Rob's about to kick my butt.

I did something I never thought I would do.

I'm spending money on something I never thought I would spend money on.

I'm about to voluntarily cause myself pain regularly.

But most importantly, I made a decision that I think will change my life in the best way.

I hired a personal trainer.

WHAT!?!?

I joined a new Gym, LA Fitness, and I'm pretty psyched.  It's walking distance to my new house, it has a pool, sauna, and jacuzzi.  Also, not only does it have every piece of equipment you could as for, it has a ton of fitness classes! A bunch of my friends have been going together to Zumba, Kickboxing, Boot Camp, Etc.  It's awesome having a bunch of girls around me that are wanting to be healthy too!  

Anyway, when you sign up for a new gym a lot of times they try to sell you a personal training package and they have you do a "free fitness assessment."  I've always turned them down but this time I was intrigued.  I met this past Saturday with a Personal trainer to see what he had to say.  When I worked out in the past I didn't have to worry about limitations from an injury.  I really need help with  "how much pain is too much pain" and what exercises will help me achieve my goals.  I need variety.  I need to build up my right calf muscle.  I need to work on my balance.  But mostly, I need to lose weight.  My best friend's mom Mary told me something the other day that makes total sense and has been wringing in my brain since.  "Every 10 pounds you're overweight is 100 pounds on your joints."  Holy man, my poor ankle!  I can do so much good for myself, and my ankle, by dropping the weight, so that is my priority right now.

Anyway, this was such a great appointment for me.  Michael, the trainer I had my assessment with, was awesome.  He asked me so many questions in order to get to the bottom of what my goals are.  He wanted to understand me so he could help me figure out where to go from here.  He took my stats, measurements, and weight so we could track my progress throughout.  He told me that a realistic, healthy goal was 1-3 pounds a week, saying that this would fluctuate.  He worked me out (HOLY CRAP, OW!) for a short 15 minute preliminary training session and THEN he did TWO things that are awesome:

1.) Recommended and signed me up with a trainer who specializes in, get this, WEIGHTLOSS and REHABILITATION!!  That is just too perfect!  I am SO excited!!  Not only that, but Rob, my soon to be trainer, is a Packer fan! BONUS!  Instead of taking on a new client for himself, Michael cared enough to put me in the best possible hands for MY goals.  Or maybe my whining during the workout was just that annoying, I dunno.

2.)  Showed me how to calculate my daily calorie intake.  He explained that it takes a deficit of 3,500 calories for 1 pound of weight loss.  If I figure out my daily calorie need or "Basal Metabolic Rate" and subtract 500 from that, it'll give me a deficit of 3,500 calories a week (500 calories x's 7 days = 3,500 calories = 1 pound of weight loss).  I will then lose 1 pound of weight a week from diet, and then we can workout to lose 1-2 pounds a week in addition.  

Here's the Calorie per day formula you can use to figure out your own daily maintenance calories.  (Subtract 500 calories from the total number if you want to lose 1 pound per week like me).  This is from my "Personal Training Handbook" from LA Fitness and it's called the "Harris-Benedict Formula."

I lied, there's another thing I got from this appointment that I wanted to share.  Maybe it's common sense to you, but maybe not.  I'm going to share anyway, just in case.

There are 3 important ways through which to help your metabolism.

1.) Diet:  Eating nutrient rich foods, and small frequent meals.  Focusing on portion sizes, eating slower so you can recognize appetite signals, and eating your vegetables first so you fill up on those instead of the other items on your plate.  

2.) Cardio: for immediate calorie burning.  Some people think that Cardio is the most important factor in losing weight, but once you step off that treadmill, your calorie burning stops.  You might burn 300 calories during your workout, but when your workout is done, so is the calorie burning.  My trainer recommends that I do cardio 2 times a week minumum, 3 if I can.  This is important, but not as important as....

3.) Strength and Resistance training:  This is a calorie killer.  You not only are burning calories during your workout, but 72 hours later, while your muscles are still recovering, you're STILL burning calories.  You could be sitting on the couch and burning calories while your friend is at the gym on the treadmill.  Ha ha, sucka!  When you lift you're creating tiny tears in your muscle fibers and after your workout your body works to repair this muscle.  This muscle building process revs up your metabolism and burns calories even while resting.  The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you're naturally burning.  Michael said that this is absolutely going to be the key to my success.  If I think of these three bullet points as a pyramid, the smallest triangle will be food, then cardio in the middle, and then strength and resistance training in the bottom, largest section of the pyramid.  He told me that I should be S&R training 3-4 times a week.  

I knew that strength and resistance training was important, but it really drove it home for me to hear HOW important it was.

I meet this new trainer, Rob, on Tuesday for my first full session.  I'm terrified and excited.  

I will share the exercises we do, because he'll write them down for me in my "workout diary" as well as write down what my workouts throughout the week should be.