VO2 Maximum

My VO2 max is: 39.95 ml/kg/min.

This means that my VO2 max is higher than just a sedentary human being...so hooray!  These results mean that I have a pretty healthy lifestyle.

Blood Pressure

My blood pressure is:  103/62

These results mean that I won't die from a stroke or have any organs damaged.  Hooray for me.

Heart Rate

Resting Heart Rate: 80 bpm

Active Heart Rate: 140 bpm

Target Heart Rate: Between 102 and 153 beats/ minute  (26 and 38 beats/ 15 seconds)

Was your active heart rate within your target range?

Yes.

What do you think that means?

That I have a healthy heart rate for my age.

Do you need to increase or decrease your current activity level?

I'm probably great with what I'm doing now.

Why do you think it's important to have a lower heart rate?

So your heart doesn't overwork itself and then have a heart attack and die.

Tracking Food: Day 7

So last day of tracking food!! Super awesome........I ate so many veggies today....but that was about it....and a lot of protein I guess too...But anyway, it's the weekend tomorrow!  Hooray!! And no more tracking food.  This is gonna be legit.  Anyway, night!

Tracking Food: Day 6

Today was a bad eating day for me.  But, I didn't feel very hungry.  Mostly because my cousin died this afternoon after a long struggle with cancer.  I'll miss him but I know he's in a better place.  I'll try and do better about eating tomorrow.

And, as a tribute to my cousin:

Tracking Food: Day 5

Okay, so three things are great today!! I'm doing better. :)  Dairy is still hard for me though since most dairy things don't agree with my stomach.  And my mom is kinda going anti-flour, so the grains is hard for me unless they are all whole grains.  But other than that I am super proud of myself!  Hooray!!  But I have a stomach ache.....

And btw, I saw some picture of overweight people in the newspaper today and it's motivated me to keep eating healthy.  I do NOT want my engagement pictures to look like that.  Not that I have anything against the people personally, but I could never feel good about myself like that.  I'll just stay healthy.

Tracking Food: Day 4

Okay........so I hardly ate any grains.....and a ton of veggies!! Woohoo......and less fruit....ugh.....it is soooooooooooo hard to try and balance everything out!!! :P  This is way super harder than I thought and it's not really fun.  At least I'm staying within/under my calorie limit.  This is really hard...I'll probably not ever do it again.  But it's kind of eye-opening at the same time.  I think the lesson I can take away from this is that I need to be more aware of my food.

Tracking Food: Day 3

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!  No school!  No stress!  Just partaaaaaaay..... **stops in mid-party** And happy Obama gets sworn in day.......hooray....we  can all say goodbye to any good futures for us.  I think I'd prefer a zombie attack to this because at least I know I've got a zombie slayer as a friend.  He would save me.  Nothing saves me from Obama.  I'm moving to the moon.  But anywho, as all these great and not so great things were going on, I was tracking my food.  As usual.  Joy.  So here's what I ate:

Yeah, so I did better in the vegetable department....actually a little too well...haha....and fruits are all right.  I finally didn't eat too many grains, but in being too cautious I ate under.  And dairy and protein foods really need some help.  I don't really like dairy stuff unless it's ice cream.  I'm not a big fan of milk or yogurt.  And I haven't been eating too much meat lately.  Weird.  I feel like a rabbit....eating a lot of veggies and less like the dinosaur I usually am and chomping on yummy meat.  Riley would approve of that sentence....about being a dinosaur.  Man, I am really tired.  I just want to go to bed.  And talking about food when I'm still hungry isn't helping.  I really need to think about something else...like maybe how all my Burger guy friends' heads are so big....I mean literally....Dallin, Nick, Riley, Seth.....man...okay, I really need to stop typing.  This is supposed to be a health/fitness blog.  Not a my-guy-friends-are-so-ugh-sometimes-but-I-love-them blog.

Tracking Food: Day 2

So today is a bit better than yesterday.  I didn't eat quite so many grains.  I still need to eat more vegetables though.  Another day successfully done.  I wonder if I can get a day where I eat "perfectly."

Tracking Food: Day 1

Yeah....so....I guess my eating habits stink.  This is kinda bad.  I'm over in my grains...and under in everything else.  I warned you that would happen.  I love my grains too much.  I also love vegetables...but I need to eat more of them.  I'll do that tomorrow.  Eat more veggies.  And more fruit.  I don't like fruit as much so that will be hard.  But orange season is upon us.  And that's yummy.  So I'll eat more those.

Anyway...this food tracking business...is still not fun.  And that's the honest truth.  But I bet it's good for me so I'll suck it up and take it like a man...or a woman...but whatev about being politically correct.

ChooseMyPlate

Okay, so my initial reaction to having to keep track of my daily food intake for a week is: meh.

Dude, I seriously don't want to do this.  And I guess that goes to show that I like being healthy but I don't want to go to the extremes to be healthy.

No I've never done anything like this before.

I don't really hope to discover anything...but I'll probably see that I eat a lot of foods with white flour in it.

My current weight is 100 lbs.  Haven't I already posted that though?

ChooseMyPlate says my suggested calorie intake is 2000 calories per day.

BMI

My BMI is 18.3  

Its considered an ideal weight for someone with my weight, height and age.

And  I won't do anything to change my BMI since it's perfect.  End of story.

Stretching

As a ballet dancer, stretching is really important.  I mean, you can't just put your leg up to your ear or do the splits just like that.  Okay, some can because they're just born flexible, but for the rest of us "normal" people we have to stretch.  Defining more terms again! Hooray......

Ballistic Stretching: You use momentum to force your joints beyond their range of motion with a bouncing action.

Static Stretching: You extend your joints as far as you can or slightly beyond your range of motion and hold the stretch for an extended period of time.

Ballistic Stretching is now considered very dangerous as it can cause rips and tears in your muscles. Instead, static stretching is the way to go because it is much gentler on your muscles.

Joint Variation:  Well, usually joint variation is using a combination of both in your exercises but ballistic stretching is dangerous....so don't use a joint variation of these types of stretching.

I can statically stretch before ballet to become more flexible.  I can stretch every night before I go to bed. :D

Muscular Endurance

It would be kind of pointless to be strong, but not be able to do anything for an extended amount of time.  That's why, in strength training, you should probably fit in some endurance training as well.  Otherwise...you could kind of be a pathetic-looking strong person. ;)  Here are some more terms I'm supposed to define in my blog:

High repetitions with Low Resistance:  Do the exercise many times over (repeat it) for endurance, but don't use an extremely heavy weight or resistance.

Sport Specificity: This just means....consistently train in the sport or exercise you want to do!  Don't swim a ton of laps if you're going to run a marathon!  Of course....it might be good cross-training, but it shouldn't be the focus of your training.

Work/Rest Ratio: I already talked about this below in my other blog post.  If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Muscular Strength

As a dancer, my muscles need to be strong.  But I don't want to look like a freak.  You know what I'm talking about.  Those people with the veins popping out of their nasty bulging muscles that look like misshapen blobs poking out of their bodies........need I say any more?  Anywho, I'm supposed to define some terms relating to muscular strength in "my own words."

Isotonic Exercise: Muscles change in length while lifting a constant amount of weight at various speeds through different ranges of motion.  (i.e. weight-lifting)

Isometric Exercise: Muscles exert in a motionless action on an immovable object and don't change in length. (i.e. pushing against a wall)

Isokinetic Exercise: Exercise that involves pushing, lifting or pulling weight or resistance at a constant speed.

The Overload Principle: In order for your muscles to get stronger, you need to put a greater amount of stress (more than normal) for that to happen.  Otherwise, the muscles will never learn how to adapt in a better way to the added stress and will never get very strong.  Basically, a normal amount of exercise will maintain a normal fitness level.

Work/Rest Ratio: Don't just work your butt of when you exercise....to get the most out of your workout, rest in between!  There are different work/rest ratios for different types of training goals.

I can find different ways in order to incorporate all these into my life now that I know that all are pretty important in maintaining good physical health!  And I will definitely use that work/rest ration! ;)  I love rests..... haha....

Weight & Presidential Fitness Test

I love how one of the first things they have me do for this class is post my current weight and then share my feelings about it.  That's like.....the worse thing you could ask a girl to do....jk, I really don't mind.  I'm not self-conscious about my weight.  Okay, so here goes:

Weight: 101.5 lbs

I actually haven't weighed myself in a long time.  The last time I did, I think I was around 97 lbs.  So I've gained a little weight, but that's completely normal.  Honestly, I feel fine about my weight.  It's not something I obsess over.  I just don't want to be fat.

And I'm supposed to take this horrible awesome physical test to see how physically fit I am.  Joy.  So here are the results:  (My sister did it with me so I'll post her results up here as well!  She's 12 by the way and probably a lot stronger than I am....)

Curl-ups:   Me- 21           Sallie- 24

Shuttle Run:  Me- 11.6 s  Sallie- 12.0 s

Pull-ups: Me- 0  Sallie- 0

V-Sit Reach: Me- 3 ft 9 in.   Sallie- 3 ft.

Endurance Run- 10 minutes.

I actually didn't do the endurance run then because I've been really sick....I could barely do the other ones....and I'm afraid I would pass out.  But I'll do it as soon as possible!  However, in the past, it's taken me about 10 minutes to do the run.  I did the Williamsburger and that was a little over a mile and I came in around 10 minutes.

Fitness Knowledge Test

Today, I "tested" my current knowledge about fitness and exercising and, according to the results of this quiz, I know quite a bit! Never mind the fact that I used my reasoning skills and pretty much guessed on all the answers. I surprised myself. You know, if you want the honest truth....I just exercise to exercise.  It makes me feel happier and my day usually runs smoother and let's face it....no one wants to see a fat Kimberly because that would just be gross.  The benefits of fitness are endless for me.  I also have a better attitude after exercise and I don't have quite the tendency to behave like an ADHD psycho child...

I don't really think I've ever thought about these random fitness facts that were on the quiz.  When I run, I'm not contemplating the fact that muscle weighs the same as fat or that the motto "no pain, no gain" is a myth. :P  I suppose this is why I'm taking this class: to become more aware of my fitness habits.

Probably More Than You Want To Know...

Hey!  My name is Kimberly, but you can call me Simmy.  It's my official Burger nickname. Anyway, there are a couple things you should know right up front. 

 The first thing is that I love llamas.  Especially lime green llamas. ;)  Actually, love is not a strong enough word.  Some would say I'm obsessed.  And they would be correct.  I've even been called the master of all things llama here at Williamsburg.  I'm proud of that title. If you didn't get all of that, don't worry....most people don't.  Only those who really understand me and the llama thing get my craziness, but I'm sure you'll come to understand as well. 

Now, for the second thing. This class will be challenging for me and I'm a tad bit scared.  I mean....it's not like I'm not a healthy person....I did do the Williamsburger last August!  I also dance for about 8 to 10 hours a week. The thing is... I'm not very good to committing to things that make me healthy like the no sugar, no flour diet that I'm "supposed" to be on or exercising every day--unless it's dance. But that's beside the point.  This class is going to stretch me.  I know it.  It's an intimidating thought at times.  But I know I can do it and pull through.  I've already got a blog buddy to push me through this! 

I also am in love with Williamsburg Academy. The schooling here is unbelievable.  This is the only high school I know of where I can get a fabulous education WHILE having the time of my life WHILE being with awesome kids WHILE being mentored by some of the most awe-inspiring adults.

Speaking of friends....I have THE greatest friends in the world. <-----See that period?  Be jealous.  I know you are.  We have the most epic conversations about poles, hobos, lime green llamas (obviously), pink polka-dotted mice, waffle trucks, rawrs, wheelchairs and many more topics that are so random it would explode your brain. :D  It's pretty awesome.

I also eat food, breathe air and sleep.  And shop.  If I didn't shop, I would...not be living.

And that's probably more information than you ever want to know about me....