When I started to work out... my resting heartrate was about 80-90 beats per minute. Not good!!! With my heart disease hitting close to home over the last couple of years... it became apparent to me that I better start making sure my heart was more healthy.

A lot of my closest friends are into working out... so it shouldn't surpise you that of course... we talk about things like resting heart rates because it interests us.

I realized yesterday that in the span of one week... that I discussed my resting heart rate with 3 different people. For those of you rolling your eyes... I'm sure you can only imagine how riveting of a conversation it would be... but it actually is interesting... everyone I discussed heart rates with also happen to know their resting heart rates too... so I guess I'm not the only weirdo out there!

The lowest I've ever been able to drop my heart rate was just before hot yoga. I was in "corpse pose" and managed to get my resting heart rate down to 47 beats per minute... I'm sure it goes lower when I sleep... but this was making a concious effort to lower my resting heart rate through breathing and relaxation. Though I have to be honest... the excitement of seeing my resting heart rate so low... then drove it up 10 points and I then had to work on breathing slowly again to bring it back down but it did register at 47 beats and I have managed to bring it that level again.

At any given point in the day my resting heart rate is normally 51-55 beats per minute (as I write this blog entry it's 52 beats per minute).

Devin and I discuss resting heart rates all the time... he's been athletic his entire life and has always been aware of his heart rate... when I was overweight I don't think it ever occured to me to even check if I had a pulse. Now that I have a resting heart rate comparable to an athlete... it's astonished to think that I had a little athlete trapped inside my oversized body all this time... my body responds well to exercise and my endurance is ridiculous... it seems natural that once you get into the grove of regular exercise... that you become more aware and interested in helping your body run more like a fine tuned machine and improving it's performance!

Though I use the scale to gauge my weight loss success... for my overall health and well-being I've been watching my resting heart rate lower month by month as my cardivascular system strengthened. I've also watched during my workouts how my heart rate highs are much lower then they used to be. When I first started running intervals it wasn't uncommon for me to have my heart rate in the 180s during the run segments but now when I'm going a good clip it tops up in the 160s but then will quickly recover about 50 beats within my 1 minute on the walk segments... from what I understand... this is also a sign of a healthy heart!