Thursday

Did back today and had to suffer through adapting to the new equipment at the gym. This is the workout thats most affected by the new stuff. My shoulders still hurt at times but I got through it. The weird part is that simple pulldowns were causing some pain in my good shoulder (the shoulder thats only had 1 surgery heh) which doesn't normally happen. So I'm not sure if I'm adapting to the equipment or getting used to the pain. Might be a little of both. I did have to make some changes to my overall routine to accomodate the fact some of the equipment I used before is gone and hadn't been subbed out. I hate change. I also hate pain, but I'm always in pain to some degree so I get used to that eventually.

The other week one of the trainers approached me with a proposition. They have to make numbers for supplement sales every month and she noticed I buy a decent amount. Mostly I buy protein, but I go through enough of it (plus I buy some for my son) that she was willing to offer me an exchange. If I was willing to make sure the people at the desk credited her with the sale when I bought my stuff, she would offer training to me at no charge. That sounded like a pretty good deal to me. I'm pretty sure she's not offering unlimited 1 on 1 sessions (I wouldn't feel comfortable taking up her time for free anyway), but she is offering me lots of tips, advice and general counsel. This morning for example I went in at 5:30 to catch her before the spin class she teaches at 6. She did a body fat measurement for me, along with full body measurements. The results were, of course, depressing but its good info to have to gauge my progress. Its a pretty thorough evaluation and one thats only offered regularly when you purchase training time, so like I said this works out well for me. And I'm going to buy the stuff anyway, its just a matter of making sure she gets credit for the sale. So she said we'd do the measurements again in a month. I'm thinking right before Thanksgiving would be good. And based on the results next time we can make adjustments to my program and diet if need be, although to be honest we've already gone over my diet and even she's said there really isn't anything I can afford to cut out.

My weight is also up 3 pounds from Tuesday, which is really weird. I mentioned I was able to hold off my cravings on Sunday and then I did my usual weigh-in Monday after my workout. I was down about a pound and a quarter from the week before. Then I did my cheat meal Monday afternoon (I usually do it on Monday) and weighed myself again Tuesday after my workout. I was down another pound and a half. That was really bizarre. So then I weighed myself this morning as part of the body fat measurement and I was up 3 pounds. Whatever. Its probably water. Even after cheat meals my weight usually goes up no more than 1 pound, and I've usually lost that plus another pound or 2 by the next Monday.

I started getting notifications at that dating site that I had new messages to view. Ooooo, exciting! But wait, whats this? In order to read my messages I have to subscribe. HAHAHAHA...fuck off. The kicker is I can't even see who sent them, so I have no idea if its worth reading them or not. They could be (and most likely are) spam messages from mail order bride deals. Lots of those accounts on those sites. So just for kicks I sent an email to the site's customer service and asked about free trials. As I explained to them, if I can't see who's sending me a message how do I know if its worth spending the money to view them? I'm sure I'll get a reply any minute now...not.

This has also had me reminiscing back to a few years ago when I had some Russian chick emailing me out of the blue. I played along because the pictures this person was sending were really hot. I still have them, actually. And of course I did what anyone would have done...asked for nudes! But alas, none materialized. But eventually my darling Yulia professed her love for me and decided she was going to come to the US to see me, her true love. Yep, I'm a catch like that. And so eventually the inevitable happened...she emailed me with the tear jerk story about how she went to buy a plane ticket but didn't realize how expensive they were! Oh, she cried and cried and cried. Then she cried some more, she told me, because she didn't have the money to come to her true love. No worries, I replied...this will give us a chance to get to know each other better while you save up for the ticket! Oddly enough that didn't seem to be the reply she was after, so she outright asked me for the money. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed some more. But then I offered her a deal. I told her that if she paid for the ticket, I'd put her up here. I'd even engage in a sham marriage with her to help her get citizenship. And once she had that, if she decided for some reason to stay with me then I'd give her half the cost of her plane ticket. Now I absolutely would not have done this, mind you. I actually respect marriage and wouldn't engage in something like this, but I was bored at the time so this was amusing. Plus I was still hoping for the nude pics. And of course I never heard back from her again. Alas...