I had one of those realistic, vivid dreams a few days ago, that leave you wondering if the thing in the dream really happened or not. In the dream, I was trying on jeans, which I hate doing anyway because nothing convinces me that I’m a completely abnormal shape than trying on pants, even when I’m fit. In the dream, when I looked in the mirror, I realized that I had a huge balloon butt. I mean, giant, where did this come from and why haven’t I noticed it before, booty. Naturally, in the dream, the pants didn’t fit.
When I woke up the next morning, I realized that, yes, indeed, it was long past time to get back in shape. I tried this last October, and then promptly injured my shoulder by crashing my bike when I took a corner too fast. When that injury healed, I got taken out by a wobbly kid on a bike who swerved into me, and injured myself again. All that is finally (knock on wood) in the past, and I’m having dreams of being fat. Tom has put a moratorium on stupid minor injuries (and major ones too), and I’m ready to go.
At my current, deplorable fitness level, which program I start with is irrelevant as long as I start doing something. Anything. I picked up the Making the Cut
I’ve started. In fact, I’m 5 days into it at this point, and it’s going well, except for a minor dessert blip that didn’t put me over my calorie limit, but aren’t the ‘right’ kind of calories. The exercise program is funky. Lots of different combination exercises, like lunges combined with hammer curls, high reps with low weights, and interval training – 1 min. sprints, burpies and stuff like that. I like it because with our The Block dumbbells, step stool , a chin-up bar, and an exercise ball, I can improvise a good workout based on the recommendations in our living room, and when I have access to a gym, it works there too.
The diet part is complicated by delicious restaurant meals, accompanied by dessert options, (irresistible) but for the most part, it’s been easy to follow so far. I tried calorie counting a while ago, and although I certainly lost weight, I was so hungry that I was always thinking about food, and as soon as I stopped counting, I put a bunch of fat back on immediately. I’ve promised myself that if I start to feel like that, I’m going to simply increase my calorie limit. Who wants to start the yo-yo weight oscillation thing again? The other thing is that this time, I’m paying more attention to what kinds of calories I’m eating, following the recipe ideas in the book. Tom says that the Slow, Balanced and Fast Oxidizer schtick is bunk, so I decided not to pay attention to those categories but to eat things that sounded good and are easy to make. My big advantage is that I’m perfectly capable of eating the same stuff day in and day out, so my level of preparation is minimal.
Well, there it is. If you see me gravitating toward the ice cream station, kick me.