new activity

Today my husband and I started playing Racquetball together.

:-)

Jason doesn't have any interest in going to the gym with me, so playing racquetball and tennis is good enough for now.

I have to say I never realized how active this two sports were. there is a ton of short burst running around, which sorta like circuit cardio.

Of course Jason, having been a tennis player in high school, beat me. But it was still lots of fun!

we bought the rackets off craigslist for 7$ each so its a rather cheap activity for us since our apartment supplies the court. :-)

I highly recommend this activity for couples who have it available to them, its a fun sport, with lots of laughs!

Here are some interesting fitness facts of racquetball.

The average number of calories burned during racquetball play ranges from moderate at 640/hour [Prevention, 1995] to 794/hour [Men's Health, 1995] -- to a high level at 13.7 per minute (or 822/hour) [Sports Training Institute].

An average game will take 20 minutes, during which a player will run a distance of approximately 3,650 feet -- or over two miles in one hour of play. [U.S. Olympic Training Center]

Racquetball players work at a constant rate of 75 to 85% of their maximum heart rate for the duration of a typical racquetball game.
[USRA Elite Training Camp, 1992]

Racquetball offers both aerobic and anaerobic benefits (I did not add that in, proof of aerobic and anaerobic!) , with both sustained high level heart rate activity and quick bursts of energy required during play.

Racquetball works nearly every muscle group, including sustained, repetitive use of large muscles that increase calorie burn and reduce fat percentage.

now go play!!

Give me a minute and let me talk to you about calorie counting.

as annoying as it is to count calories, it really is one of the best ways to monitor what you are eating, and burning.

I know its obnoxious, and sometimes I have no idea how many calories are in something, like Squash or other things without a label.

There is a great website to help you.

www.thedailyplate.com

Set up a FREE profile, your height age weight yada yada. It has a calorie tracker, you type in any food you want, and you can be specific, it finds it, has a little button that says" I ate this" you click that button, and it adds it to your tracker for the day, it adds the calories, fat, protein, everything! another cool thing, well here is an example. I had some of a coke today, but not the whole thing, I typed in coca cola, and you can put in how much of it you had, so I entered .25 of a serving size. I also had albertsons brand cookies, 4, so I put in 4.0 servings. it does the calories based on how many servings you had. its so awesome.

also, it has a calories burned tracker, type in what exercises you did that day, again you can be very specific, it finds it, according to your weight and height it knows how many calories you burned, it adds that to your tracker with how many calories you burned, and evens out your caloric intake for the day. (it even has sex as an activity lol. 79 calories burned in a hour!)

give it a try, its totally free and way easy. very user friendly!