Tag Archives: exercise

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DAY 715: Not drawn to scale

Getting back on the horse has been so exhausting and challenging, I can’t help but curse past-me for having gotten off in the first place.  That was dumb, past-me.  SHAME ON YOU/ME/US.

As I’ve most recently lamented, sleep has been a problem lately.  Just when the remedy to that arrived (my new mattress and box spring finally came at the end of last week!), I had a nasty allergic flare-up amid a sudden onset of spring that has woken me up persistently throughout the night so I can give in to full-body coughing fits.  It’s really just the loveliest.  I can only imagine how much worse it would be without my Rx antihistamines and allergy shots (though I really don’t have to imagine)!

This, and a slightly indulgent Saturday (two meals out that included mostly healthy choices, with the exception of one cocktail and one pastry, and zero gym time although I still made all my daily steps), converged to stall my weight loss.  My scale has been showing me wildly inconsistent numbers that seem like they’re just being randomly generated by some gremlin living inside the scale, and I’ve given in to weighing in often multiple times a day just to try to identify what my real weight might be.  Foolish and counter-productive, is what I’d call that venture.  I am now swearing off the scale until the end of this week.  I know for my own sake I can’t weigh in more than once a week.  Back to that.

Also, I’ve been generally slacking at the gym.  I still go for the most part, but I’ve been letting myself off the hook of really pushing myself.  I know the pounds aren’t gonna drop off for free; I have to pay for that shit with my sweat.  What I’ve been doing hasn’t been cutting it.  I know that, and yet I haven’t been pushing myself.  Come on, self.  Scale gremlin lives off this kind of laxness.

I’m also wearing orthotics now, as prescribed by my podiatrist.  As my body adjusts to their correctional effects, there’s some stiffness and soreness in random joints up and down my legs.  I know it’s temporary, but it is a bit of a hindrance.

Things are finally trending toward equilibrium, though, and I’ve slowly noticed I’m feeling more rested when I first get up in the morning.  I’ve even dared to let myself believe that the slimmer neck and shoulders on the body I’m seeing in the mirror might be real.

During my Sunday visit to the gym, I did some interval jogging on the treadmill for the first time in ages, maxing out on 3 minutes straight at 5.0 MPH.  Last night at the gym, I self-insisted on my arms circuit and event tried a new machine that had always been a little intimidating to me (the rower) before pushing myself on the elliptical (which only exists in models I don’t like at my gym).   Still not a profuse sweat, but a good start.  And honestly, the post-workout soreness from the two days combined is highly satisfying.

This morning, walking down the stairs to leave my building, I felt more energetic and lighter on my feet.

And then when I arrived at work today, I got the affirmation of a co-worker.

Her:  “You look like you’ve lost some weight.  Have you been losing weight?”
Me (out loud):  cheshire

Me (internally):  “Why, yes.  Yes, I have.”  (HEAR ME, SCALE GREMLIN!  HEAR ME!  **shakes fist**)

In your face, container of brownies that mocked me at the grocery store last Friday.  You can bite me.

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DAY 681: Febru-wary

Oh, man. I finally hit the gym for the first time in ages two nights ago, and I was sore the entire next day.  I’m actually still feeling it in my muscles even today, but I have a deal with myself to hit the gym religiously every other day no matter what, until there is no soreness the next day.  At that point, I’ll add strength training back into the mix and do that every other day, but cardio every time I go to the gym, which will be at least 5 days per week.  That will get me back to where I was when things were all going right.

Sooo, like a good little-big girl, I went back tonight.  I didn’t make it as long or push myself as hard as I did two nights ago, but I did what I needed to do.  It does feel good to know I’m moving again, and the physical exertion cyclically reinforces the effort of the good eating habits.

Unfortunately, I moved in July, and I HATE my new(ish) gym.  I hate, hate, hate it.  The equipment is cruddy, it’s always way too crowded, and the people it’s crowded with are mostly meathead guys who think they’re bad-asses, but really, they’re skinny little punks who sit on the weight machines and pay more attention to their phone than the time elapsing between their sets.  Assholes.  Furthermore, none of the machines — cardio or weights — are the type I like or am used to, and there aren’t enough of them to go around so as to avoid waiting to work out.  Seriously, I hate this damn gym.

All this to say, the coaxing I have to do to get myself to go to the gym when I’m feeling under motivated, is even more difficult now that I have to go do something hard at a place I despise.  I mean, it could be worse, but man, does this place suck!

Added to that, I have a fun new twist on an old story: the heel spur I’ve had since July of 2015 is still around.  Not only is it still around, but it’s begun to become painful instead of just annoying.  Now that I’ve resumed working out, I’ve noticed a difference in the way I’m distributing my weight on my feet, which has made me conscientious of how I walk and stand in regular daily situations.  I’ve apparently been compensating for the discomfort caused by my bone spur.  I don’t want that to cause a whole new set of problems, so I’m seeing my podiatrist on Friday.  I hope he can take care of it right then and there instead of asking me to do stretches at home for a few weeks or something, cuz I’m not trying to deal with this anymore.  If I end up needing any form of treatment that requires me to be off of my feet for any period of time, I’m prepared for that, and I will find ways to keep moving so I get some burn in.  It just has to stop.

February is off to a kind of meh start, but I am still feeling committed and resolute, even if a little wary.

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DAY 680: Going against the (mi)grain(e)

This past Saturday, I had possibly the worst migraine of my life.

At some point after all the vomiting, a new sense of resolve overcame me.  It’s well past time for me to have found a way to kick myself in the ass hard enough to get back on the fitness express, but I just haven’t been able to really tap back into the feelings that gave me so much strength and power to go hard around this time last year.  Maybe it was all the incidental cleansing from the migraine-induced yakking, but somewhere in my mind, the right synapse finally fired and reanimated those atrophied senses.  I finally felt truly recommitted to The Mission.

On Sunday, when I was back to feeling 100%, I prepped my week’s worth of meals and portioned them out along with my snacks.

Yesterday, I hit the gym for the first time in months.

Today, I signed up for 2 new DietBets.

I’m back, baby.  Go time.

P.S. WordPress tells me that, quite fittingly, this is my 100th blog post!

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DAY 408: Wake up and smell the regret

I think I got a total of 45 minutes of sleep last night.

Why?  Because I went on an epic binge before bed.

Why?  No idea.

What I do know is, it wasn’t worth it.

However, I can say that for the first time ever, I was at the gym at 4:58 in the morning with the early risers.  I got my pick of the machines without needing to wait for the meatheads to get out of the way.  I even, for the first time in a while, got on an elliptical for the long haul.  It was awesome, but frankly, very gassy.  Every time I started up a “hill” on the work-out setting, I was like that thing your car does when it’s low on fuel:  putputput pfffft.  With only 12 minutes left of my hour, I had to jump off of the machine and succumb to runner’s trots and last night’s mistakes.  (Listen, I know it’s not lady like to talk about farting and pooping, but I am not a lady at the gym.  I’m barely human.  I’m a freaking red-faced, sweat-drenched animal.)  You’re welcome for this story.

I’m not really a morning person; my VivoFit shows I get my deepest sleep in the hours before my alarm goes off at 7 AM.  Maybe I’m pampered, but I really bank on my 8-9 hours of sleep, and in order to get up early enough in the morning to work out, shower, and get ready for work, would require me to go to bed at like 9 PM in order to get enough rest.  But, given how much less stressful it actually was to work out because the gym was virtually empty, and how much quicker I was able to get through my weights circuit for the same reason, it may be worth trying a change in routine for a week to see how it goes.  It may also shake up my body’s rhythm enough to spark a drop in weight.

Walking home afterwards, “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus came on my iPod.  I downloaded it last year as an unlikely weight-loss song I would listen to on long walks around my neighborhood in the cool evenings after hot days in the summer.  It’s a kind of sappy song from the days in Miley’s career before she came in like a wrecking ball and started dancing with Molly.  Cheesy though it may be, it does ring true:

There’s always gonna be another mountain


I’m always gonna wanna make it move

Always gonna be an uphill battle

Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose

Ain’t about how fast I get there

Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side

It’s the climb

So, I’m gonna put the terrible choices of last night and rumspringa and everything else behind me where they belong, and keep on climbing.  It’s hard, but it’s the good type of hard.  I think I’m finally feeling in control again.

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DAY 358: Fat week

It snowed on March 4th and reached 80 degrees on March 8th.  Springtime appeared practically over night.  I was so giddy from the sudden delightful weather last week that I decided to lose my damn mind and run OUTSIDE.  It was just the square block around my apartment (about a half mile), but damn it, I was gonna do it.  I was gonna run, outdoors, in plain sight, among the people.

And I did it.  It felt spectacular.

Until it didn’t.

A thousand knives in my lungs.  Pins and needles in my throat and ears.  It was like I was allergic to running!

Oh, wait…

I am allergic.  To spring.

Every year, the same thing happens:  the world comes back to life, and I spend a week in a hay-fever fog of insufferable misery.  That sounds dramatic, but if you don’t deal with seasonal allergies, you can’t possibly understand how bad it is.  I’d rather have the flu for a month.  I really would.  Seriously, sign me up.

Even though the same thing happens every year, I never seem to be prepared for it.  We’ve had a few fluke days of sudden temperature spikes since winter really set in, so my mind wasn’t geared towards real springtime yet.  So, like a fool, I took a run through the active pollen of everything my body hates, inhaled it deeply during my aerobic exercise, and then slept with a nose, lungs, hair, skin, eyes, ears, and god knows what else full of what may as well be poison.  I did all of that with zero antihistamines in my system.  Needless to say, I woke up the next day in ROUGH shape.

And so fat week began.

No gym — can’t breathe.

Almost no sleep — can’t breathe.

Daily steps goals unmet — can’t breathe and too tired.

Lots of ice cream — because no gym plus no sleep equals perpetual temper tantrum.

I’m too irritable to even give much of a fuck about any of that.  That’s how bad this shit is.  I hate it.  Hate it, hate it, hate it.  I’ve scarcely logged in to DietBet and haven’t weighed myself at all this week.  I haven’t met my steps goals since the night of my ill-advised outdoor run.  The best night of sleep I got was on Thursday night, on the heels of a night of 3 hours’ rest, when I had ice cream for dinner and chased it with a cocktail of two Rx allergy pills (drowsy kind), 2 NyQuil, and 2 melatonin.  It worked so well, I did that shit again last night after a shitty weekend of sleeplessness.  I had hell getting up this morning, but it was worth it to have slept.

The week of torment is almost over.  I can feel my internal armor of antihistamines reaching their optimum level, and even though my nasty cough would suggest otherwise, I’m finally starting to feel some relief.  My energy and strength are returning, too.  I may even be up for some light strength training at the gym tomorrow.  I’ll definitely be getting my steps in no matter what.

In case it was unclear, I’ve hated this week.  Not only was it physically painful, but it’s reminded me what life was like before my thintervention.  My sleep quality was lousy, I was always out of breath, and I was just generally ragged.  I felt constantly frustrated and irascible.  That person was so unhappy for so many reasons, and even more unhealthy.  This week, between reliving some of that experience and eating like a maniac, the idea that I could slide back into being that way was too real.  Ain’t gonna happen.  If tests of willpower, snow storms, and work stress didn’t break me, I’ll be damned if allergies do.  They came the closest, but they’re not gonna win.

My symptoms are worse every year, so my allergist is starting me on injections this month.  (HOLLA for good insurance!)  With any luck, 2017 me will be at her ideal size and experiencing no spring allergies.

Future me:  when you read this, remember how easily you could’ve blown this all up for yourself, but you chose not to.  Don’t ever be the reason you fail again.  Ever.

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DAY 339: Walk this way!

It may not always seem like it, but I try to keep this blog strictly focused on my experience with weight loss and getting healthy, not on my other personal experiences (unless they pertinently intersect).  I’ve been a little absent from the blog circuit the last two weeks because I’ve been dealing with a complicated situation at work that has taken up a lot of my energy and brain space, and as a result, I really haven’t had the drive to write about the  great un-fattening.  I’m getting a better handle on things now, and I think I have a pertinent intersection to exploit here.

Before I drag you there, though, I’ll cut to the chase:  I’m still dealing, and it’s not always pretty or perfect, but I am 100% still on the wagon.  Full disclosure:  I had three extra pieces of chocolate yesterday. *shrugs*  That was my only unplanned transgression throughout this entire ordeal, and I’ve been getting my burn on all the while, so I’m gonna go ahead and not berate myself over a few hundred extra — and, might I add, delicious — calories.  As someone who would have previously gone hog wild and capitulated to the pressure by buying up the entire post-Valentine’s Day candy clearance aisle  at the CVS down the street, I’m gonna call three extra pieces of chocolate a total NON-event.  I’m not kidding, guys.  I feel about chocolate the way Oprah feels about bread.  Three pieces in one night, instead of a bag of chocolate every night, ain’t no thing.

Now, on to the part where I’m somehow keeping myself from cracking.

I’ve made previous references in this blog to the hell that was January of 2015.  What I’m going through professionally right now is not comparable in terms of the events, but it gets damn close in terms of the pressure.  The big difference between last January and this February is that, after months of making myself into a better sharer of my struggles, I want to talk about it.  The trouble with that is that there are limits on being able to talk about it for practical reasons, especially with people at work.  The rest of the trouble is that talking about work with people who don’t work with you is a REEEEEEAL BORE for them.  Honestly, I’m a pretty good conversationalist and I care deeply about my loved ones, but sometimes when they start discussing their job woes with me, I can feel my eyes start to glaze over and I have to make an effort to stay invested in the conversation.  A person who doesn’t work with you is just never going to be able to relate to or share your level of outrage, frustration, gossipy awe, etc., because they aren’t in the game with you.  I know that rationally, and even as I’m reminding myself of those facts, I find myself bummed that the handful of people I’ve shared details with outside of work haven’t responded to my in-person dramatizations, scandalized e-mails, or heavily punctuated texts in a way that meets my satisfaction.  I keep it to myself and it eats away at me; I share it with others and it turns out not to be that constructive (even if it does mitigate some of the stress).  What’s a girl to do?

Move.  That’s what.

Last Thursday, I had a full-on breakdown.  It involved a type of crying I haven’t done in so long that I can’t remember, the corner of a dark room, and a call to my parents.  I walked my ass to the gym after work, determined to get my control back, and I punished that elliptical.  Steps, check.

On Sunday, I had a jam-packed day of social commitments, starting from before the gym opened and lasting through after it closed — damn you, restricted weekend hours!  To ensure that I got all my steps in, I walked 6 miles to my friend’s house in the morning so we could start the day together.  Steps exceeded before 9 AM.

Yesterday and the day before, we had monsoon-level rain storms.  On Tuesday, I went to the gym, anyway.  Yesterday, I saw a break in the downpour in the early afternoon and repurposed my lunch hour to an hour of walking in long circles around a park near my office.  I made steps both days.

I’m still on my perfect streak with hitting my daily steps goals for February.  I refuse to be stopped.  This is the real test, right?  What am I made of?

I’m made of the will to succeed.  I will NOT let work derail me.  Not this time.

I’ve done my best thinking about this whole situation during my long walks or runs.  I am so thankful to the me of last year for deciding to change my life.  If I were still that same person, before taking the literal steps that turned it all around, I wouldn’t be able to handle this.  Even now, I have a whole list of excuses available to me to backslide and stuff my face with sugar:  I’m tired.  I’m stressed.  I’m confused.  I’m frustrated.  I’m on my period.  (Not sorry that you know that.  Women menstruate.  Then they talk about it.  Be a grownup and get over it.)  The difference is, I’m finding that I actually don’t want to eat to feel better.  I want to move.  Moving to relieve stress is at least productive.  Eating to relieve stress is opening a door to the past that is better left cemented shut.

Anyway, there are a few people who read this who have reached out to make sure I’m OK because I’ve been conspicuously and uncharacteristically quiet on my blog and on Diet Bet.  Thank you so much for your concern.  I sincerely appreciate it, and I’m touched by your messages.  I am OK.  Really.  I may be a little inactive for a bit longer on the internet, but I promise you, I am not being inactive anywhere else.

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DAY 334: Winning winter

My body has changed a lot in the past 11 months.  The loss of weight has also meant a loss of insulation, and I’m feeling cold easily for the first time in many winters.  I need a higher temperature in my home and office, and more blankets on my bed when I go to sleep.  The silver lining is that I’m getting prolonged use out of those pants I’ve been shrinking out of:  I need the extra space at the waist band to accommodate leggings or a second pair of pants underneath!

To boot, I’m actually enjoying feeling so cold.  Not only is it a reminder of the pounds I’ve banished, but I’ve also read that being exposed to chilly temperatures increases calorie burns — and therefore weight loss — because of the extra work the body has to do to keep itself warm.  Its a win-win!

Keeping these things in mind has really helped me keep focused on staying active on days when it would be easier to stay inside, cozy on the couch, consuming some sinful TV shows and even more sinful food and drink choices.  On Presidents Day earlier this week, we got some snow and ice that I was tempted to use as an excuse to stay inside and indulge.  But I was on a 3-week streak of exceeding my daily VivoFit steps goal, and I was committed to making the streak last at least through the end of February.  When I thought about having to bundle up in my faux fur-lined boots, hat, gloves, scarf, and coat just to walk to the gym, remove it all, get sweaty, and then put all my winter gear directly ON that sweat to come back home, I wondered if it was really worth the hassle… for about 5 seconds.  The angry red arrow Jiminy was flashing at me didn’t allow me to entertain that silly question for long.  In an instant, I changed my thinking to the bizarrely positive reasons to trudge out into the harsh conditions (It’s cold out there [and that’s good]!  You need your steps!), and off I went.  My streak is still alive.

Working out has also become a stress release.  Instead of capitulating to stress like I used to, I now channel the negative energy into high-octane exercise that burns calories and frees my mind.  I have had surprising moments of clarity about confusing or nerve-racking situations I find myself in while testing the limits of the elliptical.  Physical activity as an outlet for emotional pressure: what a concept!  Here I am, living the myth.

This isn’t to say that all of this is suddenly rote or even easy.  I still have to convince myself that I have to work out on any given day, and then I have to internally cheerlead myself to the end of the workout for the majority of the time I’m moving.  I’m just getting better at it, and I now know I have reason to believe that the arguments I have for doing the hard things are good ones.  There’s certainly been improvement, and much positive reinforcement in the form of visible results, but it’s still hard.

Someone recently asked me what my “trick” was for the success I’ve had on my mission.  I had a negative knee-jerk reaction to that question; there’s no freaking trick to this, for cryin’ out loud.  It’s called I work hard.  All the time.  Weight loss and healthy living are NEVER not on my mind.  That’s not hyperbole, people; I am NEVER not thinking about those things.  They factor into every trivial decision I make throughout the day, from which way I will walk to the metro in the morning (long way or short way: which will fit best into my exercise plan for the day?) to what time I go to sleep at night (how tired am I vs. at what bedtime am I most likely to get a quality night’s sleep?).  It ALL ties in for me.  I’ve made it that way.  That’s the only way this works.  If it were as simple as having a trick, we’d all be thin and healthy.

The person who asked me that question probably just phrased it poorly and was only wondering if I had any tips.  At least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe.  But please, as a Recovering Fat Girl, I’m begging you:  don’t ever ask someone who is obviously in the process of dropping a lot of weight, what her trick is.  Semantics matter here.  Implying there’s some shortcut or some magic at work takes away from that person’s hard work and trivializes the act of drastically transforming her life as if it were some kind of effortless gimmick.  Affirmations and praise are fantastic, but if you’re uncomfortable asking the question you mean to ask, just don’t ask it.  Better that than to dishonor someone’s all-consuming, seemingly endless quest to save her own life.

Whoops!  Got a little hot under the collar there.

Fortunately, that kills calories, too.

Stay warm!

 

 

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DAY 308: Snow daze

Snow my god!  Snowtastrophe!  SNOWBLIVION!!!!  I’m more tired of tortured snow puns than I thought possible.  Snowzilla?  REALLY?  I thought it couldn’t get worse than Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon.  How about snowverreaction?  Tossing “snow” in to replace the first syllable of some cataclysmic word is not clever.  I can handle the transportation paralysis and forced hibernation; it’s the criminal level of forced portmanteaus I can’t handle.

Please stop.  You’re doing unspeakable things to English.  What did English ever do to you?!  SNOW YOUR ROLL.  (That’s how it’s done.)

Anyway, back to my life as a fat girl, which I realize is the actual purpose of this blog…

I’m pleased and a little shocked to report that after 4 nights surrounded by mountains of homemade cookies at my parents’ house, I had not a single one.  NOT ONE.  I should emphasize that I was not only surrounded by the cookies, but surrounded by people eating them.  FOUR DAYS OF PEOPLE EATING DELICIOUS COOKIES AND I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A BITE.  I leave here in about an hour, and I have no plans to break that streak.  It was so difficult, and I wanted to eat all of them, which is why I knew I couldn’t have one.  I can’t believe it.  I escaped without surrendering!

A huge reason for that is that I took a few minutes to make preparations, like organizing a snack survival kit for all 4 days, before leaving my place.  I also made sure I got in all of my steps according to Jiminy in spite of being off routine and needing to make an extra effort to work out.  This involved scoring a week-long pass to a local gym so I could get legitimate workouts in since exercising outside wasn’t really on the menu this time.  So, yes, it took a lot of additional work to pull off what is second nature to me when I’m in my natural habitat, but make no mistake:  it was still overwhelmingly a mental struggle.  I had to constantly remind myself that I’m on a mission here, and there is no pause button.  I have impending weigh-ins and momentum that should not be compromised.  I haven’t had that much trouble with temptation since before I started losing the weight, and I couldn’t believe how hard this was.  I had to tell myself over and over again that I had a choice:  have a cookie and be mad at myself, or resist them for this entire visit and be immensely proud.  I chose pride, and I feel AWESOME!

Along the way, I had a couple of memorable weight-loss moments that impacted me and became part of my arsenal of resistance.  (WOW, that sounds militant!)  First, when the snow stopped on Saturday, my mom and I shoveled out the driveway and de-snowed my and my brother’s cars that were parked there.  Even with two of us, it took an hour to finish because of how much snow we had to clean up.  With all that work, I never got winded or tired, and I kept thinking to the last time I had to dig out my car and how laborious it was.  All I had to do was clean the snow off of my car and shovel a little bit behind the rear wheels so I could back out of my outdoor parking space at my apartment.  That’s something that shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes with the quantity of snow I was dealing with at the time (maybe 2″), but it took nearly a half hour.  I went inside afterwards feeling completely exhausted and was covered in snow from being so big that there was no way to brush off my vehicle without leaning against it and getting snow all over me.  That was then.  This year, my body never made contact with the cars when I was cleaning them off, and I actually enjoyed shoveling for the productive workout it gave me.

At my grandfather’s party yesterday, I made the mistake of wearing a sleeveless dress in the dead of winter.  At a certain point, one of my mom’s cousins, who’s a massage therapist, came up to me privately to say hi.  He didn’t waste a lot of time getting to,  “I don’t know if this is a polite thing to bring up with a woman, but…” and went into how amazing and toned my arms look.  He said that as a massage therapist, he notices these things, but I must be doing some work on my arms.  He asked more about it and said to keep doing whatever I’m doing, because the effect is obvious and looks great.  That made me feel pretty rad!

Beyond that, people kept telling me how happy and confident I seemed, and that kind of threw me because I don’t really think I was doing anything to give anyone that impression.  It’s not like I was front and center, but pretty much everyone I talked to make some remark about that.  No one asked about the weight loss, but I could tell that sometimes they were waiting for me to say something about it (and I didn’t).  I guess I’m carrying myself differently and just projecting this stuff.  And the 3″ heels that made me a respectable height probably helped and would give the illusion of confidence to most people.  😉  Oh, and then I ate a piece of the birthday cake, and was fine with that choice/had planned to do it, anyway.

It’s about time for me to be getting ready to hit the road, so I’m gonna wrap this up here.  Not an earth-shattering update this time, but I had to record for posterity that it is in fact possible for me to spend this much time in an environment inundated with my trigger foods and not cave to them.  It’s possible because IT HAPPENED.  Woo!

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DAY 303: The 10 Commandments of Gymnasia

I have a love/hate relationship with my gym:  I love what I get from working out, but man, I hate being there.  My gym is a jungle.

For some reason, during the winter months, my gym allows a local high school’s girls’ crew team free rein of the facility.  They overrun the locker room, hog the machines, and strut around the place gossiping with each other in their tiny shorts that are more like underwear.  It immediately transports me right back to high-school phys ed, which I disliked enough the first time around.

There’s also a heap of resolutioners making the place feel crowded, and the worst of these are the men who think they’re gonna Hulk out.  They select weights on the machines that they struggle to handle (which is the wrong way to work out), and it makes me nervous to see it because they’re clearly going to hurt themselves.  They do like 4 reps of an inappropriate weight setting, and then they sit there for 3 or 4 minutes between sets, of which there are like 8.  It’s infuriating.

Far and away the most annoying character at my gym these days is the tech addict.  The people who walk around while looking at their e-mail and almost collide into me are right up there with the ones who sit for 5 minutes on the chest press machine without using the thing because they’re too busy texting.  It makes me absolutely crazy to have to wait for these people to quit socializing and focus on their workouts just so I can take care of mine.

When these frustrations reach boiling point, I like to fantasize about what would happen in my perfect gym, if I made the rules.  All that time I’ve spent tapping my foot waiting for a machine or giving disapproving side-eye to the hoards of high schoolers has resulted in this:

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE GYM MACHINES

  1. THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER MACHINES BEFORE ME.  Drop your freaking cell phone off in the locker room and do what the hell you came to do.  Your social life can spare you for a measly hour of the day.  I mean, do you suddenly start jogging or doing bicep curls in the middle of a business meeting or a date?  Didn’t think so.  Be where you are and stop making other people wait for you to stop distracting yourself when you should all be at the gym to work out, damn it.
  2. THOU SHALT NOT USE THY GYM IN VAIN.  Lose the make-up, the jewelry, and the perfume/cologne.  No one is impressed with how cute you look, only with how much sweat you drip with at the end of your workout.  And folks would prefer it if you didn’t reek of dead flowers while working up that sweat.
  3. THOU SHALT COMMIT ADULTERY.  As in, you must be an adult:  18 or older.  Furthermore, do not come to the gym with your varsity sports team to monopolize space and fill the air with your idle chatter.  Grown-ups are here, kids.  Shouldn’t you be doing your homework?  Go home.
  4. THOU SHALT NOT BOGART ME.  Everyone around you paid just as much to be here as you did.  Don’t be grunting and panting all over me using unrealistically heavy resistance in service of some misguided delusion that you will become brawny and muscular in a single workout.  Step aside for the lady waiting for your stupid ass to finish.  Or at least let her work in with you, even though that shit is hella annoying.
  5. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.  If someone is clearly using a machine but steps away for a moment to refill a water bottle, leave that machine alone.  You know your gym comrade is coming back if they left their stuff draped on the machine.  However, if they leave their stuff on a machine you’ve been waiting for for a while and they are gone for several minutes, fuck them and their presumptuous entitlement and go get your burn on.  Gyms are tiny colonies of renters, and throwing your stuff on something doesn’t make you an owner.  It’s a fine line, but err towards not stealing for the good of the community.
  6. THOU SHALT MURDER.  Calories, that is.  If you took one of the ellipticals with the moving arm handles and you aren’t using them, you’re wasting an opportunity to burn.  If you aren’t here to murder, go use a machine without that option so that a real murderer can hit it hard.
  7. HONOR THY SURROUNDINGS AND EQUIPMENT.  Don’t trash the locker room, and for the love of all that is holy, wipe down your sweat-drenched machine after you’re done with it.  It’s a badge of honor for you, but no one else is reveling in that.
  8. REMEMBER THE WORKOUT SESSION AND KEEP IT HOLY.  Attention all gym staff:  interrupting a gym-goer’s workout to try to sell them personal training sessions is truly bad form.  No one wants to talk with you when they’re out of breath from physical exertion, least of all about spending more of their money to spend time with someone who doesn’t understand that.  Step the hell off.  Not cool.
  9. THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR’S MACHINE.  Stop looking at the screen display of the person working out next to you.  It’s awkward and creepy.  Eyes on your own paper, stalker.
  10. THOU SHALT SHAKE THY GROOVE THING.  Move your body, gym-goer.  Focus on getting fit and healthy, and have fun!  Pump your fist when you amp it up, raise your arms over your head when you break a personal record, and whisper words of encouragement to yourself when you need to persevere.  Find a way to make the process enjoyable.  It’s essential to your mentality, and the positivity is contagious.  Go get ’em, tiger!

 

Now, who wants to spot me ten thousand dollars so I can open up my utopian gym??

Happy workout!

by

DAY 288: Middle ground

My experience with weight loss has been that the part you want to disappear the most is the most stubborn.  It’s probably an optical illusion, or just that that part is so large to begin with that it’s just a longer slog to work it off, but it’s agonizing waiting to see it finally start to shrink.  For some women, that part is the hips, butt, or thighs.  For this woman, it’s the stomach.

My stomach is misnamed.  It’s more of an asshole.

It forces my toes into an endless game of peek-a-boo.  It makes a mockery of my rack by sticking out farther.  It smothers my lap.  It stretches my shirts, makes buttons struggle to close around it, and makes skirts look ridiculous on me.  It’s the antagonist in this story, and it must go.

Well, finally — finally! — it has started giving up ground.  All of a sudden, my jacket covers it with as much ease as it covers the rest of my torso.  I’m sliding into jeans without unbuttoning or unzipping them.  I’m wearing September’s oh-honey pants.  The biggest victory of all?  My love handles are more like let’s-just-be-friends handles.

It’s been a long time coming, but this stomach is starting to get smaller!

Sooooo, I have to enact that promise I made to myself for when this day finally came:  start the ab work.

I did a few ab exercises on New Year’s Day, just for the hell of it, and I am still sore four days later.  It’s no surprise to me, but I have no core strength.  The bad news:  this is going to suck.  The good news:  this is going to burn A LOT of calories.

I’m coming for you, stomach!