It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song

I only have 7 more free sessions at Fitness Together, and I'm worried that I won't have accomplished enough. I want FT to be able to use my before and after story to show what great work they do, but I've only lost 8 pounds so far and no one has noticed a difference in my appearance. I had Liz take a picture of me to compare with the one she took when I started, and I actually think I looked better in the before picture.

I decided I was being crazy, so I put the pictures aside to look at when I was more rational, and guess what--I still thought I looked better in the before picture. Well, I've got 3 more weeks to have a better after picture. I brought my worry up to Mark when we trained together this morning, and he thought I was disappointed for myself, so he was reassuring me that I've made appropriate progress for the time I've been working out. I guess if Mark isn't concerned that I won't make a good story, I shouldn't be.

I'm very pleased with my progress. I would like it if my weight went down faster, but I feel great! I feel muscles where I didn't before, I can feel the fat disappearing like glaciers in global warming, I'm eating really great food and not having any trouble staying on the diet, and I'm loving the taste of food in a way I haven't. All that's good--stop worrying!

I had two great workouts today. I told Mark about the pain I was having in my ankle, so he had me do a lot of exercises that involved balancing on one leg and then the other. I would have thought that would have exarcerbated the problem, but it worked. Here are pictures from my two favorite exercises from today. I know, the first pictures look like I'm a person in the witness protection program demonstrating exercises while concealing my identity. Anyway, I would step onto a 1 foot high platform on one leg and then do presses. I did that about 40 times .

 

 








For the above exercise, I stood on one leg, holding onto a weighted cable, leaned forward until my leg was straight behind me, and then stood up and did a one-arm row, all without putting my foot down. I think I did 60 of these--4 sets of 15. Or was it 4 sets of 10. All I know is that I was really ready to stop at the end of each set--the sign of a good exercise.

Then tonight, I did spinning at the Y with Peggy. My ankle had been aching a bit, so I debated whether or not to go. I decided to err on the side of going, and if it hurt, I could always stop and come back home. I'm really glad I did, because I was able to make it though the whole hour. I didn't try to stay with Peggy--no jumps of standing for 8, sitting for 8, etc., but I stood a lot and tried to pick up my cadence both standing and sitting. I was able to get my heart rate into the 160s, and according to my heart rate monitor, burned 840 calories. I'm really pleased to have lasted the hour.