Getting In Shape

This week, rather than driving straight home, I went out and bought a food scale.  I knew that to set myself up for long-term success, I needed to portion and prepare my own food.  Healthy Choice was a great tool to get me started, and I still keep it in my Freezer for when I’m in a hurry, or just don’t feel like cooking.  I vowed to myself that nothing bad would go into my body for the rest of the competition. 

A couple other things happened that week as well.  Thursday morning I met Lisa in the gym to go over my workout.  I was on the recumbent bike and wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants on what was a particularly hot June day.  She said something along the lines of, “What the heck are you wearing a sweat suit for?”  Sure I liked to sweat, but I was hiding under it.  I was fat, and not as strong as I used to be.  I think subconsciously I figured that if I wore a sweatshirt, no one would notice.  In reality, I was the fat sweat ball who stuck out like a sore thumb.  From that day on, I lost the sweatshirt.

She also “commented” on my cardio effort.  I was riding with my heart rate at 155 for most of my workout.  I thought I was working pretty hard.  I was still very much out of shape, and was trying to build up slowly, but when you’re told, “I am guessing it doesn’t feel like you are working THAT hard?  Could you go all day at 155?”  It kind of puts it in perspective.  I agreed to take her spin class the next week.

Wednesday morning was spin class.  Now when I say I was terrified of spin class, that’s an understatement. I thought about it all day Tuesday, couldn’t sleep that night, and spent the hour before class pacing in my kitchen feeling like I was going to vomit and trying to come up with a good excuse not to go.  I had no idea what to expect but fully expected to die.  The spin room was a dark 10X15 cinderblock room, lit by a string of red Christmas lights.  It looked more like an opium den, then a place to exercise.  It didn’t help that the woman seated next to me looked like she wrestled grizzlies in her spare time.  Obviously I didn’t die, but it was tough.  I realized I could be working much harder.

I had been steadily losing weight for a couple weeks.  Some weeks I’d lose more, some less, but I was close to my 6 lb average.  Many times I was the biggest loser, and some times I was not.  I used those weeks to drive myself harder.  I was a man possessed, but still needed the occasional kick in the pants.  Lisa didn’t allow me to get complacent.  Every time I started thinking that I was in shape, or that I was working as hard as I could, she’d take our workouts up a notch and tear me back down. 

The final piece of the puzzle was the weights.  As I had mentioned, I was using very light weight and high repetitions.  It was the last wall I had built that had to be torn down.  Lisa was bugging me to lift heavy weights, but I was resistant.  I even went so far as to say, “I have no use for big muscles anymore.”  WHAT?  When I finally admitted to myself that the sole reason I was lifting this way was so I didn’t have to see how weak I’d become, I found out I was much stronger than I thought I was.

Each week I was able to do more, so each weak I worked a little harder.  I bought spin shoes and was taking a couple classes a week.  I also got a heart rate monitor, which became an invaluable tool to gauge how hard I was working.  210 was quickly becoming a reality as I watched myself methodically descend through the 260’s, 250’s, 240’s etc. declaring, “That’s the last time I’ll ever see the 240’s.”  Somewhere along the way, I even reset my goal to 200 lbs.