The A2K (virtual) Weight Loss Club !!

Soz--

Most people under estimate their caloric intake and over estimate their level of physical activity.

Six hours a week is bound to make a difference.

I'm sure it'd make a difference, I just don't want to start something overly ambitious and not be able to follow through. And getting to the gym 6 days a week is no small undertaking.

I'll give it try first though, see if it's difficult-but-possible or no-way-in-hell and go from there.

What kind of stuff did you want to see happen?

Is there a food plan component to all of this?

Give it a shot and if 6 days/week is too much for you then I can PM you my plan.

Well, I have some surprising good news -

I have lost between 8 and 10 lbs since Dec 27th, when I started my soup and salad diet. I don't even feel like I've been dieting because I put feta, pecans, fruit and all kinds of stuff in the salads, and the soups are my own, which I love.

I have cut out all breads, pastas, flour and dairy products (except for cream in my coffee).

I don't eat sweets, but I eliminated diet ginger ale after finding out it's no better than regular. I also have an apple or bowl of Raisin Bran for breakfast. I'm not a snacker, so no prob there.

And I no longer eat late dinners - 6:30 is the latest now - the food takes too long to digest, apparently.

I didn't even walk (due to the horrible weather), but I did go for a 45 min brisk one yesterday with a friend.

I'm shocked and delighed it came off so fast... now for the rest of it!

How are the rest of you doing? Any other good news?

Chicken noooooodle soup and tuna at lunch today.

Tomato soup and faux crab salad tonight after class.

mmmmmmmm soup

Class was good hard work again tonight. My back is much stronger than it was when I started belly-dancing in June - my neck feels great most days - I can do the shu-shu shimmy for a few minutes at a time now ... and I'm growing down and out of a few more pairs of pants.

Slow but steady.

Call me a tortoise. I'll smile at you.

EhBeth--

You are a tortoise with a waist line and an air of beguilement.

^^nice one, Noddy^^


Ok, so my WW meeting was cancelled today. (Yet another silly casualty of Houston's inability to cope with actual winter weather.) 1/24 is looking good!

Thass funny 'bout Houston.

A colleague of mine flew down there for a meeting yesterday - she didn't even take a coat - didn't understand that Houston might not cope with winter weather quite the same way we do in Toronto.

~~~~~~~~

Mac--

I'll bet that there are at least two members of your group who are delighted to be postponed from Facing Reality because of the weather.

Neither of these people is you. You were expecting good news.

Obviously after two missed meetings, your news next week will be very good--weather permitting.

HI

This may abe a silly question but can weight gain start priod pains(PMS)?
Ive started to get them again after not having them for 6 years, and Ive put on about 2 stone since then, tho not noticed a big, if any, weight gain in recent months.

MG--

I would say your weight gain might be responsible. One little-known talent of fat cells is that they manufacture estrogen. Twenty-five more pounds of fat would mean twenty-five more pounds of little estrogen factories, all distributing hormones to your body.

Goddam estrogen!!
Thanks for the info.Guess il be taking this exercise thingy seriously then.

So I went to the gym yesterday.

First, love the exercise pants! They really made a difference, especially since it was damn cold outside.

Tried to keep to personal trainer guy's suggested routine -- I did the cardio exactly as recommended (beginning, end) but was a little slapdash with the resistance routine. The place is enormous and I didn't know where anything was, and I felt like a tourist in Paris with a map with my little print-out and peering at machines amongst the gym rats. So I'd just stride somewhat purposefully and if I recognized one ("oooh, leg press!") I'd do it. Familiarizing myself with how to do 'em and where they are. They all had helpful diagrams about how to use them, once I found them that part was the easiest.

The place was absolutely jam-packed, which sucked in several ways, but I guess is part of the "do something for just a little while and then move on" ethos -- even though it was ridiculously full I didn't have to wait long.

Did JPB say something about the resolution people falling by the wayside by March? There seemed to be a lot of them. (Stubbornly, I don't include myself -- I was doing this last summer, and I didn't make any resolution, so there.)

I'm not sore. Not sure why, was working out rather strenuously for over an hour. Is it just that I'm not in as bad of shape as I thought I was, or is that part of the resistance training, offsetting muscles or something?

Anyway, plan to go again today for the 20-30 mins of cardio, hope it'll be less sardinish.

Ah yes, the Resolutioners aka The January People. Gotta love 'em. A lot of them will be gone by Valentine's Day. Then we can get back to normal.

I have been granted a reprieve. Our bathroom scale is broken.
The Lovely Bride says she will get a new one at Bed & Bath.
I told her "no hurry."

Soz, I hate crowded gyms, too.
Ask one of the guys at the desk when the off-hours are.

soz, did you get any actual instruction on the exercises from the trainer? It sounds like you were fending for yourself. How many sets of each exercise are you doing and how many reps per set?

You should feel something the day after a full body workout. If not, then you aren't using enough weight/resistance.

With the exception of lunges, squats, and ab moves that don't use resistance other than your own body weight, you should only be able to do about 12 reps per exercise per set. You're using too much weight if you can't do more than 8 reps and you're not using enough if you can do more than 15. A general rule of thumb is that you have the right amount of weight if it's possible, but difficult, to complete the 12th rep and you're awfully glad you don't have to do 13!

The reason you don't work the same muscles daily is that they need time to recover. If you aren't working them to exhaustion, then they have nothing to recover from and you might as well stay on the treadmill or elliptical machine.

A full body workout usually involves 10-15 reps (shoot for 12) per set and four sets per exercise in rotation.

I did start to feel sore later.

This is not a typical personal training situation, I'm doing just email correspondence for a much reduced fee. Have unlimited access for a month, and I'm making him work for it. :-)

He's given a lot of specific advice of that type (how to do it, how many reps, etc.), I'm feeling pretty covered there. Yesterday was mostly about identifying the machines (as in, where the ones I needed actually are) and how to use them, without the finer points yet.

I brought up the aspect of creating an ambitious plan that might not be realistic vs. a less-ambitious one I would actually do, he came up with something that I'm a lot happier with.

Could have been me. JPB may have said it as well, but it's certainly what I observed last year. As a physicist, I believe in universal constants and stuff, so my prediction is that your gym will be much spacier come March 15.

Checking in after my second Egyptian Folkdance class.

I love this! love it love it love it.

I can't imagine how we're working the muscles we're working, but wow! It's like breaking through some kind of barrier.

Very cool!

I'm trying to figure out how to integrate new job + new workout routine. I just got this one last Wednesday, and I hate to put off starting to work out again until I've settled in. But it's proving really hard to find enough hours in the day for working, gym, and all the other stuff I do. Oh and I just started making real meals for every dinner which also takes more time than I previously had, so all together I've had to wring about 30 hours out of my not-exactly-leisurely week.

Maybe the dinners will go.

I'm making a schedule for this coming week, will see if I can stick to it. One of those things that will get easier with practice, probably.