![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblog'Twas a bit touch-and-go around here late last week. More touch-say-OW!-and-go for the better part of Friday. Last Wednesday night was the first of two classes with actual, more-than-two, groups of students with Sally and me, and she WORKED us. Me, anyway. (One of the other students in the group left on her bicycle; I'd have left in traction if I tried biking home from that particular session.) By Thursday, my quads were sending less-than-polite notes of protest up to the brainbox, and these continued unabated until earlier today.
I almost begged out of our second weekly class Friday night, but ultimately hung in there and got through most of the wow-five-students-doing-seven-stations session for upper body. Unlike the shoulder pain that had haunted me before we started our workouts, and that had briefly returned early in this series of classes before we identified it as a fixable weakness in my rotator cuffs, I could literally point to Where It Hurt this time: distinct spots on the front of both of my thighs (which one of the cats had very helpfully identified for me earlier that morning by planting her claws squarely in one of those spots when begging to be fed at 5:something that morning).
Since it was the same on each leg, it likely wasn't a strain or tear, but just feedback from a good ass-kicking of a workout. Happily, that appears to have been the case, and as long as it is the case, I'll gladly, if temporarily, accept that kind of pain. (Friday night's upper-body workout produced no such after-effects, although maybe I shouldn't admit that to a trainer who regularly reads these entries;)
These sessions are getting so popular, the groups are likely to be split this week to some smaller subgroups, with me, most likely, in the more "special" of the two classes. I don't mind that, and half-suspect that some of the more advanced students may have quietly requested it, but I also hope that we keep to the same level of intensity, because dayum, it seems to be working.
----
Funny thing about that.
I've been cryptically counting my weight (mostly) loss here, using obscure algebra to make the point, but after 10 weeks of it I'm getting rather tired of the abstractions, so here's the pure unadulterated deal.
My "down a pound" from last week's entry was my first proud foray this side of 280 since, I don't know, halfway through the Bush presidency. I was bravely sitting at 279.5, per the rather fickle scale in our bathroom when I posted that entry- taking me about five pounds below where I began and, not quite apples-to-apples, about 15 less than I'd been routinely ringing up at the doctor's office as recently as this past winter.
Before leaving for the gym for cardio yesterday, I did my weekly check and came in at 278. Nice, I thought. I extrapolated that 1.5-pound loss and concluded that, at this rate, I'll completely disappear in about three and a half years.
But I'd cheated after that. Last night was not a good one after I got home from said cardio; my wife had a nasty household accident, heads were butted following it, and we ate and drank a LOT during the calm-down film we watched after the incident. Even worse, I continued feeding my own face with stress-eating even after she exhaustedly headed off to bed.
Therefore, that 278 wasn't fair- so I felt the need to check it again before posting this, and sure enough, it was 1.5 pounds off. A pound-and-a-half too many, that is; Mister Scale stripped that much off me once again, and I'm sitting at 276 for the first time since Who Knows When.
It's still too much, but it's not too soon. At this rate, it'll take under two years for me to hit zero and cease to exist. It also served as inspiration in a couple of ways.
One: occasional setbacks don't, necessarily, set you back.
Two: hard work occasionally takes a day or two to register (in addition to the Wednesday killer and Friday only-maimer of a weight session, I did cardio each of those days and every other around and after them, plus spent a good chunk of yesterday slogging around the front yard cleaning up detritus Eleanor had chopped up prior to, um, chopping up other parts of herself; if you want the gory-and-they-were details about what happened, go here).
----
The unexpected extra weight loss inspired a late Sunday visit to That Other Gym for 40 minutes of cardio which I probably could've passed on, but hey- why mess with something that's working?
One thing that isn't working, though, is any improved sense of customer service at this oversized, overmarketed fitness facility. When I walked in to wave my keytag at the front desk, I was greeted by these two signs plastered to the counter:
and, if that didn't make the point:
All of this would seem more reasonable if they hadn't been marketing themselves for years as an "open 24 hours" facility- but with those hours only falling between Monday mornings and Friday evenings. They even have one of those brightly-lit neon signs in the window proclaiming this as their schedule, but just as the similar beacon of "Hot Doughnuts Now" didn't last very long around here beyond the initial craze, I doubt if these guys are going to be able to light that lamp for very long if they keep dissing their members this way.
I almost begged out of our second weekly class Friday night, but ultimately hung in there and got through most of the wow-five-students-doing-seven-stations session for upper body. Unlike the shoulder pain that had haunted me before we started our workouts, and that had briefly returned early in this series of classes before we identified it as a fixable weakness in my rotator cuffs, I could literally point to Where It Hurt this time: distinct spots on the front of both of my thighs (which one of the cats had very helpfully identified for me earlier that morning by planting her claws squarely in one of those spots when begging to be fed at 5:something that morning).
Since it was the same on each leg, it likely wasn't a strain or tear, but just feedback from a good ass-kicking of a workout. Happily, that appears to have been the case, and as long as it is the case, I'll gladly, if temporarily, accept that kind of pain. (Friday night's upper-body workout produced no such after-effects, although maybe I shouldn't admit that to a trainer who regularly reads these entries;)
These sessions are getting so popular, the groups are likely to be split this week to some smaller subgroups, with me, most likely, in the more "special" of the two classes. I don't mind that, and half-suspect that some of the more advanced students may have quietly requested it, but I also hope that we keep to the same level of intensity, because dayum, it seems to be working.
----
Funny thing about that.
I've been cryptically counting my weight (mostly) loss here, using obscure algebra to make the point, but after 10 weeks of it I'm getting rather tired of the abstractions, so here's the pure unadulterated deal.
My "down a pound" from last week's entry was my first proud foray this side of 280 since, I don't know, halfway through the Bush presidency. I was bravely sitting at 279.5, per the rather fickle scale in our bathroom when I posted that entry- taking me about five pounds below where I began and, not quite apples-to-apples, about 15 less than I'd been routinely ringing up at the doctor's office as recently as this past winter.
Before leaving for the gym for cardio yesterday, I did my weekly check and came in at 278. Nice, I thought. I extrapolated that 1.5-pound loss and concluded that, at this rate, I'll completely disappear in about three and a half years.
But I'd cheated after that. Last night was not a good one after I got home from said cardio; my wife had a nasty household accident, heads were butted following it, and we ate and drank a LOT during the calm-down film we watched after the incident. Even worse, I continued feeding my own face with stress-eating even after she exhaustedly headed off to bed.
Therefore, that 278 wasn't fair- so I felt the need to check it again before posting this, and sure enough, it was 1.5 pounds off. A pound-and-a-half too many, that is; Mister Scale stripped that much off me once again, and I'm sitting at 276 for the first time since Who Knows When.
It's still too much, but it's not too soon. At this rate, it'll take under two years for me to hit zero and cease to exist. It also served as inspiration in a couple of ways.
One: occasional setbacks don't, necessarily, set you back.
Two: hard work occasionally takes a day or two to register (in addition to the Wednesday killer and Friday only-maimer of a weight session, I did cardio each of those days and every other around and after them, plus spent a good chunk of yesterday slogging around the front yard cleaning up detritus Eleanor had chopped up prior to, um, chopping up other parts of herself; if you want the gory-and-they-were details about what happened, go here).
----
The unexpected extra weight loss inspired a late Sunday visit to That Other Gym for 40 minutes of cardio which I probably could've passed on, but hey- why mess with something that's working?
One thing that isn't working, though, is any improved sense of customer service at this oversized, overmarketed fitness facility. When I walked in to wave my keytag at the front desk, I was greeted by these two signs plastered to the counter:
and, if that didn't make the point:
All of this would seem more reasonable if they hadn't been marketing themselves for years as an "open 24 hours" facility- but with those hours only falling between Monday mornings and Friday evenings. They even have one of those brightly-lit neon signs in the window proclaiming this as their schedule, but just as the similar beacon of "Hot Doughnuts Now" didn't last very long around here beyond the initial craze, I doubt if these guys are going to be able to light that lamp for very long if they keep dissing their members this way.