Remember that six pounds I shed post break-up? Well I have shed another six with giving up sugar. Dang if I am not already feeling snappy, but it gets better still. With my introduction to Crossfit a few years back and more recently Crossfit’s cousin, Alpha, I have discovered an undeniable love of weight-lifting. Maybe it’s that I feel like such a beast. Maybe it’s because it’s something I would’ve never imagined myself adoring and I love being surprised by life in that way. Or maybe it’s such a killer workout my body just craves more. Whatever the reason, I had recently decided I wanted to perhaps find a bar and some weights to do some lifting on my own.
I hadn’t even begun to look or comprehend how much it would cost to purchase a bar and a decent amount of weights when I was thrifting one day and spotted exactly that: a bar and a variety of weights. I practically squealed in delight, running over to pick up the bar and yelling for my friend to come watch while I showed her Alpha moves in the middle of the aisle at Goodwill. I was heady with the find and the fact that the universe had delivered me a bar without my even having to look for an astounding steal of only: $10.99, including all the weights.
There was only one problem, which I rectified immediately. The set came with two ten-pound weights, one fifteen-pound and one twenty-five pound. So it wasn’t a complete set. Since I have gotten used to lifting some pretty heavy weights in Alpha I instantly removed one of the ten pound weights that was already on the bar and replaced it with the twenty-five and then added the fifteen to the other side with the ten to make an even twenty-five on the other side, for fifty pounds total on the bar.
Then I carried it, along with the extra ten pound weight to the register and triumphantly set it down at the register. The woman who rang me up commented on my strength and another nearby said, “you look like you knew what you were doing back there,” referencing my moves in the aisle. I beamed with no small amount of satisfaction. I did know what I was doing. I was buying a bar and weights and getting ready to ratchet my beast-mode considerably.
I spent the whole day on a high, itching to get home and try out some of my moves on my new purchase. My friend had also recently found an old jump rope where the handles sort of looked like maracas. After showing her a few techniques in jumping rope and challenging her to a jump-roping contest in which she lost interest after about eight jumps, while I jumped past 100 feeling like a kid wanting attention—look at what I can do! Look at what I can do!—she gave it to me.
I put the new jump rope and bar to good use and created a mini Alpha circuit for my morning workout today.
I warmed up with 500 jump ropes.
Then I did 50 squat thrusters.
And fifty sit-ups with the extra ten pound weight.
I burned 300 calories and afterwards felt spent and satiated, the real quality kind spent and satiated, like after a good romp.
And here are what my new beaut’s look like in action:
