Body Pump!

Many might think this is silly but I know from my class, two others feel the same way I do! I recently started attending Body Pump classes at my gym.  It's basically a weight bar exercise to music for an hour, working various parts of the arms, back, lots of squats with weights, etc.,

The gym has the black soft mats and there are cleaning cloths, but I just prefer to use my own and not lay on a mat that had someone else's sweat on.

So yesterday I went to Home Goods and found a mat and bought a stabilizing ball to help prevent me from straining my neck when I work on my abs.  

Tomorrow is Body Pump and I'm excited to try my mat out! I'm very glad I purchased some gloves last week too as they help protect my hands from the bar.  I also upped my calories as I'm still plateauing and since I'm burning 400-500 a day since I upped my workout to 6x a week, I need to make sure I net 1200-1300.  I could consume less while netting 1200-1300 but it's too low for the intensity I do.  I haven't gained at 1600-1700 but I haven't lost, yet I know I'm getting stronger and my body is shrinking.  This was especially true since I haven't worked out with my trainer for about a month since I was gone almost 3 weeks from mid Dec-Jan.  He said he could tell I worked out over the holidays (I DID!!) and asked how much I lost.  Defeated, I said, "none", and he was like "WHAT? Seriously? Well the first thing I noticed, and I'm not BS'ing you was that you looked smaller and toned". That made my day and as always, he said I should throw my scale away :)