Feels so good

Gym rat is how you used to be able to describe me. Two years ago I embarked on my ump-teenth endeavor at building a better body. I was 5'10" and about 155 pounds and something like 14% body fat at the time. None of that weight was muscle, just bone, flab, and my enormous cranium. I quite literally looked like a pregnant pencil - scrawny, but with a pronounced midsection. Not sexy. I used to be sexy a few years before that, but work and my commute got the best of me and I quit going to the gym.

So, I made a major commitment to myself to hit the gym more regularly than I ever had. I subscribed to Men's Health and got all the latest workout techniques. I set up a schedule, and I stuck to it. As I recall, when I first started my transformation program I was bench pressing a max of 115 pounds with 2 reps. Woo hoo!

One year later, after extreme diligence in my workout plan and my eating habits, I was weighing in at 165 pounds, but with 10% body fat, and benching 225 pounds for 4 reps. I looked good and I felt superb. I didn't have the six-pack I was hoping for - still a little pudginess in the midsection - but my arms looked good, my chest looked good, I had an overall good, healthy look to me. I was ready for the Abs Diet to pull off 10 pounds and expose my extremely sexy abs (or at least that's what the magazines tell me I have under the flab) to the world that summer.

Then the worst happened. I was helping somebody in the ward move, and somehow in the course of moving a large piece of furniture down a far too narrow stairway, I sprained my wrist. Sprains are the worst injury ever for me, because they don't like to heal. I once had a sprained ankle that took a year to fully recover. Well, a sprained wrist makes it really hard to lift weights, so I quit going to the gym. Along with that, I was getting extremely busy at work and the commute was getting to me again. My time evaporated, and with the injured wrist, I didn't make any effort to get back to the gym.

Now a year has passed. A couple of months ago I was in Hawaii, and therefore have a lot of pictures of me shirtless. Egads. I look terrible! I have lost all of the muscle gains that I had made prior to the wrist sprain. I couldn't believe it. I have reverted back to my pregnant pencil self. Unfortunately, with various things in my life I just haven't had the time to get back to the gym. Well, that's a lie. There's always time, I just haven't had the motivation to get myself back to the gym.

Enter my new awesome working conditions - part time from home. This was my first week working from home part time. Guess what I did today? Yep. I went to the gym for the first time in a year. I took it pretty easy, I hope, so that I won't be too sore tomorrow. I just did one set of exercises with three reps for each muscle group. I kept the weights fairly low to not overstress my joints or anything. But let me tell you that I had forgotten how much I love the endorphin rush of exercise. Wow! I feel so freaking awesome right now.

Moral of the story? None really. But, to any of MoHos out there feeling sad or depressed about something, let me recommend getting a buddy and going to the gym. It feels great and brightens your day.