Another New Year’s resolution accomplished. I’m in my Koko Fit Zone. My e-BMI is 28.2, putting me right smack in the middle of my zone meter. Starting out at 31.8 over a year ago, I never thought this day would come. I’m back to the fit body I retired with and then let slip away. It’s amazing how quickly you can lose what took years to build.
I remember a day back in January I stopped into Sears and tried on the new Lands End bathing suits. I was so disgusted that I almost bought a swim dress. I stopped myself. That would be giving in to something, that with a lot of hard work and commitment, could be done. Was I just going to fold, buy a swim dress, and let my muscles atrophy? I don’t think so. I got mad. Really mad. I went home, ordered the New Lifestyle Diet and stopped fooling around with my strength tests. I would never push to my limit on my strength tests because I was afraid the next set of workouts would be too hard.
What a baby. That’s why I was sitting at 31.8 and not moving. That’s why bathing suits were so frustrating where they used to be fun. Within 12 sessions of the strength test I gave it my all on, I was down to 30 and lifting 7000 pounds without a problem. After the next strength test, I was lifting 8500 pounds and down to 29. I was ecstatic. I was never 29.
After my third strength test, I finished my year-long Advanced Burn program strong lifting over 9500 pounds and clocking in at 28.7. I switched to an Advanced Build program and broke 10,000 pounds in the first session and hit 28.2. Now my customized program will keep me there and continue to build the strong muscles I will need to keep me moving through my sixties.
Last Wednesday I smiled for the first time in 4 years when I tried on bathing suits. It not only took physical strength, but mental strength, too. It took a level of commitment that had to come from somewhere deep inside. It was not something others could tell me to do. It was me. I had to make the decision to commit to change.
I would be lying if I said the facts presented in my cardio sessions didn’t scare me. The thought of losing 14% more muscle mass in the next decade, which would slow my metabolism even more as I age, in turn growing that stomach at an alarming rate, really hit me hard in that dressing room. Muscles do not turn to fat. They atrophy. Atrophied muscles really scare me. Where would I be in ten years? Using a walker or a wheelchair? Unable to live alone? Unable to drive? Hunched over using a cane?
Those thoughts alone kicked my ass into high gear. Just four years ago I had a lean, fit body. I knew it was still in there. I just had to commit to finding it again. 14 weeks of sheer commitment and here I am. Ready for summer. Ready for my mother of the bride dress. Every time I stand on one foot and lift my other knee up to my chest to put a sock on without a stomach getting in the way, I smile and give thanks to a God that stood by me every step of the way. I feel better not only physically, but mentally, too.
And so, as another day goes by, once I decided for myself to stop fooling around, stop making excuses, and put my shoulder to the grindstone, I began saving my own life…because no one else could save it for me.
*That’s where I have been all these weeks – in a zone of my own. Yes, my writing suffered, but better my writing than my health. I hope to make another commitment to start writing everyday again, but I have to take time to make sure my new level of commitment to diet and exercise is cemented firmly in place. It has to be my priority. I can’t get distracted now – I’m in the home stretch.
To exist is to change; to change is to mature; to mature is to create oneself endlessly. ~ Henri Bergson
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