Cardio has a friend!

This past week started a whole new direction in exercise: strength training. I've been building up my cardio (started with cycling - now I regularly 4-7 times/week - do 20-25 minutes on the elliptical, 30 minutes bike and 30 minutes brisk/very steep incline walking. The time has come to not only continue with weight loss, but to work on lowering my body fat percentage by building nice and lean muscle mass. More muscle mass also means a higher basal metabolic rate, potentially making the loss of the final 80 pounds easier.

For three days each week (evenly spaced out and no more than three days/week), I use the circuit at the gym: 10 weight machines that focus on the core muscle group. There's a traffic light to let you know the start and end points with each machine, the goal being to complete 10-12 reps during each green cycle. In between, there are steps to use to keep the heart rate up - I don't know if I actually NEED to do it, but I do each step for a minute between machines anyway. (Stepping up and down quickly for 60 seconds straight can be surprisingly difficult). Machine 1 minute, red light - switch to step, step for 1 minute, rinse, repeat.

I don't know the names of all of the machines, but the most memorable are the chest press, shoulder press, ab machine, leg press, bicep and tricep machines. The worst is the machine that works the Quadriceps. My trainer told me that, even after 25 years, it burns like hell. And does it burn! But it's not an "oh dear god it hurts!" kind of pain. It's more akin to, "oooh. Oooh. OOOH! I FEEL THAT. A LOT."

My body is changing so fast at this point - I have these muscles that I never knew existed. There's this weird one which totally freaked me out - right above the knee. Lifting my legs feels so very strange; they feel so light, as if they are filled with feathers. I don't know if one week of strength training can make much of a difference, but I certainly do feel stronger.