As most of you probably know, I’m not a huge fitness enthusiast. I figured eating lightly and a little exercise would be about all I needed to stay in reasonable shape.
Well, unfortunately, the scales topped 251lbs (13.8kg) for me a few weeks ago. At 73 inches (1.8 meters), that’s just not as healthy as I should be. So I got back on a reasonable eating plan, portion and carbohydrate-controlled with lots of veggies, and decided to try out a gym.
I signed up at the local Snap Fitness. They offered a free one-hour consultation with a personal trainer, so I scheduled it for this morning. I really tried to kick my own butt this past week! Unfortunately, I discovered that even though Snap is open 24 hours a day for members, I could only get in during business hours due to a problem with my passkey.
So this morning, I met with “Kelly” — the same woman who had signed me up, and obviously an employee/trainer — and we talked about fitness goals. To sum up:
* Today I’m 235 lbs, from a high of well over 250. I’d like to be around 200 lbs. * I haven’t lifted since I was a cheerleader in high school. I’d like to get my overall body strength up. * I’ve always had a problem with spraining my ankle. I’d like to see if my workouts can alleviate that tendency which has kept me from playing sports that involve much jumping. * I want to improve my overall coordination. I’m not naturally terrifically physically coordinated, and it would be nice to be able to do something like — for instance — the Wii Fit balance game without looking like a total doofus who over-balances doing just about anything.
So the trainer focused on balance-enhancing exercises, and suggested that I perform most of my squats and lifts on a “balance ball”. This torture device looks like a really big ball chopped in half with a plastic platform attached to the flat part. You stand on the flat part and try to keep your balance while doing other workouts.
Nifty. Just thirty seconds on this thing demonstrated to me that I really need to get better at balance.
So anyway, she outlined an exercise plan. She mentioned that the one on my iPhone — I use iPump — looked like it would be effective, I should make sure to concentrate on free-weights rather than Nautilus-style equipment due to my concerns about building general coordination and balance. And salt my workouts with some work on the balance ball and big bouncy ball to improve my coordination as well.
Because of a hip injury, however, she suggested I be really careful with crunches. Basically, if a particular exercise causes pain, find a different way to work that muscle group that doesn’t cause pain. Some years ago, my doctor suggested it probably was a small tear or rip in either the muscles or ligaments in that area of my hip, and he recommended that, rather than surgery, I simply work around the injury. Surgery in that area, he said, would probably make it worse rather than better. Too bad the pain if I move my hip a certain way is fairly permanent, though.
Today’s weight: 235 lbs BMI: 31 Body fat: 25.7%
Goals: Weight: 200 lbs or lower BMI: 26 or lower Body fat: 15% or lower
Anyway, those are my thoughts on working on fitness regimen. What are you doing to stay in shape, and what are your current goals?
Fitness Takes Work
Matt,
Having been committed to staying in good physical shape over the past 10 years, and having spent many hours in a gym, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen someone engage or re-enter a fitness lifestyle and then become 1) sucked into a single personal trainer’s philosophy and dependent on their motivational spark, 2) seduced by technology and gimmick toys, and 3) an overzealous rationalist.
My suggestion to you, since you’re a brilliant guy, is to recognize that achieving your goal comes from eating right, sweating hard and being realistic about your body. It takes WORK. And only you can motivate yourself. Only you know what it takes to push your body.
The Greeks didn’t have electricity, but they sure knew how to reach peak physical levels. I see so many people today conform their workouts to special machines in a gym. This is the unfortunate reality of today’s world; poor people have unhealthy bodies because we put so much emphasis on buying gym memberships and working with trainers. The world is one big workout room. So get some starter help and then get creative with the world around you. Think of it that way and you won’t fail on reaching your goals. Your fitness is about you and your body, not some fancy machines or empty ‘Kelly’.
Sam
Monsanto
I thought poor people were fat because of a corn syrup conspiracy. (Of course, I don’t have any data to confirm that poor people are actually fat. And globally, we’re talking “middle class,” right? Because people in Africa and rural China living on $1/day sure aren’t fat.)Remember, it’s the corn syrup….
Good luck, Matt–I work out in my basement, but some weeks are certainly harder than others!
Bowling for bullet points
So I’ll go bowling for bullet points here…
1) Reliant on a personal trainer: Well, I don’t think this is going to happen. This first meeting was a freebie; I flat-out told Kelly that I was too cheap and/or broke to afford a personal trainer right now, thanks but no thanks.
2) Seduced by technology: Does a $3.00 fitness tracker that I bought off the App store count? Since I have my tunes with me anyway on my iPhone, I’m just doing the exercises specified by this gizmo. It has some videos to help me figure stuff out, since I’m pretty much a lifting newbie all over again. What kind of technology and/or gimmick toys are you talking about? The balance-ball thing?
…Maybe my wii fit counts. But it’s a fun game, too 🙂 Anyway, I’ll have to keep an eye out for this one. I do have a tendency to have ADOSS: “Attention Deficit … Ooh, Something Shiny!”
3. Overzealous rationalist: Yeah, that’s me, to a tee. How does being an overzealous rationalist tend to cause one to fail at one’s fitness goals?
—
Matthew P. Barnson
#2 and #3
To answer your questions…
2) Seduced by technology. I’m referring to the people that can only work out if they have their special machine (Stairmaster 3000, Ab Blaster 9000x) at their special spot in their special gym. People who can only work out if something digital is telling them how many calories they’re burning. People who can only work out if they have a TV set in front of them.
3) Overzealous rationalist. The people who are overzealous rationalists talk more about working out than working out. They have to rationalize everything. Akin to Zappa’s ‘Shut Up And Play Yer Guitar’, I would offer, ‘Shut Up And Put Up The Bar’.
One thing I’ve found kind of interesting over the years is the increase of free, on-demand fitness and exercise shorts available through cable programming. You may want to check that out at home.
Whozat
I’m confused now…is it “Kelly” or Kelly?