And Somehow…Results


Healthy Lifestyle and I are still having trouble getting along. I left the bitch in Georgia when Toodles and I went to Kentucky. There was just too much going on to be bothered with her.

Since I’ve quit paying so much attention, my weight has steadily dropped about a pound a week. The ten pounds I keep gaining back are gone, at least for now. Whether I gain them back or finally move on to the next ten remains to be seen. I’m optimistic.

In the last two months I’ve skipped sessions with my trainer, cut my Zumba time in half, and just about stopped doing any strength training at all. I’m not running as much either, though I have to say, that I’m running at all in this heat impresses the hell out of me. Believe it or not, I enjoy it–once I get through the first three kilometers.

Given how little strength training I’ve done and that I missed our last session (and maybe the one before that), I’d been dreading my session with the trainer this week. I knew he’d make me do hard stuff–like burpees or something equally unpleasant. I started plotting and scheming two days before the session.

I planned to eat up part of our time talking about my trip to the eye doctor and the need to cut back on weight lifting. A quick check revealed it’d been just over three months since we last checked my measurements. That should eat up another five minutes. Men my age have a gift for making things take twice as long as they should. I could probably stretch it to ten. I can get through this.

My percent body fat dropped another two percent–twice as much as in either of the two previous quarters. Back when I was like 27, we checked my body fat before and after an eight-week aerobics class for an hour, five days a week. We did cardio three days and ab work the other two. By the end of the eight week course, my percent body fat had been cut in half.

Now I’m 54–twice the age I was in that aerobics class. I’m about 50 pounds heavier than I was then, too. It takes a helluva lot more work to melt the fat away now. I’ve been doing an hour or more of aerobics for ten months–long enough for four 8-week aerobics classes, reducing my percent body fat by a total of (drum roll please)…four percent.

I gained an inch in my thighs. My shoulders, biceps, and calves were the same as last time. I lost an inch in both my chest and my waist. My trainer says that’s where men store fat. No argument from me.

But I’m totally confused. When it comes to exercise, I thought there was no such thing as too much of a good thing–at least for me, considering my propensity to spend massive amounts of time on my ass in front of a computer or television or both. Could it be that “all things in moderation” applies to exercise? How can that be?

Over-thinking things is one of my many gifts. There are areas where thinking too much is helpful, like writing a novel or developing a new program. But mostly, it just complicates things, making them harder than they need to be.

Since thinking burns no calories, I’m not going to worry about it. Fighting with Healthy Lifestyle works for me. I’ll never embrace her, yet somehow, our rocky relationship works. Guess for now, I’ll let her stay here in…

My Glass House


2 responses to “And Somehow…Results”

  1. You ROCK! And you impress me again & again….in so many ways, & you looked so buff in the Lex pics…..your hard work shows…congrats!