Happy Wind-day….I mean…Monday. We’re having a massive wind storm here today, the 60 year old building that I work in is creaking and groaning something fierce! Totally freaky! Hopefully our power stays on or it’ll be a very long day!
I didn’t get up to much this weekend, the Alien Baby went postal on Friday night (in Costco, so thanks for wrecking that outing!) and I was flattened until Saturday afternoon…..which meant I didn’t go to spinning…….but since my previous post and discovering that spinning isn’t really what I want right now, I didn’t feel badly about it. We went to our motorcycle meeting in the morning and then did errands and groceries and once we realized we had no plans and a whole afternoon to ourselves, we drove out to a town about 45 minutes away so that I could test drive a Fiat. I really have no plans to buy a new car since in two months I’ll be car payment free and don’t want to get saddled with another huge bill, but it was fun to dream. Those teeny little Italian cars sure can go! They feel huge and solid and stable on the inside and they corner like a race car! Lots of fun! Next weekend we’re going to test drive a VW Jetta!
Fiat 500, super cute!
Shiny! Sure wish this was in my driveway right now!
Sunday morning my esthetician came over and did a couple of regular services for me and stayed for a coffee (Ray is not-so-secretly infatuated with her…it’s cute!) and then she left and we went for a drive and then came home and I went to the mall and bought new pants. As Tara so delicately told me when she grabbed the baggy ass of my work pants, it’s time to get pants that fit! 😉 Ridiculously, I’ve been swimming around in a 14 and the pants I bought are a very flattering size 10 so I’m very happy about that! Pants shopping can go either way for me, if they fit in the waist then the legs are super tight and if the legs fit then they are gaping huge in the waist. And don’t even get me started on length! I flipped a coin as to which mall to go to, hit one store and scored two pairs of flattering black work pants…for $70 total. And then I lit on out of there like my hair was on fire, no sense testing my luck by hanging around!
That’s about it for the weekend recap. I started reading up on my new weight lifting plan yesterday and now just need to pick a date to start. The plan has you work out 3 times a week and each workout takes about a 35-45 minutes not including the warmup so I think I’ll be stopping after work at the gym on Monday, Wednesday & Friday. I hate the idea of working out on Fridays but since it’s heavy lifting workouts, they want a day between each and at least two days off in a row. Not really sure how else to make that work……..unless I bite the bullet and do a 5am Friday morning workout….which could work.
The first phase is 6 weeks long and then you break for a full week. They do not recommend doing any other sort of interval training (like spinning) while you’re doing the lifting because of the need for recovery. Jogging on off days is alright because it sends nutrient rich blood to your muscles which aids in recovery….but you’re supposed to really judge how you’re feeling as far as whether you can run or not. I’m in fairly decent shape so I think I’ll be able to do a bit of cardio along with the weights….but if I can’t? Then that’s alright too!
And speaking of the weights. The idea of this program is to lift heavy weights in order to build muscle. I want muscle! Muscle speeds metabolism, we all know that. But muscle is also sexy. Tone and strength is fit and fit is sexy. I have no fear of getting bulky, I’m not taking steroids and I’m not on the outer fringes of genetics which causes me to gain muscle at the drop of a hat. I will simply become stronger and more fit. On each workout and with each exercise you increase the weight you’re using and decrease the number of reps and build your strength. Sounds good to me.
There are two workouts that I’ll be doing for the first six weeks, Workout A and Workout B. You alternate each one so Monday is A, Wednesday is B, Friday is A etc. Workout A is as follows:
2 sets of 15 ~ Squats (bodyweight at first and then adding weights)
2 sets of 15 ~ Pushups (starting at a “standing” angle at first and eventually getting to the floor)
2 sets of 15 ~ Seated Rows
2 sets of 15 ~ Step Ups
That’s it. I can’t remember off the hop what Workout B is at the moment but you get the idea that these are full body exercises. There are no bicep curls or tricep kickbacks. There are no calf exercises or specific shoulder exercises. The theory behind this is that the human body is meant to be used in full and if you are going to do a row, you’re using your back, shoulders, biceps, triceps and engaging your core. They say that there is no point in isolating muscles unless for sport or injury recovery because all you end up doing is changing your body’s natural strength ratio between say, your biceps and your triceps. No muscle is used exclusively in real life so in this program it’s all full body as well. Another plus, if you’re not having to work each muscle seperately, you get to be done a lot faster!
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be talking more about this as I get into it. Tonight I’m going to take all my starting measurements and Ray is going to take my “before” pictures (in a bikini, good God!). I’m not sure I’ll post them right away, it might make more sense to post them once I have some “after” to compare them to. What do you think, is it worth posting them now?
And this is where I wish I was right now!
Fitty vs Fatty 