Hanging Loose

Today I celebrated hitting the 70 pound weight loss mark in my heart health journey!  In my most optomistic hopes I did not think I would ever reach this milestone!  In fact, the last time I saw this weight on my scale was before I became pregnant for my second daughter...and she will be 30 in November!!  I have moved from the morbidly obese (how I hated that phrase) to obese, to overweight categories.   I am beginning to believe that I can go the distance - only 15 pounds to go and I will be in a normal weight range (haven't seen that since 1979)!! 

The downside is all this loose skin!  I have flabby arms (mom calls it the "french" arms), flabby thighs, and I'm not even going to try to describe my abdomen.  Last week I took action to try to battle the situation.  I signed up with a personal trainer, Amy Williams, to begin to develope a routine that will tighten and strengthen.  Although it is unlikely that exercize will completely solve the problem, it will help.

I should point out that my gym routine usually involves all cardio with some stretching and situps at the end.  I really don't like doing weights and floor exercises..so I need to change my mindset!

Amy and I concentrated on my triceps and abdomen for my first set of workouts.  For triceps,  I have a series of sets that involve few reps but heavy weights.  I am not very strong so I find them very challenging.  Amy told me to go three days between the workouts to give the arms the ability to recover.  I have done the workout twice and I am tracking them on a new sheet I created in my fitbit program.  The ab exercises are more traditional, but challenging as well.  I could really feel them the next day.  Once again, the series of sets that I have been given are to be done only every three days. 

I have changed my gym routine to incorporate the weight and floor exercises.  It means doing no more than 30 minutes of cardio and lengthening my workout by 15-20 minutes.  It means I have to rush a bit more to get to work in the morning.  Feeling a bit more toned will be worth the effort!