To avoid overtraining, as I am wont to do, I decided to skip my long bike ride this morning. Along with the usual withdrawal side effects, rapid heart rate, sweaty palms and a feeling that something’s missing, I felt particularly lost. Such is the exercise junkie’s life.

So, not knowing what to do with myself from 5:30 to 8:00 am, I decided to make the 2000 step trek over to my gym. I haven’t been over at this time of day in months. I have been training later in the day, not only because of my bike ride, but because I am lifting heavier these days and I don’t want to risk injury. I want my body to be completely warmed up.

6:30 am: There they are, all my lady friends, lined up on the ellipticals and treadmills just the way I left them back in the spring. Huffing and puffing away. This morning, after all that time, not only did I see no improvement, they all looked heavier, even bloated.

Their faces, their arms and lower halves were bigger. None of them does any other type of exercise, and from conversation, I learned they know very little about nutrition and the benefits of weight training, but they show up every day like clock work. What a shame I’m thinking, to do all that work and not have it show up in the mirror.

Of course I didn’t say anything, or else I wouldn’t be alive to write this. 🙂 The takeaway here is there’s more to keeping your health and shape than flopping around on a machine for 45 minutes of your precious day and seeing no results.

Aerobics is not a license to stuff whatever you want into your body and write it off. Your body is very intelligent and knows how to store calories for a future famine that never quite gets here. Metabolism, bad food choices and the same repetitive aerobics routine will leave you nowhere.

Ironically, this is the summer they all worked so hard for. I have a feeling my next decade as a fitness professional will be very interesting… and rewarding.