I went to the gym today to do a short workout/introductory session with a personal trainer -- it's part of the package deal when you sign up. It wasn't a difficult workout but it did give me a bit of insight into some details.
First off, I weigh 137 now and I have a 36% BMI. That means I'm considered obese. Obese? GAHHHH!!!!! I have 49 lbs of body fat and 88 lbs of muscle/bones/lean tissue. He said he'd like to see me at 121 lbs with a 22% BMI, 27 lbs of body fat and 94 lbs of muscle/bones/lean tissue.
Ha. I haven't seen 121 lbs since I was 21 years old.
The trainer told me that it will easily take 8-10 months for that to happen. Currently he says I have about 77,000 calories to burn to reach the 121 lb goal, since each lb of body fat I now have will take a 3500 calorie burn to remove. 77,000/3500 = 22 lbs of fat that needs to be gone.
He also let me know that I need to EAT. The worst thing I could do, he said, is to tell my body to work harder yet deny it a steady supply of nourishment -- it will conserve by feeding off my muscle mass instead of my fat stores. He said that as we age, the body is losing muscle mass anyway and that lack of exercise only hastens the muscle atrophy. I have to admit that eating more has been a difficult thing for me even though I feel hungrier now. I've been on portion control for so long that it feels very "bad" of me to eat a lot. I've been maintaining 1000-1200 calories a day for a long time and he tells me that's placed my body in a long-term starvation mode, kicking my metabolism down even more from its naturally low starting point. Ack. I don't want that. I suspect that the dramatic weight loss I experienced in 2007 (approx 30 lbs in about 4 months) due to stress diminished my muscles stores rather than my fat stores.
I learned a lot from the session -- some that I knew already and was practicing, and other things that I knew in an abstract sense but had not done the connective thinking necessary to really understand it all.
I'm probably not doing enough and I will probably plateau at some point. I'll need to combat that by applying some muscle confusion techniques when that occurs. I'll also need to remember not to get frustrated and not give up. I'll be buying some resistance bands and using them at the house, and some dumbells too.
Good grief. I'm actually exercising! And liking it! Watch out people, the sky may just start falling any day now. Hee.
In other news, I'm heading out of town tomorrow afternoon to meet X. I haven't seen him since our trip to Las Vegas in December of '07 before my nasty bout of pneumonia. He's going to be in a big city about 3 hours away from me and called to ask if I could meet him (he didn't realize it was 3 hrs away, he thought it was only about 1 or 2 at most) and I told him sure. I said it was the least I could do since he treated me to Vegas! I managed to get a personal day off work and I don't have to drive back tomorrow night so we can both relax and go out to dinner and have a good time. My throat is a little sore right now and I've been feeling that for about 4 days since the weather changed. I've also had a headache off and on the last couple days too as well as an ache in my side near my right kidney that's tender. Here's hoping there's no replay of the meet X/get sick scenario of last time! Or (god forbid!) my kidney stones are moving!
Ehh, my life is just busybusybusy lately. Work, work, work. I haven't quite adjusted yet. I'll get there.
Time for bed. Must get my beauty sleep!
No comments:
Post a Comment