REPORTER PUMPING IRON IN PURSUIT OF WEIGHT LOSS

EDITOR'S NOTE: Staff writer Heidi Nieland has volunteered to go through a diet plan new to the Cape Girardeau area. This is the third of seven stories about her successes and failures.

Having spent the week with a water bottle attached to my lips, I've lost 7 pounds.

No drugs, diet shakes, or cabbage soup was involved -- just good, healthy food in reasonable amounts. Of course, the reduction of salt and sugar in my diet plus all that water meant I spent a full 75 percent of my time in the restroom, but it was worth it.

This may be the last week I see such great numbers on the scale. The weightlifting part of Biometrics is kicking in, and hopefully my fat cells will shrink and my lean muscle mass grow. Muscle weighs more than fat, so the scale won't show dramatic changes.

A few of the diets I tried encouraged exercise but didn't really tell me what to do or how. On Biometrics, a personal trainer oversees three weightlifting workouts a week.

I'm doing my workouts at the Center for Health and Rehabilitation, part of St. Francis Medical Center. A variety of personal trainers work with me, but primarily St. Francis Wellness coordinator Bill Logan. He makes sure the weightlifting machines are properly adjusted and that I'm doing the exercise correctly.

Working with a personal trainer is no day at the beach. At first it was a little nervewracking to have someone watch me stuff my fat into a weight machine and then attempt to move. I'm still a little self-conscious.

The good thing is that they keep me from going easy on myself. The idea is to max out my muscles. After warming up for five minutes, Bill or somebody else sets the machines at the highest load I can handle, then it's my job to do the resistance part of each exercise in 10 counts.

Most people I've seen weightlifting, including myself, don't get anywhere near 10 counts. We tend to get into the machine, set the weight, then fling our limbs so that the weights move up and down fairly quickly. Come to find out, this isn't very effective and may cause injury.

Pushing for 10 counts really makes the muscle work. During each of six separate exercises, I push for 10 counts, release for two counts, then quickly start pushing for 10 more counts. When I can do six counts without passing out, we add more weight.

There is no aerobics during the first six weeks of Biometrics, but Bill assures me that will come later.

"You won't gain lean muscle mass as rapidly if you try to sneak in some aerobics in between," he said. "Biometrics balances your calories with your exercise. You're only eating enough calories for your weightlifting."

There's an important reason to gain lean muscle mass quickly. Bill said one pound of it burns 75 calories in a 24-hour period. A pound of fat burns only two calories in the same period.

After Bill makes sure I'm gaining muscle mass, Virginia Heston makes sure I'm stretching it out correctly.

The stretches aren't anything new -- some of the exercise videos I've rented use them and there are diagrams of them on the gym walls. Before Virginia, however, I had no idea how to stretch correctly. Just a slight adjustment of a shoulder or knee can make the difference between really stretching or just lying there.

In addition to Bill and Virginia, I met another encouraging person at the center. More on her next time.

SOME STATISTICS

Height

6 feet, 3 inches

Weight

276 (down 7 pounds.)

Goals

To reduce body fat and increase lean muscle mass.