Your age is just a number!

WOW! It has only been 18 days since I joined this site and I already have made great progress. In this time, I have… lost 7 lbs, lost 1.5" on my waist, lost 1/2" on my hips (hard for us gals!), and gained 1/2" of muscle on my arms! I am very pleased and encouraged to keep pumping that iron!!! This all adds up to looking & feeling so much better than I did just a few months ago in mid-January of this year.

I had to see my doc yesterday & she was pleased that my BMI was now in the normal range for my height. My BMI came in at 22 with the medical recommendation being between 19-25 (would be 118-155 lb). Also, for my age & height, I come in at the 9th percentile for average Americans in weight, which means that 91% of Americans weigh more than I do. Kinda sad thinking how overweight & unfit the average American is today (and I should know ’cause I was just recently in that group!).

Hooray for bodybuilding!

I have been a member of Bodybuilding.com for only a week and have already had a creepy guy send me private messages that were just a little too personal! At first I thought he had to be kidding but no, they kept coming in my inbox under the guise of wanting help with his workouts. I can’t believe a grown man would act like he was 15 years old! I told him his emails were not welcome and have put him on my ignore list. I will probably not want to reply to any private messages anymore and am even leery about adding any male friends to my bodyspace page. I think the tools available here for reaching your goals are awesome but I may not want to post any more photos of myself for awhile.  I did not join this site to be leered at! I thought my photos were modest and should not have put me through all the crap I’ve had the last few days! Hell, I’m probably old enough to be the creep’s mother!!!!

I was cleaning out the images from my digital camera and found some more of "fat me" trying on dresses for my daughter’s wedding. Instead of throwing them away in disgust, I uploaded a couple to my progress photos profile in BodySpace. I just about cried that day when I saw what I really looked like & not what I thought I saw when I looked in the mirror… so fat, flabby, big behind but the worst is having the "old lady" arms that just sorta hang there, sagging and flapping in the breeze. It was a revelation that day to eat better and exercise, starting the very next day. I’ve lost over 20 lbs since this photo was taken and am now working on getting those muscles back where they belong.

Today is the first day of school in our area of Iowa. Packed off the teenager and then went to my swimming exercise class. It is a class that has a lot of 65+ folks; I go to encourage my mom, who is 79, to exercise. She likes how the water makes it easier for her to keep her balance while exercising. I noticed she doesn’t go at all if I’m not there so it is now part of my regular exercise schedule.

The best part of today was being able to use my home gym without any interruptions. I cranked up the tunes (Stones, Zeppelin, ZZ Top, etc) and started in on my workout schedule. It was really great to just work the weights, feel the pump and enjoy it all. I am tweaking my list of what to do on what days to make sure I hit all my body parts twice a week (except for those pesky abs that need to be blasted every darn day). This is gonna to be fun!

Spent my day messing around in the basement getting my home gym put together. I was able to find a 5′ bar for my plates so that is really going to help working on my back & legs. I tried out a lot of combinations to see what works & what doesn’t and am pleased with the outcome. I figure between my home gym & the local community center, I should make progress enough to justify driving to a "real" gym starting Jan 2009. There is nothing in my town (pop. 5,000) so I will have to drive about an hour total to get a decent workout. I live in a very rural area of SW Iowa and gyms are few and far between. Probably not enough folks wanting to join to make the owners money to stay open. Sure hope that gasoline doesn’t go up too much more!

I was talking to my teenage daughter today and she mentioned that she told her best friend that I was going back to serious body building. I was surprised and told her that I thought she didn’t want any of her friends to know. She said that she just had to tell her best friend and her friend thought it was really cool that her mom was going to do that. I’m hoping that this will help her attitude. She did seem more open today about it and even helped me find stuff in the sporting goods stores. I won’t push it and will see how it goes.

I had to visit 4 different sporting good stores to find a 5 ft straight bar for my weight bench. There were lots of specialty bars out there (triceps, e-z bar, etc.) but it was hard to find just a bar without buying a whole set with the Olympic weights. I’m glad I stuck it out and found what I was looking for. I also picked up some dumbbells in weights I was missing. Will see how all this works out for me tomorrow.

I found myself feeling like it was 20 years ago trying to get attention from sales clerks at sporting goods stores. They basically ignored me & when they did talk to me, they assumed I was buying weight lifting stuff for the man in my life.  Gee, haven’t we come a long way, baby?! Kinda made me cranky being treated like that! Do all women get treated like that or I am just not aggressive enough in these stores? Oh, well…

Yeah, I know… poor, neglected weight bench with all the goodies has just been sitting in the basement collecting dust. I cleaned everything off and made sure it was in working order. Found my gloves and belt but I’m missing the bar! How am I supposed to do anything without a bar? Looks like a shopping trip to the super sports store for me to pick up that item and a few other things, like some dumbbells in weights I don’t currently have.

I even found my two trophies from the contests I was in 20 years ago! I forgot how big they were!!! Dusted off those babies and put them on a stand where I can see them while I am working out. Then I put up a pic of myself from my contest days as inspiration that if I did it once, I can do it again!

Started out seeing what kind of exercises I can do with what I have at home right now. Got a good chest workout but not so good on the back without a bar or cables for rows. Looks like I could use a chin-up bar for lats, too. Anyway, did that for an hour and felt good about getting a start on my new mission in life.

I told my 13-year-old daughter that after giving it a lot of thought, I was going to start the serious bodybuilding again. She went crazy and starting telling me things like: you will look gross!; you’re not going to do a contest, are you?; you are way too old to think about doing something like that!; can’t you just quilt or something?; (and I really like this one) don’t you dare tell my friends! She said my arms were already too big just from lifting for a couple of months and gosh, they were going to get bigger… gross! Then she said moms weren’t supposed to workout and look great, they were supposed to be plump and not do sports.

I basically told her that this is what I WANTED TO DO and it had nothing to do with her. I would not look like the folks in the magazines and most people will look at me & think that I work out, not that I’m doing bodybuilding. It is a little sad to think that she would be so ashamed of having a mom that looks good but hell, she’s a teenager and that is where her head is at right now. I hope she changes her mind down the road if and when I get in good enough shape for a local contest.

I never thought I would have a blog of any kind but using it as journal towards becoming a bodybuilder again seems like a great idea. I have always been motivated before but find it is easy to make excuses to not work out.

I am planning on starting full scale next week when school starts and my teenager is out of the house. She can take care of herself but it is very touchy for her to have a mom working out more than a few days a week. I feel sneaky about using the time she is in school for me doing by BB workouts but I don’t have to put up with attitude this way.

My husband doesn’t care if I go back to BB or not. He never minded 20 years ago! I do remember he had a problem with me being on a stage, dressed in a posing suit and getting whistled at by the crowd. He said it was a little uncomfortable having guys checking out your wife like that!

Here I go on my BB adventure!