Much better.

[blissfish]

My grouchiness was no match for the power of fresh berries, White Mountain yogurt, and gouda.  It's amazing what a boost to the blood sugar can do.  My foot still hurts like crazy though.

psylent1, can I hitch a ride with you to the gym tonight? John may go a pub-crawlin'.

Comments

[in-quinecorners.livejournal.com]

Could we chat sometime as to what was involved in your transformation from person who didn't exercise much at all (as far as I could tell, anyway, forgive me if I'm wrong) to devoted gym rat? I could use some of whatever's in your water. Gyms frighten and confuse me -- even putting aside the obvious problem of getting and staying motivated to go regularly, and the problem of choosing a reasonable gym to go to, I generally wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do when I got there...so many choices, you know? And what the hell is that machine there? And how do I know how to set the weight? Etc, etc...I am easily overwhelmed by situations with too many variables. I would be muchly grateful to understand all this even a little bit better. TIA.

[blissfish.livejournal.com]

I belonged to a small neighborhood gym when I still lived in Dallas, and that was a great way for me to learn my way around a gym in a friendly environment. It was mostly populated by bodybuilders, and they tend to be really friendly guys. I've also been a member of Bally's, and was not as impressed - but they're not in Austin anyway. I also used to walk and occasionally lumber (jog) an hour or so each night. Since we moved to Austin, I've been a total slacker.

Lifetime is a huge gym, tends to be crowded at peak hours, and is kind of intimidating at first, even if you're gym-familiar. It does have everything I could ever want, however. The first few times I went by myself, and it was hard. Since I've been going with fellow gym-rats, it's been great, and I'm a lot more comfortable there on my own now.

If you're looking to start, I would tour the gyms you think would be both close enough that you would go, and be open when you would be going. Since I tend to go in the middle of the night, that narrowed the field considerably for me. I started working out again primarily because of the antidepressant effect of aerobic exercise, which is considerable.

When you do pick a gym, take advantage of the free training session/introductory session they'll offer. One of the trainers will show you how to use the equipment, give you a thorough tour, assess your strength and endurance (sometimes with the dreaded calipers), and ask lots of questions. They'll generally set you up with a beginning routine.

For a starting plan for someone without a history of regular exercise I would recommend three days a week of some sort of cardio work, be it bike or elliptical or walking/running, whatever for about 30 minutes (adding time for a warm up and cool down) with stretching after, and two days of weight training. When your body gets used to that, you can increase, but don't weight train the same muscles two days in a row very often - that way lies overuse injury (which I would of course know nothing about).

A good resource is stumptous.com (http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/index.php). It is written for women, but her advice is pretty sound all-around.

:)

[blissfish.livejournal.com]

Also, a good way to tell if you're lifting the right weight: it should feel hard by the seventh rep or so, and by your last rep (12-15 for me, depending) you just barely be able to make it through with good form. When that gets easy, add five or ten pounds and see how that works.

[salembroomrider.livejournal.com]

Hey Stevie -- I hope you don't mind if I jump in and ramble a bit.

At least a little bit of her motivation is me! My family has had a membership at Lifetime Fitness for a few years now. It is a little more expensive than other gyms, but the family benefits are *very* well worth the cost -- at least if the membership is being used. I've been going very regularly the last few months and have induced a few others to partner up with me. My motivation comes from my goals, my workout partners, the benefits of the gym (hot tub after workout!! ahhh!!), and that it actually feels GOOD to do it.

Learning your way around can happen in a few different ways. When folks sign up with lifetime, they get one free session with a person trainer which can be used to go over the various machines and how to use 'em. You can also partner up with other people who know their way around.. and finally, just trying different machines to see what feels good and what doesn't. In the end, you'll just come up with something that feels right and helps you attain whatever your goals are.

For cardio, you'd be figuring out which cardio machines keep your heart rate up without feeling like torture devices. For strength training, the weight levels and individual machines would depend on your goal (max power, endurance, or somewhere in between).. it takes a few visits to get set in a routine that works your muscles at the right levels.

Right now, my goals are to fit back into my old clothes and look good while wearing them. To that end, I'm doing roughly an hour of cardio each visit, and lifting weights a little over half of my visits to the gym. As my cardio levels improve, I'm moving to "harder" machines in order to keep my heart rate up. Every once in a while, I add a few more pounds to the weight machines when the sets get too easy. When lifting weights, I generally go for a balance between power and endurance by doing 3 sets of 8-12 reps with one minute rest intervals. I set the weights so that the last few reps of the last set are difficult if not impossible to finish.

Anyway, I hope that helps a little. I can bring a guest to Lifetime any day before 9pm so if you wanna check it out sometime, let me know. It has a lap pool, indoor and outdoor "leisure" pools, hot tubs, banks of tvs that broadcast over FM, steam room, and more. It's also open 24 hrs a day which is a big attraction for me.

[salembroomrider.livejournal.com]

One more two more things! Another benefit of Lifetime is that there are NO monthly contracts. You wanna quit, it's easy. They don't negotiate on monthly dues but you can negotiate the initiation fee. You *will* want to research the costs and membership options. If you don't know folks who can get you into gyms near you, ask for day passes (may cost a few bucks) to see how you like each one.

[psylent1.livejournal.com]

Also chiming in: blissfish and salembroomrider are the ones who got me back into exercising. I was an athlete growing up, particularly in high school (track and field). Over my life I've learned and loved 8 active-motion sports, but none were as fun to me as scuba and weight lifting. Pregnancy abruptly ended my stint with the latter, and a scuba trip just isn't in the plans right now.

I started doing some walking/jogging on my own finally a few months ago, and so I jumped at the chance to try the gym once blissfish joined. I love that my body seems to be craving it rather than having to push myself to do something it doesn't want to do. The rewards are huge. There was an immediate change in my walking posture, and running on the treadmill floods me with endorphins for days. Best of all, a crystal clear pool, a hot tub and a metholated steam room at my 24 hour disposal, none of which I have to clean or maintain. Weirdness: I have gone there as much as 5 times in a week during more than one week, and didn't feel stressed out about it at all. In fact, going less than 5x/week feels like I'm cheating myself out of something wonderful.

[psylent1.livejournal.com]

:)