Once, Twice, Three Times… I’m crazy?

Or Lazy. Kind of. Just stay tuned.

This morning at 6:40am sharp I left my apartment for the 7:00am Body Pump class at my (home) gym. The familiarity of the space was only mildly overshadowed by the unfamiliarity with the class… and the hour. Ugh.

It was my third Body Pump class of the week, and I gotta say, I kinda loved it. The class had a whopping 6 people so I considered it a private lesson of sorts. The instructor was AMAZING! She wasn’t perfect, but she was hilarious and encouraging… and hilarious. And she didn’t sing.

That isn’t to say that I didn’t sing. For whatever reason I had a blast! The 6 women in the class, primarily middle aged, were having a blast, too. I could tell. Unlike the 100% packed to capacity class that I take on Monday nights where the pretty-young-things get all gussied up and struggle to keep up with the routines, this class was just there to work out and support each other. They were encouraging and enthusiastic… Go middle aged body pumpers!

And – now that I’ve pumped, I can go to happy hour tonight as planned and not worry about choosing between my social life and my personal life (and the guilt I feel when I miss the gym). But why 3 Body Pumps in a week instead of just working out?

That’s where the lazy part comes in. For whatever reason, I have a hard time motivating myself to actually create a routine these days. I always feel like I’m doing it wrong or that I don’t want to do more. I convince myself long before it’s time that I can stop and go home. My accountability has gone straight down the crapper so… Body Pump it is! Thankfully they don’t all do the same routines, I’d get bored, and I think my muscles would get used to it.

My thoughts on what will hurt the most this weekend: Triceps. Chest. Holy goodness.

CLEARLY I have an affinity for Body Pump (and a possibly growing affinity for Zumba (blog on that to follow)), but my question to you is: What class can’t you live without?

Gym Anxiety

It’s been confirmed by my completely awesome, body-pumping, co-gymming boss (who may or may not read this blog) that I am not crazy for being nervous. What am I nervous about? I’m going to a new gym tonight. The one on the other side of town.

I decided that I didn’t feel like thinking about my workout tonight, so instead of going to the gym and doing free weights as would typically be the plan for  a Wednesday night, I’m going to a second body pump class this week where I can jam along to the music and leave feeling… pumped? (Note: must stop using the word “pump” so often. It could scare the kiddies.) But this class is not at my “home gym” but rather a different location in the same chain.

But for whatever reason, I cannot get past this little twinge of anxiety that I have venturing out into the great gym-wilderness without a safety net. My boss says that it’s actually not that uncommon, unless, she points out, she’s also crazy. Which I can pretty much say factually she is not. It’s the “first day of school” syndrome that we tend to get past at our gym within the first few weeks. Where are the locker rooms? Is there special gym etiquette that I don’t know about? Will the routine be different? Will the instructor single me out? (Can I nab my stellar spot in the corner with access to two mirrors? FORM IS PARAMOUNT!)

I’ll let you know how it goes. I guarantee it can’t be as bad as I’m making it out… unless I run into my entire high school class which is entirely possible and would be tra-gic.

Have you ever experienced gym anxiety?

Hard Ass Jane?

Well, fuckin’ a. Duh – I’m a total hard ass.

At Body Pump the other night, a group of giggling girls from a not-so-local high school graced us with their presence. I would say there were a veritable “gaggle” of said girls, all honking in unison at a joke no one else understood cared about.

I got it. Fine. High school girls giggle. In gaggles. It’s just how they do. They are harmless enough. I guess it wasn’t until the end of the class, the cool down, when I had finally had enough. We were all quiet, stretching, lamenting the pain that were in/going to be in the next day. The sappy cool down music was soothing us as we gently released all of our old-people stress. And there they were. Giggling louder than ever. TheyWouldn’tShutTheFuckUp. My evil glares had gone unnoticed. The mimed gun to my head directed was not attracting nearly the reaction I had hoped. So I snapped.

“How about you just shut up?”

Silence.

AWESOME! POWER! I PWN!

I felt bad for like a millisecond until, that is, I realized how lovely it was to finally be pumping in peace.

In the locker room, my class-partner in crime said to me, “Wow! I didn’t know you were such a hard ass, Jane!” My response? “I hated them in high school. I hate them now.”

Stupid high school girls. Gah.

Cause for Celebration: No Diet Day

Body Pump was kind of awesome last night. I almost wrote “sucked” in stead of “was kind of awesome”, but that would have been a squideon of a lie. (Squidegon?!) The substitute instructor was rad. Short and perky. And she counted, which, by the way, is the best quality in a fitness instructor. The ability to fucking count, in order, without getting distracted.

So after body pump, I came home to do some baking. The problem with baking is that you have to do it with a spoon. Ya know, the mixing and scooping, and whatnots. Spoons are the thing you do eating with. So naturally, as the baking goes on, the spoon becomes en-fooded, and then has to be eaten off of. It’s just the order of things.

Ugh. So I ate and ate the thing that I was baking in its not-yet-baked form until Jane’s tummy hurt. And then, once the thing that I was baking was baked, I had to taste it because it was a new recipe and I would never give an untested recipe to anyone I cared about. Selfless, I tell you. I sacrificed all those hard-earned extra calories for the safety and taste-security of my closest friends.

But here’s the best part: Rather than continue to lament the completely wasted Body Pump class, I can now rejoice in my inadvertent celebration of a Inter-National Holiday! Apparently, accoring to FitSugar (with whom I have a love/hate relationship) today is International No Diet Day!

So, I’d like to send a big “Cheers, eh?!” to Canada’s National Eating Disorder Information Centre for helping me not feel bad about the million calories I licked off the spoon last night, and encourage everyone to go eat something bad today!

Footloose: Jane’s Barefoot Body Pump

My mom’s in town. Staying with me. She is, um, a neurotic woman. And she’s a morning person. I, however, am not.

So this morning while I was busy avoiding her, I packed my gym clothes and left them by the door, ready to grab-and-go as I left for work. I was a little frazzled by the pre-8am inquisition.

I headed to work and spent the day frazzled by a completely mindless project that I managed to botch terribly. Because I’m awesome like that.

I came home for lunch and had yet another long discussion with my mother about stuff that I didn’t want to talk about, then back to work for more fixing-the-thing-I-screwed-up. This fixorating kept me at work late, and I ran out the door to the gym in an attempt to make my 7:00pm Body Pump class. I was focused acutely on the task of getting to the gym, finding parking, changing, and getting in line — prepared to elbow the other bitches out of the way. (The front right corner is mine. I make a reservation every week. Get in fucking line.)

So I arrive at the gym and find my body-pumping-coworker in the locker room. We exchange pleasantries and started changing into our hottest workout gear. I threw my bag into the locker and put the lock on.

Problem.

No shoes.

WHAT THE FUCK! I left my fucking shoes at home. But I do not miss Body Pump. So after confirming that I am an idiot, I start asking around. Shockingly enough, no one had a spare size 10 pair of shoes.

So what do I do? Hmm? I fucking do Body Pump barefoot. It was actually an interesting experience. I won’t go into the “wow, I felt so grounded” stuff. It was just a completely different feeling. My balance was different. My toes were digging harder. I was a barefooted, hippie, weightlifting machine.

Oh, and a complete idiot. I blame my mom because it’s what I do. If she wasn’t pestering me all morning, I wouldn’t have forgotten my shoes, right?

Yeah – probably not. Just an idiot.