I'm currently living in Kenmore, WA. It's a nice little area. However, the whole of King and surrounding counties suffer from a common American ailment: urban sprawl. You need a car to get around because everything is spread far and thin, be prepared for traffic. If you don't own a car, be prepared to spend most of your life on buses.
I'm close to two Bally's gyms. "Close" in a galactic sense. One is in Bellevue, which at 2 AM is a 20 minute drive, the rest of the day it's 45 minutes to an hour. One is in Lynnwood, about 15 minutes away off peak, about 25 minutes away in heavy traffic. Lynnwood is the better choice, no? Not according to Bally's website. Bally's told me there was no swimming pool, and when I first started looking for a gym, I wanted a pool. So, I struggled with the traffic to Bellevue.
About two weeks ago, I decided to go to Lynnwood because I wanted to see the place and I was planning to just do just cardio and lifting. The gym is hidden behind a couple of older strip malls in an area that is best described as ... distressed. The burned out apartment building across the street sets the tone. However, when I arrived I found a welcome treat - a HUGE parking lot with few cars. Nice!
The gym itself is less polished than Bellevue. For those of you that don't know, Bellevue is a kinda ritzy suburb of Seattle. It sits between Seattle and Redmond, home of Microsoft. There is some money floating around there, so, the gym had better be nice. The Lynnwood location was apparently not burdened by this fact. The place could use some cosmetic work, but it was serviceable. The staff were friendly, if not not model quality as they were in Bellevue. The machines were older but well maintained. Over all, the place felt lived in and less scary.
And, there were some hidden surprises. One of my complaints about Bally's is the lockers. I'm sure the pressboard things looked good in the early 90s when they were installed, but the years of being in close proximity to all that moisture and years of abuse have made them less "lockers" and more "things you can close and hope no one can just pull open if they want your stuff." Lynnwood has old, blue, metal lockers. Sure, there is some rust and damage, but it's way better than melting pressboard.
As I looked around the locker room my first time, I saw a sign that said "Anyone entering the pool must take a shower first." Why would they have that sign? The web site said they didn't have a pool. I walked through the door to discover not just a pool, but a pool that appeared as large if not larger than the one in Bellevue - and nearly empty. The hot tub didn't have a timer on the Jacuzzi feature, it just runs and runs and it's about twice the size of Bellevue's and, it too, was nearly empty. Nice!
Now, granted, there aren't as many hot chicks at this place as there are in Bellevue, the video screens are smaller and not flat and in general the whole place is less posh, but for getting my workout on - it's doing the trick. I went Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. I plan to go today. I'm proud of myself.
I'm trying to do about a half hour or more on the treadmill, then lift a bunch of heavy things. Sometimes, when I have time, I treat myself to a soak in the hot tub. You're noticing a lack of the word "pool" in that sentence, aren't you? Yeah, all the concern about pools and I am barely using them. That may change. The treadmill is fine, but I have days, like yesterday, where I am walking fine and then something starts to hurt, so I stop. The treadmill is going to do damage. The pool isn't deep enough for me to do any walking with resistance, but I could swim as cardio. I have other cardio options as well. Lynnwood has this device called a Windjammer (see picture) - it simulates the action of cranking sails on a racing sailboat. In other words, it uses the arms to do cardio. I'm up to seven minutes with no resistance, and, yeah, I can feel it. Eventually I'll add resistance, maybe after I hit 10 minutes. I'm going to get guns yet!
Speaking of which, I am so enjoying my weight training. I never liked it before, I mean, it was okay, but for whatever reason I'm really liking it now. Maybe I'm just doing it right or something. I don't have much structure, I just go from machine to machine, device to device. I'm getting a lot of variety and that feels good. I try to add a new machine every time. I'm trying to add more reps. Mostly, I try to not interfere with what others are doing. I've moved away from the free weights to the machines, same work out and you don't get stepped on by the roid-heads. I'm working mostly on my pecs, bi-cepts and back - I want some visible results so I'm going for the big three. I'm sure the other muscles are getting some work along the way.
If I could only get more structure to my diet. I feel like I'm wrestling a bear. I think I'm doing okay, but it feels odd. I'm intaking more carbs than when I normally diet, but less than when I am off my diet. I'm eating out a lot, but I'm making good choices. The scale says I'm down, but only a bit, and that's the scale at home, the scale at the gym adds ten pounds, I don't know what to believe. I think I'm just going to attempt to keep up going to the gym, try to keep making good food choices and ride the bear until it throws me off. This is all new territory for me and I need to get used to it before I try to saddle it with a routine.
My mantras are "Slow, Steady, Repeat." and "Less Flab, More Fab!" - we'll see if they work.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
a few things:
*puts friend hat on*
1.) Congrats!! I'm proud of you for setting a streak! Keep up the good work!
*puts trainer hat on*
2.) Towards the beginning you sounded very excited and pumped, had a plan, were looking at pushing yourself to "Do More" each time and then you end with "I'm going to try.." sorry bud, not acceptable. Consider this your boot to the ass. I can understand you missing cause you're sick or because of a gout flare up or something, but you are to PLAN your workouts every day. Plan them and make them non-negotiable. This is your health we're talking about here. This goes beyond pecs, biceps or back. We're talking LONG TERM.
3.) Leave the scales alone (I know, this is a pot/kettle conversation but do as I say, not as I do). If you get obsessed over scales, you're going to sabotage yourself. You can weigh in on ONE scale ONCE a week. Choose a day/time and aim for that target every week. IDEALLY, you would have a scale that checks your body comp so if the weight number doesn't move, you can see if your BMI/Lean Muscle Mass changes but it's not required.
4.) You cannot target lose. Your body is smarter than you give it credit for. Your body will compensate and pull fuel (fat) from where it has it. Working your arms to hypertrophy will help in the beginning, but you will have to do core, legs and corrective workouts eventually.
5.) I'm glad you like weights. (seriously, I am) Don't neglect flexibility and cardio. Find a yoga class/workout online or something. Seriously. Flexibility will help you correct issues you don't realize you have with posture etc, as well as reduce the chance of injury and increase your strength potential
*takes trainer hat off and puts friend hat back on*
Seriously, I'm SO PROUD of the progress you made see! *holds out pom poms* but don't stop now. Build on your progress! You can do it!
1) Thanks! I will!
2) I am pumped! I have a reason to go to the gym: I'm enjoying it! I used to hate going to the gym, but liked it once I got there. Now, I'm excited to go, this is new for me. Long term or not, with my attention span, I need to ride this wave for all it's worth. Hopefully, if I ride it long enough, it'll become habit. Because, if nothing else, I am a creature of habits - all bad. It would be nice to have a good one.
As for planning, well, that is less easy right now. Usually when I say "I'll try." that means "I'll do it unless something else comes up." Which is what most people mean when they say "I'll do it." I'm just telling the truth. As with today, I said "I plan to go to the gym." That was my plan when I wrote it. About five minutes after I hit "publish" a woman called that I needed to talk to - next thing I'm running out to a meeting in Renton. It was important. By the time I got to the meeting, it was 1:30, I hadn't gotten to the gym and I hadn't eaten yet. I left her a little after three, having had only a soy milk chai tea. Not good you say? I couldn't agree more. But, as an unemployed person, my life gets like that at times.
Once I'm working again, and have a schedule, I do indeed plan to carve gym time and a real diet into stone. But, for the moment, I just don't have that much of a grip on my life. (The meeting was good - I may have that schedule soon! I'll reveal more when I can.)
3) I'm usually good about scales. I will get good again. Once a week. I swear. :)
4) Target lose? You mean only lose weight in one area, like arms or butt? If that's what you mean, I understand. (If not, please explain.) I'm fat all over, with the belly being scary huge. I want bigger muscles because they burn more fuel - they can pull fuel from where ever they want, I need to lose it everywhere!
5) Cardio is big on my plate. I want to get back to being able to do an hour on the treadmill at a decent pace. Right now I'm under 40 minutes, below 2 miles an hour because I really need to recover from all the atrophy from not using my legs due to the gout. I lost a lot of strength. I want that back. My long term goal is to be able to do 30 minutes on an elliptical. That's off in the future quite a bit. For the moment, Slow, Steady, Repeat.
Don't say aerobics. Stepping off the treadmill hurts, sometimes. I don't jump and I don't run - I've broken bones in my feet from doing little more. The human body isn't rated for my weight. I know there are low impact aerobics, but as far as I can tell, they don't do much more than my treadmill. When I get to 300, I'll be chomping at the bit for aerobics. I'm jealous of guys that can run and jump. (Basketball just pisses me off. Why did my brain wait until I am nearly 40 to start thinking basketball looks like fun?!) I'll get there.
I have a little trick for the treadmill. Probably would only work for me. I have a political podcast that I really enjoy listening to - so, I only listen to it on the treadmill. It's on five days a week, if I see a few stacking up on my computer, it's because I'm not going to the gym. It gets my blood boiling and makes me laugh and distracts me fabulously! I'm sure people are staring at me for laughing for no reason at all, who cares?
As for core and flexibility, yeah, I need to do something. I need a "Yoga for Couch Potatoes" or something. An on-ramp. I've watched some "Yoga for Beginners" type programs. If I could do half that stuff, well, I wouldn't need Yoga for Beginners! I'll find something. Not giving up.
I'm not going to stop. I'm going to build and build. It's 6:28 PM now. I plan to be in the gym before 7:30. That kind of dedication to the gym is new to me, too. Kinda nice! :)
Jericho!
I turn my back for five minutes (or a year or so) and what do you do? You turn off Irate Weirdos, get divorced and lose your job. Sounds like 2010 sucked for you - I'm sorry to hear that, old friend. And the health issues are concerning, too.
How's the job hunt going? Is there a consuoting market in Seattle? Trent has been one now for nearly two years - he'd rather be a perm, but the money is good.
Congratulations on the weight loss - dieting sucks. I dropped 130 after bariatric surgery, and then had the 25 lb bounce back they warn you about in the past year. During winter break I'm working on that.
Yes, winter break - I started grad school in January. LOVE it. I'm working on the MEd in Counseling, school emphasis but I find I like doing one-on-one therapy with adults mucho and I'm pretty good at it, so I think I'll try to do both.
I was actually getting on IWDC to ask Max about guitars, believe it or not. I turned 49 last week, and learning to play the guitar is on my things to do before 50 short list.
Get in touch! I'd like to hear how you're doing - hopefully better that the video you posted on IWDC - you nearly made me cry.
Liz
Post a Comment