For those of you curious how my crazy idea to end all crazy ideas worked out, here’s the rundown:

Tuesday (Day One): put in 20 minutes on the elliptical, kind of wanted to die, definitely felt a bit sick to stomach. Walked two laps around the neighborhood that evening and my legs felt like they belonged to Gumby afterwards.

Wednesday (Day Two): put in 25 minutes on the elliptical, but sipped some G2 (different than regular Gatorade as it has lower calories) before, during, and after the workout. Didn’t feel like dying, not sick to stomach. Walked one lap around the neighborhood that evening but kind of felt guilty for not doing two, as my legs felt like they could handle it.

Thursday (Day Three): put in 30 minutes on the elliptical, sipped the G2 at appropriate times. Still don’t feel like dying, nor do I feel sick. This is progress! The decision will be for my evening walk tonight: one lap or two? I’ve usually been doing two laps when I don’t have enough steps in during the day (there’s an initiative at work to reach 10,000 steps every day), but now that the elliptical is part of the plan, two laps aren’t necessary in that regard (hence why I only did one last night). So we’ll see.

In short, so far, so good. My body’s getting used to me putting it through hell. And while I’m not woo-hoo! EXERCISE!!! afterwards, the recovery period isn’t taking long and I’m pretty awake and alert. The trick will be on the weekends, when I don’t plan to work out on the elliptical (but still plan to walk), or on mornings I’m really not feeling it (due to sinus, headache, or just simple bad sleep).

We’ll see how it goes!