Lately I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about weightlifting.

Reactions: “Weightlifting? Really? But your arms are perfect as they are! You’re not going to get too big are you?”

I’ve been surprised at these reactions, because they’re the majority. I had no idea people were so opposed to women looking fit and being strong. To me, this is sexy, confident and inspiring:

Yes, my arms are thin. I’m thin. But I have no muscle definition whatsoever, and I’m so weak! I might as well be this guy:

I have to admit when I first started looking into it, my initial reaction was that I didn’t want to get too bulky. But once I actually had some conversations and read up on it I realized it’s extremely difficult to build muscle to the point where you look like a body builder, and it would be hard to achieve the above photo! I also realized I don’t care if people think I’m strong. If a guy thinks I’m too strong, well, I don’t want to date him anyway. I want to date a guy who wants to lift weights with me.

I talked to Allie, who is working toward a figure competition, and she recommended The New Rules of Lifting for Women.

I checked out a lot of reviews, and everyone is going crazy about it. I bought it and couldn’t put it down! Here’s a summary from the site.

This book refutes the misconception that women will “bulk up” if they lift heavy weights. Nonsense! It’s tough enough for men to pack on muscle, and they have much more of the hormone necessary to build muscle: natural testosterone. Muscles need to be strengthened to achieve a lean, healthy look. Properly conditioned muscles increase metabolism and promote weight loss—it’s that simple. The program demands that women put down the “Barbie” weights, step away from the treadmill, and begin a strength and conditioning regime for the natural athlete in every woman.

Although I have no interest in a figure competition, I definitely wouldn’t mind wearing the glitter bikini! How fun would that be?? Maybe Allie will hire me to be  her PA, so I can still wear the glitter bikini in a professional capacity but not have to put in as much work.

I started thinking about weightlifting when I hurt my knee last summer from running too much. The fact is, I just wasn’t strong enough so I got injured. I wanted to lift, but I’m not good at doing things if I have no goal. I felt if I went to the gym with a general goal of  ”get stronger,” I wouldn’t last a week. So I started thinking about what I actually wanted from this. What do I need?

Confidence. When I used to be fit I was a lot more confident and I didn’t worry about things nearly as much. I felt better, and mentally it made me feel better to be achieving goals.

Health. I don’t want to be one of those middle-aged people who is so unfit and weak that it affects their life. Too many people are like that!

Running. I like running! I still want to someday run a marathon, but if that’s never possible I’d be happy with being able to run five miles after work a couple days a week.

My main concern right now is my diet. I don’t eat anywhere near the right amount of protein for this. I’ve been thinking about the food I eat and how I can make these changes in a mostly vegetarian diet. Realistically, I can’t get all my protein from food because I don’t eat meat unless I’m out (and even then, not my first choice) or at someone’s house. I sometimes consume dairy, but it’s strictly just cheese, and minor amounts. Even if I wanted to, I can’t eat dairy-heavy foods. So! I bought a protein powder recommended by Allie and other reviewers online. Obviously most of my protein will come from real food. Once I get started I’ll talk more about my food plan and nutrition.

I haven’t started properly yet, but I’m thinking I will in about two weeks. I’ve been too down recently to do anything except look forward to going to bed as soon as possible. Today was the first morning where rather than getting out of bed at the last possible second, I woke up on time and thought, “I might like to go to the gym sometime.” I think also what helped this morning was the fact that I had a really cool dream where I was Gustavo Fring’s sidekick.

Sure, he’s a total psychopath, but he’s good at what he does. And it was kind of fun to be running around dodging the bad guys. Except I was with Gus, so they were probably the good guys and I was the bad guy. I’m watching the Season 4 finale tonight.