Some things in life don’t come easy

OK ladies, now is the time to get serious about changing the way your body looks.

I know that there are a lot of women out there who think that lifting weights will make them look like ‘She-Ra the Warrior Princess.’ The fact is: Strength training not only shapes the muscle, it reduces fat, speeds up your metabolism, improves your posture, and strengthens your bones. It just makes day to day life easier ‘ carrying in groceries or lifting your children.

Women always have this fear of lifting heavy weights. A woman does not have enough natural testosterone to build big bulking Arnold Schwarzenegger-like muscles. I myself lift pretty heavy weight and my arms are not busting out of my shirt.

‘There are a number of anxieties a woman must overcome when she decides to join a gym and start lifting weights. Most of these anxieties are based on fear, myth, and self image.’

If you lift light weights only to ‘tone’ your body, your body only changes a little, and then it just goes through the motion. When something gets easy, then it is easy to do and becomes second nature. Your body does not have to work as hard to achieve the same goal. Do you really do want to improve your body’s shape and image? Then you are going to have to put in a little hard work to get there. So many women, just ‘tone’ and never really get that image they so badly want.

‘It’s those women whose desire to get into shape is greater than their fears and anxieties of lifting heavier weights that end up with the great bodies.’

Almost everyone has gone out and walked. Let’s say on the first day you walked for 20 minutes. After awhile those first 20 minutes became easier to do, right? I know a school teacher at Hickory Creek who started running. When she first started she aimed for running 1 mile. This was hard to do because she was not a runner. Now she is running 4 to 5 miles twice a week and she will be running 10 miles today. Her goal is the Music City Half Marathon April 26, 2008. The point I am trying to make is that if you do not push yourself, you will never change.

Now lifting weights is not the most popular or fun thing to do, but it has to be done. Not all of us were born to always be a size 2 or 3 for life. Maybe when we were like 12, but now we are older and our bodies have changed. You are never too old or too out of shape to benefit. Getting in shape is not going to happen overnight. Your body is going to get sore, and it may get a little monotonous and hard to concentrate at times. But isn’t losing one or two dress sizes worth it? Or how about getting rid of that excess fat around your middle? Some things in life just have to be done. And in order to truly change the way your body looks, you have got to lift some weight.

Thank you for the question, and I hope this helps. Remember, you can email me at [email protected] label the subject ‘fitness question.’ Or send me a letter to Paige Northcutt, P.O. Box 7281, McMinnville, TN 37111.