Forget tire flipping, let's do stool presses!
So here I am, letting my body go to waste all of these years for NO reason (because I have absolutely no injuries and can pretty much do any kind of exercise), and there are people out there in agony because they can physically no longer do the thing they love. Their calling. Their precious.
I feel ashamed. I feel like if we were cars, he would be a pristine Aston Martin. I would be a dusty sedan with a messy interior that breaks down every few hundred miles. Why is it SO HARD to just do what needs to be done and take care of our bodies?
Anyway, I'm already sidetracked for this post. I'm going to share a few choice factos that I've been learning from all of the "gymmies" that take their time to help me. Some of them may contradict each other, which is what SERIOUSLY fascinates me about the exercise world.
1.) There is no way you can follow someone else's diet/exercise plan. After two months of totally legit, super-duper sluethy internet research by yours truly, I finally get it. You literally have to know everything about your own body. The outlines that trainers and bodybuilders give you is just that. An outline. A skeleton. YOU have to do the work to tweak things so your body benefits as much as it can.
2.) Buy tupperware. Every trainer I bump into at the gym usually chats with me during a lunch break. They open up their little storage container and I've only seen the following inside; chicken, brown rice, veggies, quinoa. And, repeat.
3.) Buy some isolate protein powder and fish oil supplements.
4.) Figure out what to eat or drink and when. Eat your (healthy) fattiest, carbiest meal about an hour before you do your major workout of the day (um, yeah. Haven't figured that one out yet). After the workout, make a shake that contains oats, egg whites, a spoon of natural peanut butter, your protein powder, and some ice. The when and the what of the eating and the drinking is what really gets my gears turning, because EVERY SINGLE PERSON gives different advice!
Sure you can juice your spinach! Ahh-guh-guh-guh-guh!
5.) You HAVE to give your body 1-2 days of rest during the week.
6.) Have you heard the phrase "My warm-up is harder than your workout?". Yeah, well, it's true. Try doing a fifteen minute warm-up with one of these methods: Elliptical. I set it to random, enter my weight and my level, then the time to fifteen minutes. Go at a normal pace for the first two minutes. After that, every time the little squares on the screen are stacked at one, two, or three, you GO FOR IT. Just kill it. Then go back to the normal pace and repeat this method (better known as HIIT, or high intensity interval training). Bicycle. Ride for the first two minutes at a normal pace, then go thirty seconds of intensity with one and a half minutes of "rest". Treadmill. Set it at a walking pace, then kick up the elevation as high as it goes and walk uphill for ten to fifteen minutes.
She eats my workouts for breakfast.
My disclaimer? I'm obviously not a personal trainer, dietician, or doctor. I'm just the messenger passing along these little tidbits, because I'm really learning as I go.
