Jan 12
25
The plan is this: No health club membership. Other than free-pass visits to friends’ gyms or 1-week promotional specials, you will work at home. Why? Pick a reason.
Sound familiar? Consider the alternative: Get your own equipment for free (or cheap), then learn how to use it properly. Start with the free stuff, then add what you need in lieu of a monthly membership fee at a club.
My wife collected a bunch of exercise equipment for me I never used for years. Once I had the internal motivation to change and stay committed to it, I started doing the basics with what she’d given me, and then I looked for more equipment.
What did I get for free?
Primarily, my home gym is comprised of stuff collected from other people who gave up on exercise: a Weider home gym (with chest butterfly, press, leg curl, and cable pulldown features) , an exercise bike, a manual treadmill, a weight bench, 8 hex dumbbells and 4 regular dumbbells (from 8-30 pounds), some extra vinyl weights (sadly, no weight lifting bar included) and a padded vinyl exercise mat with exercises illustrated on it.
Craigslist, Freecycle and Kijiji are your friend. Also: the front street the night before garbage day… that’s where I grabbed the exercise bike from. Rather than being “garbage”, this street find turned out to be better than the one my wife had initially procured through a web ad. My guess is it was taking up valuable space in a home where the owner realized it wasn’t going to be used anymore. Or maybe it was surplussed from an upgrade? In any case, it was an upgrade for me.
My brother in law gave me his mega-sized boombox with a busted CD changer that he was ready to ship off to Value Village. I considered the enormous amount of money that people will pay for teenie little stereo systems where they can dock their iPod, then I decided to take it for myself. I already had the required connector cable from Radio Shack (1/8″ Stereo MiniPlug Y-Cable to Left and Right Male RCA plug—Don’t panic if this sounds like gobbledygook: just tell the store what devices you’re trying to connect and they’ll find the right cable). Now, I plug my laptop to the AUX input of the boombox and rock out for 40-60 minutes 6-7 days a week.
I looked at the price of weighted vests and thought, “Pfft! Why not just get a used backpack and fill it with my old vinyl weights?” And so I did. Now, I’m looking at the price of resistance straps and weight lifting chains and thinking the same thing: why pay a “fitness equipment” premium for items you can buy at the hardware store? Princess Auto sells chain and lifting straps for cheap.
Most importantly, I collected enough second hand T-shirt and sweatpants outfits on my rack that I could—in theory—only do laundry once a week. In practice, that would be horribly stinky, but there’s definitely never the excuse that I can’t work out due to lack of an outfit.
What did I actually buy new?
What’s left to add?
I will be upgrading the weight bench to one with a wider spacing and higher capacity (so I can lift more weight on my barbell safely). My new bench will be from Costco. Their Marcy benches are well rated, shipping and handling is included in the price, and I know the return policy will be good if I have a problem. Naturally, I’ll keep looking for a used one. However, Olympic width benches are rarer, and the used ones I’ve seen rival the cost of a new bench at Costco.
What’s in your bargain basement gym?
Jan 12
20
The changes I’m undergoing since beginning this food and fitness regimen are more than just physical. They’re mental. They’re emotional.
I don’t recall such a sustained period of high functioning without periods of stress, depression or exhaustion… well, not since before parenthood, anyway.
It’s not that my circumstances have changed significantly. If anything, life has gotten more challenging recently… but somehow the daily physical exertion of exercise has relieved the effects that normally stem from the uncontrollable aspects of my life.
I look at myself differently. In fact, I’m starting to look at myself, period. I’ve had difficulties in accepting my appearance for much of the last 20 years, and particularly in the last 10 as I watched myself worsen year by year while I’ve balanced my professional development and my family responsibilities.
Now, I wake up and I’m not ashamed to catch sight of myself in the mirror. I’m interested to see if there’s any visible change: new definitions of muscle which used to be obscured by excess padding. I’m no longer immediately anxious to throw on something loose that will cover my shape. If anything, I’m starting to intensely dislike clothes that make me look like I’m drowning in them.
And I’m starting to notice other people… people that I realize would be really attractive—much more than me!—if they could lose 25 or 50 pounds. Am I becoming a fitness snob?
I don’t think so. I don’t feel superior to anyone. I’m more comfortable with myself, knowing that I’m transforming into the best incarnation of me. As far as other people: It’s more like I’ve discovered a life-changing secret, and wish I could bring more people along with me to experience it for themselves.
So far I’ve only shared what I’ve done with people who were curious enough to know how it was possible. But no-one’s been sufficiently inspired to want to try the lifestyle for themselves.
I think the soft sell is best. Nothing that anyone else said or did compelled me to change. It was only when I decided for myself that I had to change that every day after was different.
Jan 12
9
This past Saturday marked the end of my 9th week of diet and exercise. The scale read 194.2, a new low, for nearly 28 pounds lost so far. Just the boost I needed to reinforce my commitment to fruit, which has gone from an occasional diversion to a multiple-times-daily staple of my diet. If only I weren’t competing with other fruit lovers in my cubicle…
Until recently, I though that fruitflies were mythical creatures of legend like dragons or unicorns. I’d heard people talk about them, but I hadn’t really seen any. This might have had something to do with my old, largely fruit-free diet and my limit grasp of entomology… To my knowledge, there are no sausageflies or chipflies, and definitely no cookieflies or Cokeflies. Apparently there are popflies, but only in baseball.
But fruitflies do exist! And they love my office.
One day, there I was, eating some fruit, and one started buzzing around my head. Several more were zipping in and out of my trash bin. I dumped it immediately into the main waste collection for the office, and then got a good workout hopping and clapping to exterminate the little beasts.
Then all was well, and I endeavoured to empty my waste bin more often after that.
The next day I peeled an apple and was just settling back to enjoy it when–you guessed it–more fruitflies buzzing around my skull. Wastebasket in hand, I fled to the big bin, then returned to unleash my vengeance on the winged attackers.
Surely I’ve exterminated a small colony’s worth by now, I thought. I ate my afternoon orange in peace, and made sure to dump out my bin before leaving for the day.
The next day all was silent, until I started carving up an apple. Then, another sortie of attackers. I felt like King Kong. The apple was my object of desire, clutched carefully in my fingers, while my other hand waved menacingly at the circling aircraft.
It made me think: why fruit? Why is nature punishing me for good eating habits? Why not sausageflies, chipflies, and cookieflies?
I’m not making excuses, nor am I giving up. When my King Kong routine gets old, I’ll just switch to “When You’re Happy and You Know It”, content in the knowledge that I’m eating well and getting exercise while I do it.
I lost 9 pounds lost this month (and 24.4 pounds in total)! My lowest weight was 197 and I’m not exactly certain why it spiked up nearly two pounds only one day after. Two theories: (1) my body is continuing to fight the weight loss, because the change is sudden and my equilibrium is still at the level of ~200; and (2) I’ve been eating an excessive amount of sodium recently because of the types of foods served during the Christmas season.
Regarding the first possibility, a recent article in the New York Times described the body’s response to extreme weight loss in terms of a coordinated defence mechanism, similar to our immune response to disease. As I’ve now lost over 10% of my previous body weight, it’s safe to say I may have undergone sufficient change to evoke a defensive response.
If it’s the second possibility, this may be simple water retention. My weight has continued to go down every day since the spike, and I’m currently at 197.4 as of today.
I took more chances this month. I started drinking less unsweetened green tea, and branched into more Splenda–flavoured coffees and teas. I returned to eating favourites like pita bread and hummus. I even completely gorged myself at a buffet luncheon on Boxing Day, eating over 2300 calories in a sitting and over 3000 for the day (though I did exercise 1500 worth that night). The net result is that I felt happier, making it easier to continue to engage in what still amounts to controlled starvation. It doesn’t feel like starvation most days, though. I eat what I want to eat, provided I’m willing to engage in sufficient exercise that evening to work my net calories back down into balance.
I also revised my goals. My target of 150 pounds represented my high school weight, which I now feel is an unrealistic goal given that I had very little muscle as a 17 year old. My new target is 162, which I hope will give me sufficient room to retain the muscle I’ve built under this fat over the last 20-odd years.