Category: Health

I thought it was love, but I may have been wrong.

It started out like any romance.

Hopeful.

Idyllic.

A thrill of newness.

Feeling like I had something to prove.

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I’ve been working out on a fairly consistent basis since November 17th. In addition to my indoor cycling workouts during a very cold, very damp, very grey winter, when I’m not traveling, I’ve been training twice a week at Franklin’s own Chadwick’s Fitness.

To provide some context, when I was in school (anytime between elementary school and graduation), I was extremely athletic. I could out-sprint just about anyone, guy or girl. In junior high and high school I played basketball ALL the time — in school, in summer leagues, in church leagues, in my driveway.

Sometimes, my friend Julie and I would go up to a local college and flirt with play ball with some of the college guys. I exaggerate not when I say they were actually impressed by how good we were. Julie reads my blog. She can vouch for that.

I loved to run in high school. It was a great way to rid myself of anger and frustration. My favorite route was about a mile. I’d take off from behind our house and sprint as fast as I could seven blocks to the closest elementary school and turn around and sprint back. It was a fierce kind of run, but tremendously cathartic.

After I graduated, I still would run when time would allow.

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Seven years ago I started having heart problems. I would try and exercise, but try as I would, I couldn’t get past half a mile without my chest exploding in pain. I didn’t really want to die, so…I stopped.

For those who are new here, after six years of trying to get my heart condition diagnosed, I finally found a spectacular doctor in Nashville at St. Thomas Heart who found the problem and a month later, fixed it. I had a condition called AV Nodal Reentrant Superventricular Tachycardia (or SVT for short). For you who are click-averse, that means my heart had two more electrical pathways than a normal heart (you have two, I had four) and during times of exertion (or after too much caffeine even) my heart rate would escalate from a normal resting rhythm (60-100 bpm, mine is typically 80-85) to 220 or 240 bpm.

Your body doesn’t get oxygen distributed properly when your heart beats like that.

Anyway, I had surgery to fix it, it was successful, and I began exercising on my own. However, I lacked the same love for running that I had formed in my earlier years. I joined a gym, and found a trainer who pushes me to no end. I’ve been riding my bike to train for Ride:Well, and just trying to make up for six lost years of lost cardio.

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I have a lot of friends who are exercise junkies. People who do things like triathlons and marathons for fun. I even met a guy a few weeks ago who did this ultramarathon thing. He and a friend ran 26-28 miles a day for three days, took one day off, and then would repeat it until they made their way from Mexico to Canada or something.

REPEATING: THEY DO THIS FOR FUN.

When I began exercising, I thought surely I would fall back in love with it. I remember how, when I was in high school, my feet would hit the pavement so hard when I was upset and how good I felt with the air moving through my lungs with each deep breath.

I thought that love would come back.

But it hasn’t.

It’s not that I dislike exercise. I know it’s good for me. I know that even though I still haven’t lost much weight (two pounds in five months!) I am stronger and leaner than I ever have been. I know my heart and lungs are healthier. I know that there isn’t much I couldn’t accomplish physically.

And all those things are great.

But I still don’t love it.

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I believe this may be one of those defining moments in life where I look at a situation and say, “Yeah, this isn’t the most emotionally wonderful thing in the world for me, but it’s what I need to do.”

This may be a place where true discipline falls into play. I know every Tuesday and Thursday that I’m in town, I’m in the gym for at least an hour, about to throw up and gasping for air, and Brandon doesn’t let me stop. When I’m home during the week, I’m getting out and running up the hill by my house, or taking my bike out and not stopping when it’s “just enough” but truly pushing through that extra bit because it’s what I need to do.

There are so many areas in my life outside of physical fitness that this story could plug and play.

My relational life? Absolutely. I’d rather be a recluse, so to reach out and place myself in social situations is difficult for me sometimes.

Emotionally? We’ll save that for another blog post, but let’s just say it’s hard to ask for help when you face the same demons over and over again.

Spiritually? Paul eloquently describes that struggle in Romans 7.

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I know one thing’s for certain – all of us have our broken pieces. The things we really want to do, and we really want to love, but we just can’t seem to get there. I’m not sure what yours might be, but I want you to know you’re not alone in it.

It’s a fight. A big, fat, hairy fight. And it will be ’til the end.

But that’s where relationships come in. And things like trust, and encouragement.

Brandon, my trainer, has heard my fair share of complaining. He has witnessed my stubbornness and has seen me lower the weights on a machine so it’s easier on me.

And he’s not one to let me get away with it. He adds the weight back on and keeps telling me to push.

“I said 12? I meant 15! Three more! Why? Because I know you can.”

The thing is…he’s always right.

Is your motivation gone?

You just can’t find that place inside yourself to continue on?

Push through it.

Why?

Because I know you can.

I know we can.

I ate a lot of brownies in two years.

Almost every week since 2003 until I ended up in the hospital completely burned out in 2005, I made brownies.

And ate them.

It wasn’t just eating brownies that caused me to gain almost forty pounds – it was a culmination of poor decisions: not exercising, eating poorly, working too many hours, not sleeping enough.

And enough was enough. After plateauing at 170-pounds (give or take) for a year, I lost forty pounds (give or take) and replaced those weekly brownies with a weekly weigh-in and weekly measurement taking.

It may seem a little compulsive, but it’s what helps keep me on track. Week by week for almost three years I’ve been journaling my weight, and measurements of my chest, arms, waist, abs, hips, and thighs.

When I started training a month ago, Brandon told me every four to six weeks we’d re-evaluate my fitness assessment. It’s a much more in depth assessment with more measurements, body fat percentages, weight, and how well I’m improving with my actual level of fitness.

I posted my first?assessment?here if you want to read it.

Now, something Brandon said when I told him I’ve been in the habit of taking weekly measurements was to not rely on my scale as a reputable source of effort.

But every week without fail, I’d still continue weighing and measuring myself hoping to see some kind of improvement. And despite my bi-weekly butt-whooping from Brandon, and saying no (most of the time, anyway) to the peppermint mochas, the numbers on my scale barely budged.

I was pretty disheartened…After all, I had been working SO hard…and evidently, had nothing to show for it.

Today was my first re-assessment. Brandon pulled out the body fat pinchers and I jumped on the scale.

One pound.

I had lost one-freaking-cuss-cuss-cuss-freaking pound.

Without saying much, Brandon measured and pinched and prodded at, as Bridget Jones would say, my jiggly parts. He typed in numbers on his computer, had me do sit ups and push ups and measured?and pinched and prodded more, and I started to feel guilty.

He had been working so hard with me – how could I let him down?

He began printing off my assessment and said something along the lines of “yep, this is what I thought would happen.”

I caught a glimpse of one of the sections as it came off the printer.

It was my body fat percentage.

“Wait. My body fat came down from 26.3% to 22.1%? In a month? Seriously?”

“Just wait…”

And so we went over my assessment.

(You can download the new one here if you’d like. It has a side-by-side comparison from when I started a month ago.)

As you’ll see, my weight hadn’t changed much. I did only lose one pound.

But that’s just what the scale said.

What the scale didn’t say is that I lost a little over six pounds of fat and gained five pounds of lean weight (muscle and water and good stuff). What the scale didn’t say is that my body fat decreased 16%. Or that I lost over seven inches. Or that my aerobic fitness is now in the “fit” category instead of the “fair” category. And remember my silly attempt at push ups last time? Remember that they ended up in the “needs work” category?

Now they jumped completely past “fair,” and?almost past “fit” into “excellent.”

I don’t say this to brag (ok, maybe I’m having this framed and hung up in our living room just a tiny bit proud at the moment), but to tell you this:

DON’T TRUST YOUR SCALE!

One of the things Brandon said to me is most people will attempt working out and eating better for about a month, and they won’t see a big difference on the scale, so they give up.

Truth be told, if you don’t see a big difference on the scale in your first month, it doesn’t mean much at all.

My scale said, “all this effort and you’ve only lost a pound” and if I would have believed it, I would have given up.

Don’t buy into what the scale says or doesn’t say.

Trust the effort you are putting into getting healthy.

And keep going!

Not only are there changes going on in your body that you can’t see, there are changes going on in your spirit – with your discipline, your courage, and your will power.

Keep going!

It’s been a month since I started training with Brandon at Chadwick’s Fitness. We’ve trained twice a week now for four weeks, and next week we’ll evaluate my fitness level (and body composition…fun!) in comparison to the first time I stepped foot into the gym.

And so, to keep my promise of updating you on how training is going, I thought I’d share a little visual proof.

You’ll notice the video is sped up in many places. I should be clear that this is not to conserve time. Instead, it’s to speed up past every awkward position and face that I am making in quite possibly every single frame. (Note: for a good laugh, just pause it at any given moment and you will see what I’m talking about. Also…it’s a short video, but I do a little dance at the end. True story.)

A few things I’ve learned this month:

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1. Consistency really does pay off. I don’t think I’ve lost much weight, if any, even though I am eating and journaling every bit of food I consume – however – I’ve definitely toned up a little bit.

2. I now understand why guys flex in front of the mirrors. Not once in my life have I ever had a cut enough arm to flex and actually see a muscle. Confession: The other night as I was changing clothes in the bathroom, I decided to give my arm a little flex. HELLO, GUN SHOW!

3. If it gets easier, you’re not any more in shape – you’re just not trying hard enough. Brandon asked me how I felt on Tuesday after I had just finished pushing The Prowler about 120 yards. The Prowler weighs a good 75 pounds on its own, and probably had another 50 pounds or so on it. My heart rate was spiking at 180 and I felt like I was about to throw up.

I respond to him saying that honestly, I was a little frustrated. “Why is my heart rate still getting up so high so quickly? Why do I feel like it’s not getting any easier even though I’ve been giving it 100% for four weeks?”

He replied to me simply asking, “What’s my job when you come in?”

“To kick my butt.”

“Every time, right?”

“Yep.” (Gasp, clutch chest, lean on prowler, close eyes, gasp).

“So, it’s never going to get easier. Each time you come in, we are only making it harder.”

I’m not used to this concept. To be honest, most things in my life have come fairly easily. They’ve taken time, but things always seem to either work out, or make sense why they don’t work out. I’m not used to having to really fight for everything. Shifting that expectation has been good for me. This is where the physical training moves from just my heart and my muscles to my spirit and my mental strength.

4. Don’t accidentally take medicine for severe colds before you work out. You will fall asleep no matter how hard you try and push through it.

5. It has been totally, absolutely more than worth every ache and?nauseous?feeling and even saying no to eating pizza the other night. More than worth it.

I know a few of you had set some healthy goals earlier in the month. How are you doing? How can I pray for your journey to a healthier life?

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