NILOU JONES: To Surprise Her Soldier, Part VII

Some folks have to be dragged kicking and screaming into an exercise class. Nilou Jones prefers kicking and punching.
The Charlottesville mother of two decided last summer to lose 100 pounds before her husband, Army Sgt. 1st Class Charles Jones, returns from serving in Mosul, Iraq. But the whole time she has been losing weight, she has been gaining - gaining knowledge, experience and a fistful of tools to help her sustain a healthy lifestyle.
Jones has passed the 60-pound mark already, and she’s giving some credit for recent losses to mixing it up a bit.
Her new arsenal of classes over at Gold’s Gym helps. First, there’s Body Pump, which challenges her muscles by blending strength training with a cardiovascular workout.
Jones like to follow that session when she can with a Body Combat class, which combines mad moves from a variety of martial arts, such as kickboxing and tae kwon do, with a thumping soundtrack at a fat-burning pace.
The desire to take on new classes comes from a growing confidence built one leg lift at a time in step aerobics, one bite at a time in her comfortable new six-meal-a-day eating plan and one positive thought at a time as she crafts a new self-image to live large in a smaller body.
Body Combat wasn’t the sort of thing Jones envisioned herself doing before she began her fitness and nutrition program. Now she’s attending two or three times a week.
“I actually had zero interest in martial arts. It was more curiosity that brought me into the class,’’ Jones said. For safety’s sake, she took advantage of introductory lessons that taught classmates basic martial arts moves, such as correct form for kicks and jabs.
“The class is absolutely packed,’’ Jones said. “People love it. Guys and girls, old and young - it’s a really diverse class.
“The beauty of it is that it just flies. You’re having so much fun that you’re not noticing the time. That appeal keeps me going back time after time.’’
“It’s a great workout,’’ said Whitney Martin, group fitness director at Gold’s Gym. She teaches the class Jones attends. “Once the members get used to it, they’ll burn about 600 calories a class.
“The music really rocks - it makes a huge difference. Each song has a purpose.’’
Kickboxing may be the focus during one song, while others might focus on specific punches or moves from karate, kung fu ot tae kwon do, Martin said.
“It is intense, and it is for all levels,’’ Martin said.
In addition to taking the introductory technique lessons, combat-class beginners also can follow an instructor’s “low option,’’ which demonstrates lower-impact versions of the full kicks and other motions.
Martin said the modified moves are popular with beginners because they offer them time to build up to the more challenging intensity levels, and people who begin using the low-option motions often feel a sense of accomplishment when they move on to the full extensions and postures.
Over the past seven months, Jones has been expanding her workout vocabulary. She started with treadmill walking and building up strength training on a circuit of machines at the gym under personal trainer Jen Cote’s guidance, gradually advancing to more intense workouts. Now she has the fitness - and the fighting spirit - to try a variety of new activities to keep challenging her body to burn more calories.
“You just want to go out and try new things,’’ she said.
Her hard-won lessons aren’t lost on her 3½-year-old son Cyrus. Younger brother Arman, 1½, isn’t a gym rat just yet, but Cyrus loves joining his mother.
Once or twice a week, while Jones heads to one of her classes, Cyrus dives into an age-appropriate exercise class that helps him build coordination - and burn some of that famous force-of-nature preschooler energy.
“He absolutely loves it,’’ Jones said. “He just gets so excited to go. He just lights up at the thought of going to the gym.’’
Jones points to another benefit any parent would relish. In class, “he listens to instructions,’’ she said.
Jones’s improved fitness is making it easier to bounce back from injuries. A long-time back injury, an old nemesis from her pre-workout days, flared up again during a recent exercise session, but she said it could have happened anywhere.
“I could’ve done it picking up a toy or something,’’ she said.
Luckily, Jones quickly got an appointment with chiropractor Dr. Scott Wagner. She said he recommended some strengthening exercises to help improve her posture.
Cote also has helped her with back-friendly exercises, “and Pilates has been absolutely huge in strengthening my core,’’ Jones said.
“Things like that take time, and I just have to work on it,’’ she said. “I’m a bit of a sloucher.’’ Her habit of holding her growing boys on one hip doesn’t help, she said.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling complimented during her appointment when the doctor called her an athlete.
“He said, ‘I know you athletes, you want to race back to the gym,’ ’’ Jones said.
Jones learned a lot from the experience. It was important to stop, apply ice, seek medical advice, follow instructions and skip a few workouts to give her sore back a rest. To help prevent future injuries, she is paying closer attention to her posture, and she’s grateful that her commitment to exercise has helped her grow stronger to avoid what injuries she can.
The social component of going to the gym also has enhanced Jones’s quest. Cote has become a friend as well as a trainer, and Jones looks forward to seeing all her new friends in classes. Support from other folks who are trying to live healthy lives has added its own rewarding dimension of fun.
“I’ve been involved in such a warm and loving environment over there,’’ Jones said. “You’ve developed a family, and you’ve made contacts, and you can’t wait to get there to see everybody.’’
Strength in numbers is as important in the kitchen as in the gym.
Jones is spreading her calories over the course of the day - which is why that’s all that’s spreading.
“The eating front is going very, very well,’’ Jones said. Jones has been following nutritionist Kate Bruno’s advice to eat throughout the day to keep her metabolism fired up.
She’s eating six meals a day, averaging 300 calories each. As her schedule and activity levels change from day to day, she can balance a 400-calorie meal with a 200-calorie one later, and it’s keeping her appetite under control.
“I’m satisfied, because I’m eating the six meals a day,’’ she said.
She likes a good bowl of cereal, and the return of winter weather has made soup an appealing choice lately.
She enjoyed trying a new butternut squash soup variety recently, and she still reads her nutritional labels faithfully. As Jones scanned the label of a can of chicken soup with white and wild rice, she said, “If I ate the entire can of soup, it’s 220 calories.’’
That means she’s succeeding in another part of her plan.
From the beginning, it has been important to Jones to find a healthy way to lose weight that makes sense in a busy life. She wanted to avoid fads, gimmicks and unattainable claims. And she definitely didn’t want to lose weight by following an artificial regimen and then watch the pounds pour back on once she stopped.
“I want to be able to live my life,’’ she said simply.
Jones recently learned that her husband may be returning home sooner than they’d originally expected. It’s welcome news, and it brings her dream of meeting him at the airport with a leaner figure that much closer.
But it makes it unlikely that she’ll lose the entire 100 pounds before he arrives. Experts say weight loss of more than 2 pounds a week can be unsafe.
That means it’s time for her to revisit one of her earliest goals. Losing 100 pounds may turn out to be attainable for Jones, but she doesn’t have to hang onto an arbitrary timetable. She has been learning to listen to her body, and it has responded by losing flab and toning up lean muscle mass to give her more energy for everything from running on the treadmill to running after her kids.
At this point, the final score isn’t as important, because of how much she already is winning.
When setting goals, it’s important to reach a balance between commitment and flexibility, said Laura Jones, who is certified as a health/fitness instructor by the American College of Sports Medicine and writes a fitness column for The Daily Progress. (Nilou Jones and Laura Jones aren’t related.)
Setting a goal at the outset of a new endeavor, such as deciding to lose a certain number of pounds, is a great way to start. However, remember that once you’ve begun your quest, the landscape may change along the way, and your goals may need to be adjusted to reflect new knowledge.
“When you started, you didn’t have any information,’’ Laura Jones said. “You pick a card, and they’re all face down.
“Changing your goals doesn’t mean you’ve ‘failed.’ It means you’ve changed your goals. It’s all fluid, it’s all changing - as long as you’re still working for something.’’