Best! Shape! Ever!

Yesterday began week three of my attempting to get into the best shape ever; or as I call it to motivate myself away from the chips and toward the carrot sticks, the Best! Shape! Ever!! The extra pep doesn't actually do anything, but given my usual lack of exclamation marks, it seems sad to waste them on a chip-eating kind of day. So I like to tell myself they work, even if they annoy me most of the time.

Anyway. Patto and I are on a tough diet and exercise regimen to become super sexy buffsters. When I say diet, though, I don't mean the type where you don't eat anything. I mean the type where you consume 2,500 calories a day, most of them protein, in order to survive the grueling weight-lifting routine you do 4 days a week. Some days I dread the next meal. Some days I wolf down my little mid-morning turkey sandwich snack like I haven't eaten in days. It all depends on whether my body remembers that I have to lift until my arms fall off that evening or not. For having completed two weeks of this plan already, the body is yet to be consistent. Patto tells me it takes 21 days to form a habit, however, so perhaps the bod will get it together soon (side note: WHO decides it takes 21 days to form (or break) a habit? How do you measure this stuff?)

Anyway, the program we are doing is 12 weeks long. It will take me a little longer than 12 weeks to complete, however, since I am going to spend 5 days in Tampa and 4 days in Chicago over the summer, and won't be able to work out the way we have been during those times. So in about 14 total weeks, expect me to be 150 lbs of twisted steel and sex appeal. Rarr!

To motivate us, Patto and I took those classic "before" pics, where we stuck out our tummies as far as they would go and stood in a frumpy position looking slightly dissatisfied with ourselves, hair pulled back and no make-up, of course, so that at the end of the program we can go get Glamour Shots and compare the results. Seems fair. I would put the pic up, but who wants a before pic floating around on the internet? You'll have to wait for the after.

To keep you abreast of the results (and to keep me motivated to work hard), I'll post my weekly stats.

It all started on Sunday, June 15. I weighed 144 lbs, and the widest part of my tummy (not my waist- under it where those lowest two abs are supposed to be) was 33". To give you some frame of reference, I'm 5'7" and pretty athletically built, besides, again, where those abs are supposed to be. Not fat by any stretch of anyone's imagination (besides, perhaps, those tiny Korean girls db mentions over at Rage in the A.M.), but not as fit as I would like to be.

On Sunday, June 22, I weighed 146 lbs, and the tummy still measured 33".

Yesterday, Sunday, June 29, I weighed 145 lbs, and the tummy was 32.5". Half an inch gone! Yay!

And that's where we are now. I don't really have a weight goal- I just want to be in super fit shape. Based on my frame and where I am now, I am guessing I'll hit around 150. What I really want is to be able to kick ass and take names, and whittle that middle down a few inches. Whatever number that happens at is good with me.

So good luck to those of you out there who are working to get in better shape, too. Use your 21 habit-forming days for good. Patto assures you it will work.