Crazy-Ass Workouts

It's been almost 10 years since my doctor ordered a couple of fasting blood glucose tests and told me that I'm diabetic. He started me on an oral medication but, spurred on by a dietitian, I followed a regimen of diet and exercise that enabled me to stop taking the medicine after just a few months.

I kept exercising. It dawned on me the other day that, except for the weeks that I was in chemotherapy, I've been exercising on a regular basis for nearly 10 years now. What sparked that realization was a newspaper article listing the best ways to stick to an exercise plan. The article listed all the usual stuff--get a buddy, hire a trainer, join a class, yadda yadda yadda.

Nobody has ever asked me, but I've stuck with it for a decade because I found exercise I like to do. I started with walking and added resistance work (using Nautilus machines) after nagging from my dietitian. Eventually I changed from walking to running.

And sometimes, I add in a crazy-ass workout for variety. There are lots of really crazy workout routines--P90x, CrossFit, Cage Fighters Workout. But those are too far out for me.

So I talked to  a co-worker who does some pretty crazy-ass workouts himself. He told me about one of them which involves a stationary bike. You get on the bike and start pedaling. After a seven-minute warmup, you pedal crazy fast for 40 seconds and then do a tow-minute recovery. After 30 minutes of those intervals, you do a three-minute cool-down. That's one crazy-ass workout.

Yeah, I've done that one. I've done it twice now, and I'm beginning to wonder if that P90X stuff is really so crazy.

Maybe I'll just go for a run.