High intensity

Saturday:

When I look at my fitbit sleep stats, a good night will look something like this:

II___________________________________III____I

where the upstrokes are restlessness or being awake. A bad night looks more like this:


II_II_I_I____I___I___I_____I____I_IIIIIII___II__I

The difference is really obvious! And I feel it as soon as I wake up. I'm kind of alternating good and bad nights at the moment. Maybe the bad nights are influenced by recent lack of exercise? Well my foot is all better now so I can change that variable.

I did an hour of Fantasia in the morning. I actually felt a bit bored with it today, but I stuck with it. My attention kept wandering and I didn't get great scores. It didn't feel like much of a workout, without the intensity I usually put in. More like just waving my arms around for an hour!

So in the afternoon I tried some Dance Central. But I couldn't get into that either. My body didn't seem tired but my brain was. I was just flopping my body around like a fish in the bottom of a boat, unable to grasp the choreography. After 10 minutes of that I gave up. I wanted something that challenged my body but not my brain. I switched to Fighters Uncaged. This is definitely the most high-intensity Xbox game we have. 90 second bouts of fighting, using arms and legs and elbows and knees and forehead and everything you've got. The game teaches you quite a lot of moves to use at close, medium and far distance (like uppercut when close, kick when further away) but apart from that you just do whatever, no choreography to follow. I was like the Tasmanian Devil from Bugs Bunny cartoon, flailing limbs all over the place. 90 seconds doesn't sound like a lot, does it? I did six bouts over 10 minutes, very short breaks between each one, and that was absolutely all I could do. I was exhausted.

I got a bit annoyed with my fitbit. I checked my heart rate immediately after each bout. After the third I was up to 143 or something, but after that it dropped to about 120 for the rest of the time. I can tell you it didn't feel like my heart rate had dropped! It felt like I was close to passing out. So was the fitbit wrong, or had my heart rate really stabilised like that? It seems unlikely. I made myself walk around the house for several minutes until I felt more normal (but very tired) before I sat down, and then another half an hour before I showered. Far more tired after 10 minutes of high intensity than I ever am after an hour of low or moderate intensity. I'm hoping the dance warmup was enough to stop me getting sore tomorrow.

Report card:
Diet: Good. Still having a bit too much chocolate, but good meals.
Exercise: Great. Over an hour and worked really hard at the end.
Water: Good.
Sleep: Good consistency. Poor quality.
Mental health: Good.