I do my cardio in the mornings and lift weights in the late afternoons. I have found this to be a very effective pattern. I work out four days a week, walking (M, Th) and hitting a heavy bag on the other two days (Su, W). For my weightlifting workouts at this time, see Full Workout Logs: 2010 - ?.

The walking steps and mileage are being measured by a pedometer. The first and last couple of minutes of both the walking and the heavy bag are being done at a slow pace for a warm-up and cool-down, respectively.

At times I had grass to cut rather than go for a walk. For it, I divide the yard into two parts, each taking a little less than half an hour. But after a few weeks, each half had become a little too easy, so I began walking a little extra after cutting grass. The log reflects both the grass cutting and the extra walking combined.

At the beginning of October my health deteriorated, and I was forced to stop working out, both lifting and cardio. But I was able to start back up again in November. When I did, I basically had to start over. For the cardio, that meant cutting way back on the duration and intensity and then, God-willing, gradually working back up. For details, see Weight Loss/ Starting Over.

After I started over again, I began alternating the path I walked. I was only walking out of my home and to the right. But I started doing that only on Mondays and then on Thursdays walking to the left . The latter is more hilly. For the heavy bag, I had been mainly hitting the bottom half of the bag each day, but I changed to focusing on hitting the top half of the bag every other time. Also, with it being winter, there will be times when I will have to shovel snow rather than doing my normal cardio for the day.

Mixing things up like this is called cross-training, which prevents overtraining and boredom, and enables different muscle groups to be worked in each cardio workout.