Joining Forces

Odds are if you spend enough time in a gym, you begin to see who the regulars are, and one thing you'll probably notice is that the majority of those regulars work out in groups.   I know 90% of my success has come from our group dynamic.

As in business, with exercise diversification is key.  You diversify your workouts to keep your muscles confused.  You switch up your food to keep your metabolism guessing.  And it's always good to cast your net out wider to those working out around you in order to make your support system stronger.

Today our group joined forces with another group of regulars for a tough core and cardio workout. It was great to add Sharon and Autumn into our fold.  I know I picked up some tips from them!  The bigger you make your group of supporters, the better the odds are that you won't have to go at things on your own. So reach out to those around you, whether it be in the gym or on the same walking path. They share your goals, struggles, and triumphs.  We're all in this together, and we all get by with a little help from our friends.

My Own Fast

There are many things that I can do fast.  Typing, talking, Facebook recon, shouting Jeopardy answers at the TV, I'm like lightning.  I can come up with a witty little rhyme in the blink of an eye.  But anything physical, you can hang it up. I'm the last one over the finish line. My friend Debbie has a great way of putting a positive spin on this by saying that she's going to be the first to finish last. 

The funny thing is, is that for the past couple of days, I've found my speed from somewhere.  Like any other challenging exercise endeavors, you plug away and plug away every day at it and then suddenly everything clicks. 

Yesterday I had the pleasure to play trainer to my group of workout buddies and my brother.  He's in great shape and I wondered if my circuit workout would be challenging enough for him.  With great pleasure I saw the sweat on his brow as we did burpees, kettle bell swings, squat presses, planks, and  bag strikes, all with a run down the length of the gym in between each exercise to keep the heart rate up. It was on one of those runs that I found myself neck and neck with my brother...and I could keep up with him.  It was about this time that Jeff and Marisa came into the gym to see the six of us sweating it out and Charles and I barreling towards them.   They said it did their hearts good to see us keeping up with our workouts together now that we have left their nest.

Today it was on again in Step Class where Marisa brought things to a new level.  I swear she must have eaten the Power Wheaties today.  But again, the funny thing happened and my speed came back. When you've spent a considerable amount of years plodding slowly and painfully along, to fly up and down a step, keeping up with the tricky choreography, feels amazing. To be able to cut off your mind and let your body endure feels amazing.  Walking into the locker room completely drenched feels amazing.

I am definitely not the fastest one in the bunch, even after over a year of working out, but I'm finding my own speed. I'm learning that the only person I need to compare myself to is the old Jennifer.  I may be the first to finish last, but I've smoked that chick!

Taken tonight.

Last year, for comparison.

Back on the Road

We all have our slip ups and backslides.  On any journey there are twists and turns and bumps in the road.  For me it happened this weekend.  After being so good at dinner Friday night, I found myself with an unusual appetite on Saturday and Sunday and with events like a cookout and a family reunion to test my resolve.  I didn't go completely "off the ranch" but I definitely indulged more than I should. What scared me though, was the fact that I knew what I was doing, but didn't care at the time.  That got me worried: would the end of my program do me in?  Would the fact that I wasn't accountable to Jeff and Marisa officially anymore send me back to my wicked ways?  I must say that I felt a bit rogue, on my own for the first time and faltering.

It happens to all of us, and what shook out at the end of this weekend is that I learned that I am not completely healed.  I still have a long ways to go. But, I also learned to recognize the warning signs and pull back on the ropes.   Instead of throwing in the towel, I got back on plan today with healthy eating and a hard cardio workout.

Most of my workout team was either on vacation today or in meetings during our usual gym time, so I was so grateful and joyous to have my friend Julie to join me.  Julie was working out with me in the beginning and is now getting back on her own track with a determination to make things happen.

It is as Mike Clay said when he came to speak to my group, "If you had a flat tire you would pull over and fix it right?  You wouldn't shoot out the other three tires, set the car on fire, and roll it down the hill would you?" 

The former me would definitely have a burned up car at the bottom of the hill with four bad tires. I am relieved to say that the new me, along with my pal Julie, fixed her tire and got back on the road of her journey.

Wrapping up the Week

TGIF!  I'm so glad the weekend is here! I went to my second yoga class today and it was awesome. Yoga is the perfect addition to a fitness routine, especially after you've been beating your body up all week.  The best part comes at the end when we lay on our backs and stretch out each one of our toes.   Heaven.  I am getting better hang of the proper breathing techniques and holding in the giggles...challenging today because I could have sworn the music was straight off of the "Karate Kid" movie score from the parts where Mr. Miagi is getting ready to tell Daniel-san something wise.

The work day finally ended and then it was off to date night with the hubby.  Tonight he wanted to go to Mike's Farm, a wonderful place out in the country, right in the middle of a Christmas tree farm. It's great out there this time of year because of all the pumpkins, hayrides, and apple cider...puts you in the mood to watch "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown".


The restaurant usually has a two hour waiting list because of their good country cooking.   Dinner is served family style with all of the fried chicken, country ham biscuits, green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, pork loin, and gravy you can eat. And that's before dessert.  Their mac and cheese is so epic that back in the bad old days, I spent an entire weekend cracking the recipe, and let me tell you, it is sinful.

I haven't been to Mike's Farm since I found the diet religion, but Eric wanted to go so badly that I gave in and I'm proud to report that I ate the pork loin and vegetables with only a taste of mac and cheese.  It was definitely the first time I've ever left there not feeling completely stuffed and miserable, and that was better than all the mac and cheese and fried chicken in the world.

At the tree farm.

Subway Stand-off

Why does healthy food cost more?  As if it's not hard enough to eat right, insult is added to injury with a heftier price tag.   Think about how cheap you can eat at Taco Bell as opposed to getting a grilled chicken salad.  And, all of the food on the outside parameters of the grocery store goes on MVP special a lot less often than Hamburger Helper or mac and cheese.  You can super coupon your way to five toothbrushes and seven free cans of Spaghetti O's, but what's a girl gotta do to get some discount broccoli? Can I get an amen?

Just tonight I was in Subway, a seemingly safe harbor with Jared and all that, standing in line mentally building my sub and tallying the calories, when the sandwich artist informed me that it would actually be cheaper to turn my six inch into a five dollar foot-long.  I stood there debating and calculating.  My hunger level from Millie's arm ripping workout earlier was high.  It was late in the evening and I knew if I bought a foot-long, I wouldn't save the other half for lunch tomorrow. 

I ordered my six inch and the sandwich artist kind of shook his head as he fixed my order. I looked at him and said, "If I get the foot-long, I'll eat it."  He looked back at me as if to say, "Isn't that the point?" I squinted my eyes back at him as if to say, "Just toast my sub sandwich artist, and let me be on my way."

Just like any other sacrifice along the journey to health, there are times when you have to do the impractical even though the money in your wallet and the hunger in your stomach tell you otherwise. Sometimes you have to pay a little more, and sometimes you have to seem a little crazy, and sometimes you have to stand up for yourself. It's worth it in the long run.  Now, who's got a hook up with some discount bananas?

The End of the Beginning and Transition 2.0

Last September Jeff and Marisa sat us all down and told us the plan for our Transformation program: we were going to work out with them for a year and transform our lives.   At the time I felt like an interloper in the gym, a person who didn't belong.  I balanced precariously on the exercise ball I was sitting on in the group exercise room with the others, terrified that I was either going to fall off of it or that it was going to pop. I looked around at the group of strangers around me who had similar glazed over expressions on their faces.  A year. Wow.  Such a long time it seemed. At the time I was there because I knew it was my last chance, but I truly felt like I could grow a second head easier than I could do what they were telling us we were about to do. I was in near panic just sitting on that exercise ball amongst all of the fitness equipment, in such close proximity to people who - gasp - voluntarily exercised. 

Fast forward to present time. A year has passed. Those strangers have now become some of my dearest friends, the gym has become my happy place, I'm now a person that people come to when they have questions about the gym or the daily classes, and I'm no longer scared of the exercise ball.  I've crunched on it, bounced on it, balanced on it for push-ups, and stretched out across it on my back in the "I'm Ready Jesus" pose at the end of a hard workout. Amongst other things. 

How quickly a year passes... Yesterday was our last official workout of our program.  After our final official weigh-in (90 pounds lost!) Jeff and Marisa led us outside where we proceeded to jog through the parking lot and down to the river walk.  As we jogged I thought about the many walks Marisa and I have taken, the deep conversations, the increasing distances, and the random things we've seen like an abandoned pair of granny panties that were left around a pole for weeks and a huge raccoon that burst out of the rushes.  I thought about how I finally got Sylvia out there one day (she hates outside) for a walk, only to have a huge fish swim up along side the pier and go into death throws in front of us.  I thought about three weeks ago when Florence, Laks, and I took a walk and planned the next phase of our journey.  And I thought about the day Marisa made me sit down and up from a low piling until my legs shook and I didn't think I was going to make it back to the office.  That was the day I "got low" for the first time and my quads haven't forgotten it.

It was a fitting location for our last official workout.  We revisited those low squats, did quick step-ups on the pilings, bench dips on the actual benches (oh the irony), planks on the planks (okay I must be stopped) and ran, ran, ran.  All too soon though, it was time to head back inside. Too soon we were back in the gym and the workout was done.   We all kind of stood around in a circle, talking about how far we've come. I must admit I teared up, it was all a bit overwhelming.

But - we've got a good thing going that we intend to keep going.  We're going to continue our weekly weigh-ins and try our hands at training ourselves.  We have all the tools in our belt to move forward and take our journey to the next level, together. Transition 2.0 begins now.

Sometimes it's a Chore

There is a window of time in each day when even the most dedicated person loses momentum.  No matter how much you enjoy working out or how committed you are, there comes a point in your day when you just don't feel like working out. For me, this time of day is the evening.

I found myself today faced with this challenge.  I'd enjoyed a wonderful lunch with my Momma and brother during my hour break today and so I waited until after work to go down to the gym.  It was Monday.   I was tired.  It was nearly six o'clock and I was facing not only a forty-five minute ride home but also a trip to the grocery store and a load of laundry waiting for me at home.   What usually is something that I look forward to suddenly had become a chore. 

I've written about this before. It's how I feel every time I have to workout after work...unmotivated, grouchy, and nervous about how late the evening is getting. But I know that if I let myself skip one day, it gets just that easier to skip the next day, and then the next and that's how the momentum deflates.

Thank goodness some of my friends were in the gym and I didn't feel like I was there by myself. When your motivation is low, you just have to grasp on to anything that pushes you forward.  That being said, halfway through my run I heard a loud siren.   I jumped onto the sides of the treadmill and hit the emergency stop button.  Yanking my ear buds out, I looked around to see everyone else in the same state of exercise freeze frame. 95% of me was like, "Yes!  Fire alarm! Let me grab my stuff and get out of here!" 

But alas, the alarm was just a sound effect built into the track of the song playing on the speakers and I had to continue my workout.  I finished but I didn't push it like I normally would had I been working out at my normal time.  Days like today will happen and sometimes you just have to suck it up and get things done, but in order to get the most out of a workout, you need to pick a time of day that you are most motivated.  Either that or pray for a fire alarm.