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P27YOA: Month 1 Results

The trainer has earned her marks!  The results of one month of weekly training sessions and (mostly) following her cardio instructions:  I lost an inch off my waist and half an inch off my hips.  The scale has gone up and down, depending on the week, so I'm going to ignore it for now.  (Isn't that a convenient strategy?)

I hit my all-time highest weight and girth in December 2008.  Since then, I've taken a total of 2.5 inches off my waist and 1 inch off my hips.  Everything else has remained mostly the same, except for my biceps, which have grown a little -- I think, but its hard to get the measuring tape around with only one hand free, so I'm accounting for a healthy margin of error there.

The hardest part of all this has been moderating what I eat.  Honestly, people, I have an insane Fats Tooth.  Butter MacLover.  Tubby O'Lardie.  Oily MacGrubber.  That's me!  I have to constantly remind myself of the amount of calories in a glug of olive oil or a generous shmear of butter or a beautiful sampler of sheep and cow cheeses from Italy, France and Spain.....  So I've been using measuring cups and spoons religiously, and have learned that when cooking, one Tbsp of olive oil really does taste as good as two.  And -- I've also been learning some new ways of cooking, and new recipes whose flavor doesn't rely on a sharp cheese or marbley cut of meat.  More on that tomorrow!

Resting Metabolic Rate (Woohoo!)

I had my RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) tested this morning on a little portable machine at the gym.  It involved not eating or drinking anything since last night, putting pincers on my nose and breathing into a tube for 10 minutes.  The tube was attached to a little machine that analyzed the oxygen content of my breath, and that somehow allowed it to calculate my RMR.  (FYI, I'm told that most doctors can do this test at their offices, in case you're interested and your gym doesn't offer the service.)

The results?  My RMR is a whopping 2,240 calories!!!!  That means, on any given day, if I were to be completely sedentary, my body would use up somewhere around 2,200 calories just to exist.  Throw in 4 days at the gym, and my RMR is more like 3,100 calories per day.

This is good -- nay, AWESOME -- news because that means I can eat more than I thought and still lose weight.  To lose a pound a week, you have to burn or cut 500 calories a day.  To lose two pounds a week, you have to burn or cut 1,000 calories a day.  I think that somewhere inbetween those numbers will be totally achievable for me.  For example, I could:

• use 1 less tablespoon of salad dressing to easily save 100 calories;
• switch from milky coffee and sugar to green tea in the morning to save another 100 calories; and
• spend 30 to 45 minutes at the gym to burn anywhere from 300 to 500 calories (depending on how hard I push it)

Awright, people.  Project 27YOA is ON!!!!  Let the losing begin!!!

Personal Trainer

For the second time in my life, I have hired a personal trainer.  The first experience was NOT a success.  My first trainer was a veiney, muscle-bound, hulking, middle-aged, former body-builder type who killed me everytime I saw him.  Each session was followed by several days of me popping Advil like candy.  I think I bought a package of five sessions and never made it to the last three....... 

So its taken years and years and years and years for me to consider hiring another trainer.  I've always been able to peel off 5 or 10 pounds pretty easily once I get back to the gym.  Until this year, that is.  After hitting an all-time high weight in December, I now have 20 pounds to lose, and there is no "peeling off" happening.  I don't know if this is the curse of aging and slowed metabolism, or simply a lack of sufficient motivation at the gym, but I've been pretty darn good for two and a half months now and I've seen minimal payoff. 

So I finally decided to hire a trainer before my frustration shoved me off the workout wagon.  Finding a trainer, however, is a lot harder than one would imagine.  My Google searches kept leading me to local gyms that seemed to be staffed by the same over-muscled super-athletes I'd had such a bad experience with before.  I wanted someone kind and gentle who would understand my weight-loss goal.  I wanted someone to push me without driving me towards certain injury.  And I wanted someone fun.

Well, I think I've found her.  (And she works at my gym, so - bonus! - no gym-switching involved!)  I had my first session yesterday, and I had a lot of fun.  I worked hard and learned exercises that I'd never done before.  Today, I'm pleasantly sore:  enough to know that I did some good work yesterday, but not so much that its turned into rebellious resentment.

On Monday I'm having my resting metabolic rate tested and my fat percentage measured (shudder).  Twenty pounds is daunting to me, considering how hard I've had to work just to shed the last four pounds.  But then I think.... the last time I weighed X (where x = 20 lbs less of me right now) was 10 years ago.  And I'll do anything to get my 27-year old butt back!!!!