It’s been a month since I started going back to the gym, and though my weight loss has pretty much come to a halt at 183lbs, I can definitely see the difference as I’m starting to tone up, and feel the difference as my stamina continues to improve each week. My complete workout is roughly 60 minutes — 5-10 minutes of stretching, situps and push-ups; 15-20 minutes on the Nautilus machines; 35 minutes on the elliptical bike — and it’s quickly gone from a tough slog that I had to force myself not to cheat on, to an invigorating session that I’ve had to continually tweak upwards in intensity. Yesterday was the first time I went full-speed on the elliptical bike for the whole 30 minutes (the other 5 minutes are the automatic cool down period) and I got off without rubbery legs, my heart rate topping out at 168 bpm, down from a max of 178 bpm in the first couple of weeks. This is also the first week I’ll actually get to do my three-times-a-week schedule, so I’d say it’s been a successful first month.
I’ve still got a bit of a gut to work off — and I’ve not been quite as vigilant as I should be about what I eat or drink the past few weeks since I’ve started going out for poetry more often, which hasn’t really helped — but it’s much smaller now than it’s been in years. The “baby weight” jokes were getting old anyway, so I can just blame it on the Guinness which is easier to do when it doesn’t look like you swallowed a small basketball!
Interestingly, I weighed myself on our home scale a week ago and realized that it’s off by 10 pounds, so not only was I apparently over the 200lb benchmark I’d set as the line in the sand, I’ve actually lost about 25-30 pounds since the beginning of the year! That’s like a whole 2-year-old!
