I’ve been overweight my entire life, but it’s rarely been due to lack of exercise. Diet has been a seemingly insurmountable challenge, but I’ve generally done reasonably well in terms of working out.
Over the past 14 years I’ve done a good bit of cycling, CrossFit, and weightlifting, and have recently gotten into indoor rowing. I’ve also rarely been averse to more walking than my American—and especially Angeleno—lifestyle has demanded or even enabled, and I’ve done all that whilst carrying a “natural weighted vest” of anywhere between 40 and 140 lb. This means that my bloodwork has generally been stellar for someone with my BMI, but also that my legs—which have done so, so, so very much work throughout all this—have been disproportionately capable and good looking.
They’re not that right now, and I want them back.
I want my quads of steel from pedaling a 295 lb me for a whole 100 miles from LA to San Diego, and then again six months later a 255 lb me on that same route. I want the glutes and hamstrings that were deadlifting 345 lb and squatting 275, on their way to beating both of those numbers had I re-tested before falling off again. I want the calves I’ve had for years, which are still a bit defined, but have been hidden by the surrounding fat.
In spite of all the time I’ve spent pedaling, it’s the strength work that always made me feel the most amazing. The euphoria from both heavy power lifts and well executed technical olympic lifts was unbeatable. Regardless of my weight, what my body has been capable of is objectively reasonably impressive, and personally extremely important to me.
I recently bought an indoor rowing machine, the gold standard Concept2 RowErg. It’s been fun rowing from home, which is a nice combination of predominantly cardiovascular work and a bit of resistance training, if you squint hard enough. I’ve enjoyed working on my form, which definitely suffered from never having been prioritized in CrossFit, where I’d rowed a lot but in very small increments, and thus been able to get away with basically squatting through the stroke. I’d like to making rowing a very regular habit, since it only takes a few minutes to set it up and I can get to work.
And perhaps after I’ve done that for a bit I’ll make time to go and do some strength work at the gym again. I miss the barbell, I miss the plates, I miss everything about that experience. Maybe instead of CrossFit—and a painful commute to and from the admittedly awesome gym I patronized last—I’ll find a strength-oriented place and combine it with rowing at home.
Because I want my legs back. And I want to wear hoochie daddy shorts.
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