My Journey With Weight Loss – Discovering New Muscles

I am going to struggle a bit this week to get all my workouts done. It is not because I don’t want to, it is because I am just booked solid. Today for example, 8 k run followed by 2 k walk with the dog then some strength exercises. Managed a quick shower before attending a virtual meeting after which it was a hurried lunch before starting my volunteer income tax clinic which takes the entire afternoon. Somehow I have got to manage to get in at least one more 1/2 hour walk to meet today’s goals. The rest of the week doesn’t look much better but I will find a way to get it all done. As I warned my husband, this is what retirement looks like.

Saturday my husband and I were out walking the dog for an hour. At one point my husband told me his calves were burning. I tried really hard not to laugh at this as we really hadn’t gone far and the incline we were walking up was not really that steep. A while later into the walk he suggested I write a blog on discovering new muscles and I was like Babe, all my muscles were discovered about a year ago. He reminded me that anyone starting out won’t be in the same place I am which made me think, this could be a good topic.

I mentioned before that my husband is retiring soon (Friday) and he has committed to letting me do some walking training with him. He does do a fair amount of walking on the job sight, maybe 5-6k a day, but I realized it is not what I do. Rather, he walks at a slower pace and doesn’t really deal with elevation. This is likely why his muscles were burning, they haven’t done this in a long time (can’t wait to see how he does going up the dreaded Oxford hill but that won’t likely be until the summer).

I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I started to find muscles that hadn’t been worked enough. I do recall though finding those calf, quad, and hamstring muscles when I first started running. I guess the last time I really felt they were working harder than normal was doing the hill interval training. Or, maybe when I started doing my strength training and was working on 1 legged bridge lifts (ok, when you first start these it is really hard). Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like there aren’t days when I finish a good workout such as the 18k run that my muscles are a bit sore and tired, I just seem to have gotten to the point where I am fit enough for them to handle it.

I guess brings us back to a point my coach has told me all along, listen to your body. Yes, it is ok to feel some discomfort and that means your muscles are working. But, it is important to recognize the difference between discomfort and damage. I’ll be working on that with my husband in the coming months.