Near-death experience

SCALE UPDATE: My parents' scale had me at around 291. That's only 4 pounds lower than my digital scale, but over 10 pounds higher than the rotary scale. Looks like evil digital scale wins.

One of the problems I have while exercising is that I often overestimate my abilities. I'll try too high a setting on the elliptical trainer, or I'll try and lift too much weight, or I'll try and go for too long on the bike. Normally, this isn't much of a problem, as I'll just adjust a bit, or cut a workout short.

This morning, though...well, read the title of this post.

I decided to try one of the BodyPump classes at my gym. It's basically high reps of light weights at a quick pace set to music. Think "weight training meets aerobics class". I'd been doing strength training twice a week for the last month or so, and my cardio was improving, so I decided to give it a shot. It started out OK, doing a warmup with a 5 lb. barbell. But -- and this was my critical error -- I put too much weight on the bar (20 lbs.) for the first real set of exercises. LEG exercises. I managed to make my way through the set with some difficulty. I then did OK with the next set, which were bench presses, done lying down. When I went to get back up for the next set (back and hamstrings), I knew my legs were totally done. I had completely burned them out with the quad exercises.

I went for the water bottle, but I didn't have anything with sugar in it, so I had no chance of getting any energy back. I started to feel queasy. I sat through the next two sets, then left the studio to take a walk. BIG mistake. I should have stayed right where I was. Getting up just made my queasiness worse, and I quickly ended up in the washroom riding the porcelain bus.

As I write this, I'm still a bit jelly-legged. I think I'm just going to go back to my regular routine for the time being. I'm still proud of myself for at least giving it a shot, though.