How to Juice.

So now I’ve been juicing for a couple weeks.

Here’s how it’s gone so far:

First, I’d like to say, that the juice I’m producing is delicious, and fun to drink just because.

I’ve come to crave it.

Second, it makes me feel good. I can feel a difference immediately after drinking eight or sixteen ounces of fresh juice. And it makes a difference throughout my day, and throughout my week.

So I like it.

Third, I’m happy to report that I’ve lost a solid ten pounds since I got my juicer.

Now,

Juicing is expensive. So I’ve learned to shop, and find vegetables at the store that are in season or less expensive. When zucchinis were cheaper, I bought lots of them. Same with cucumbers, and limes, and carrots, etc.

Also,

I’m educating myself. I’m reading more about the benefits of specifically juiced vegetables.

And, I’m spreading the word. Two neighbors have given me vegetables from their gardens because they heard I was juicing. One gave me a large sack of very nice squash, and another gave me a very large bag of the biggest cucumbers I’ve ever seen. So things have been good.

Recipes:

I always put a lime and about an inch and a half of ginger root in all my juices, and that’s great. I put an apple in most of them. And I like a pear in my juices. I’ve put grapes and kiwi in too, and I like that.

The base of the juice is carrots, celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, and things like that.

I add what greens I can, like lettuce, Kale, and spinach.

That’s it so far.

I’ve found it!

You’ve just got to see this movie: “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead”. 

This documentary has changed my life. I think I have found the answer to my diet problem. The story of how Joe the Juicer found such dramatic change in his life due to juicing, is nothing short of inspiring.

Yes, I’m talking about juicing.

So I did a little research, and I’m not sure I’m ready to spend 400 dollars, or 100 dollars, when I can spend 50 dollars.

I found the Hamilton Beach big mouth juicer. Thank heavens for youtube. I was able to see a lot of juicers compared side by side. The Hamilton Beach juicer compared exactly with the more expensive juicers. The only complaint people had was with the loud motor.

I ordered my online, and when it got here, I was in love! I juiced a juice immediately, and I loved it! I’m now making a juice a day, and I’ll tell you all about the things I learn and how it affects me.

Right now I’m juicing carrots, zucchini, limes, ginger, apples, pears, kael, spinach, celery, and all at the same time. It tastes great!

Updates coming! Stay tuned.

 

Dumbbells are essential!

If there was only one piece of weight lifting equipment you could own, it would be dumbbells.

Even a single dumbbell provides dozens of potential exercises for your routine.

Dumbbells are not expensive, and you can even get high quality components second-hand. Dumbbells don’t take up a lot of storage space, and you can work out with dumbbells in a very limited amount of space.

A pair of dumbbells doesn’t take up much more room than a single dumbbell, and isn’t any harder to acquire.

Dumbbells are extra effective because they are less stable than a barbell, and require your muscles to stabilize the apparatus at the same time that the exercise is being executed.

I have three pairs of dumbbells that I love.

My light dumbbells are great for warming up and learning to exercises that I want to add to my routine.

My medium weight dumbbells are my work horses. I do most of my workout routine with my medium dumbbells. They are heavy enough to provide a challenge, but not too heavy to do multiple reps.

My heavy dumbbells are a great challenge for exercises when I really want to push myself.

My favorite exercise of all is the dumbbell fly. I use my light dumbbells to do a variety of flat bench and inclined bench curls and flys and presses. I use my heavy dumbbells to do flys that I do lying on the floor.

If you haven’t committed to a weight lifting program yet, go get some dumbbells.

I give up!

People who take up new exercises always seem to give up eventually anyway. Why can’t I give up?

I’ve always hated running anyway. I’ve always been the worst runner you’ve ever seen. Even as a kid playing little league sports, I was the last little shuffler around the track when we ran laps.
But I’m not giving up on running. I’m giving up my excuses to NOT run.
I wasn’t running at all when I first started working out. After working out for a few weeks, I realized that working out with weights left me feeling constricted.  Sometimes I would get charly horse cramps in the middle of the night after working out. It was suggested to me that I should stretch out after my workouts.  But I instinctively knew the answer to this problem.  I had to face my old nemesis, running.  And I was right! Running after working out with weights felt absolutely fantastic.

A lot of my running is really walking. But I push myself to run as much as I can. I go twice around the mile track at our local park. I go as soon as I’m done with my weight routine.

As much as I don’t like running, whenever I did run I could always feel immediately that running was a great thing to do and has important results.

I’m also giving up on obsessing about doing the exercises correctly. Zig Ziglar used to say that anything worth doing was worth doing POORLY, until you can learn to do it well. Well, I’m going to do my exercises poorly, but consistently until I learn to do them well.

So if I’m letting my body sway too much, or bending my elbows too much or doing the reps too fast, that’s okay. I’ll work on it, and soon I’ll be performing these exercises correctly.  The trick is to keep trying, and to keep increasing the amount of weight I’m lifting.

If I’m going to give up on trying to do my exercises perfectly, I’m going to have to give up on avoiding information, because although I want some lea way in learning to do my exercises correctly, I also don’t want to hurt myself. I need to know when my poor form is dangerous to my body. 

Maybe the next thing I need to give up is my diet. I have horrible eating habits. I need to give up. I need to give up second helpings, and large pieces of birthday cake, and most of all I need to give up cola drinks.

Setbacks.

Chocolate dream pie is a setback.
Dinner at Chuck A Rama for a family birthday after lunch at McDonald’s is a setback.
Colds and other sicknesses are setbacks.
Vacations are setbacks.
Setbacks keep us from exercising. Yes, there are a million reasons NOT to work out. Some would say, and even I would say, that you just need to stop making excuses and get the work done.
But still, things frequently happen that cause us to fall behind on our workout schedule or eating habits. (I hate to say diet)
Some people will tell you that if you fall out of the habit of working out, you’ll never go back.
That’s true if working out is a punishment.  But if working out is a pleasure and a reward, then you’ll be glad to be back at it when your setback is out of the way.
What do you do about setbacks? Determine to get back to your workout as soon as possible? That’s fine.

It’s important to develop exercise or other activity habits that are life changing. Exercise and physical activity should be rewarding. It’s that reward that will keep you coming back, and keep you active.

Setbacks are going to happen. You’ll go on vacation, you’ll get sick, you’ll over indulge when eating the things you love.

How do you go about regaining your workout? Will you need to lift lighter weights for a time, or do fewer reps? Maybe.

But learn to think of yourself first as a runner, or a weight lifter, or a biker, or whatever it is that you’re doing. It’s not something that can be given up. It’s what you do, it’s who you are.

Curls are for girls

Here’s another blog about the opposition I’ve faced.

I just can’t help talking about my weight lifting. It’s something that I’m very passionate about. But talking about weight lifting with the wrong people can bring the strangest reactions.

Recently while discussing weight loss and fitness with a group of young guys, my weight lifting routine came up. Like dogs who had spotted a cat from the front room window, they started to snarl and pepper me with questions.

“What kind of weights to do you have?”

“How often and how long to you work out?”

“How much can you bench?”

So I began to detail my equipment and my workout to these guys. Bench presses, dumbbell flys, lat pull downs, etc. When I got to the part about my military bar, one of them shouted at me: “Curls are for girls!”

What the???

Curls are for girls?

These two guys shared a hearty laugh and a high five. Apparently I had been disproved and humiliated. But I was flabbergasted.

One of these guys was a former college level athlete, and the other had been in the marines.

So I asked them how they went about working their bicep muscles.

No good answers.

Then it hit me: Some guys have lots of opinions about fitness and weight lifting, but don’t know much about it.

Don't get me wrong, if you're a girl, by all means grab some dumbbells and do some curls. I'm just saying that men performing curls with any kind of apparatus is good exercise.

It’s true that it's foolish to lift weights targeting only one part of your body, like your just your biceps or just your abs. But proper weight lifting should exercise all muscles in your body. I just don’t buy the idea that someone would want a strong body, but not want strong biceps, because “Curls are for girls.”

Educate yourself about fitness and weightlifting. More education brings better results, and makes you less vulnerable to dummies with zingers like

“Curls are for girls.”

Warm up! For heaven’s sake warm up!

Often when I’m talking about weight lifting, someone will tell me that they WERE lifting weights, but that they hurt themselves.

Highly dubious. I have my suspicions about the way these people work out. You might get hurt if you push yourself too hard, or attempt to lift too much weight, or especially if you are not warmed up properly when you start your work out.

I haven’t been hurt yet working out with weights, but I do admit that sometimes my elbow makes a funny clicking noise when I’m doing bench presses. I’ve found that if I’ve warmed up more vigorously, this doesn’t happen as much. But clicking elbow can only be a bad sign.

There are various ways to get your muscles warmed up and ready to lift weights,  and one of them is by lifting weights. But traditional warm ups should always be considered first.

Sometimes my warmup includes jumping jacks, jogging in place, and stretches. I do this enthusiastically for about five minutes. But even then, I do my start my work out with less challenging exercises and move up to more challenging exercises.

Sometimes my warmup involves weight lifting exercises performed with lighter weights. Again, I do quick, explosive reps with very light weights. I choose exercises with a maximum range of motion. These exercises include French curls, and pull overs.

All this being said, I sometimes wonder.  Are all these people telling me that they’ve hurt themselves working out with weights, really people who don’t want to lift weights in the first place and would rather wear a leotard and ride an elliptical machine?

If you’re going to lift weights, then shut up and lift them. Pick a safe starting point, and lift an appropriate amount of weight. Don’t try to impress someone, don’t try to be macho. Just lift a proper weight that will provide you with great exercise.

No, I can’t help you develop your abs.

How did we ever get here? Those of us with big bellies, I mean.
Well, if we really think about it, we all know the answer. We got here little by little. A little ice cream, a little more ice cream, some cookies, a nap on the couch instead of basketball with your friends, and thousands of hamburgers.

All that adds up to, my belly. That’s been a very difficult for me since starting this workout program.

People have so many stupid ideas about weight loss and fitness. Many of these people actually get their ideas out there on the television. So here we are, no longer in our twenties, bellies protruding, and the television is telling us that we could look like the guy with the twenty inch waist and the sculpted abs and his pants pulled down below his hips, and all in just  two to six weeks.

Just as bad is our neighbor who warns us that sit ups can cause a pot belly. Who ever heard of that? Did you ever hear anybody say: “yea, my belly has REALLY grown bigger since I’ve started doing sit ups!”????

Ridiculous!

Just keep being active. Be faithful to whatever physical activity appeals to you. Keep working out. Give it time. You’ll see results.

I get frustrated when I see that my belly is still there. But then I remember that I haven’t really been very good with my diet yet, and that I’m 47  years old, and that I’ve had a big belly for years and years. I got here little by little for a very long time, and it just makes sense that I’ll have to get out of this situation little by little over years of time.

That’s what I want. I don’t want fast, dramatic results that will be very hard to maintain. I want permanent habits and a familiar lifestyle. I’m learning to enjoy exercise. That’s why I got started, and that’s why I’m going to continue. If my belly goes away in the process, I’ll be thrilled. If not, I’ll get a job as Santa Claus at the mall. But I’ll be a very fit, healthy and happy Santa Claus.

How long will this take?

Ads for fitness programs and equipment on television give us the idea that sculpted abs and bulging biceps are just a few weeks away.

Possible? I don’t know. And I don’t care.

But I have been interested to learn the opinions of experts in the fields of exercise and fitness. These true opinions are hard to find. But my favorite experts all have shared thoughts about how much time it should take to develop that dream body.

Funny how right now the one thing everybody wants is a well-defined, tapered abdomen.  What about strong legs, or a powerful back? I don’t know, but I would think that over all fitness should be the goal.

I like two things that Mike Chang has said.

First: If you get your entire body in shape, your abs will follow. You don’t need to “focus” on your abs.

Second: When you see someone on television or on tv that is in peak physical condition, they haven’t achieved this in just a few weeks. They look good because of years of good habits, proper diet, and lots of exercise.

Mike’s sarcastic answer to “How long should this take?” is: You should look pretty good after ten years.

The message is this: Make fitness a lifelong habit. Don’t try to work yourself to death for a few weeks hoping to look like a sexy movie star. Is it possible? Mike says that yes, there is a fast track to a good body if you’re willing to work that hard. But I don’t believe that exercise schedules like that are maintainable. One day you’ll stop. One day you’ll quit.

Still, when you exercise, you expect results. How long did it take me to see results? I saw results immediately. I felt better after just a few days. One of the first things I noticed was my double chin disappearing. Then I noticed my biceps shaping up. I noticed my stamina increasing and my posture improving. I liked that, and it definitely motivated me to continue.

Other changes were more gradual. I noticed an overall sense of wellbeing. My appetite changed and my diet was affected. I didn’t crave soda and sweets like I did before. I stopped over eating. And there were more physical changes. My shoulders broadened and developed. My chest squared up.

But my belly is still big and it pokes out over my pants. Do I pay attention to exercises that work my core? Sure I do.  But I always remind myself that I am working out because it feels so good, and it’s fun, and I’m happy because I’m becoming more fit and healthy.  Give me some time and my belly will look better. In fact, I think I’m going to look better and better overall. I just have to keep believing.

Olympic Exercises

When I was a kid I always loved the weight lifting part of the Olympics. It was amazing to me to see those guys lift that incredible amount of weight over their heads. I loved how the bar bent and the cluster of weights at either end sagged as the exercise was executed.
My dad had a weight set and I would practice what I saw. I even got the neighborhood kids involved, organizing weightlifting competitions.
I could do them all. The “clean and press”, the “clean and jerk” and the “snatch”.
When I started my weight lifting routine last year, I never even considered doing any of the Olympic weight lifting exercises. Those routines are about massive amounts of weight, and are better left to stocky guys of Eastern European persuasion.
Or so I thought.
Then one day I was reading a book about weight lifting and fitness by the writers of Men’s Health Magazine that I had picked up at the library. They said that Olympic Exercises are perfect additions to anyone’s weight lifting routine. They are explosive exercises and are very healthy for the whole body, especially your core. The difference is that you work with a manageable amount of weight, and you don’t try to set Olympic or World weight lifting records.
They were right. I do barbell clean and presses and dumbbell clean and presses and I do the snatch and everything else. They are excellent exercises, and I highly recommend them.
I finish off my routine with leg curls, on that leg exercise thingy on my bench, and I do them face up and face down.
My favorite exercise of all is the one I end with. Dumbbell flies. I do them on the living room floor instead of on the bench for more stability. This is because I really like to do a lot of weight with the flies.
Some exercises, like flies and bench presses and curls, just plain feel manly. That’s okay. It’s important that your routine be a total body workout and that you work all your muscles, but it’s especially satisfying to work muscles that just make you feel manly.
Remember, I’m not advocating exercise as a path to fitness or health or fashion. I started lifting, and I continue to lift, strictly because it feels good. It’s fun, and it makes me happy. If working my pectoral or bicep muscles feels especially satisfying, then by all means I work extra weight and extra sets.
I believe working out is about rewarding ourselves and not punishing ourselves.

My first fitness video! Subject: Dealing with Macho!

It's still kind of rough.
But I'm working the bugs out of the process, and I want to put up a lot of these, because I believe the visual aspect of watching my transformation will be very helpful.
So, let me know what works and what doesn't.

A big part of my program is doing your workout at home. There are a lot of reasons for this, and we'll talk about all of them. In this video I talk about the discomfort some of us feel at the gym.
It's just not for me.
I do, however, think that the expert advise that you can only get at the gym is very important, and we'll find out how that all works into my plan when I make an appoint to workout with a professional trainer.
But for now I'm making great progress on my second hand weight bench in a spare bedroom in my own basement.

My routine continued:

“Hey Darrell, are you still lifting those weights?” (grin grin, snicker snicker)

I swear, it’s every day.

We’ll talk about setbacks and road blocks later.

So, here’s more about what happens.

When last we talked, I was doing my warm up.

Sometimes I warm up with lighter weights.
I have two sets of dumbbells, one lighter and one heavier. As of this writing, the lighter ones are fifteen pounds and the heavier ones are thirty-five pounds. I believe in having lots of dumbbells, because they are the most used and most useful part of my set up. Dumbbells can replace barbells in most barbell exercises.
I also believe in having multiple sets of dumbbells and other equipment because I don’t like to take the time to change weight plates on the equipment. I am performing a circuit, or a complex. I don’t have time to rest or change the weight plates, so I have everything loaded exactly the way I want them. Then I move smoothly from one exercise to the next.
I am considering having a dedicated, single dumbbell with an extra heavy amount of weight on it for exercises like the clean and press.

Anyway, whether or not I have warmed up, I usually start with my light weight dumbbells. I have a flat bench where I do these exercises. I do pull overs and skull crushers and dumbbell flies and presses and curls.
Then I do triceps pull downs.  
If you are unfamiliar with those terms, I highly recommend that you look them up.

After the light weight exercises, I do two sets of bench presses. I do two set of all my favorite exercises.  Bench presses feel really good, and the results are immediate.

Next come the curl bar curls. Two sets of at least twenty five. The curl bar is a wonderful apparatus because it is stable and easy to grab and easy to work. The curl bar is inspiring. After my curl bar sets I feel like I can really  accomplish something good.

Next are my hanging crunches. These are among my few non-weight exercises. I have a pull-up bar in the door way, and I take time here to do the hanging crunches. I saw someone in the gym doing these, and I could tell that they brought instant results. I love them. I have great hopes for my mid-section now.  Pull-up bars are great, and you should really have one in your routine. If you couldn’t work with weights, but you COULD do pull-ups, you’d be in great shape.

This is all followed by a series of dumbbell exercises that you should look up.
Lawn mowers
Dumbbell Curls
Dumbbell Flies (heavy) (I do these lying on the floor instead of the bench, for more stability.)

Then I work my legs with the leg curl thingy. I do two sets face up, and two sets face down. Haven’t read much about these exercises, but most benches have this attachment, and I like the results.

Next we’ll talk about Olympic exercises.

The Deep End: Viking TV

The Deep End: Viking TV

My Son-in-law is a famous cartoonist. This is one of his recent cartoons that will certainly become a favorite. Check his blog and his facebook page!

My Routine

I love my routine. I look forward to it every other day.

There, that’s the first thing to know about my routine, I do it every other day.

I decided on that schedule because it felt right. I liked the “burn” I felt the day after working out. Then I did some investigation and found out that lots of people work out with weights every other day, because weights cause what is sometimes called “the 48 hour burn”.  From what I gather, working out with weights burns calories for two days.

The next thing you should know about my routine is that I’m not a professional of any kind. I’m not a trainer, I’m not a therapist, and I’m not a doctor. I could be making lots of mistakes, and doing some things wrong. If you’re going to start a workout program of your own, SEEK OUT SOME PROFESSIONAL HELP. I’m just telling you what seems right to me right now. Later I’ll share some of the resources that have been helpful to me.

So here’s the actual routine:

I start by warming up and stretching. Jumping jacks, stretches, wind mills (from elementary school PE class) and windshield wipers (look it up) I’m mostly worried about my back (remember, I’m old) but I also don’t want to hurt my arms, elbow, or shoulders.

Then I hit my weights.

Here’s a couple of terms you hear a lot in weight lifting: “Three sets of eight”, and “reps to failure”.

As I studied weight lifting routines those two terms popped up again and again. I resist both of them.

I do two sets of 15 on most of my exercises. At least that’s my plan. Sometimes it’s one set of 50 reps. Sometimes it’s even one set of 15 reps. Depends on the exercise.

More importantly, I’m doing a kind of a circuit or complex.  Maybe I don’t do it completely right, but the point of my routine is that it lasts for 30 minutes to 45 minutes and I move from one exercise to the next with very little rest in between. If heart really starts pounding and I’m gasping for breath, I rest a little more, or even better, I drink a little water. I’ve learned that staying hydrated during my work out is better than resting.

I’ll need another entry to talk about specific exercises and equipment, but what’s important to say right now is that the feeling is EXHILLERATING! My muscles turn red and I am quickly soaked in sweat. It feels great!

Do I do reps to failure? This means doing reps until you absolutely can’t do another, and you’re lifting absolutely as much weight as you can. At first I didn’t think so. Sometimes I feel like I could squeeze out one more rep if I really tried, but I’m working out alone, and I don’t have a spotter, so I don’t like to risk it. But I’m doing as many reps as I can.

Do I lift as much weight as I can? Some of my detractors have told me that I need to be lifting the maximum weight possible.

Well for example, I’m sure that if I had a spotter, I could bench press more than I am currently pressing. But it would just be a couple of reps.  Right now I’m pressing as much as I can for 2 set of 15 reps without a spotter.

So I feel good about the maxims, “3 sets of 8”, and “reps to failure”

Opposition. (these are true stories)

No one wants to hear about your new fitness program if you’re over forty.

When someone asks me: “What’s new??” I tell them that I’ve been working out.

That’s when they glaze over.

If I was young and handsome, then talking about exercise and fitness would be cool.  But that’s not my story.

So some people politely ask me if I mean that I’ve been jogging.

No.

Maybe I’ve been going to the rec center to ride the elliptical machine?

No.

I’ve been lifting weights.

That’s when they snicker and shake their heads and try to change the subject.

Later they’ll ask me sarcastically: “Still lifting those weights?”

True story:

Weights and benches and other related equipment really hasn’t been in my budget, so I’ve been watching the classified ads, and I’ve been frequenting a second hand store in our area called “Deseret Industries”

Recently I was at the D.I. and found a couple of great 25lb barbell plates. There was an old man looking them over, and when he saw that I was interested in the plates as well, he backed out of my way. As I picked them up to leave, he started to talk.

“Those are nice ones! I had a friend. I worked with him. He retired. After he retired he bought one of those. A real nice one. I think I remember that it was 300 lbs. Every morning he would jump out of bed and lift that thing into the air over his head and hold it there for several minutes. It worked great for him. He got real strong. Then one morning, he jumped out of bed, and threw that thing over his head into the air, and ……. CRACK!”

The old guy pointed to his knee.

“He hurt his knee?” I asked.

“No! His WHOLE body! CRACK! He broke his whole body!”

I’ve heard many crazy old men tell many crazy stories, so I didn’t mind asking.

“Did he go to the hospital?”

“No! CRACK! It killed him! He was DEAD!”

Yep if your over forty, you’d better not get involved in that weight lifting. Just as any crazy old man.

To heck with crazy old men, and to heck with rude turds who don’t want to hear about my new passion for weight lifting when they ask me what’s new in my life.

I winked at the old man warning me about those 25lb plates and said: “That’s great!”

They’re my plates now, and my weight lifting routine gets better and better.

Educate yourself! (and happy new year!)

There are so many great resources out there that will help you learn about diet and fitness! If you’re going to embark upon a new exercise program, you have the responsibility to know about the right and wrong way to do things.

There’s no excuse for doing things wrong. There’s just too much information about exercise on the internet, and at the library, and at the gym.

You can choose to be Tubby, (and yes, it’s a choice)

But you can’t wonder why you’re tubby.

So the search for information quickly became a part of my routine once I started to lift weights regularly. I found great books about weight lifting at the library.

Youtube was one of my greatest resources. There were endless videos about specific weight lifting exercises and techniques, and I quickly learned new exercises for my routine. I learned that squats and lunges were very important and should be added to my routine. I learned about rows and lawnmowers and kickbacks and pullovers and shrugs. All these exercises are FUN and they fill GREAT and they’ve made my routine more dynamic.

I learned from my library books that Olympic weight lifting exercises are great for my routine. They are explosive and good for the entire body. Yes, the people competing in the Olympics lift incredible amounts of weight, but when I do the same exercises with a more manageable amount of weight, several reps make my muscles burn and my heart pound. So I’ve added Cleans and presses and even Snatches, just because the name makes me giggle.

Diet education has changed everything for me as well. I listen to Dr. Oz. I don’t agree with everything I hear, but I listen for things I can try that will help. For example, I heard one doctor say that the best health advice he could give anyone is to start the day with a very large drink of water. He said that water should be the first thing that enters our bodies each day, and he was talking about a lot of water.

I can honestly say that drinking water first thing every day has changed my life. I feel better, and I eat better because of it. Now, some of the diet advice I hear just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe as I learn and continue to educate myself, my attitudes and habits will change. I’ll give anything a try. But I’m not ready to grouse through the underbrush for grubs yet.

Well, the time has come. I’m putting my money where my mouth is. You’re here to see if I’m really successful. So I’m putting up some pictures of myself doing my workout. I’m still tubby, but I’m making progress that I can see and feel.

Diets are for fit people!

If you’re following this blog,  you’ll see my progress as I go from tubby to fit. With this in mind you should know a little bit more about my diet and fitness goals.

When I started lifting weights, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t change a thing about my diet.  I’m a fat middle aged guy and I have very few joys in life to look forward to. Eating is very important to me.

But exercising and weight lifting have changed my diet in ways that have amazed me. I’m learning that some life changes are spontaneous when you start doing healthy things, like say, exercise.

But again, I didn’t start lifting to become healthier or to lose weight or to look more fit. Those are all things that are happening to me, but they aren’t reasons for the workout.  I work out with weights because it feels so good! I started lifting during a very stressful time in my life that blogged about earlier,  and the weight lifting made me feel  soo much better.

So with all that in mind, here are my new diet rules.

1.       If you’re a cow, I’m going to eat you. That’s just the way it is. I love steak and other cow meats, and I’m not giving them up, for nobody or for no one.

2.       If you’re a chicken you better be able to run faster than me at lunch time.

3.       If you’re a pig, give it up for the bacon and the ribs! And save me a ham sandwich.

4.       Mrs. Hostess is calling. Can you hear her? “Ding dong, ding dong”
5.       Cola drinks are from God. Nothing that tastes that great and makes you feel that good could possibly be bad for you.
6.       Chocolate is, holy cow, it's just that, you see, we've just got to, especially dark chocolate. You know that one place at the mall that makes chocolates? We've just got to eat chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

Apart from those rules, I’ve had a very interesting diet experience that is the direct result of my weight lifting.

My desire to drink sodas is gone. I’m drinking more water instead. No one told me to do this, it’s just what my body craves.

I’m fine with just one cookie when cookies are offered. I don’t have to sneak and eat ten or twelve, and then blame the kids.

I don’t need late night snacks.

I don’t need seconds.

I take home a box of left overs when I eat out at restaurants (instead of finishing everyone else’s meal)

Meals don’t have to have dessert.

I could go on and on.

The point is, I’m eating healthier, and it’s spontaneous. My healthy body craves healthy eating habits.

I want to follow this post up with a new post about education, and I’ll do that next.

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I’m still tubby!

In fact, I’m probably a little tubbier.

That’s okay, Christmas is a wonderful thing. Chocolate, roasts, chocolate, candies of all kinds, chocolate, casseroles, etc.

I’m certainly not going to be the one who abstains. So how do we reconcile our desire for physical fitness with the bounty of Christmas feasts?

We don’t. Who cares? I’m not exercising to lose weight or look better. I’m exercising because it feels so good. So I’m right back at it. Christmas isn’t a set back at all.

So let’s talk about some nuts and bolts. We were talking back a few posts about how I came across my son’s weight bench and weights and put it all together.

Now I’ve got a common weight bench and a barbell and a curl bar and some dumbbells. They’re all arranged in the corner of our storage room in our basement.

That’s all I need. I knew it from the beginning. I had everything I needed for a weight lifting experience.

Bench presses are the most obvious. The barbell rests permanently on the bench press rack and I keep as much weight on it as I can lift. I don’t move weights around from apparatus to apparatus, and I’ll explain why later. But bench presses are simple and straight forward and easy to figure out.

I had an easy curl bar. I love that bar. I keep it loaded up with as much weight as I can curl, but there’s something about that bar that inspires courage. When I feel like I can’t do any more exercise, I can always do more curls on that bar, and then I feel like I can move on to other exercises. I highly recommend an easy curl bar.

On the weight bench is a leg curl, or leg lift apparatus. I faithfully work my legs with that machine, though I’ve seen very little information about whether they are very good machines or not.

Finally, I have dumbbells. If you can get no other weight apparatus, get dumbbells. You can do almost any exercise with dumbbells that you can do with a barbell. Dumbbells are less stable than barbells and therefore make you work harder to steady them. In short, dumbbells are great. Even if you only have one dumbbell, there are countless exercises you can do with it.

Later we’ll talk about exactly what exercises I’m doing, and with how much weight.

Why don’t I go to the gym?

It’s a good question.

There’s some philosophical thinking in the answer to this question.

To start, I have to say that I absolutely WILL go to the gym soon. My weight lifting experience has evolved to the point where I really would like some guidance from an expert.

But there are problems at that gym. At least for some of us.  The atmosphere and attitude at the gym can be off setting. There are people at the gym who are very successful and ambitious about their workouts. It can be intimidating. I know that we shouldn’t judge ourselves against others, but it can really take away your appetite.

I will say that I believe that once you jump in, the discomfort will dissipate, and you’ll feel right at home. At least I hope that’s how it will be, because I intend to find out.

But for others of us, the expense, the travel time, the inconvenience, all are reasons for us to seek fitness in our own homes. It was certainly this way for me. I was facing extreme financial challenges when I began my workout program. I didn’t even buy new weights, as I explained in an earlier post. Since I had no agenda, no goal of health or fitness, I relished the privacy of that little corner of our basement storage room. My workout was strictly my own, and I made all the rules.

This manner of working out on my own became a magical experience. I’ll talk later about how I learned more about weight lifting and how my routine evolved, but I’ll say here that I was immediately amazed at how the work I was doing intuitively turned out very close to what many trainers would have told me to do. That is very significant to me.

From the very start, I’ve done exactly what seemed to feel right and feel good. I’ve challenged myself, but I haven’t’ sought to kill myself. I’ve tried to maintain a level of work and heart rate, I’ve tried to stretch and warm up and I’ve kept myself hydrated. I’ve notice if a particular exercise bothered a joint or muscle or tendon, and I’ve moved those exercises to a different slot in the lineup. In only a couple of weeks I had a really good workout program and list of exercises that I liked to do. I would sweat like a pig and my heart pounded in my chest. It felt really, really good.

We’ll go into detail about my actual workout next.

But the point here is that I accomplished a truly satisfying and effective working in a corner of a storage room in the privacy of my own home with second hand weights.

Yes, I’d like better equipment and a larger space for my exercise. Yes, I’m going to go to the gym and seek some expert training.

All this will be documented as a part of this blog, as will my trip to the doctor for medical advice.  The message I hope to convey is that you, the tubby middle aged person, can challenge your tubbiness, become more fit, look better, feel better, and have lots and lots of fun in the process.