Week 1 - Day 1
Here we are, Day 1 of the AI Life Coach experiment. Per my exercise schedule, it was a full body workout focusing on strength. I had also planned some delicious meals and snacks throughout the day that I couldn’t wait to try.
Exercising is Great
As I stated on Day 0, I’m an early riser. I was excited to get started, so I was down in my exercise room a tad earlier than the schedule requested.
Just for a full disclosure, I built my exercise room during the dark days of COVID-19. Before we were all forced home, I would stop by the gym after work a few times a week. When I couldn’t do that, I decided to invest in my own gym with equipment. It includes free weights, a Bowflex Revolution Home Gym, a Bowflex treadmill, and a punching bag. By the way, I’m not being paid or endorsed by Bowflex in any way for this. It’s just what I own (I also like the red and black color scheme).
My home gym
As I’m sure it will come up, yes, there are many medals hanging in this room. The ones on the left wall are all my running/walking medals. It honsetly has been a dream of mine to run a marathon, particularly a runDisney marathon. I’ve done a few virtual 5ks, but I would love to go down to Florida and do an in-person one. Hence, why my end goal for this experiment is to run an actual marathon (or at least go the distance).
The other medals on this wall are mostly from Conqueror Challenges. If you’ve not heard of this company, it’s great. It’s all virtual and themed from favorite landmarks, TV shows, movies, etc. They give you a distance to go and you have to run, walk, bike, and swim that distance in the time frame of your choosing. It’s really motivated my elderly parents to move, which I’m grateful for. Once again, I am neither a part of nor being endorsed by this company, I just truly enjoy them.
The back wall contains my Taekwondo medals. I am a 1st Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo (received December 2023) and I participated in many tournaments where I won. Unfortunately, I fell out of love for the sport shortly after receiving my black belt and stopped attending. However, I’m still proud of my accomplishments so my belts and medals hang on my walls.
Anyways, back to my exercises. It had been a good 4 months since I’ve been down in this room to workout. I was rusty and knew it would be a good training day, so I got to work.
Today was a full body strength day consisting of squats, push-ups, lunges, planks, and a light jog. We also had some pre- and post-workout stretches to do. I had no issues doing the exercises since they were basic. I didn’t add any extra weight since my AI Life Coach didn’t tell me to. Where I screwed up was on the “light jog” portion.
If you haven’t realized it by now, I’m not a “half-assed” kind of person. If I’m going to do something, I’m going to go all out. I had been running/walking every day, even if I hadn’t done any actual weight training, so I felt pretty confident in a jog. Therefore, I didn’t jog, I sprinted. I decided to use this time to gauge where I was fitness wise and how much I could push myself.
Now, I am a short woman. At only 5ft tall, every stride a normal person takes is like 2 or 3 to me. It takes more effort to run at a faster pace which is both a good and a bad thing depending on how you look at it. Usually for long hauls, I’d set the treadmill to a comfortable 4.5 speed. This can get me to about 5ish miles before I have to slow it down. Today, I set it to 5.5 to see how long I could last.
3 minutes was the answer.
Those were the hardest 3 minutes of my life too. It had been a while since I had exercised THEN ran. My legs felt like they were on fire and then some. I quickly dropped the speed down to 4.9 and jogged the rest of the way.
This is what I learned from this experience:
It had been too long since I actually exercised
Don’t think you know better than the AI Life Coach
Unfortunately, because of my screw-up, I forgot to my post-workout stretches. I contribute this as to why my legs feel as wobbly as a brand new horse.
Meals
Breakfast
After I was done exercising, it was time for a quick shower and breakfast. Breakfast was a lovely egg and spinach sandwich over a single slice of whole-wheat toast. This recipe also called for avocado, but I had issues with it. I am not a fan of avocados. I do not like the texture, taste, or smell of them. However, I was going to try it for the sake of the experiment. Unfortunately, when I cut it open, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what to do with it. No Youtube video was going to help me figure this out because I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. None of the actual edible parts were coming out. So, it got trashed.
Morning Snack
Before I started this experiment, my daily meals consisted of breakfast as soon as I got up, lunch around 10 or 11 am, then dinner at 4 to 5 pm. I also snacked throughout the day whenever I got hungry, which probably wasn’t the best plan. This time, however, I had my AI Life Coach to guide me. I bought plenty of snacks such as bananas, apples, mixed nuts, and some rice cakes. The 10:00 AM snack was a single Apple Cinnamon rice cake.
Lunch
For lunch, I decided to go out on a limb and try something new. One of my recipes was a turkey wrap with Greek yogurt spread. I’ve never been a fan of Greek yogurt (or any yogurt), so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. I did deviate from the recipe a bit and fry some red peppers and onions for added taste and texture. The Greek yogurt spread was…interesting to say the least. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Luckily, the original recipe said Dijon mustard could be added if I so chose. I didn’t have any Dijon mustard, but I did have California Reaper Honey Mustard which I figured was just as good.
This lunch recipe did not tell me the size of tortilla I needed to buy. Being used to looking at calories, I only got an 8-inch tortilla shell that was high in protein and plant based. Unfortunately for me, this was an inadequate sized vessel for everything that needed to go on it. Let’s just say, it was very messy and not at all wrap-like.
Evening Snack
My evening snack was a handful of nuts. Since I work from home, I got to eat while on a work call, so that was both fun and convenient.
Dinner
Dinner was interesting as well. This was one of the few meals that my household agreed to try with me, so I had to up the recipe since my AI Life Coach only gave me a recipe befitting a single serving. Thus, I made too much. Luckily, the baked chicken and vegetables were delicious, so everything was ok. This just meant I had leftovers and didn’t have to cook tomorrow. One member of my household didn’t like it too much because she’s not a fan or oregano. Other than that, it went over well with everyone else.
Conclusion
First day is done and I thought it went well! Got humbled by my lack of exercise skill, but I now realize where I stand in that aspect. The food was better than expected and I honestly think I could get used to eating like this.
