EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp 60 Day Challenge - Phase 3 Begins!

60 Day Challenge Day 41, Workout #25
Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, Trainer: Darren McFadden
Time: 38:20
Calories Burned: 311.2
Avg. Heart Rate: 125 bpm
Max. Heart Rate: 163 bpm

Okay, I've got one Phase 3 workout under my belt and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I wouldn't say any one part of this morning's workout was particularly strenuous, it was just a constant push and was a fairly long workout. One thing to note, where I write "time" is what the game tells me after the workout is complete. From what I can gather, this is the amount of time spent doing the exercises, not the total time that elapsed from start to finish of the entire workout. I would say the whole thing took closer to 45 minutes today, and I don't tend to stop for long in between exercises. There is a little load time though, and sometimes there is a demonstration of how to do the exercise if its a new one. As you work through the 60 day challenge, the duration of the workouts increases. In Phase 1, I was spending about 30 minutes from start to finish and now its more like 45. It'll probably be even longer by the time I'm finished. I'm finding myself getting up earlier and earlier to get my workout done and still catch the same bus to work.

Anyway, let's have a look at today's workout chart:

EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp 60 Day Challenge: Day 39, Workout 24

60 Day Challenge Day 39, Workout #24
Candlestick Park, San Francisco, Trainer: Frank Gore
Time: 36:23
Calories Burned: 261.3
Avg. Heart Rate: 120 bpm
Max. Heart Rate: 165 bpm

As of this morning, Phase 2 is complete! I am a little intimidated by what Phase 3 is going to throw at me, but I'm feeling good about stick with the program so well at this point. Life has been quite busy lately, so I haven't been able to blog every single workout, but I've been keeping up. Here's a look at my calories burned chart over the last 30 days:

Click to enlarge

EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp 60 Day Challenge: Day 34, Workout 21

60 Day Challenge Day 34, Workout #21
Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Trainer: Aaron Rodger
Time: 31:41
Calories Burned: 218.3
Avg. Heart Rate: 117 bpm
Max. Heart Rate: 173 bpm

To my anonymous commenter yesterday who warned me about workout #21 - Yep, you were right. If I never do another jump squat in my life, I would probably die a happy man. Take a look at last night's workout chart:

Click to enlarge

They're a little bit hard to see, but the tiny little icons across the bottom of the chart represent the different exercises. The little jump squat guy shows up on the chart FIVE TIMES. The first set was just 15. Okay, that's fine. But then the very next exercise was a set of 20! So basically 35 jump squats in a row with about 15 seconds in the middle for "recovery." I think the heart rate graph shows the full story there.

EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp 60 Day Challenge: Day 33, Workout #20

60 Day Challenge Day 33, Workout #20
Soldier Field, Chicago, Trainer: Devin Hester
Time: 35:16
Calories Burned: 247.9
Avg. Heart Rate: 131 bpm
Max. Heart Rate: 176 bpm

Yesterday I did my first makeup workout. I missed my workout on Monday (see my previous post) but I was able to power through it last night. Surprisingly, the game didn't even really make me feel guilty about it. My legs were actually still feeling pretty sore when I started the workout, but I figured I'd just power through it. Lots of foot fires, stride jumps, and squat jumps last night to keep my heart rate up. Check out my heart rate/calorie chart below:

Uh oh.. Missed one..

I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. I did workouts 18 and 19 last Friday and Saturday, but workout 20 was supposed to be yesterday - it didn't happen. Workouts 18 and 19 were pretty tough, and then I went on a strenuous hike on Sunday. I fully intended to continue my workouts yesterday, but my legs were just way too sore. The mere thought of prone knee drives made me cringe. Today is a scheduled day off, so I will make up yesterday's workout this evening and everything should be back on track. I'd feel worse about missing the day if I wasn't going to make it up immediately, or if it wasn't due to being sore from another physical activity. Honestly, my legs are still pretty sore this morning but I'm just going to work through it tonight and see how it goes

Below is my historical calorie burn chart, note the most recent three days have no calories burned :(.

Click to Enlarge

Still, the last two workouts were over 230 calories. This program is definitely not letting up on me at all.

EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp: Day 29, Workout 17

60 Day Challenge Day 29, Workout #17
Ralph Wilson Stadium, Buffalo, Trainer: CJ Spiller
Time: 30:08
Calories Burned: 198.0
Avg. Heart Rate: 122 bpm
Max. Heart Rate: 161 bpm

Workout 17 was last night and it was probably the most difficult workout I've had yet. I don't know what it was, but I was just feeling fatigued right off the bat. The workout focused on the lower body with a lot of squat jumps, bag hops, and prone knee drives. For whatever reason, I just really didn't want to keep going when I got to the first set of prone knee drives. I started to feel a little bit sick and had to pause for about five seconds during the first set of prone knee drives. By the second and third sets of jump squats, I was barely getting my feet off the ground. I think I hit a wall last night. Here's my workout summary chart:

What else do you do to keep healthy?

While the focus of this blog is really on using the Wii to get exercise, I thought I'd try to write a post about some of the other aspects of being healthy. I'm definitely not an expert, so I'm not here to give advice, just to share my experience and invite you to share your own. Any comments, tips, criticisms, etc. are encouraged.

Based on my own observations, it seems like the number one response to "How do I lose weight/get in better shape?" is "Diet and exercise." Well, this blog is covering the exercise portion well, but what about diet? Honestly, that is probably the harder part of it for me. I'm 26, I've always eaten whatever I want, and never saw any negative consequences until the last few years. I'm not 17 anymore. I can't go out and devour a large pizza by myself and not gain an ounce. As a typical guy though, I'm constantly bombarded by advertising and the general young American guy culture encouraging me to eat "guy food" (i.e. eat this, its 5 pounds of steak covered in bacon, cheese, and deep fried). Mmmm. That sounds pretty good.

So how have I been doing with my diet since the start of my workout program? Well, better than I used to, but its still not good. I was using a calorie counting app on my phone for a couple of weeks just to get an idea of where I was at. Generally, it made me aware of what were good choices and what weren't. I cut the burger place down the street out of my weekly lunch rotation an discovered a gyro place that is a much better alternative. No more Chipotle burritos either. How about a light sushi lunch instead? No problem.