Putting A Chill On Fitness

It;s now a little more than 3 months since I halted my starvation project. I’ve regained 30 lbs, some from bulging thigh muscles from all the cycling I’m doing and some from other not-so-firm bulges, the result of my body panicking and storing fat in case I decide to be an idiot and starve myself again.

A bike store near me called Bike Doctor equipped me to speed my recovery and help me rebuild muscle and cardio capacity through low-impact cycling. There’s a few cute girls working there but the owners Greg and Dave muttered something about giving human beings as property being illegal and instead gave me a cruiser bike. I nursed my disappointment – did I mention they were cute girls? – with the knowledge that, for the first time since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I had a bike to call my own.

Until recently I’ve been riding that thing hard – the bike, that is – working my way up to 50 kilometers per day (about 31 miles, for American readers).  It was great! It was addicting! The sun on my bare arms, the wind blowing through the vents in my helmet keeping me cool, the smell of fresh cut grass as I zipped along bike trails in the long stretches of park that bracket my city’s riverbanks… I continued my daily rides almost obsessively, drinking in the changing autumn leaves and the switch from capris to full length pants of passersby.

But these are the prairies. Cruiser tyres aren’t that great on ice or slush, and when the snow began to fall, so did I. Off my bike, more and more often.

I parked it for a few weeks. Yes, weeks. Up until then I’d regained only 20 lbs. In two and a half weeks another 10 lbs tracked me down and pounced on me. It’s a reminder that fitness isn’t just a “when I feel like it” thing, but a commitment.

Fortunately I’ve a gym membership, and so I’ve started lifting weights even more. For both males and females, weight lifting is a great way to keep body fat from creeping on. I find making sure I go to the gym on a Monday is a great way to set the pace for the week. Skip it, and it’s all too easy to rationalize to ones self about how ‘busy’ the week is and skip another day. Then another. Skipping two days in a row disrupts your momentum and makes it easier to skip even more.

Many women fear that weight training will make them look bulky and masculine. Nope. This is a myth. Not only is it true that women don’t, and can’t, naturally produce as much testosterone as men, not all men who lift weights get bulky and muscular. Pop in to a gym some night and see… sure there are some guys with bulging pecs and biceps, but there are also guys just trying to keep toned.

To build large muscle mass requires specific techniques of high weight / low reps (how many times you lift the weights in a given set). By sticking to lower weights, the amount you can comfortably lift about 15-20 times before you have to take a break, you make your muscles more dense and toned in a sleek way. Lifting a higher weight 8-12 times per set what guys do to build the bigger muscles they use to try to impress the ladies with.

With women having only 1/3rd the testosterone, women who want to build bulky muscles really have to work at it specifically to make that happen. So don’t worry about shredding your Lulu Lemons any time soon. Instead, it’ll give you a firm and fit body without the bulk. A nice vanity side effect is having good muscle tone helps support body fat and can make the appearance of  cellulite-practically vanish.

But the real benefit for both men and women is having fit muscles means your body has to feed that muscle, so it requires more energy. If you eat the same amount of calories as before you began working out (though with more protein, so your body has material to strengthen those muscle fibres with) your body will start consuming your fat stores – and it’ll do so 24 hours a day. Think of this as passive dieting.

Winter also brings with it a bunch of other opportunities to get or keep fit. If the idea of going to a room full of sweaty people and lifting heavy things day after day isn’t your cup of tea, try building snowmen some afternoon. It’s as fun as you may remember from your childhood, especially if you do so with your friends or children. Or childish friends. Cross country skiing, scenic walks in the snow, skating, going tobogganing down a park hill for a few hours… the possibilities are almost limitless.

Of course, as you increase your activity level your appetite may increase – either because you’re going full-bore and your body is demanding more calories, or it’s a psychological thing. Watch out for the “I’ve just burned a bunch of calories, so I’m gonna reward myself with a sundae!” trap.  Watching the kinds of things you eat is still important, even if you’re exercising every day. A friend of mine on Facebook just announced she’d lost 30 lbs in 6 months, mainly just by giving up the french fries she often snacked on!

During the starvation phase I was putting myself out there as a cautionary example of how hard it is on your body to undergo extreme dieting, and the rapid aging and other health effects I suffered show that getting thinner at any cost doesn’t make one look better. Now, well into my recovery efforts I hope I’m setting an example of how to change one’s body shape the right way… which means, now that I’m less likely to hop on the bike every day and ride until my MP3 player goes dead, that I have to get my butt to the gym, or at least out of the house, and stay active.

I hope you’ll consider doing the same thing too.