Now six months since my operation, I have maintained my version of a heart friendly diet, which is somewhat radical, but have not been that succesful with my exercising. Though I did climb a mountain and have some good walks in Lesotho, without any negative effects.
On Saturday morning we decided we needed an exercise bike or an eliptical trainer. I was sold on the idea of getting an eliptical trainer that gets some good publicity on the infomercials. That idea was scrapped after I found a site on the net that reviews exercise equipment and which gave it a poor rating.
What I did discover was that there were cheapies advertised at various sites on the net, but the those advocated by the "experts" cost an arm and a leg. The idea was becoming less attractive, the more research I did. Who can exercise on one of these, if you are missing an arm and a leg.
I carefully planned the route, so we could visit all the shops selling exercise equipment. Our first stop was the exercise equipment shop I had dismissed a few weeks back, when driving past. "Who buys that stuff", I had scornfully said. We ended up with this "baby".
The salesman was very knowledgable, convincing and enthusiastic about the equipment. The eliptical trainer was about four times the price I wanted to pay and too big for our home. The exercise bike was nice, but cost a lot more than I wanted to spend. I was ready to walk out and continue the search, but the salesman gave us a price we could have refused, but didn't. It was a good price - expensive, but good.
A programmable magnetic cycle. I was almost intimidated by it - you need a pliots licence to drive it, or should I say pedal it.
It has 12 different programmes; you can increase the resistance as you pedal and burn up more energy; it takes your pulse, so that you do not over-exert yourself. It two of the programmes where you set your age and get a good cardio-vascular workout - it also reduces the resistance as soon as your pulse rate gets too high. It measures the calories burnt while cycling; it tells you your speed or rpm; and it has a clock, a timer and an alarm.
With what I have spent on this baby, I intend getting my money's worth, so will use it regularly. I must say I have been enjoying it and feel that I have exercised well after having been on it for 15 minutes.
It has some big advanatges over a normal bicycle. You don't have to worry about the rain, or being knocked over by a car, or being chased by a dog, or having some mugger part you from its saddle. And we have positioned it so that if we get bored, we can watch TV - that is if we choose to cycle when there is a good show on.
I intend to be well on the way to a new level of fitness at the end of a month.
And Tom, no cycling shorts and other fancy attire is needed.
