March 21, 2008 08:10 pm

Shultz : State of mind

I read once that a person becomes a resident of one state when they have lived there longer than in their home state.
I lived in New York for 22 years, so it would be 2026 before I was technically a “Hoosier,” by that theory.
After my last trip to New York, though, I think my road to becoming a Hoosier might be a bit shorter:
• I can’t remember how to drive like a New Yorker.
I was trying to figure out when the speed limit on the highway to the mall was raised to 97 miles per hour, when I realized that I was going 53 and being passed like I was driving a Rascal scooter.
I refrained from making any hand gestures, except one I picked up in Indiana. It’s where you extend your arm and shake your hand from side to side. I’m pretty sure my friends thought “the friendly wave” was a type of Midwestern insult.
• I can’t power shop anymore.
My mother told me that she would treat me to a few things I needed at the department store — but that we had to be quick about it because she had a doctor’s appointment.
Four years ago, that would have meant a mad “Supermarket Sweep”-style dash around the store picking up anything I could get my hands on.
This time, I checked a few things out but actually told my mom I wanted to wait until I had more time to try things on and make a good decision.
I’m fairly sure we both wondered why her doctor was located in the same complex as a psychiatrist.
• I talk to strangers.
Not only do I talk to strangers, but I talk to them all the time. I talked to strangers in the grocery store. I talked to strangers at the spa. I talked to strangers at the gas station.
And they all looked at me as if I’d lost my mind and/or they wanted to spit on me.
So I decided the road to becoming a Hoosier might be a little shorter for me. But I’ll probably get there at the same time.
After all, I’m only driving 53 miles per hour.

— Erin Shultz
[friday] editor/New Yoosier.

January 01, 2009 11:29 pm

Is it over already?

And, in the blink of an eye, the contest was over.
I can’t believe it’s done already.
In just shy of six weeks, I stripped 16 pounds and 5.4 percent body fat from my body. That amount equals about 8 percent of the pre-Fitness Challenge Erin.
OK, so I didn’t beat the majority of the contestants in half the time, like my smack-talking may have suggested in the beginning. But I came close.
And, more importantly, I look and feel a world better than I did just a month and a half ago.
Here’s the crazy part — it wasn’t that hard.
Now, that has to be taken with a certain amount of understanding. I started out this challenge as a fitness instructor who taught five classes a week. (Clarification: I huffed and puffed through five classes a week.) But I wasn’t starting from the point I was three years ago. I remember when three laps up and down the stairs had my legs feeling like Jell-O.
I had come pretty far — but I still weighed nearly 200 pounds, had a really unhealthy body fat percentage and was considered “obese.”
I wasn’t too excited about my physical fitness. I didn’t like trying on clothes. Every person reading this knows what I’m talking about, because we’ve all been there.
But to shed the weight, all I did was become a little more conscious of what I was eating, start lifting weights a bit more and bump up my cardio some.
I cut out alcohol, although I still drank a glass of wine or a beer a few times. It actually made me enjoy them more.
And that was it.
Almost overnight, I dropped 16 pounds (plus another four before my official weigh-in) and feel fantastic.
Don’t get me wrong. I worked hard. I was in the gym more. I sweat buckets.
But it’s not something that unattainable, and I didn’t have to give up my life and eat rice cakes for it.
If you’ve been thinking about moving toward a healthier lifestyle, I can’t tell you enough how wonderful I feel and how much it is worth.
So stop by Club Fitness 24 today. They will give you a free five-day pass just for walking in the door. If you’ve followed along and wished you, too, were losing weight, why not start today?
It could be one of the simplest — and smartest — choices you ever make.

May 03, 2008 09:31 am

Taking shape

Now you can call me superficial or vain or whatever, but when I am working out, I kind of enjoy looking in the mirror.
I don’t mean I like to watch myself as I work out like that dude in everyone’s gym wearing a bandana who gazes at himself doing bicep curls.
I mean in the mornings, when I’m getting ready, it’s pretty encouraging to see myself getting thinner day by day. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. We all know our own bodies pretty well, and we can tell when our body shape is changing.
Lately, my collarbones — which had previously taken a long swim in a sea of fat — seem to have resurfaced. My arms are becoming more defined. My belly is thinning out. My hips, butt and tree-trunk legs? Ehh, they are still hanging on. But they will go eventually too.
In just over three weeks, I’ve lost nearly 10 pounds, and I feel great. I am teaching better classes and can push myself harder with my cardio and my strength training.
But when it comes down to it, I’m proud of the girl I see in the mirror. I am working hard to reach my goals, and while I’ve got a ways to go, I feel good about the path I’m on.

April 11, 2008 08:24 pm

More calories to burn

When I agreed to jump back into Fitness Challenge, I figured A) since I already work out, this would be easy B) I would lose like 19 pounds in the first week and C) my bosses at the paper would forbid me from actually doing this.
Well, turns out I was wrong on all counts.
Let me begin by saying training with a personal trainer is never “easy.” You grunt, you sweat unendingly, you make faces that would not be deemed acceptable by polite society. It is not unlike what I look like when I eat Indian food.
I have trained with Nicole Peel for nearly three years now, and every session, I leave sweating and smiling, wondering how she works me so hard.
And then I trained with Chad Coy this week, for my first official sessions of the challenge. And I left sweating. But not smiling so much as shaking with a Jell-O feeling in my legs.
After several days of doing extra cardio, burning hundreds of calories and eating more protein than I previously thought was possible by anyone other than saber-toothed tigers, I had a little swagger when I got onto the scale. The first week of last year’s Fitness Challenge, I lost nearly 8 pounds.
What would it be this time, I thought to myself?
Four pounds?
Six pounds?
I opened my eyes and couldn’t believe my luck.
I had gained a pound and a half.
Of course I had. Because this is how my life goes.
One week down. Five to go. Many more calories to burn.

March 28, 2008 04:56 pm

Erin is back!

Assuming you have eyes, it is no secret that I have gained back a considerable amount of the weight I lost in last year’s Fitness Challenge.
There was a new relationship, a comfy couch and a whole lot of reasons I could give you. I certainly gave them all to myself:
“My boyfriend and I are ‘nesting.’”
“This is ‘happy fat.’”
“I still work out almost every day.”
“It’s just one batch of french fries.” (And another. And another.)
But the bottom line is that I ate more calories than I burned, I didn’t stay on top of my fitness and the weight slowly crept back on over the last year.
And so I find myself — a group fitness instructor who teaches five hours of aerobics a week — almost as unhealthy and overweight as I was before the last challenge.
Plain and simple.
Fast forward to this week. After three years of Club Fitness 24 and Kokomo Tribune’s Fitness Challenge in which competitors have duked it out for three months to see who could burn the most fat, the gym came up with a twist.
Starting this week, I will be rejoining the competition.
That’s right. I think I can lose a bigger percentage of my weight than these contestants.
In half the time.
Now I’ve got six weeks remaining to drop more weight than the Fitness Challenge contestants. Since I’ve got half as much time, I’ll be training with Club Fitness 24 owner Chad Coy.
If there’s anybody who can push me to win, it’s Chad. I will train with him twice a week and join the rest of the Fitness Challengers each Saturday for one huge, group workout.
I’ll be using leannesslifestyle.com for my nutrition planning, and I can promise you, the staff at the gym will be watching all of the challengers like hawks.
And, for the contestants, we’re even sweetening the deal.
Anyone who can lose a bigger percentage of their starting weight than I can, will receive an iPod at the close of the competition.
So check on our Web site and each week in Sunday’s paper to watch as I chase these rapidly shrinking challengers and, hopefully, manage my own battle with weight for good.

March 21, 2008 08:01 pm