Exercise Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I could write about working out from so many different angles, and over time, I probably will.  When it comes to exercising, I am a born again enthusiast and I love to talk about it!  I will share my love-hate relationship a different day, but today I want to talk about how great it is to work out with a partner, preferably a spouse/significant other.

When I started dating Mr. Converse Sneakers back in 2005, he was 30 pounds heavier than he is today.  However, he was not made fun of, in fact people loved complimenting his round belly (and I did too).  He looked like a little teddy bear and his sweet personality complimented his wholesome appearance.   However, when I jumped on the exercise bandwagon in 2008, he quickly joined me.  He was sick of being unhealthy and wanted to change his body to not only feel good but to look healthy.  He did it all for himself and I supported him 100%.  After four consecutive months of eating well and exercising daily, he became discouraged because he saw no change on the scale.  He continued his diet and exercise, but stayed away from the scale and a month later when he stepped on the scale again, he had dropped 15 pounds!  I cried because I was so proud of him and he was in shock!  That was just the motivation he needed.  Now he has lost another 15, but due to his profession (a banquet chef) and his body type, it has become hard for him to lose inches while building muscle.  For the past couple months, we have made it a priority to work out together.

We can’t afford a gym membership and personally I hate working out in front of people, so we workout to videos.  We just finished Supreme 90 Day, which we bought for $20 at Target.  It is similar to P90X which uses muscle confusion to advance progress on weight loss and toning muscles.

I don’t know how you feel about workout videos, but this program, my friend, is not for the faint of heart.

This was Mr. CS and me before the hardest workout, Tabata Inferno:

Okay, so we were faking our enthusiasm because we know this is a rough workout, and having not worked out very much during the week of our honeymoon, we were feeling the pain already from the much easier workouts.

This was me after:

Notice my glasses were off because the sweat kept making them slide down my nose.  Gross, I know.

Tabata Inferno consists of, I believe, seven circuits each with 8 sets of exercises (some use four exercises done twice and some are two exercises done four times) done for 20 seconds with 10 seconds of rest in between (so four minutes total for each circuit) with one minute of rest between each circuit.  Writing that out makes it sound easy, but by the second circuit, Mr. CS was dripping in sweat and I was swearing at Tom Holland, the instructor, telling him to shut up when he would say, “I am sweating just looking at you guys,” and throwing out some bad expletives when he told us that burpies are his favorite when he just stands there as we are doing them.

I hope the pictures make it clear that this workout is not for the faint of heart (literally), but we love it because it works!

I highly encourage everyone to have a workout partner, especially a spouse/significant other because it not only helps motivate you (whenever Mr. Converse Sneakers feels like giving up, I push him and vice versa), but it will bring the two of you closer.  You will be even prouder of the other’s accomplishments because you have helped them accomplish them and you will feel like an even stronger team.

Do you ever work out with a partner?  Would you ever consider working out with your spouse?

Note: I was not paid or perked in any way to promote Supreme 90 Day.  Mr. CS and I just think it is one heck of a great program, especially for the money, and we like to tell everyone we know about it, including you!