Fitness Update: August 21

I had my first session with my trainer, Bryan, on Thursday. This was preceded on Wednesday by a fitness assessment – the results of which were worse than I thought. Because I intend to maintain a modicum of privacy, I won’t go into all the details here. But suffice it to say we have our work cut out for us. I weighed in Wednesday at 216#. As stated before, I hope to get my weight down to 180# - although hitting that number is less important than improving my Body Mass Index, increasing my lean tissue, and greatly reducing my body fat percentage. We put together a fitness plan and Bryan confirmed that a goal of losing five pounds a month until I hit my target weight is realistic. I also signed up for Progressive’s Healthy U class – although the next available session is February 16th.

During my Thursday morning session, Bryan put me through a series of exercises including working with free weights – the first time I’ve done this in years as my balance is not the best. This was followed by some stretching, and then I went into work. I did no cardio during that session, although my heart rate was elevated during the strength training. I plan to arrive ten minutes earlier for my next session to get in a cardio warm-up beforehand.

I felt mostly OK for the rest of Thursday, just a feeling of mild shakiness and a somewhat “tight” feeling – I became progressively stiffer during the day and was beginning to feel sore by the evening. (I bought Ibuprofen at Costco that evening.)

I felt rather sore Friday and Saturday – and Friday morning I encountered spasms in my right hand between my thumb and index finger. I don’t believe these were caused by my workout – but are related to use of the computer mouse. There was no pain involved, just involuntary contractions. They recurred slightly on Saturday and were gone by this morning. Also this morning, I repeated the workout with Dan and felt fewer side effects than before.

I will be doing cardio and abs Monday afternoon and have another session Tuesday morning.

I will be reporting weekly on my progress. As this is a family friendly blog, I will not be providing shirtless beefcake (or in my case, flab cake) pictures. Small variations in weight of a pound or two are meaningless, but for the record, here’s where I stand:

8/18/2011 weight: 215#