In just seven days....

Sike!  Ol' Doc Frank-n-furter was fibbing, it's gonna take a little more than 7 days.  I feel like I've started over this month.  It was exactly one year ago
that I was 297 pounds, watching the Olympic curling finals, and eating myself towards a heart attack.  I'm now down to 192 and 17% body fat.  I now have a new journey laid before me.  I know I probably should have worked more weights on the quest for a sub-200 weight, but I just wanted the fat gone.  I've still got about 13 pounds of fat that I'd like to get rid of, but it's time to start building the muscle.

I was at the gym last week and after doing my normal 30 minutes on the treadmill I headed to the weights and was standing in front of the mirror staring at a sack of bones.  On my left and right were two monsterous guys doing various types of free weight workouts with insane amounts of weight.  I stood there with my 30lb dumbbells doing curls until failure.

When I first got the membership to the gym, I wouldn't go near the free weight area, I was far too intimidated by the sheer amount of muscle bound freaks.  I tended to either do just cardio or use the weight machines which were usually being used by a nice mix of gym rats, people working out just enough to not break a sweat, and confused looking mid-40s women.  I don't mind the weight machines so much, I can lift with them, workout specific areas of the body and still be sore the next day.  But I still get annoyed by the limited range of emotion or extended cool down time you have to spend because you have to readjust each machine that you move to just to use it properly.

I had expressed my frustration if the machines and my intimidation of the muscle heads with a good friend of mine and they told me something quite simple, but very true.  They said,"Fuck them, everybody has to start somewhere."  This statement as obvious as it is, is quite true.  The intimidation I felt was useless and silly and only hindered me from doing the workouts I wanted to do.

After the motivating words from the friend and a truly inspiring article by Henry Rollins, I went to the gym yesterday and hit the weights for the first time.  I did a mix of machines and free weights, and it was great.  I threw on the iPod and went to it.  All tensions, frustrations of the day, everything was gone.  It was me, the weights, and my music.  I kept track of each workout, writing down the weight and how many reps I was able to do.  The workout I am doing I found on bodybuilding.com.  I printed out the workout and haven't been able to find the page on the site since.  Once I find it I will post it if anyone is interested.

Anywho, the workout was amazing, and I feel like I've started a new journey.  It's time to put some strength on this body.  It's time to learn the lessons the Iron has for me.  Let's do this.

It get's easier.....I think. ;)