Inspirational link of the day: Liz gets buff. If a 50 year old grandmother with back pain and almost no muscle tone can do that to her body, none of us have any excuses at all. All we lack is sufficient desire and conviction.
I talk about my own "before and after" in this blog's first entry, but I still consider myself to be "during" really. I'd like to lower my body fat percentage, get my eating under more control, run faster, bike more regularly... etc!
In other news, I'm so proud of my mother. She has struggled with her weight for as long as I've been alive, and I've seen her yo-yo a few times on diets I considered to be less than great (low carb, for example). But this time is different: she's lost 30 pounds, goes to the gym three or more times a week, and has her blood sugar under control with no medication at all. She says she has more energy and never feels hungry or deprived. Eat less, eat better, move more, live well.
5 comments:
Liz rules!
This completely confirms what I've always believed - lifting weights, (almost) no matter who you are, is good for you.
So many people fight me on this, it's just insane. I feel like I'm constantly arguing with people on the subject. Whether it's women who somehow think they're going to turn into man-ish female body builders overnight, older people who think that anything more strenuous than walking will kill you, or just about everyone else I know who thinks that starving yourself is the way to appear fit and healthy, I'm pulling my hair out.
I want to shake them while screaming “Lift weights. Push yourself. Your body is more resilient than you think, you can handle it!”
Yes yes yes. A thousand times yes. Resistence exercise is vital to health. Since we don't lift heavy things as a matter of survival anymore weightlifting is a pretty convenient substitute. I miss lifting 2-3 times a week like I used to before all this triathlon training took over. I can't wait to get back to it in May.
My other favorite "women who lift" website: Stumptuous.
On the topic of pushing yourself, I am continually amazed by what my body will do when I just ask it loud enough and in the right tone of voice.
I get tired of the subset of women who fear muscle definition and instead covet an untoned but skinny body. I'd much rather be able to flex (eventually). :D
I'm very focussed on my cardiovascular health now because it's so poor generally, but I hope to eventually move to some form of resistance training for the upper body.
wixlj - Livejournal of what will be h's new favorite band. ;)
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If you wanted to, just as a first step, you could add this 10-15 minute routine to the end of your cardio workouts, to start addressing core strength:
intermix 4 sets of crunches (normal, left, right, inverse) with 4 sets of reverse kick-ups and 4 sets of girly pushups. The nice thing about this mini-workout is that you do it all on the mat and don't take any breaks between any of the exercises because they all hit different muscles.
Just do that right after some cardio so you're already warmed up then stretch afterwards as normal. I do sets of 30, but just do as many as you can. And I guarantee it won't add more than 15 minutes to your workout.
Excellent Point!
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