Saturday, November 12, 2011

Free* - Week 1, Day 6

Today was one of those Saturdays that felt like a Sunday.

I made cupcakes this morning for a bake sale, dropped them off, then headed to the Y to work out.

While I was sweating and panting on the arc trainer, I was reading a Self magazine from last year. My attention was captured by an article about how to lose weight like a guy. Apparently, men are single minded and reward themselves for the small successes, and that's what women need to do instead of berating themselves for every little slip or worrying about every single calorie.

Which I guess is true, but I don't think congratulating myself every time I don't eat a cupcake is going to get me very far, mainly because then I'll be thinking about cupcakes even more than usual.

The article also mentioned that all the grunting men do in gyms is indicative of their hard work and that by adding strength training, especially the kind that makes you grunt with exertion you make the most of your workout and rev up your metabolism.

Now, I love me some weight training. I'm way better at it than cardio and it gives me more energy than anything else I do in the gym. But I'm positive that I can lift weights, even really heavy ones, without grunting or shouting. I'm pretty sure my metabolism will forgive me for that.  I'm positive my fellow gym goers will.

What the article did not mention is that lots of these grunting, weight lifting men are often lifting incorrectly - probably because the weight is too heavy. And if you are sacrificing form for pounds lifted, then I will not feel sorry for you when you drop a weight on  your toe or you injure yourself.

So perhaps working out like a guy will cause me to lose weight a little faster, but I'm totally fine with slower, safer, correct form, injury free girly workouts.

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