My perspective on working out has been changing quite a bit as of late. I have officially had 10 personal training sessions. With only 2 more sessions left I am kinda sad that I will not be working out with Beth one on one anymore. I am optimistic that I will be able to continue working out at least 3 days a week and I might even do one of her boot camps that she offers. What Beth has taught me over these past 5 weeks will stay with me forever.
At the beginning of this whole getting healthy journey of mine (back in August of 2009) I was pretty convinced that I should be going to the gym and just doing as much cardio as possible. Everything I read said that I should be counting my calories coming in, then burn as many calories as possible at the gym to create a calorie deficit and subsequently loose weight. While I did this for a couple of weeks and it seemed effective I quickly grew tired of it.
I was too focused on loosing the weight, on changing my external appearance and I eventually stopped making progress and started gaining weight back. Since the beginning of January I have been going doing full body workouts with every visit to the gym. My workouts have been dominated by body weight and free weight resistance exercises with a typical warm up of running on the treadmill for at least 20 minutes. The goal here is to build muscle, strengthen my core, and get my body moving.
The changes I have seen in my body since January 3rd (my first workout of the new year) have been so inspiring and motivating. I have begun to see definition where there wasn’t any before and the weight is coming off again! One of the advantages of working out like this is that as I build more muscle my body will automatically burn more calories throughout the day. The more muscle mass that I have the higher my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which is the amount of daily energy expended while at rest. How cool is that. Essentially the more muscle I have the more calories I burn while sitting on my but watching a movie. Plus, after a full body resistance workout (which is what I have been doing) your BMR is elevated for the following couple of hours compared to a cardio workout where it is only elevated for the next 45 minutes or so.
All of this means that if I continue to do these types of workout and continue to build muscle that my body will continue to burn calories at a higher rate. If I can just control what I am eating and focus on healthful whole foods most of the time the weight will keep coming off and I will continue on the path of being a healthy vegan.
I am so excited about some things going on in my life right now and I would like to share them with you.
After having officially finished three personal training with nine more to go I am so happy with it. I am proud of myself for keeping up with it and I am so thankful Michelle decided to give this gift to me. Obviously I can’t expect my body to look different after only one week of working out hard. But I can feel a difference in my body and that is great motivation to keep going.
For 2011 I have made the decision to really focus on the kinds of foods I consuming. Too often I choose the easy way out of preparing a meal by going out to eat or having a frozen vegan pizza. While it is possible to have healthy meals out I have the ability to create wonderfully healthy meals at home for much less money. Timing has always been the issue for me, “if I only had enough time” I keep telling myself, well enough of that. One of the things we are doing to help us eat more veggies and whole foods is getting local organic fruit and veggies delivered to my office every other Tuesday. A local company called Boston Organics will be delivering them and I will take them home and I will have to cook them or they will go bad, so it is sort of a way of forcing me into cooking more at home. My first box should be delivered today and I am super excited. I will let you know tomorrow what was delivered.
The last thing that I am excited about is something Michelle and I are doing in February. In the most recent edition of VegNews, a vegan magazine, there is an interview with Kris Carr. Kris made a documentary a couple of years ago called Crazy Sexy Cancer, has released several books and currently runs the website CrazySexyLife.com. She is an amazing individual who has learned first hand about the healing power of foods and nutrition. Anyway, because of that interview we checked out her website and it turns out she is hosting a retreat in Stockbridge, MA which happens to be about two hours from us. It’s called Crazy Sexy Life: An Adventure in Health, Spiritual Wealth, and Happiness. We will be learning about nutrition, meditation, how to lower stress, and we will be eating some amazing wholesome vegan food while we are there. It is a whole weekend! We really can’t wait.
That’s all for now, thanks for reading.
This is what I looked like after my second personal training session. I was sore all over and wanted nothing more than to just lay in one position for the rest of the night. Even though I was exhausted I was really proud of myself.
Heading to the gym last night I was a bit concerned because there was still a lot of soreness from my previous workout. It didn’t matter though, I even got to the gym early and worked out on the elliptical for half an hour before my actual session. To be honest I was kinda hoping that this 30 minute warm up would mean we could move right into the resistance training, not so much. We started on the treadmill, switching between jogging and walking, I kept pushing myself and was jogging much faster than I thought I would be able to, we did that for 10 minutes to get really warmed up.
I enjoy resistance workouts more than cardio, it’s just more interesting. Yesterday we were doing 3 sets of 15 reps on various different machines to get a full body workout. It always seems that the weight I start with is lighter than it should be, but by that last rep on the last set it becomes clear that it is usually just right. On a couple of the exercises I pushed myself a little further and did an extra rep or two. I am trying to prove to myself and my new trainer that I really want this, that it is finally time. In addition Beth seems to think I have excellent form when working out, which makes me very happy. I have always heard that it is more important to have good form than to do a lot of heave weight.
Today I am much less sore than I was after my first session so I guess my body is getting used to the idea of a Tom that works out. My third day to the gym this week will be Friday and then I am meeting with Beth again on Sunday morning at 7:00AM (I can’t believe it either).
