Sometimes I forget that my body is a machine.
I started doing group classes at a gym. I couldn't count on myself to get out of bed at the crack of freaking dawn and work out in my living room. So, I joined the gym near my work. The cost is a higher than a normal gym, and surely more expensive than no gym at all, but there's a couple of key reasons why I made this (monetary) commitment, since I could just go run around the block, right?:
1- I'm paying for it and I don't want to waste my money. Ultimately, I want to exercise, but I have had the hardest time actually doing it. For whatever reason, I just couldn't MAKE myself get off my ass and do something active. Now if I don't, I'm wasting money. Trying to pay for a wedding and honeymoon right now doesn't leave much extra, but I'm considering this monthly payment a HUGE investment into my future, and of course, it won't hurt to look fucking amazing for my wedding. ; )
2- Accountability. There are people at my work who go to this gym, and frequently go work out at lunch. Seeing them go, them asking me if I'm going, and having to actually face up to someone if I don't go, is motivation for me. Also, although I'm new now, I have already started to meet people, and the instructors, at the gym and I would like to walk in proudly everyday and kick ass, not walk-in every other week and suck at the work out and know that I am not giving it enough.
3- Didn't even realize this as a reason, but now I'm noticing too, that the work outs are 10 million times better than working out alone at my house. The instructors target areas, change the routines, yell out to pump up the energy, and coach on form (VERY IMPORTANT). Work out videos just don't have that. I'm already not bored. I'm excited about even barely being able to keep up and I know that once I get better, there's so much room to keep pushing harder and harder. See, I'm excited... this is something I was totally missing when I was attempting to drag my comfy ass out of bed to go unwillingly work out in my living room. Which, brings me to the next reason;
4- Since my choice to work out doesn't have anything to do with staying in my nice warm covers, the choice is MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to make. I'm already right there, there's classes at my lunch time, I have no good reason not to go. I like that. I didn't realize that I needed that decision to be easy for me. I would give myself such a hard time for being so lazy in the morning, and felt guilty about not making an effort to be healthy and strong (and look damn fine!). I can keep this up!!
5- This isn't so much a reason why I joined, but it is definitely going to make a huge difference for me, physically and financially. To use my lunch hour to to work out, I HAVE to get my clothes and food for the day ready at home and bring it to work with me. That automatically saves my money and calories to eat my lunch from home rather than going out to lunch (fast food, etc.). And.....the hard part is already done by the time my lunch hour comes. I already made the hard choices, and all I have to do is change clothes and walk over there.
YESSSSS!!!! Finally something that actually works for me. I've needed this for such a long time.
When my man was deployed to Iraq for the 2011 year, I worked out all the time and ate tons of veggies and I looked at felt amazing. A - MAY - ZING! When he got home (not blaming him at all!!), we just got lazy together. Who could help that? We got comfortable, and life happened and we didn't focus on healthy eating, and got stuck in the rut of whatever what quick and convenient. It's taken a year of this lifestyle to loose my muscle gain some weight back, and basically feel shitty, physically and mentally.
Side note- I am mostly not self conscious about my appearance. Thankfully, I have never mentally felt fat, I have always had confidence, but there's also a negative to that, and it's that I am normally fine with being lazy. I typically have needed to get to point of feeling physically disgusting before I've taken action. It wasn't until the year he was gone, where I 1)was trying to keep myself occupied, and 2)had the goal of getting in shape enough to have sex without being concerned about body fat flopping around. (Sorry to my future Mother in Law and Sister in Law, who sometimes ready my blog and would probably rather not know that detail, butttt, it's true, and it was a very good motivator.) Point is, it's the physical feeling of shittiness that motivates me. That is unfortunate, but at least there's something that will push me!
I don't like having the extra padding on my body. I don't like what it looks like in pictures, I don't like how it feels to clap my hands and have my flabby arms wave like wings (think, Oprah arms), and I surely don't like how my "skinny" pants feel tight now. I think I already mentioned that I WILL NOT BE BUYING NEW FREAKING FAT PANTS. I FUCKING REFUSE!!!!! I got rid of my larger sized clothes, knowing I never wanted to wear that size again. I still fit into my size 10 pants, but they're snug and THAT is enough of a rude awakening, among plenty of other reasons, to get my shit into gear and DO SOMETHING. (Among other reasons.... sugar. BLEH!! Tis the season, and that season is over, and as much as I enjoy cookies and pie and cake and monkey bread, I do NOT enjoy wasting money on new clothes in a size I don't want to wear. And I just feel nasty after all that sugary crap!!)
I can think about working out all I want. I can say I want to work out all day long. It finally dawned on me, (Thanks Nike!), to just freaking DO IT. Just do it. JUST DO IT. Keyword: DO.
So, to be clear. This is NOT a new year's resolution. This is in no way in hell a diet, don't even dare call it that. This is simply something that I want really really bad, and have finally figured out a way to make it happen.
I really hoped that after all the work I had done in 2011 that I would be able to keep it up. I had thought that my man would come home and we could work out together. Again, not blaming him at all, but that just didn't happen. I kept hoping we could somehow magically work our schedules or motivation and energy to get into the habit of doing something together, and I finally just realized I had to do it by myself. In 2011 I went with my friend Leia and it worked out great! Our schedules fit, our kids went to kid's club together, we carpooled, etc. Neither her nor the man could help me this time though.
I will admit, even though I refuse to diet, that I am tracking food on Weight Watchers. Again, that is an "investment" I made that I really didn't want to waste. I had signed up for a 3 month plan, that will be done the end of this month (January) and I don't think I'll be continuing it, but we'll see. I haven't tracked regularly up until this point, and I sure as hell haven't lost any weight (gained actually- shocking!), but thankfully, when I do finally get the motivation to work out, I naturally want to eat less crap. Why would I work so hard to burn calories and gain muscle, and then sabotage it with eating pumpkin pie for breakfast? So, I'm going to track this month, get my damn money's worth, which I already know works if I actually do it, and that will be my super banging kick-start. These work outs are already kicking my damn butt, so even a little bit of change in food intake (haha not diet) will make a difference.
All of that brings me to the point of this blog....
Last week I joined the gym and participated in my first group class exercise there. It was tough! !! The instructor had a mean work out lined up for us, and I pushed it, but with my complete lack of physical activity and poor food choices, I felt like shit afterwards. I started to feel light headed towards the end of the work out and felt nasty for a few hours afterwards, even after eating. When I asked, the instructor mentioned eating a snack beforehand, including carbs. (Maybe I should have known that... I did grab some almonds on my way over, knowing I needed to eat something, but it wasn't enough, and it was too late.)
That brings me to today, my second class (now that the holidays are over, I'm planning to go Mon-Thurs), and I ate an apple and a string cheese before, about an hour before. Guess what, I still felt light-headed. I followed up the work out with a almond milk/whey protein shake, and a banana, and I don't feel like shit now. That feeling went away pretty quickly, but what it made me realize, is that my body is a machine. I need fuel to give me energy and power. These are the sort of things people end up paying attention to when they work out. Those are not the things I was paying attention to when I was stuffing my face with spinach dip and french bread. Those are the things that I will learn, which snacks help me feel the best, and how soon I should eat before a work out. I will get used to fueling my body to kick-ass! Feeling like a machine was how I felt when I ran a lot to train for a half marathon. Realizing that the thoughts I had about running were totally separate from how my body actually performed. I pushed through wanting to take a break because I knew already that my body could handle it. It's so easy to feel intimidated about working hard and pushing your limits, but it's mental. My body is a machine that can accomlish WAY WAY more than my mind thinks I can. Note to self: Remember that!
I know it sounds like I'm giving myself a hard time. I'm not. Really. I just truly appreciate looking back and seeing how living my life one way will give me one set of results (heart burn for the first time in my life), and the results I get from living my life another way. I care about my life, for me, and also for the man I'm marrying this year, and of course for my daughter. For my daughter as an example, and even just to be around for her. Eventually I plan to have another baby and I want to start off in great shape before I get a new baby belly to work off. I care about my arms not looking fat in my wedding pictures.... I will look at those pictures for the rest of my life and I want to be tone and strong and .... even just comfortable. Comfortable to see those pictures and not wish that I could change something. I don't want disease. I dont' want to be sorry later on in life when it's too late. I know I can't wait for something to go terribly wrong before I try to fix it. Right now it's not too late. Every single day is a chance to start fresh. I'm setting myself up to win this time, because history shows that if I don't, then I fail.
It feels so much better to work hard than to feel guilty and lazy. SO. MUCH. BETTER. It's worth the effort.
-krista
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