Weight On

I want to add weight onto my bar like nobody’s business.  The instructors always say to find your weight, what feels good, what pushes back just a little…  So I try to, but of course I assume I’m always going to take the easy route so I want to add weight.  Then more weight.  I want o make sure I get my maximum workout and don’t look like a wimp!  It’s not too heavy!  Grin and bear it!  Or groan and bear it.  Grrrrrr!  Except I’m trying to be smart.  In the same way that I’m trying to think about food as fuel in a much more cause/effect kind of concrete way, I’m also trying to be smart about lifting.  When I started running, I had nothing to lose.  I was not my full 340 when I started running, but I was about 270.  I literally said that I could live without my knees if I smashed them to dust, but my heart would benefit from their sacrifice.  I can’t live without a heart, but knees?  Yeah.  That’s a pretty dark and desperate place to be.  Now is different, though.  Now I know the glory of a deliciously long run, the joy of a fun Zumba class, the beauty of hiking to alpine lakes, the confessions of my daughter as we run.  I enjoy the endorphins and the lovely side effect of my fitness based health changes- weight loss has been nice and a more typical body style that, while not necessary to leading a full, happy life, is admittedly kind of fun to take shopping.

Wow.  That was a lot of wordiness to get to the point that I talked to my instructor about adding weight to my bar today.  I’ve gone from the smallest weights on my bar possible to 3x that amount now in just about two weeks.  Today I wanted to add more weight, but unlike days of yore, I want to be stronger, healthier and undamaged WITH functional knees, elbows, shoulders, back and everything else.  I’m straight up greedy, now.  First she suggested just adding weight to one or two routines per step up.  Shifting all of my weights or many routines in one go could really damage me.  She suggested keeping a lot of my weight right where I’m at while I work on my form and then suggested that I set up my free personal trainer session with her!  I was being a bit lazy about setting that up, so it felt really good to take advantage of that, with an instructor that I really respect and like a lot.    Prior to today, I didn’t think I got to choose who I work with.  The free training session went from feeling like a sales pitch to a legitimate opportunity.  So, next Tuesday, I’ll be hanging with Jessica.  🙂


After I got home, I gardened a bit before Bradley and I headed out to a walk to finish out our steps for the day.  My daughter ended up hosting a sleepover, Jude was knee deep in building the Starship Enterprise and we found ourselves in the evermore common and unnerving position of having privacy and time away from our kids without having prearranged it.  We manufactured a cute little date night on the back patio, but we both commented on how true it is what we’ve heard: parents go from not having any privacy or time to themselves to having way more of it than they ever realized they even wanted.  I’m glad we still have many salad days ahead of us, but I have to admit that times in Lj House are a’changing.

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