000):
Day 01 - 11 Aug 2010
279 Calories 1.32mi 35min @ 2.8mph
Day 02 - 11 Aug 2010
227 Calories 1.08mi 30min @ 2.7mph
Day 03 - 13 Aug 2010
302 Calories 1.41mi 25min @ 2.7mph
Day 04 - 14 Aug 2010
284 Calories 1.39mi 30min @ 2.7mph
Day 05 - 17 Aug 2010
395 Calories 2.00mi 45min @ 2.7mph
Day 06 - 18 Aug 2010
306 Calories 1.56mi 35min @ 2.7mph
Day 07 - 20 Aug 2010
537 Calories 2.67mi 60min @ 2.7mph (alternating to 3.1mph)

Picture I took coming out of the gym today after my workout. My shirt was soaking wet!