Guess who's trainer made her double the weight she's bench pressing and use the real bench press bar?

I had been benching using a 40-lb. bar - the kind with the weights already attached - but today as I whipped through a set of those, my trainer said, "No way, missy. That's crap. Get over here." After three presses with the bar, sans weights, she said, "Clearly I underestimated you," and stuck 10-lbs. on the end of each side of the bar.

Now I know in theory bench pressing 75 pounds isn't a big deal, but trust me it feels like a big deal. At least it is to me. I've never been able to lift that much, and my weights are increasing every week. At some point I'm going to have to stop saying that I hate weight lifting because it's the majority of what I'm doing in the gym and I, well, I love it. Lifting weights, and seeing how it's transforming my body, is giving me an appreciation for what my body can do in a way that losing all that weight didn't do.

Here's the thing: losing weight made me thinner, and it uncovered a whole slew of body image issues I wasn't really prepared for. Lifting weights has shown me something new to try and love about my body, as opposed to hating or feeling self-conscious or apologetic for not taking up as much room anymore.

I feel strong. I am strong. I have a real bicep muscle! Look at that!

I lost another pound last week, and that was with my period. I'm still watching my diet pretty closely, though yesterday was an eating bacchanalia with things such as french toast sticks and fried chicken. Honestly, nearly everything I ate yesterday touched hot oil at some point. I'm paying for it today, but it was a nice treat. I weighed in at 141 pounds in case you're playing along at home.

The ear infection really curtailed my running efforts last week. I ended up staying at home sick for two days, and when I tried to do the cardio climb of death, my ears plugged up and I started hacking. I kept away from any serious cardio until this morning. And my thyroid issue is making me exhausted, so I'm not running on top of everything else.

If it was warmer out I'd be more irritated but since it's still cold here in Chicago, I'm not losing sleep.

Posted by Erin at 07:37 PM | filed under: Training