Made Of Steel?

Next week the new Transformation team at my work will be chosen and we, the guinea pigs of the first program, are probably as excited to find out who they are as the candidates themselves.  The Transformation program and its two brilliant trainers changed my life and I am so happy for the new members because they have no idea the blessings that are about to be in store for them.   The program brought me to the awesome place I am now, it set me on my path, its leaders believed in me before I believed in myself, it inspired this blog, it saved my life, and it brought me friendships of the folks I now regard as family.  We, the inaugural class, now get to act as mentors to the new group, a role that I am really looking forward to.

My "family" and I met up in the gym as usual for our workout today, and in a way, we are as new as the folks who haven't been chosen for the program.  We are new to being on our own to work ourselves out and to be accountable for producing the results.  We've had to figure out our own workouts and also learn how to take ourselves to the next level once those workouts are no longer challenging.   Our trainers are still there as resources and friends, but now that our turn in the program is complete, we have to take the knowledge we gained and add some inner gumption to push ourselves past the comfort zones that become our default setting. We all have confidence in doing the exercises we know best, but what we're learning is how to motivate ourselves in the way a trainer can; to squeeze out that last rep or interval that we didn't think we had in us. 

I'd been kind of frustrated lately because while everyone else was hurting and sore, I didn't have that same soreness. "I'm sore." Millie said last week.  "I'm not." I'd replied. "You must be made of steel," she countered. I have definitely become strong, but my lack of soreness wasn't due to that;  I'd gotten in good workouts, but I'd been doing the same weights and reps and obviously it was time to be my own trainer and make myself do more.

Today I'm happy to say that not only am I going to be sore tomorrow, I could barely lift my sopping wet shirt over my head in the locker room after our workout. Completing a challenging workout with a trainer makes you feel awesome.  Creating and completing a challenging workout on your own though, well that just feels amazing!

Reasons To Do It

As is typical with a Monday workout, all my grandiose intentions in the earlier part of the day seemed unattainable once I actually plugged my earbuds in and started my workout on the elliptical today.  Sundays I rarely workout so on Monday I like to get in some good, sweaty cardio.  However, the coffee energy burst of earlier in the day had left me, ironically right before my workout, and I now just felt sluggish and lethargic. My music wasn't helping, the latest Kardashian antics in US Weekly weren't helping, looking out the window at the scenic Cape Fear River didn't do anything for me.  I flounced along slowly, hating every slow ticking minute, and willed myself to get with it.  In order to inspire/distract myself, I decided to make a list of why I should be doing the exercise that I was currently doing and started to tell myself:

• Do it to get ready for summer.
• Do it for your health.
• Do it because of those cheese nips you ate yesterday afternoon.
• Do it because of the good warm feeling you have after a workout.
• Do it for that pair of jeans in the back of the closet you're just about fitting into.
• Do it for that pile of too big clothes you don't fit into anymore.
• Do it because you're not happy unless you can wring out your shirt.
• Do it for that giddy feeling you always get from working out.
• Do it because it makes you feel like a rock star.
• Do it because listening to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" always makes you feel like you can accomplish anything.
• Do it for the good feeling in your lungs.
• Do it because a healthier you benefits everyone you love.
• Do it because you're committed.
• Do it because you like it.
• Do it because at one time you couldn't.

It worked.  I did the elliptical (which at one time I hated and literally couldn't last one minute on) for longer and faster than I've ever done and when I got off of it, I was sweaty and kinda walking in circles. Basically just the way I like it!

Is It Worth It?

In all things there are challenges, even in good things like transforming your health. So you have to ask yourself before you start out, is the juice worth the squeeze?

• A daily set of workout clothes added to the daily set of work clothes doubles my laundry and I'm in constant battle with the evil troll that lives in my dryer and hides my socks.  Is it worth it?  Yes.
• Step class today reached new heights and I staggered out of there with a neon pink face, a shirt that looked like I'd poured a liter of smart water over my head, and hair so frizzy even Richard Simmons wouldn't claim it.   Is it worth it? Yes.
• I was literally mad at an innocent salad tonight because it wasn't a meatball sub and Doritos.  Is it worth it?  Yes.
• My calves are so sore that my normal gait after the gym has now transformed into part Frankenstein, part George Jefferson.  People literally were asking me if I was okay as I staggered around the office and the grocery store.  The hubs and the dogs have gotten used to this strange limp.  Is it worth it?  Yes.
• Strange things have started hurting after workouts.  Even my toenails are sore.  Is it worth it? Yes.
• I've spent more in these months on tennis shoes than in all the other months of my life combined.  Is it worth it? Yes.
• I have to constantly reinvent the wheel with my food in order to outsmart my metabolism which I am becoming increasingly convinced is sneakier than I am.  Is it worth it?  Yes.
• I have questioned my sanity numerous times because I'm not satisfied at the end of a workout unless I'm sore or about to throw up.  Is it worth it?  Yes.
• A gym bag added to the laptop bag and purse (not to mention lunch bag filled with bulky healthy food) means I never travel lightly.  Is it worth it?  Yes. 
• There's pain.  There's discomfort.  There's frustration.  Is it worth it? Yes.
• There's success.  There's pride.  There's confidence.  There's strength.  There's victory.  Is it worth it?  Double yes.

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.