There is a Better Weigh

They say that the average person gains 5 to 7 pounds over the holiday season, meaning from Thanksgiving through New Years Day. That’s quite a bit if you think about it. If you do not gain or lose anything throughout the rest of the year, then in ten years you will have gained 50 to 70 pounds, in 20 years 100 to 140 pounds. Yikes!

Fortunately there is help available. Our local YMCA has a program they call ‘Better Weigh’, which is a five week program they run periodically during the year. The current rendition started on December 1 and runs to January 5 I think. The beauty of it is that it costs almost nothing to do.

How it works is you first go in and meet your trainer, who finds out where you are and helps you set goals. Then your trainer works with you to develop a routine to get to those goals. You then go in 2 or 3 times a week to workout. Pretty simple really.

So, yesterday evening I go in to meet Randy. We spent some quality time with the Nautilus equipment, free weights, and treadmill. That was great, it burned a little bit, but that’s how you know you’re actually getting something out of it. This was all well and good, but then he had me lie on a bench to do some leg lifts.

I work at the courthouse, which is three stories, and the Annex building across the street is also three stories high. The stairs are much faster than the elevator, so I take the stairs almost exclusively. The only time I don’t is if I have a cartload of computer equipment to move. I don’t just walk the stairs, I run up them taking them two at a time, and I do this several times per day. I thought my legs were the strongest part of my body. Ha!

I can’t even lift my own legs up 12 times in a row. I could only do one of the lifts 6 times and the other a mere four times. Randy said that I shouldn’t let this discourage me and I won’t, but it definitely looks like I have my work cut out for me.

They are awarding prizes at the end of this program, some for the biggest weight loss, and some for those people who maintain their weight over the five weeks. My personal goal is to lose 5 to 7 pounds. I figure if I can reach this goal, then that is prize enough for me.