"No way! Those're dudes!"Still am. Not sure I want to compete in some Geezer Show. B tells me (after I've showered and dressed) that I look like a 10 year old. And I'm okay with THAT.
"What about Fitness Competitions?" B persisted.
"The Master's Class is for the Over 40 Crowd and there's a lot of women who are just in their 40s. I can't compete with them."
"No, no. They have categories!" B insisted.
"Yeah, like Over 50?" I was dubious.
For a lot of people, getting up on stage and showing off that great body is the ultimate motivating factor. For me, well, I think I'd get stage fright. Plus, I'm not a gymnast so I don't have all those great moves like handstands, etc. although I've been working diligently on my splits during my stretch routine.
Right now, my motivation is all the envious and sometimes admiring glances I get when I work out. Today, the gal from the gym's child care room asked me repeatedly how much weight I'd lost, and commented enviously about my arms. I said, "Wow, everyone remembers what I used to look like, except for me!" Because I've been so focused on my Magic Numbers for so long that I didn't actually see the weight fall off, or my clothes not fit anymore. It was as if one day I stopped looking at the scale and the calendar, and suddenly noticed Hey, my damn pants are too big! So I got a big fat golden trophy inside my head right now.
Today's a Pull Day and I'm mindful of the fact that I'm taking my son to tae kwon do this evening and meeting my husband for cardio kickboxing afterwards. Because I can't jump around doing jumping jacks and sprints during the "warm up", it 's not that much of a cardio event for me but I enjoy the kicking and punching just fine.
Today's a Back and Biceps Day with 30 minutes of cardio (3.37 miles) and 15 minutes of stretching. I add a set of hammer curls after biceps just to work the forearms a bit. My right elbow is still bothering me during the most mundane of movements and I'm not sure what else to do for it besides laying off the neutral grip pulldowns (palms facing each other). But I'm absolutely fascinated by my forearms' new vascularity since I've always had trouble giving blood when I was heavier because I had tiny veins that move (nurses know what I'm talking about). Now I'm too light to donate blood (the cutoff is 110 lbs for the Red Cross) but damn if I've got great veins now! Of course, my husband thinks this is icky. Meanwhile I'm trying to decide whether this is a result of fat loss, or some slight muscle gain in the forearms — perhaps pushing the veins to the surface? Or if this sort of exercising actually enlarges blood vessels? I doubt if google will give me the answer.
I am reminded of my high school AP Biology course which had us dissecting fetal pigs to learn muscle groups. What a waste! Not only do fetal pigs not really have much in the way of discernible muscles, but the little piggies are all stiff from soaking in formaldehyde. Can anyone say carcinogenic agent? Breathing the fumes and handling the tiny little bodies? I always thought we'd learn the names and functions of the muscle groups much better if the teacher would just use images and videos of bodybuilders. Hopefully AP Biology has changed since I took it some 35 years ago.
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