Oh that this too-too solid flesh would melt
posted in Uncategorized |(Okay. I promise, promise that I will get to the controversy. But, folks, I’m sorry–my brain is filled with Lists, and any attempt to actually write something substantive will make my head explode. Really.)
Right around the time that I was succumbing to vanity and dyeing my hair, the dotter took to waggling the turkey flaps under my arms, and then laughing uproariously.
This, of course, sent the vanity-o-meter surging through the roof.
So I started researching exercise programs. I had encountered an article somewhere recently that talked about walking off the weight in six weeks, so I started there with Mr. Google.
I ended up at Body For Life.
Filled to the gills with before-and-after photos! (Dumpy frumpy wimmen being transformed into sleek and muscular–and tanned–bods in 12 weeks!)
Filled to the gills with exercise information, demos, videos, and A Program!
Filled to the gills with nutrition information, sample recipes, and menus!
And, of course, filled to the gills with you-should-buy-this! supplements!
Now, I have a very bad history when it comes to starting and sticking to an exercise program. Very bad. So, when I started this thing, I decided not to mention a word to anyone about it (except the OmegaFamily) until I had been doing it for a few weeks and it looked like I was actually going to continue it.
I schlepped down to Small Mountain University’s recreation center and signed up for a year’s worth of rec center membership, plus a locker.
Then I started following the program. Not so much with the diet stuff, but with the “eat five to six small meals a day” and the “go low carb except after exercise” and the exercise advice. The exercise advice is to do weight lifting on MWF, aerobics on TThS, and “rest” on Sunday. The weight-lifting instructions are fairly precise: do 12 reps on a low-level of weight, add some weight and do 10 reps, add some weight and do 8 reps, add yet more weight and do 6 reps, then return to the base weight and do 12 more reps, then immediately do 12 reps of a similar exercise. The aerobics instructions are similar: start slow, build up to a huff-and-puff level by minute 5, do a minute at H&P level, then go back to the slow and build up for another 5, etc., for 20 minutes.
I have been semi-religious about this, and have just ended my fourth week (well, okay, I have the aerobic thingummy to do tomorrow). I have lost a bit of weight–6 pounds in 4 weeks–which is just about right. I’m not really worried about losing weight, because, amongst other things, this program is about putting on muscle and ditching fat, because muscle burns more calories even when you’re at rest.
But, the thing that is amazing is that…I am putting on muscle! Not “mushel”, as my dearly loved fuddy-duddy bro likes to put it. And all that muscle is behaving…well…like solid flesh, rather than flab.
To put it bluntly, flab squishes around. Muscle doesn’t. So lots of flab fits better into some of my pants than a little less muscle.
Har.
Well, at least for the last week and a half. Things are beginning, I think, to slender down a bit more, and some of the tight pants are becoming less tight. Woohoo!
But it is somewhat odd to have my arms feel…solid. I have bumps (small as yet) that bump against my torso, so rather than my arms squishing nicely against the torso, they kind of…bounce.
It’s all very interesting. I was never one for lifting weights before. But this is really cool and intriguing to experience. To top it all off, I can go off to the rec center, see my dotter at lunchtime (woohoo!), and then zone out for an hour and not think about Alaska or moving or Lists.
This is a Good Thing.
(And I promise I haven’t succumbed to the supplementation thing.)
Technorati: Exercise, pumping iron
