Tuesday May 23, 2006
Some of the aspects of working out on a regular basis sort of creep up me.
This weekend was Victoria Day weekend, and Monday was a day off. Jen and I spent Saturday in the backyard, where I dug a new flower garden, mowed the lawn, and did a variety of other heavy and tiring sorts of work.
Sunday I assembled the shelves I finally got around to buying last weekend, creating a significant amount of storage space for the last step of organizing the basement in preparation for moving the office down there.
Both days were a fair bit of hard work, a lot of squatting and lifting of heavy things. I fully expected yesterday (Monday) to be spent recovering with a sore back and knees. I did spend it recovering, but much to my suprise my back and knees were fine. My thighs and calves and arms all expressed their displeasure every time I moved, but well-worked muscle pain is oddly enjoyable. I mean, it’s painful and everything, but when it’s the result from a lot of hard work and taking care of some things that had been on my mind for a long time, it was very rewarding.
Today I’m barely noticing a thing.
My arms in general feel strong. I’ve never been a weak person, but I’ve never really felt especially strong. And I’m still not. I’m only cranking out about 20 pushups three times per week these days, but there’s something to these arms of mine other than round tubes of fat.
I haven’t lost any weight, and in fact have gained a couple of pounds back, putting me to about -8 from where I was in January, in large part because I indulge myself whenever Jen does, which isn’t a lot but she is five month’s pregnant at this point and the weather is turning awfully nice, and those ice cream cravings are awfully contagious…
Despite the fact that I’m not making progress exactly where I wanted to (waistline and weight), it is nice to see the longer-term results of being more active. I’m not wearing smaller pants yet, but not taking a week to recover from a couple of days of fairly hard work is a significant reward.
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