Getting some help...

Weight: 249 (no change, -3 total)

On Tuesday I met with a personal trainer. This was a pretty eye opening experience. We met after work and for the first 15 minutes or so we discussed my goals in regards to weight loss and working out. He explained some foods to me that I should eat, and that I should actually consider altering the way I eat. He encouraged me to eliminate, or at least greatly cut down on the breads, which is a killer for me. I love bread with my dinner, and I more or less eat a sandwich every day for lunch (often for dinner too) and most mornings I eat a bagel with peanut butter. Cutting out bread is going to be difficult. He suggested I get up a little earlier and make some eggs with vegetables, or even eat things like grilled chicken or fish for breakfast. Chicken, maybe. Fish for breakfast? I don't think so. For lunches I am to try to cut back on the sandwiches and eat salads. I'll likely throw a piece or two of ham on the salad if there are no other options available at the salad bar. I don't know what we'll do about dinners here. We'll have to come up with a plan and do some grocery shopping this weekend.

After our meeting we hit the exercise area. This is where the evening took a turn for the worse. Not really, but this is where I realized A: just how out of shape I am, B: that my "running" isn't getting the job done as far as increasing my heart rate, and C: I am not only out of shape, but I am completely inflexible. I have no range of motion and am not as strong as I need to be. He put me through a one hour workout and I thought I was going to vomit and pass out after 10 minutes. The "workout" was just to show me the circuit I am supposed to do 3X a week. It started with a rowing machine and moved to the treadmill. I had no problem with this and actually enjoyed it. I felt my heart rate increase instantly. From there we moved to some agility/strength/core drills. These included: ankle flips, A skips and B skips. All were very awkward for me. From there I did a "Spider man" walk which is a yoga-ish move. Those of you that know me know I am not much of a yoga kind of guy. This was extremely difficult for me, but I managed. I followed that with a series of side steps with a taut rubber band around my ankles. This was kind of like a basketball drill which was a lot easier for me to do.

This led to the weight lifting portion of the workout. I used a 25 lb. kettle bell, then did bench presses (I haven't done a bench press in years) and lunge position rows. After the weight lifting we did an ab workout that included things called bird dogs, planks, and side planks.  I ended the workout with a few minutes on the treadmill.

Needless to say, I was in agony at the end of this workout. I actually felt a little light headed and nauseous for a moment. And the kicker is, this was just a quick series/sample for the workout. I only did one set of each. My actual workouts will be three sets of each, and should take about an hour.

On the nutrition/diet front: I had a lousy eating weekend, and feel fortunate to have maintained. I ate a lot of pizza and ice cream cake. I think the rest of my meals were rather sensible though, so maybe I did alright, after all.

All in all I feel good and inspired today. I had a great eating day today, and got to play basketball outside for an hour. I'm looking forward to the gym tomorrow and to see what happens with the weights. Should be interesting.