Getting Fit - Again

Let's work out on Saturday morning.  Call me when you are on your way and I will meet you there.  I will warm up on the recumbent bike while you impress me with your speed on something and then we can see what we are capable of accomplishing with the weights.  

That is part of the email I just sent to Amster.  Between me getting shot and she preparing and then trying her first case as first chair, the months have flown by.  She'd given up her gym membership around the holidays when she was saving for a down payment but life has intervened and the house search is on hold and we are both uncomfortable in our own skins.

We did this once before and we can do it again.

It will require discipline and determination and, as Amster barked it, that Army mojo.  We are good for one another in that way; we don't allow excuses.  When we are working out we are committed to the process.  We keep track of repetitions and the number of plates on the bar and we rotate the parts we work.  We chat up a storm, but only when we're walking between stations.... at least most of the time.  Certainly, when when one of us is holding the weights we both are focused. 

Life is filled with meaningful occupations with which I could choose to occupy my time.  If I opt to spend 90 minutes of my day in the gym I am going to work out with good form and real intensity. Otherwise, I might as well be doing something else.

At least that's the plan.  When we started, we knew the program needed incentives built into the original structure.  Our $200 jeans fit the bill very nicely.  Of course, by the time our bodies were worthy of the expenditure the temperatures in Tucson were nearing triple digits and jeans were out of the question.  Gym shorts were barely tolerable; just the thought of trying on heavy denim made us sweat.

This time we are starting a bit further down the road. We've both had and lost muscle and tone and stamina.  We are both hungry for what we know will be the immediate results: improved posture and digestion and mood.  Further out, we're looking at some weight loss and then maintaining a happy balance between figure and fun.  

We're on the Big Cuter diet: calories in = calories out and so what if some of those calories are french fries.  Life is too short and we work too hard to deny ourselves french fries.  Most of what goes in is healthy and we're going to be burning up those fat calories lickety-split.

I'm not sure how aerobic I can make the recumbent bike.  I wish there were one with moving arms; I'm not used to using only part of my body when I'm trying to work up a sweat.  It will be one more thing on which to concentrate; I'll make it a posture and upper body control exercise as well.  

I think I know what they meant, those well-meaning therapists and friends and doctors and strangers, those who warned me to avoid comparing my new self to my old self. I can't look to my old routines for solutions.  I have to look at my situation and be creative.  It does no good, no earthly good at all, to stamp and stomp and moan and groan.  Once the tantrum is over, I'm still in the same place.
Yes, LeBron, I go back to my same old life while you go on with yours. 

My life is different, is constrained, is less fluid...... but it is.  For now, I am looking at what I can do instead of what I could do.  Amster promises to carry the dumbbells until I feel confident that I won't break a foot - mine or another's - while transporting them from rack to bench.  We'll start slowly, with the basics, low weights, lots of good slow careful reps.  I think I'm going to bring a notebook and keep track of what we do. 

Ahhhhhh..... it's good to be back.