We finished our twelve-week Body for Life program on Christmas Eve, with wonderful results. I was definitely “the biggest loser” – I needed the biggest results and I got them. My loss was thirty pounds, twenty five inches, and over ten percent body fat. Chelsea did well, too. She lost four pounds, sixteen inches, and three percent body fat. (She lost more initially, but regained some in her California sojourn.)
It was absolutely a commitment to get through the program. Most days we forced ourselves over to the weight bench by sheer determination, but once we got into the workout each day, it got easier. We tried a variety of tactics to keep things interesting – we’d switch the time of day (morning was best); we had a lively playlist of songs on the computer – the kind that get your feet tapping; we’d make non-stop jokes; and we changed our routines regularly.
During the darkest days of December we even lit candles and used an aromatherapy diffuser during our 6:30 a.m. workouts, or we plugged in our jalapeno pepper lights and rocked away to the music. For a few weeks, one of our cats entertained us no end by curling up for a nap on the weight bench as we’d be doing our arm exercises, and she dearly loved having us get on the floor to do our abs. She’d spend the whole ab workout winding her way around our legs and nuzzling our faces. It was pretty hard to not laugh and to keep the count straight with a purring kitty collapsed on our heads.
When we started seeing and feeling results of course, it was easier to keep going. The results were subtle but noticeable and wide-ranging. We felt better all day from having accomplished something; we had the wonderful satisfaction of seeing measurable results; and the self-discipline of sticking to the workouts made it easier to do other difficult things.
The workouts strengthened our secondary muscles, too. We found we stood straighter; household tasks were easier with the increased muscle strength; our new wrist and hand strength made it easier to do things like open jars; and it was much easier to carry the twenty-pound liquid chlorine jugs from the car to the pool.
We found that getting in and out of the weight bench and various workout poses, like the bench dips and dumbbell pullovers, improved our gracefulness; and the routines improved our breathing as well, especially the tougher ones like the bench dips, dumbbell pullovers, and the ab workouts. The improved breathing had a balancing effect on our whole body.
As another side benefit, Chelsea noticed a big uptick in her brain functioning. She says the improvement was from having to learn the new routines (which changed frequently), learn the counting that came with the routines, and connect the breathing to it all.
We are extremely pleased with the overall effect of what the weightlifting program did for us.
Chelsea kept things light by always teasing. One day she wanted to put a sign on the mirror that said “Supermodel coming soon”. Another day she suggested that we change our name from Traveling Roses to Guns n’ Roses, to reflect our “big guns” (the biceps and triceps). We laughed ourselves silly over that one. Then she took to calling me Buffy the Workout Queen. In the middle of our strenuous ab workout one day she panted in between sets, “Hey Mom, it’s not just ‘a call to arms’, it’s “a call to arms, legs and abs”. Like with the cat collapsing on our heads, it was tough to keep the count straight when she’d start in like that…but we sure did laugh a lot!
We stopped the workouts just after Christmas, because we couldn’t keep everything up at once. We’d been a bit hit and miss with our riding, and with a leave date coming up, we decided to focus on the riding. In fact, we sold our entire workout system a few months ago to a wonderful couple from up near West Palm Beach. If we still had it, I think I’d be picking up some of the weights and doing a few reps on a regular basis.
We’ve looked into getting resistance bands. We’d love to have them now, but we aren’t sure we’d really do the workouts on our trip (though perhaps we should), so we are opting to pass on that. We can always do bench dips and abs on the road, and use our six-gallon dromedary water bags as weights. Uh huh…
Bottom line? We are very proud of ourselves for completing the program. We changed our diet fundamentally, and we’ve stuck to that. We look much better and we feel much better and that was the point of the whole project. I’m still aiming for another ten percent body fat loss and another thirteen pounds off the weight, and Chelsea wants to lose a few more percent on the body fat. We’ll do it. No doubt about it.