Fighting The Fight

A documentary on the making of the Rocky movies sucked me in Sunday afternoon and, I must admit, turned me into a temporary couch potato. It was interesting to see how the making of the movies and Stallone's own life paralleled the Rocky story, one that has always been one of my favorites.   I guess it's the classic underdog story that rallies me, but I love Rocky and his ability to take a punch but always get back up and fight back.

Shortly into the beginnings of my training with my trainer Jeff, he had the idea of taking me over to the heavy bag in our gym and teaching me how to throw a punch.   With that first hit of my fist into that bag something inside me began to stir.   At that point I was feeling my first successes of losing weight, but I was still unsure of myself and lacking in confidence.  At the time, I was just learning how to break myself out of the place in my life that I had dwelled in for far too long; a place where I sat by and let things happen, let the dissatisfaction with myself bring on destructive emotions, and then let those bad emotions lead me to the behaviors that kept me in that overweight and unhealthy state.  I was reactive rather than proactive.

The day that I threw those first punches, the fighter in me began to wake up.  Hitting that bag felt good and soon I had purchased my first pair of pink Everlasts.  I found myself wailing on that bag more and more often; I would find the angriest music on my Ipod and fight that bag until the sweat ran down my back and my knuckles were sore.  Once I took the skin off of them (even with gloves on). When life presented problems that bothered me, as happens to all of us, I took them out in the gym and that bag, rather than on myself with bad food choices.

Learning to fight back, whether it be against the mitts my trainer held or against my baser tendencies, flipped the script on my weight loss efforts.  Suddenly I was in full-on attack mode with my workouts, my pace even outside of the gym became faster, and I became proactive rather than reactive.  After years of starting and stopping this battle and walking around with the knowledge that a lot of folks had counted me out, I finally knew in my heart that I was a contender.

Weight loss is for some of us the fight of our lives and for our lives made all more difficult by the constant opposition of the greatest antagonist we all will face: ourselves. Who else knows all the chinks in my armor but me?  Who knows my greatest temptations? Who is the most persuasive voice I know?  Me.

For me, I must keep the knowledge of this and the fight fresh in my mind everyday.  I have to tell myself at the start of every day that this is the fight of my life, that I have everything I need in order to win it, and if I go down, I'm going down swinging.

Zumba Marathon Round 2

Even after all this time, about five minutes into every workout my muscles tell me they are tired and don't want to move. My lungs act like they want to feel out of breathe.   The knee that sometimes is wonky starts to let its presence be known.   My body tells me I'm tired, that I've worked out hard enough, that I'm too worn out or didn't eat enough or need to take a break.  This is all in the first five minutes.  Every time.  I remember taking off in my first 5K and looking back at my family behind me thinking, "what the heck am I doing?"

Over time though I've learned to silence this inner voice and know it for what it is:  doubt.   Over time I've learned that if I can get through those first five minutes and push forward, my muscles will limber up and my inner stamina will kick in.

Today Lakshmi and I went to our second two hour Zumba marathon.  This past summer, when we attended our first, we approached it with the idea that we would show up and see how much of it we could do.   We never expected that we could do a full two hours of intense cardio, but we managed to make it the whole time, despite how tough it was.  

This time I knew I could do it, but during those first five minutes in, my mind started to make me doubt my earlier confidence.  The instructors were pumping up the crowd, the crowd was shouting and dancing, the music was awesome, the disco ball threw colored lights over the darkened dance floor, but my mind was telling me, "you're tired, you worked out hard all week so you need to take it easy, your knee hurts and you're going to injure yourself, these steps are too complicated, you need to stop now."  

Sheer stubbornness kept me going today and in every workout I've ever done.  I refused to give into the inner slacker that dominated my life before my lifestyle change and after those first doubtful minutes, my stronger body took over and carried me through two hours of intense Zumba.

At the end of the class we were drenched in sweat and sore but in better condition than we were after our first Zumba marathon. 

After our first Zumba marathon this summer.

After zumba today: smaller us, more sweat.

Inner voices tell us that we cannot accomplish our goals; they also try to convince us that it's okay to eat things we shouldn't.  One of the best things I've learned along this journey is how to tell that voice to shut the h%$* up.

Navy Seal Workout

Trainers are sneaky.  No negative connotation implied, I mean that they are sneaky in a way that gets you to do what you never thought you would be capable of. They believe in you before you believe in yourself.

One of my friends told me about the Navy Seal workout plan the other day and I was curious enough to google it.  Reading it through I realized that if we ommitted the swimming portion (our gym doesn't have a pool) we could totally pull it off. It would definitly work towards the "kicking it up" movement.

God bless my trusting friends! I told them to just go along with me and I'd tell them at the end what kind of workout we had done.  It kicked our butts but when we were done I had learned a few things. One: full situps are sooo much harder than crunches. Two: we have more stamina and strength than we think we do. And three: the jaw dropping grin on my friends' faces when I told them what we had just completed was so worth any soreness I may have tomorrow.

On the way to the locker room I ran into our trainer Jeff and told him how I tricked the girls into the seal workout.  He grinned and said, "Now you're thinking like a trainer."

 

My Special Skills

Day one of "kicking it up" started with our usual Wednesday Step Class.  I've been doing this class for over a year and I'm still a hot mess.  If you're intimidated about going to classes, let me tell you a little about my "special skills":

• A lot of the time when we're supposed to be going left, I end up going right.
• Once in Step class I didn't realize how big the particular pair of gym pants I was wearing had gotten and they actually started to fall off mid V-step.  Thank goodness I was in the back row and wearing all black.
• Same situation, different pair of now-too-big pants and I went tripping over the cuffs that had gotten too long, almost nose diving onto my step.
• At least five times in any Zumba or Step class I end up stopping and looking around like I'm lost in a foreign country for several beats.
• Today in abs class my exercise ball, which was supposed to be clenched firmly under my knees as I crunched, popped loose from my grasp and went flying across the room causing me to have to chase it and dodge all of the other crunchers in the process not once but two times.
• Yoga positions tend to make me either laugh or make the corresponding animal sounds and I doubt I'll ever be able to meditate or get my breathing right.
• One thing am I really good at is Kickboxing or any type of combat-oriented class.  Not sure what that says about my personality.  Sometimes I imagine myself as a ninja, right before I almost trip over my too-long pants.
• Once in Tabata I almost flew off of my exercise ball into my friend Millie, not once but four times.  I really am hazardous with those things.
• No matter the calamity or daring feat of lack of coordination, I just resolve to keep moving until the end of class and end up getting a great workout.

Confessions of Second Best

Whenever I start feeling like I'm not putting in my best effort food or exercise wise, I go and confess or "tell on myself" to one of my trainers.   That's a sure fire way to earn myself a lecture and get kicked right back onto the straight and narrow.

Today after my workout I ran into one of my trainers, Marisa, in the gym and confessed that I felt I wasn't pushing as hard as I should be. Most of us sway off of our paths during the holidays and I must admit that I wasn't as good as I should have been.  I didn't go off the deep end by any means, but I did allow myself more food (in particular carbs) that I knew that I should be eating.

My self-tattling had the predicted effect and she proceeded to give me a talking-to about kicking it up. It was just what I needed to hear.  She also confirmed something that has been in the back of my mind for a while: that it gets harder when you get to this level.   "When you work out for so long as hard as you guys have, you can't just come down to the gym and walk on the treadmill. That won't get you anywhere anymore. You've got to work harder and harder to get the results you want."

Ah! Light dawns on yonder head.  I've known for a long time about muscle confusion, and I keep my workouts varied for that reason, but just like anything in life, the more you progress, the more is expected.  We've worked ourselves out so hard for such a long time that our bodies won't settle for second best.

So now the road in the journey becomes harder to travel.  Do I want to give up and turn around for easier ground?  Not in a million years.  Is losing weight at this stage any easier than it was when I first started? By no means. Am I struggling just as much as the new folks in the gym this week starting their resolutions?  Yep.  But we're all in this together. 

The Anti-Resolution

So it's here again: New Year's Resolution time.  Gyms will swell with new exercisers.  Classes will be packed to capacity.  Janet Jackson, Jennifer Hudson, and Mariah Carey beckon to us from commercials to come try their preferred method of weight loss.  It's a new year and the time has come when a lot of folks will resolve to make a new start on their health and fitness.

The problem with New Year's resolutions I've found is the negative stigma they hold.   In the bad ole days, I'd go off Roman style during the holidays, eating whatever I wanted and telling myself in the back of my mind that it was okay because January 1 was coming for me to redeem myself with a new outlook on eating and exercise.  Then, after ringing in the New Year, resolution time would rear its ugly head and I would become resentful...all that fire and fury I'd been storing up towards changing my life would pilfer out in another unsuccessful attempt.

Last year at this time I decided to not make a New Year's resolution but to instead head into 2011 with resolve to maintain my new healthy lifestyle.  And let me tell you, some amazing things can happen in a year if you just keep one foot in front of the other, moving always forward.  In the twelve months that were 2011, I completed my first two hour Zumba marathon, flipped a 367 pound tire in 100 degree heat 18 times, did my first 5K and was in the gym five days a week, every week.  And those were just the high lights.  There were many other small but amazing victories along the way that made every sore muscle worth it.

So what I'm going to do to start 2012 is to not make a resolution, but rather to move forward with resolution. It's a kind of anti-new years resolution because most of the time those don't last.  What does bring lasting change is the satisfaction that putting in the work every day and doing what is good for your body gives you.

What Happens When The New Wears Off?

I've had the pleasure for the past two days of having my friend L in town to workout with.  She travels for work and sometimes is gone eighty percent of the time, so her being in town and in the office has been a real treat for me.

Yesterday we did an arm workout I created that included bench presses, hitting the heavy bag, curl presses, and a routine with the heavy ropes.  I was quite proud when, after we'd moved on from the ropes, to see a group of guys (who are in the gym every day pumping iron) copying the exact same circuit we had just done. 

Today was beautiful and sunny so L and I decided to do our warm up outside on the riverwalk.  As we trucked along she started shivering and when I asked if she was cold, she said "Yes!  I used to have a layer of fat to warm me up and I don't anymore."  That cracked me up and then I realized that I definitely have become cold-natured since I changed my lifestyle.  It's interesting to see what happens with your body besides what happens on the scale.

As we walked back to the gym to continue our workout inside, our discussion, as usual, turned deep about our weight loss journey. We've trained together in our Transformation program and that created a strong bond between all of us.

"You know L," I said to her. "We've been at this a while; we're on the next leg of our journey and we're not newbies anymore. In some ways that's harder."

You think when you first get started that that is the hardest your struggle is ever going to be; don't get me wrong, it's tough, but the next leg is somewhat harder.  Your body gets used to the initial shock of your lifestyle change and you have to constantly switch up your workout and your food.  You have a tendency to plateau more often.  Your initial strictness slips a little and you have to constantly reign yourself back from slipping into old behaviors.   The new wears off and you have to find the resolve in yourself in order to keep fighting the fight.  You have to find the gumption to keep going because this race is about endurance more than anything.

So what happens when the new wears off?  For me, I draw strength from my support system, like L, take a deep breathe, and keep fighting. Bring on the next leg of the journey.