Showing posts with label confidence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label confidence. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Better, nicer, warmer

What have been doing this last month? Well, my workouts have not been as consistent as I'd like - I missed a few days - but they've been more invigorating than usual. Those new exercises, including the parkour, the chin and pull ups and the french press, have all produced results. The parkour helps me core, the ups my back, the french my tris.

I weighed myself at home just now. 195 lbs. I can't really trust it but can compare it to my last weigh in. Which is the same.

I've been wearing my sleeveless shirts more often. I got a new one from my mom and some more 3/4 pants - love em. I can really notice a difference in my body shape, and I like it. I do feel better about myself, actually. I don't know though if it's the pride in my accomplishment or if it's I feel "hotter." Feels like the former.

Just one more thing. I'm waiting for my pecks to have that cut look. Not even close now. I'm doing bench and incline for chest. Maybe there's something else...

Oh, and today I ran with Old Girl (Same) to City Park. I knew I'd seen one of those exercise stations you see along running paths before - with the stretching posts and instructions. I wanted a pull-up bar. We finally found it behind the Museum. Gosta.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Parkour, negatives and Eve Ensler

I used to tell myself that I knew the secret to looking good. I knew that it didn't matter what you looked like on the outside. I knew that the most beautiful people I knew were beautiful because of something within. And that's what I told myself. I knew the secret. I mostly thought of this when I got dressed for school. Didn't matter what I wore. Didn't matter that I didn't have the nicest clothes. It was all within. Didn't matter that I couldn't find an acceptable way to fix my hair. It was all within, and it had a name: confidence.

Good workout today. I had thought that I might have to ride my bike to the swing set, since my knee was acting funny. But it felt fine this morning and I started jogging. I felt slow, like dead weight. But not too slow. And I remembered something I hadn't remembered in a while.

Parkour. I didn't stop when a car was coming and I wanted to cross the street. I kept going and cut over when it was clear. I jumped off the curbs. I cleared the median. I jump on the jungle gym and ducked under the chain and went down the slide.

I did some reading online before I left about chin ups. I learned that a chin up is very similar to a pull up - chin ups are done with palms facing me, pull ups with palms out. Pull ups are harder but work the lats better. I learned that they're both hard, actually. Some tips to get started where to mix pull ups and chin ups, keep trying, and to do negatives. That means jumping up and slowing letting yourself down.

I did 7 chin ups, 3 pull ups, 5 more chin ups and then 7 pull up negatives. When I looked in the mirror before my shower it seemed my lats where bigger, giving me more of that "sting ray" look. That V.

A funny thing about the bicep curls: my left seems to be weaker than my right. Could be that I'm more tired after the run. Maybe I'll switch the bi's and tri's.

Oh, and I found a cd of Eve Ensler reading her play The Good Body. It's about her and other women spending their lives hating their bodies. I bought it on a whim from Goodwill. I want to listen to it again, it just finished, because it's related to what I'm doing here. Changing my body with the idea that it'll make me happier. I know this has been talked about forever, and I don't want to try to talk about something that I don't really understand, but thinking about it today as I listened to Eve, it reminded me of that theory I mentioned above. And it reminded of that word: confidence.