Pump hard……. Pump often

Alright. I just got to ask cause I’m not the only one wanting to know.

Why do people take progress pictures with a messy room in the background?

I don’t get it. Just junk EVERYWHERE. I’m not sure if people just get so excited about taking a picture they don’t bother moving the junk out the picture or maybe they don’t even "see it". Or maybe the don’t give a…..

To be honest it takes away from the picture. I’ll admit I’m one of the most curious minded people you will meet so I end up staring at the background just wondering what all that stuff is laying on the floor..the bed…the vanity…the mirror??

And it seems the worst backgrounds tend to be the people with the BEST bods. I’m like WOW look at those abs…and clothes on the floor…and splatter on the mirror. But dang this person looks GOOD!!

I’on know. I’m just wondering out loud.

Alisa

My routine on Mondays is 20 minutes of cardio then sitting in the sauna. After hitting my chest, back and legs hard on Saturday and Sunday I wanted to sit in the sauna on Monday evening to really relax those muscles. I’m the type of person when I do something I like all the bells and whistles to see if they help. So I bought a sauna suit.

The first thing I noticed when I put it on was the top was very loose and comfortable but the bottom was tight in the thighs. I didn’t get that until I sat in the sauna for 20 minutes and the suit became slick in the thigh area. Then it made sense. The suit has elastic around the wrists and ankles which helps you from draining your body’s sweat all over the sauna floor. Next, was my decision of what to wear on my feet. My bright idea was to wear flip flops so my feet can "breathe" and get a good sweat going. Bad idea. I’ll explain why in a moment.

So I’m wrapped up in my breathable plastic sauna "space" suit. I grab my stop watch and head into the sauna with the idea of laying back against the wall and relaxing for 30 minutes. I walk in the door and it’s crowded like a McDonald’s giving away free Big Macs.

Alright.

So I find a spot to sit. No laying back in this room tonight. And a minute or two later I start to sweat. A lot. A WHOLE lot. I’m thinking something is wrong here. This can’t be normal. My body’s temperature is getting to high. I’m going to have heart failure in a moment. I’m about to pass out.

"Breathe Alisa, BREATHE woman!"

That’s what I’m telling myself and I calm down and relax.  And then I look at my thighs. I have sweated through the sauna suit and the sweat is beading up on my thighs. WTH?  Is anybody else seeing this? I hope not. I lay my hands on my thighs trying to cover it up. Don’t work. Doesn’t matter it’s dark in the sauna room anyways. Besides in walks in who I later discover is Ms. All Too Loud.

She’s wearing a sauna suit too. She squeezes into a spot and sits quietly for a little while. Then it happened. Someone asked her "Does that work? The sauna suit?" She replies "Yes it works. I lost 40 pounds!"  Huh? What?  Ain’t no damn way she lost 40 pounds sweating in a sauna. Everyone is amazed and then a sane person asks. "Just with the suit or with exercise as well?"  She admits she does circuit training and cardio plus she says something about her eating habits.  She gets back on the sauna suit and says "But the sauna suit will help you rid your body of toxins. You will drop water weight and then you will loose inches. It works!" At this point I haven’t labeled her Ms. All Too Loud yet. Just a lady giving some good feedback on the benefits of a suana suit.

Then the nutball behind me who I guess wanted to be included in this conversation blurts out "You can eat what you want AND still loose wait." Another lady says "Really?" and Ms. All Too Loud starts getting louder talking about "Only if you have high metabolism. I’m 42 and I have slow metabolism. I can’t eat the white stuff. It just sticks to me for some reason" Nutball says "But I know people who ate what they wanted and lost weight."  Then those two debate metabolism and my dream of a quite session in the sauna is fading damn quickly. Then the whole room erupts in chatter about circuit training, sauna suits, how you can eat "real" food and still loose weight, why it’s better not to use the free weights. Wait WHAT?? That’s when I open my eyes because the conversation is getting nuttier by the minute. I’m looking at my stop watch, my wet thighs, my feet which I’m horrified to discover have soaked my flip flops in sweat. And behind me a lady turns on her MP3 player to full volume? WHAT… THE…. HELL??? It’s time to go.

I walk out the sauna into the locker room and realize my feet in flip flops are dripping sweat all over the floor. I walk to my locker and the lady standing near my locker looks at my feet, then looks at me and the look on her face said "got damn!" I’m so embarrassed. I grab my gym bag, head to the shower, pull off the sauna suit and I look like I just poured a bottle of oil all over myself. Just glistening.

And that my friends was the first time I’ve worn a suana suit. I can’t wait until next Monday and do it all over again. But I’m buying some other type of shoes.

Alisa

I was at a Final Four party last night and as usual if anybody talks to me long enough the topic of working out will come up.  The man I was talking to asked me what gym I attend and I said LaFitness and then he asked which one (there are multiple ones in Atlanta). When I told him which location he said "Oh Club Fitness! I go to Bally but I’ve heard about THAT gym." Later that evening I was talking to another man and he mentioned he went to LaFitness as well and asked which one I went to. I told him and he said "Oh, the Club. All the men talk about that one. The men say if you want to see some hot women go there."

This not the first time I’ve heard this particular location called Club Fitness. The UPS driver at my previous job is a member of LaFitness and after talking about the different locations he said he’s been to Club Fitness a few times. (That was the first time I heard this gym called Club Fitness).

Now I’m not sure why the women at my gym seem "hottier" looking than the women in the other locations. Maybe we workout more or because of this gym’s repuatation women who want to be seen make their way to this club. Dont’ know. )By chance this location is the closest to my house therefore this is the one I frequent.)  I see plenty of women in the gym out of shape and overweight so I’m not even sure what exactly all the men are raving about.

Sure there are women there in great shape and a number of women like to wear cool looking workout gear instead of just shorts and an oversized teeshirt. (Including me). Maybe that’s it. Maybe its the form fitting lycra pants that show off all the big butts we are trying to slim down. I don’t know.

But I do find it fascinating this location has a reputation for having some of the hottest women of all the LaFitness in Atlanta. As hard as some of us women work out at the gym this is a compliment to our efforts.

Alisa

I was on Facebook and someone posted a picture they created on www.faceinhole.com. Remember at the carnival there would be a life sized poster of a person with a hole in the face and you put your face in the hole and took a picture? That’s what this site does. You add your picture to the hole and the site creates a faux picture of you on another body. From the Statue of Liberty to cartoon characters to film heroes you have a range to choose from to create a funny picture. It’s fun pure humor of course. Well someone posted a picture on their Facebook page with their face on top of the body of a bodybuilder. Of course it was obvious this was not really them and they were not trying to pass this off as original. Just posting in humor. The poster put a caption about he should have tried this weight lifting thing a long time ago. It was all in good fun and then a female replies to the picture with the word "gross!"

And that got me thinking about how some people view the bodies of bodybuilders. This is not the first time I’ve seen that reaction. My sister saw the cover of one of my bodybuilding magazines and remarked with a frown "that is just TOO much". I’m thinking really? Personally I’m thinking the man looked beautiful. Maybe I’ve been reading one too many bodybuilding magazines, spend way too many hours in the weight area of my gym or spent more than enough time here on Bodybuilding.com but that person on the cover actually looked normal to me. I’m thinking "hum he looks just fine to me".

My questions are why do people react in shock, disgust or disbelief at pictures of bodybuilders? Why do people have such a strong reaction period? Can a bodybuilder actually get TOO big?

Alisa

I was thinking the other day "it would be cool if there was like a MySpace for bodybuilders".

Well after searching the net for web pages for something unrelated (bodybuilding competitions) I stumble upon probodybuilding dot com thinking it was just a site about pro bodybuilding information. I started looking at the their sub sites much like how BodySpace is a sub site of Bodybuilding.com and saw a subsite titled MuscleSpace which was described as an active fitness community.  Sounds interesting enough so I clicked on it and then click on a profile picture and low and behold it looked like a MySpace page! I’m like huh?? Seriously it looks like a MySpace page except all the friends are bodybuilder types. So I’m thinking is this really an active place and people there have like 100 friends. Ok, that’s active.

The community is probodybuilding dot com/community

I have to type out the url because for some reason when I just type out the url address it shows up on my blog as a bunch of stars like *******
If you like MySpace and you love BodySpace then MuscleSpace is like the merging of the two.

Pretty Cool.

Alisa