the problem seems to be the machines...

This is Sara.

So today I consumed a lunch of 440 calories. 5 cups of coffee and come 5pm I still wasn't hungry. Grabbing a handful of pretzels I headed out the door to cash a check and rummage for my phone at the house.

I got to the gym and met with Drew. My personal fitness assessors and advice guy. A personal trainer. This is part of the challenge.

So, this cute guy, clearly around my age, sits down with me and takes a look at my stats sheet. I explain to him that I would like to take a couple of percentage points of my body fat, coming in at 21.08%. My weight is 134lbs and apparently around 105 of those are muscle. Okay, not bad, not bad. But then I have all these little places are that squishy for no reason other than I am not 18 and work in an office. I let him know that I don't really care if my weight changes just as long as the jiggly parts stay in my breasts and not on my hips.

He asks me what level I work out now.

"Well, I took the RPM cycling class yesterday and I would say that is the type of workout I like. I need a good hour of hard core."

He tells me that is great, the class I took yesterday is actually one of the more aggressive classes they offer. I couldn't help but think: 'I get that, and I think it is great but man...Krav Maga was a nuclear bomb in comparison.'

None the less I was in the market to work hard and get my time's worth in my workout. He likes that. Then goes on to ask me what I typically do for workout when not in the classes. I tell him, "...the Elipticals and the weight machines, but they are so boring when I workout alone that I'm open to other regimes."

He explains to me that the machines are really great for the average hit the gym, put in your 20-60 minutes and off you go. Good cardio, keeps you in the right posture, etc. However if i want to really get cut I should do more work on the cable designs and the free weights.

So we skip the machines, to my relief, and head straight for center stage. First he shows me "the plank." Starting from flat on your belly but up on your elbows, is a lot harder than it seems. You lift your body, keeping everything very straight, such that you are suspended by only your toes and your elbows, with your hands flat. Trying that for thirty seconds my whole body felt like it was attached to a paint shaker.

Then there is the fitness ball. Or yoga ball to some. He then had me do the same maneuver with my elbows on the ball instead of the floor.

That was what he said I, and most people, need to do more of. Balance, stabilizing, and utilizing the fast twitch muscles.

Later he had me doing squats on a sort of half-ball that is flat on one side. You flip the thing, half ball side down, and carefully get yourself standing on the platform/flat side. It isn't hard to stand on surprisingly, then you squat, bending both knees. What I found surprising was the use of the muscles around my ankles...or rather the uncontrolled activation of those muscles. I wasn't in any real risk of losing my balance but a group of muscles I couldn't seem to find (to stop their shaking) were suddenly alive and kicking.

I later found more of those in my sides, my stomach, and arms. So I am hooked, a new challenge, a missing link, something real to work on and a valid reason to switch things up. And thank god the machines are not the answer for me! So its going to be crunches on the yoga ball, planks and side planks, the classic Jane-Fonda butt lift my mom's workout tape showed me when I was really little, and lots more stabilizing exercises with free weights and funny half-balls.

On my way out I bumped into Annie. I was really stoked to see her and I realized last night she is the reason I am doing this in the first place. See, I like working out and often do even when it its not always consistent. But then a friend called me up, Annie, and said "Hey wanna' do this with me? Lets keep each other motivated." It was a no-duh for a couple reasons. The biggest being its so win-win. I get to work my buns off with someone who likes to do the same and ALSO support someone I really care about who really wants this for herself. So I am helping myself and helping someone else who is returning that same love. How sweet is that?! Perpetual motion isn't even that cool.

Oh yeah, we also discussed the calorie thing. And yeah, I am not eating enough. No surprise there. So after the meeting and chatting with Annie I hopped in the car headed to the Boise Co-Op. I was loading up on tasty items for the week: pears, oranges, pasta, cereal, bananas, soup, cheese, bread, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, red onion, a new kind of wine, garlic, mineral water, soy milk (really think cow milk is nasty and only drink it when I am cooking with it. Think about it...its a different species breast milk. Eww. I just can't even swallow a mouthful of it anymore...but I will eat cheese and such.), and some chocolate made with 60% cocoa.

I need to be eating something every 3 hours, so I dropped off the fruit and some bottled water at work and came home to eat more calories. Pasta, salad, and garlic bread. I couldn't finish so I think I am going to have to try for more food per three hours...no way I can eat a whole bunch in one sitting unless it was super concentrated with calories like meals at mainstream restaurants.

My legs are less sore than I thought they would be. I also switched out to a smaller yoga ball at work so that my arms are parallel with the floor when I sit at my desk. The 65cm was too big and I kept leaning down to get to my key board. It worked out nice though because a co-worker inherited my larger one and hopefully we have a convert.