So You Want To Workout

If you don’t want to sweat as much after a cardio routine, drink 24-30 oz of cold water immediately after finishing. Sweat is produced in response to a raise in body temperature, and cardio causes the heart to work harder, which raises the body’s temperature. By drinking a large amount of cold (not warm, lukewarm, or room temperature, cold!) water, the body can cool down faster internally, which will allow you to sweat less.

I have very sensitive skin, so I try to sweat as little as possible since it usually clogs up my pores. I drink water before, during, and then 28 oz after a cardio workout so that my body can return to homeostasis and stop producing as much sweat. Sweat is necessary during any workout, but those of us with sensitive skin or other skin issues, it can be more than a minor inconvenience. My dermatologist told me to try this, and it works great for me, no matter what kind of cardio I’m doing. 

You know what tastes better than being skinny? Food. All of it. Food is the best thing in the world. It sustains us, gives us vitamins and minerals that our body can’t produce, gives us energy, basically gives us the ability to do amazing things everyday, and yet has become practically vilified in our society. “Beware of These Food Traps!” articles will say, as if food can magically sneak up and into our mouths without our knowledge. “Don’t eat after 7!” other articles will claim, since apparently our bodies know automatically after 7 to turn all food eaten into fat, no exceptions.

Food is delicious. Chocolate, cookies, ice cream, macaroni, pasta, strawberries, tofu; all of it is fucking great. So why don’t people just acknowledge that they can both eat when they’re hungry and still live a healthy, fit life? Right now I’m at 18% body fat and working towards running a half marathon. And guess what I had for dinner? Two cheese quesadillas and then two pieces of Hershey’s pie for dessert. Both may not be the best choice or the “skinny” choice, but after a 2.5 hour workout, I needed the calories. And that pie tasted a lot better than feeling my stomach start to churn itself because it was hungry. That hurts. Pie is delicious. So pie will win every time.

Basically, anyone who says this is either trying to shame those who enjoy food and eating, or someone battling an eating disorder. People need to have a healthy relationship with food, not feel like food is the enemy. Food is awesome. Eating is awesome, and will help you reach your fitness goals. Eating keeps your metabolism running, and helps maintain a healthy body fat percentage. Eating fried food and chocolate might not be the best idea for weight loss, but if you’re working out enough to burn off the calories that you’re consuming, then who’s to say you’re wrong? Granted, it will take you longer to lose weight than someone else since fried food and candy both have a high fat content, and fat is hard to burn. But it’s your body and your health, no one else’s. 

Food is your friend, not something that needs to be feared. So eat on, fellow fitblrs. Avoiding food when you’re hungry will only hurt you in the long run.

When I first started working out, one of the things I noticed was that I wasn’t losing weight, nor was my body composition improving very much. The only difference I noticed was that my body would ache, my feet would kill, and I would barely be able to move the next day. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything productive, and I was more tired than I had ever been in my life. Looking back, it’s easy to see that there were certain things that I was doing wrong (like cutting calories when I should have been increasing them), but the one thing I am proud of is that I didn’t give up.

The first day I went into the gym, I was petrified. I had no idea what most of the machines did, and there were way too many people in there for my liking. I was still recovering from my car accident, so I couldn’t put extra stress on my hips. That meant I was stuck on an elliptical, which made me feel a little like a hamster. But, lack of full mobility equaled reduced choices for exercises. In a way, I was lucky: other than the horrible elliptical exercises, my physical therapist had given me a total workout plan to strengthen my back and hips. Unfortunately, and stupidly, I ignored parts of his plan. Like the parts that involved weight-lifting and squats. I was afraid that if I did that, I would end up like a female body-builder with bulging muscles who wouldn’t resemble the notion of femininity that I had in my head. It wasn’t until 12 weeks later, when I was seeing zero results that I decided to ask my physical therapist what was wrong. 

Turns out, I was building muscle, but it was very much below the surface. I had about 35% body fat at the time, which he told me was the reason I wasn’t seeing results. I wasn’t doing enough cardio (or eating right) to burn the fat, so I couldn’t see the muscle that I was building below the fat layer. So after making a few adjustments, I started seeing better results. Nothing happened overnight, mind you, and 18 months later I’m still not quite where I want to be. However, I am purposely going slowly to reduce the chance of stretch marks from body mass expanding too rapidly, so others who work out will most certainly see results before I have.

The point is, don’t fret because you aren’t seeing what you want a month, or even two, after you’ve started working out. Everyone’s body is different, and everyone has different amounts of time that they can commit to exercising. Not everyone can afford P90X or CrossFit classes or even a normal gym membership. And that is perfectly ok. Others can’t afford to eat low-calorie food all the time. That is also ok. Everyone comes into a fitness program with their own set of qualifiers. And that is the beauty of exercise: there truly is something for everyone. But it’s won’t be easy, regardless of your circumstances. 

But don’t give up. Don’t stop. Don’t quit. Once you start, keep at it. Your body will change. You will get stronger. You will be able to do things that you never knew you could. All you need to do is keep going.

When working out, it’s easy to get frustrated with your body. It gets tired easily, it doesn’t stretch the way you want it to, it hurts after you try to tone it, and sometimes it refuses to change no matter how much exercise you do. It’s hard not to get discouraged when this happens, since it feels like no matter what you do your body will never be as fit as you want it to be. My body does the same thing, and in those times you have to remember that everyone’s body progresses at it’s own pace. You may want to see immediate results, but unfortunately fitness doesn’t work like that. The less overall fat you have, the less your body wants to lose. And when it comes to things like flexibility, the older you get the harder it is to “fix”. But the one thing everyone should remember is that thin does not equal healthy. Thin does not equal fit. Thin does not determine the amazing things that your body can do.

I say this as a former sufferer of anorexia, who thought that I needed to be thin to prove that I could control my body. But I was terribly unhealthy during this period of my life, subsisting mostly on diet energy drinks and appetite suppressants. This led to hospitalizations for collapses and interventions by friends, all who tried to tell me that I was basically killing myself. They were right, and I ended up going to treatment and dealing with underlying issues that were manifesting themselves in the eating disorder. I ended up doing some really terrible things to my body during that time, and it’s so embarrassing looking back and thinking that I what I was doing was good. It wasn’t. Thin isn’t everything, and it certainly isn’t worth damaging internal organs or losing your life over.

Bodies will not get thin overnight. Bodies will not build muscle overnight. There are short-term solutions that will claim to do this, but they will mostly just flush water out of the body, water that the body needs during your workouts! Don’t resort to these tactics, because if you want to get fit, you really have to do it in a healthy way. And fit has different meanings to different people. I want certain fitness goals that others may see as too intense, whereas others may want to reduce body fat and build up endurance. When you’re first working out, set reasonable goals. Don’t expect to run a 6-minute mile in a week if you’ve never run before; you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment. The same can be said for toning the body: this takes a lot of time, and needs increased amounts of protein and other diet changes in order to happen. Plus, if you’re working the same group of muscles everyday in hopes of seeing fast results, you’re doing way more harm than good. By doing this, you’re risking muscle tears and strains, which will only set you back further. Most muscle groups need 48 hours to recover, but abs require between 60-72 hours. 

And this needs to be said: people with what some may deem “excess” body fat can be in great shape. Not everyone’s body follows the same recipe for fat loss, and some will hold fat in certain areas of their body regardless of what they do (for example, my inner thighs will never not touch, not matter how many different exercises I try). So don’t set fitness goals according to weight. Don’t look down on your body for not fitting into your ideal. Accept that there are some things that exercise cannot fix, and that’s ok. But you have to get that into your head. You may not end up looking like Jillian Michaels, but that is no reason to not start a fitness regimen. Just be prepared for the aches and pains that exercise brings, accept that your body will need days off (every 3 to 4 days it’s best to rest) and realize that your body will set its own pace in terms of muscle gain.

The most important thing you can do when working out is to set fitness goals that will make you happy. Don’t try to mold your body into something that you think everyone else will admire; do what challenges your body, gives you motivation to workout, and makes you smile through the pain. At the end of the day, it’s your body and no one else’s. Don’t apologize for not being a size 2. If you can lift weights like it’s your day job, that is something to be proud of, regardless of your size.