Lift Outrageous Weights

It seems like it's going to take forever to get my body back into decent shape.  Although I have lost 18 pounds, I have been hovering around at the 231 mark and its frustrating.  Today, for example, I went to the gym, worked out on weights on about 15 machines and ran on the tread mill for an hour.  In the evening, I drove to Alachua and played basketball with AV for another hour-and-a-half or so.  When I got home, however, my weight appeared to be the same.

I know, I know; I just have to somehow be simultaneously patient and enthusiastic.  But it's hard.  Now, one of the things I should remember, and I have mentioned this before, is that muscle weighs more than fat and I have been converting fat to muscle via the weight training.  I feel more burst in my calves and thighs and more strength in my arms.  Of course, if I keep changing fat into muscle and stay at this weight, I'll eventually look like a heavy-weight prize fighter, and that's not really the look I'm looking for.  

The weight training is getting tough.  Before, I breezed right through the line and then went up in weight exponentially in the next session.  Now, I can only go up a little at a time if any and I really struggle.  It's like I can feel and hear my body ripping as I go on.  And I don't mean "ripping" in the positive sense like "he's ripped." I have to take deep breaths and get an insane look in my eye before I lift, like one of those guys I used to see on ABC's Wide World of Sports. I want to start doing some yoga and stretching to balance this shit out.  When I was a teenager I once wrote a poem against weight lifting that went:

Lift outrageous weights

All day until that

You excite all the girls

With stretched flesh of no fat

Then 20 years later

Dead you'll be found

Heart-attacked

Cramped

Couldn't move

Muscle bound

I don't really believe that stuff nowadays but I still can't stand those over-testosteroned monstrosities of human-existence who are always walking around all goo-goo eyed and ramped up on 'roids as their brains gradually shrink even smaller than it was to begin with.

The cardio is giving me good stamina.  The result is that I didn't get very tired playing basketball this evening and basketball demands a lot of energy. When AV and I were warming up, two kids came over and challenged us.  Although neither of us had played for a year and we're both over 40, we whipped them easily in both games we played them.  Later, we went one on one up to 51.  He beat me handily 52 to 30 but I just need to work on my outside shot a little and I'll be fine.  Get you next time AV.

I think another part of the frustration is when I was really fat (meaning fatter than I am now), I didn't want to look in the mirror.  It was too painful.  Now I can do it and although I see I have a long way to go, at least I see that some presentable form of human being is returning.  Don't get me wrong, I don't have a low self-image.  I just truthfully acknowledge that my body is unfit and needs some serious work.  I think it's healthy to be dissatisfied with your own state of affairs if it motivates you to improve.

To tell you the truth, I'm getting a little sick of hearing me blog about this weight issue. Still, it's an obvious part of my life right now and I am going in the positive direction, so why not write about it?  If I am being a bit redundant, I am sincerely sorry.