Dedication, and Thanks

Thanks to Samo for getting me into the work gym this morning at 7:15am (which required me to get up at 5:30am, catch the 6:10am train, and bike for half an hour). Then to lift heavy things in a dedicated fashion for an hour before showering and THEN, finally having breakfast.

This extreme measure was necessary because I'll be at an "offsite work meeting" for 2.5 hours through lunch, which is our usual workout time. And the gym is shutting off the showers at 3pm for maintenance. So it was morning or smelly, and we chose morning.

I can feel the sore starting already. :)

Deliciously Sore

For the last week I've been weight lifting with a Plan instead of just performing whatever random exercises I felt like. Samo, poor soul, went along for the ride. This led to about a week of very sore muscles for both of us. Ah, the pain of renewed effort. :)

That that part is over, thankfully. Now I can focus on these short term goals:
* Stick to the Plan
* Be able to do an unassisted pull-up (I used to be able to... years ago)
* Perfecting my form on the squat (I don't go down low enough)

and these long term goals:
* That killer back I was talking about
* Losing those 9-17 pounds (now 7-15 pounds)

Oh, yeah: I'm losing weight again, which is nice. A little slower than I'd like to be, which isn't as nice. But headed in the right direction at least.

A Plan

Over in my other blog, I wrote a meme entry about things I'd do if I had time. After writing the list, I realized that there were a few things on it that I could make time for right now. One of those was to make an exercise plan so that my workouts are more focused and effective.

See, I've had a few vague fitness goals in my head for the last few months:
1. Lose 9-17 pounds.
2. Have killer back muscles so I'll look kick-ass in whatever backless dress I chose for my wedding.

But I wasn't doing much in the way of focused action to reach those goals. So I spend an hour this morning and made A Plan. Then I printed it out, took it to the gym, and started using it. I left the gym feeling more "worked out" than any time (outside of spinning class days) for the last few weeks.

Progress.

SparkPeople

My last post was over a month ago. In it, I talked about not being able to lose the weight I gained when I got back from my vacation in Thailand, about overeating at work, and I admitted that I wasn't really doing much to rectify the situation. Since then I've gained another half pound. This morning I weighed 155lbs.

Last night I decided to get serious. I at least want to get back to 148lbs, and wouldn't it be nice to finally reach my goal of 138lbs as well? In the past when I've lost weight it's structure that helps me out the most, that keeps me motivated and making good decisions when bad food choices are staring me down. I did a bit of googling, but got sidetracked and didn't have a plan by the end of the evening.

Then, this morning, my sister told me about the site SparkPeople, which helped her get over her weigh loss plateau. It's one of those community/food and activity tracking web sites, like most others. I signed up, latching onto my small amount of momentum and my sister's. We'll see how it goes.

This is what I was meant to do this time last year when I got above 150lbs, to prevent me from getting to 155lbs in the first place. I did try to watch what I ate, and tracked my food for a bit, but I was never disciplined and regimented about it. So this time I will be.