Muscle Mamma

While I use hand weight when doing my Walk Away the Pounds - Leslie SansoneDVDs, that's about it. They are just your basic 2lb weights. I don't have her idiotic looking weighted balls or wacky belt thing she uses in one of the other DVDs I've got from her, but I definitely notice a difference when using my hand weights. It bumps up the intensity of the whole exercise. That said, the other day, it occurred to me that I'm probably at the stage where I can add on to the whole weight thing, especially considering my age and the issues we old ladies have with osteoporosis. This was confirmed when I spoke with a friend of mine, CM, at my CLJ who does personal training on the side.

I was telling her about how C. is not only struggling to get those last two before the holidays pounds off but that even with that off she's noticed that her hips are an inch larger than before. Two pounds obviously aint gonna equal an inch - no way - no how.

CM asked me if C. was working out with weights at all because she said that this would make a difference since cardio can burn fat but if you aren't careful you can burn muscle too. Weight training will tighten up areas and build the muscle she needs to squeeze back into those size 6s.

Armed with this new information, I called C. that night and reported. Come to find out, C. had not been doing weights over the past few months until she realized just a few days previous to my call that she'd been doing that before the 10lb addition. Just with all the traveling she'd been doing, she wasn't able to do her weight routine. Then once back at home, she had spaced and was just trying to do cardio like a mad woman. She also cut back to 1400 calories a day.

I argued with her a little about how she's always on me about keeping calories too low and how it can f-up your metabolism, but she is so desperate she just can't stand not wearing her clothes and she will not buy any size 8s. She's got one pair of pants she got at Chicos and a few dresses and that's it. Fashion be damned!

This whole story brought home the idea that I'm ready to take on a little weight training, and I mean little because while my *ss is huge, my arms are pretty much sticks still. Wiggly sticks, but still very little meat on them, so I'll have to take it slowly. However, I plan on my errands/groceries day to stop by Wal-fart and pick up some 5lb dumb bells. Hopefully, I can manage to carry them out of the store without hurting myself.