Congratulations on your physique! I am 41 have been lifting for only about 6 months, but I LOVE it. What really got me hooked was Just Doing It -- I found it gave me an immediate energy boost, plus my attitude and mood have improved a hundred-fold.
It may be part of your wife's reluctance is the age thing ... ladies in the 1950s and 60s just didn't pump iron! Also, she may be looking at your bulging pecs and thinkging "I don't want to look like that!" While I'm sure you've tried to convince her that's not going to happen, sometimes -- well, you know, she's gotta hear it from someone else. ALSO: my husband complains that he can't work out with me because I'm too much of a whiner - being that you're using the Navy program, is it possible you've tried helping her and been acting more like a drill sargeant? Chances are she needs encouragement, not barking! LOL! You might consider offering to hire a personal trainer to work with her for a short while to get her started ... (a FEMALE personal trainer!)
I suggest you drop by the library and see if you can find a book or two on weight-lifting for women. It would really help if you can find one that doesn't sport photos of pumped up body-building women! I have one called The Women's Bible of Body Sculpting (or something like that ...) - the ladies in there are not all muscle-y. Typically, they are going to include a chapter or two touting the benefits of lifting weights for women (one big seller for us older women is the fact that increased muscle builds bone density).
Here's something I picked up somewhere that might be helpful:
Top 18 Benefits of Weight Training
1. Weight training tones your muscles which looks great and raises your basal metabolism... which causes you to burn more calories 24 hours-a-day. You'll even burn more calories while you're sleeping.
2. Weight training can *reverse* the natural decline in your metabolism which begins around age 30.
3. Weight training energizes you.
4. Weight training has a positive affect on almost all of your 650+ muscles.
5. Weight training strengthens your bones reducing your risk of developing osteoporosis.
6. Weight training improves your muscular endurance.
7. Weight training will NOT develop big muscles on women....just toned muscles!
8. Weight training makes you strong. Strength gives you confidence and makes daily activities easier.
9. Weight training makes you less prone to low-back injuries.
10. Weight training decreases your resting blood pressure.
11. Weight training decreases your risk of developing adult onset diabetes.
12. Weight training decreases your gastrointestinal transit time, reducing your risk for developing colon cancer.
13. Weight training increases your blood level of HDL cholesterol (the good type).
14. Weight training improves your posture.
15. Weight training improves the functioning of your immune system.
16. Weight training lowers your resting heart rate, a sign of a more efficient heart.
17. Weight training improves your balance and coordination.
18. Weight training elevates your mood.
Author and exercise Physiologist, Greg Landry, offers free weight loss success stories and articles, and unique weight loss programs at his site..
http://www.Landry.com
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Good luck convincing her! If she will agree to try it for just a while -- 6 weeks maybe -- hopefully she'll get hooked like me!
Pen
265/218.5/150ish
I am Very New (3 minutes?)
. It seems somehow so simple yet so complex!My diet certainly has changed, more vegies WAY less meat - and I am beginnong to like soya milk as a milk alternative. I have tried to encourage my wife to start lifting weights but the response is "that is so brutal". I wonder -what is it in a women that makes that transition to lifting weights so complex and difficult?
