Heavyhands, day 1

Today was the first day of my new cardio workout, Heavyhands. This involves walking along at a good pace, swinging my arms (that’s the important part) while holding small weights, and sometimes doing some arm exercises. The weather was perfect, 70°F and sunny. I took the opportunity to walk down various blocks in my neighborhood that I hadn’t walked down before. My shoulders feel pretty well worked-out.

• Weight: 275
• Walked for 30 minutes (maybe more like 32), with 1-lb weights, did maybe four cycles of flyes, lifts, overheads, 25 reps each.
• Heartrate stayed in the mid-to-high 140s most of the time, with occasional dips into the high 130s and peaks in the mid 150s.

Shopping math

akawil, ladymondegreen, and I have been thinking for a while of joining BJ’s Wholesale Club (no, they don’t sell discount fellatio, though that could lend a whole new meaning to the concept of “making it up in volume”). We were going to go up to the membership desk and get a one-day pass to go browsing and note the prices on object we buy a lot to see if it’d be worth it for us. (You can buy stuff with the pass, but there’s a 15% surcharge, which rather defeats the purpose.)

Anyway, yeah, it would pay. Here are some examples:

Bounty paper towels, 15-count:

Pathmark: $13.99
BJ’s: $10.99
My parents got us one of these almost exactly three months ago, and we’ve used ten rolls so far. Figure we’ll go through three of these in a year, that’s $9 in savings.

Bumblebee pink salmon, 14.75-oz can:

Pathmark: $1.99 per can, $3.98 for two cans
BJ’s: $2.99 for a pack of two cans.
We eat a lot of salmon, and could eat a lot more. We’ll save at least $30 a year on this.

PowerBar energy bars:

Most supermarkets: about $1.50 per bar
BJ’s: 20-pack, $16.69 (84¢ each)
For a while I was eating at least one of these a day, though I stopped buying them after the box from Costco ran out, because I was thinking of going on Atkins. If I go back to making these a regular part of my diet, this alone will save me over $40 a year. They’re expensive enough that I probably shouldn’t.

Quarter-pound beef patties:

Pathmark (store brand): 40 patties, $19.99 (50¢ each)
BJ’s (name brand): 20 patties, $8.69 (43¢ each)
And BJ’s sells lean beef patties, which Pathmark doesn’t (at least, not in bulk).

I’m sure we’ll save lots of money on toilet paper too, and pasta and cereal, but I didn’t get prices on those.

My mother warns that the danger of these places is that temptation to buy lots of stuff you wouldn’t otherwise have bought. I figure we’re protected by our lack of a car.

We stopped off at ShopRite on the way home (whimsy purchase: blood-orange sorbet!) and met cjsherwood, who turns out to live about four blocks from us, and gave us a lift home.

Y’know, you can sing The Association’s “Windy” to the tune of the Eels’s “Souljacker Part I”, though you wouldn’t think so comparing the lyrics.