Thursday, February 17, 2011

Oh... Hey There, Bandwagon!

The theme of the first semester in the first year of Darden seems to go as follows: no time for gym, eat way too much pizza and other unhealthy food at company briefings, gain weight.

After reading two of my fellow student bloggers' posts in the last two days ("I hate your workout program" and Crossfit), it seems that the final semester of second year brings with it a new trend: work out lots and lots to lose all the weight gained over the previous year and a half.

Seeing as how I'm now halfway through February, I think it's safe to say my own fitness exploits are now a true semester-long effort and not a doomed attempt at a New Year's Resolution. While my roommate drags herself out of bed every morning for a 7:30 a.m. P90X workout session, I've taken a different route: personal trainer. My goal is to work with my trainer to develop a plan for staying fit within what will become a very busy work schedule come August. Although I am currently working through the machines, we will eventually move to free weights which should be feasible to do in my apartment if there isn't a gym nearby.

Other than the personal trainer, I'm also proud to say that I'm well on-target to beating the total distance that I've run in a week and in a month since landing in Charlottesville (already beat the per day record!), though I'm ashamed to admit publicly how many miles per month it works out to... ;-)

And I have to say, given all this recent workout activity, that it's far easier to simply not eat calories than it is to burn them off! (Case in point: 1/2 cup of Ben & Jerry's ice cream - 220 calories + time required to eat - 10 minutes; time required to burn off 220 calories on the elliptical - 20 minutes... so you can save yourself 30 minutes in the day by simply choosing to eat healthier!)