Adjusting to XXL Sized Shirts

Years ago I received a letter from a friend who mentioned how expensive it was to gain or lose weight because you had to by so many new clothes. At the time I didn’t give much thought. I was 20 or and still had the same tall, lean frame I had since eighth grade. I had worn the same size jeans and shirts for at least five years. I thought my friend should get off his fat butt so he wouldn’t have to buy new clothes. Time passed. I graduated from college and realized my metabolism wasn’t what it used to be. Eighteen months after graduating, I had gained 40 pounds. During that time, I bought a lot of new clothes.

After realizing I looked like a big, white marshmallow, I decided I didn’t want to be fat. I started running. Within six months I had dropped 50 pounds simply by changing my diet and running 4 miles every morning. After my weight leveled out, I ended up buying a lot of new clothes.

Last October I was surprised to learn that my long sleeve work shirts no longer fit. My weightlifting routine had increased my chest, shoulders, and arms enough that larger and longer shirts were required. I ended up buying a lot of new shirts.

Last week I made the same discovery about my short sleeve shirts. Yes, the same shirts that fit great last fall are too tight around the arms and chest now. This took me by surprise since my weight has held steady for the last 6 months. (It must be all the swimming.)

That mean it was time to buy more new shirts. And what a shock it was to find out that the only shirts that look good on me are sized XXL.

I haven’t had to wear XXL shirts since my fat days. Ever since I’ve started exercising, Large or XL sized shirts have always fit great. I didn’t want to buy the XXL shirts even thought they fit because I associate them with being fat. Even with Marathon Girl cooing about how nice the shirts looked on me it was a big mental step to actually buy them.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I did. It’s nice to wear shirts that actually fit. And having to buy new clothes because of expanding muscles instead of an expanding waistline is a good problem to have. It just mentally disconcerting to think I need XXL shirts.

And, no my clothing ordeal isn’t done. My two suits along with all my dress shirts don’t fit all that well too. Since the weather’s warmed, I don’t have to worry about fixing those problems for another 4 months or so.

Maybe by then I’ll be able to fit into them. :-)

When Less is More at the Gym

My gym’s going upscale.

In a bad way.

They’ve spent the last few days adding flat screen TV monitors to the treadmills. By the end of the Thanksgiving holiday they’ve promised us that these sets will be functional and we’ll be able to stare blankly at whatever channel we want (Really? Any channel? I see a lawsuit coming.) from a screen 12 inches from our faces instead of staring blankly at the ones on the wall.

Here’s the problem: When I worked on the other side of town, the gym on that side of town did exactly the same thing.

I hated it.

Since running on a treadmill is infinitely more boring then running outside, I can see the need for a distraction. When Marathon Girl was forced to use the treadmill in our basement, you can bet she has a move playing to distract her. When I run at the gym, I usually find a treadmill near to the TV with ESPN so I can glance at the football highlights (or whatever they’re showing) while I run.

But I don’t plug in the earphones to listen to the sound because I’m usually 1) thinking about what I need to write that night in my book 2) silently mocking the people on the treadmill who are trying to talk on their cell phone and “run” or 3) checking out how fast other people nearby are running and, if they’re running faster, seeing if I can keep up with their pace for five minutes. All of these are in infinitely more interesting than staring at a TV screen.

Now instead of having a TV monitor that I can glance at occasionally, I’m going to have a screen right in front of my face.

It wouldn’t be too bad if I could move the monitor and push it out of my way, far from my line of sight, so I could glance at it occasionally like I do now. Instead they’re attached to some kind of titanium bracket which I doubt even the Incredible Hulk could bend.

Then to rub salt on the wound there’s no way to turn the TV sets off.

So you have to stare at something, even if you’d rather stare at nothing.

At the very least, it would have been nice if they left a handful of treadmills without the TVs for the few souls like myself who would rather do something than watch television. But no, they converted every damn one of them.

The elliptical machines are next.

It makes me glad I cut the number of runs I do each week at the gym from five to three and replaced the two runs with two 30-minute swims. As far as I know, they haven’t found a way to put TV screens in the pool.

Long Sleeve Short Sleeve Shirts

The weather’s turned cold and as a result, I’ve started wearing long sleeve shirts to work. When I first put on a long sleeve shirt last week I realized it didn’t fit right. I looked down at my wrists and realized that sleeves were about an inch or two shorter than normal. Thinking that the shirt has somehow shrunk last time it was washed, I set it aside and put on another long sleeve shirt. It also felt funny and I noticed that it too wasn’t quite long enough on the arms.

I put on a third shirt and noticed the same problem. I was about to tell Marathon Girl that something was wrong with our washing machine when I noticed that the shirt I was wearing felt tight around the chest and arms.

Apparently my summer exercise regimen along with swimming twice a week has increased the size of my chest, arms, and shoulders to the point where I need bigger shirts. :-)

This is a good problem to have.

Swimming Rocks

Adding swimming twice a week to my workout routine has had some nice, unexpected benefits.

First, every muscle in my body has become stronger and better toned. Marathon Girl is very happy with the results.

Second, my running’s improved. Yeah, that was truly unexpected. I thought since I was replacing two three mile runs with swimming that my pace would slow. That’s not the case. I’m running faster. When I started swimming Marathon Girl told me that, if done right, swimming would help my running. Did I believe her? No. Do I have egg on my face now? Yes.

Best of all, it’s given my fitness goal to work towards. After benching my weight (yes, I can still do it) I ran out of fitness-related goals. As a result, my workout routines have been rather flat and there been several days where I’ve had to motivate myself to get to the gym. My new goal is to be able to swim a mile without stopping by the end of the year and gives me the kick I need to go to the gym. Right now I can do seven laps before taking a break. In an Olympic-sized pool, a mile is 33 laps so I’m already 1/5 of the way to my goal.

Wish me luck!

Exercise Rocks!

I love exercise. Nothing invigorates my mind or body like exercise. After feeling languid all morning, I went to the gym during lunch. I feel refreshed, revitalized, and ready to knock all my assignment at work out of the park and write another chapter in my book tonight! (After LOST, of course :-) .)

Ten Pounds to Go

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog update to announce I benched 200 lbs. today!!!! I'm 10 lbs. from benching my weight and life-long goal.

You can now return to your normal web-related activities.

At Least They Eliminated the Stank

 

Last month the gym I’d been working out at since February closed temporarily for remodeling. This wasn’t a big inconvenience since there was another gym about an equal distance away that I could visit. Besides the gym I had been going to had a lot of old equipment and I was looking forward to using some newer stuff.

This week the gym reopened. And while there were a lot of needed improvements, there were a few things I thought the gym overlooked.

First the good.

Most of the new equipment is a huge improvement over the old stuff. For example, they have this news machine the works my triceps better than anything I’ve used before. I love it.

The gym seems more open feel to it. It doesn’t feel like there’s tons of equipment smashed against each other and the equipment is laid out in a more orderly fashion.

They put television screens throughout the gym instead of just the cardio section. This serves as a nice distraction between weight reps.

They improved that heating/air conditioning system so now there aren't hot and cold spots in the gym.

Finally, they somehow managed to eliminate that ever-present stank that seems to be part of locker rooms. I have no idea how they did or if the smell went away simply because the locker room went unused for six weeks

Now the bad.

Since the gym I frequent tends to be near a high school and a major university, there's a lot of want-to-be or ex-football players that visit the gym on a regular basis. By far the most popular piece of equipment in that gym is a standard weightlifting bench. Before they remolded everything there were five benches that could be used at anytime. Now there are only two. Yep, that's right, two weight benches. This has created some problems as instead of people using their own bench, they now have to share it with others. I prefer not to share, if possible.

Then the old benches that were used for more dumbbell-type exercises were adjustable so you could sit, if you wanted, at different angles to work your muscles differently. The new benches just lay flat. No option to raise parts of them at all.

Finally the old gym had plenty of those places where you could get a paper towel and wipe down the equipment after you're finished. Now, there's one location that located on the far end of the gym. This means that most people won't bother walking that distance just to wipe down the equipment. That new equipment is going to look nice very long at this rate. Yuck!

Overall, I'm glad the for the improvements but would have thought they'd put a little more effort into making it a little more friendly for those who spend a lot of time using free weights. The other lifters on see on a regular basis feel the same way. Complaints from me and other weightlifters have been taken at the front desk.

And, yes, I did thank them for getting rid of the stank!