There has been a food poisoning outbreak in this house. It hadn’t outbroken on me, luckily. But poor Eric has been pretty miserable for the past 24+ hours. (Can it be called an outbreak if only one person has it?) We are guessing that the culprit was the Boston Market and not my cooking, since I haven’t gotten sick at all. Ever since I started cooking meat I’ve been paranoid about making someone sick, so I’ll admit it is relief to think this bout of sickness isn’t my fault. I hope the poor guy starts feeling better soon though. It is no kind of life, sipping on Gatorade and nibbling on dry toast.

But, like I said, I’ve been fine. Yesterday while Eric was curled up miserably in bed I was in my office on campus meeting with students about their end of the semester portfolios. Then later, while he was curled up miserably on the couch, I was at the training studio working out under Brenda’s direction.

It was an upper body day, which can be the hardest day of all. Upper body day is when Brenda tends to pull out miserable exercises like plate pushes, alligator walks, and bear crawls. Yesterday I lucked out though. I asked her if there was going to be any crawling around on the floor, and she said no, this was going to be straight up, traditional weight lifting. Thank goodness. Don’t get me wrong, straight up weight lifting is challenging, but somehow it is easier for me mentally than all that crawling around stuff that she likes to have me do. It was a satisfying workout. Brenda kept upping the weights on me for various exercises and I kept being able to handle them. I love knowing that I’m getting stronger, getting strong, even.

Towards the end of the workout we had an interesting conversation about goals. Brenda said that she wanted me to become still stronger in my upper body, but quickly added that she didn’t mean she was trying to bulk me up. I laughed a little, and said that I didn’t mind extra mass on me if it was muscle mass; bulking up isn’t a fear of mine. She commented that most of her women clients worry about getting too big. I said that once you’ve been 300 pounds, a little extra size from muscle doesn’t seem that scary. Brenda laughed at that, and then said my saying that was like music to her ears, that it was nice to have a client not afraid of putting on a little muscle. Then she added that I’d never get truly big from lifting anyway, not without steroids and a specialized training plan.

I think it was good we had that conversation. Now she knows that I really do want to get stronger, and that I’m not afraid of putting on muscle. Afraid? Heck, truth be told, I’m eager to put on more muscle. For one thing, more muscle means I’ll eventually get to eat more food. I am all about the more food. I have around 145 pounds of lean mass right now, according to the body fat testing I had done back in September. I’d love for that number to go up the next time I get my body fat tested in March or so.

That was it for workouts with Brenda for the week. She does Olympic weightlifting, and is going to a big national meet over this weekend to compete. I’ll see her for my next workout on Tuesday. So, the rest of the week will be all about cardio – swimming and running. Swimming this morning. Like usual, I’m not really in the mood to swim. Hopefully my outlook will change once I’m actually in the pool. Anyway, I shouldn’t complain about swimming. It could be worse. I could be suffering from food poisoning.