Spinning my wheels...

As I'm sure you know, if you've been reading this blog up to now, I've been on a big health and fitness kick for the past 4 months or so. It has yielded some pretty awesome results thus far.
I started at around 290 pounds. Every month, I've lost about 10-12 pounds. This started with a tremendous amount of bike riding. At one point, I got down to 238. It was kind of a fluke though. I'm sure it depended on the time of day, when I had last eaten, when I had last worked out. All of those factors aligned themselves, leaving me with one awesome weigh-in. Since then, I have been hanging in the 242-245 range.

I thought that my body had maybe hit a wall. It had gotten used to the riding, and it was time to change it up a bit. I joined a gym a week and a half ago, so I could give my body some variety in the way of exercise. I have been a member of this gym for 9 days, and I have gone and worked out 7 of them.

Admittedly, I don't really know how to work out. I don't know the ins and outs of it. What to do, when to do it, etc. I've just kind of been winging it. I started out on 3 different cardio machines, just doing ten minutes of each. That changed to 2 machines, at 15 minutes each, and now most recently, I've been doing about 20 minutes on two machines each. That part is pretty self explanitory. I watch my heart rate, I can see the calories burned, and I can feel whether or not I'm getting a good workout. It's the weights I don't really know all that much about.

Since my 2 month stint on the 8th grade football team in White House, TN, I have virtually no weight-lifting experience (to clarify...these aren't free weights I'm using, but weight machines). I try to use common sense. I work out my upper body one day, lower body the next, abdominal muscles every day.

I have felt like I have made good strides. I leave the gym every day feeling like I get a good workout. However, the scale disagrees with me. Despite trying to "shock" my body, and kickstart more weight loss (I still feel like I have a good 40-45 pounds to go), I have done nothing but maintain the weight loss up to this point. I know it's only been a week and a half, but I figure I'd see at least a little progress...a pound or two...or three. But so far, nothing.

It's kind of frustrating, but it hasn't stopped me from trying. The only downside to all this is that I have now almost quit riding my bike altogether, since all of my free time has been switched to the gym. But, I feel like if I go back to riding, then I'm neglecting the gym, which I'm actually paying for (and getting a wider assortment of exercises). I'm sure I'll find a good routine eventually, but for now, I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels...working hard and going nowhere.