The “Resolutionaries” Are Back

Go home. Seriously. I mean – OK, that’s not a nice thing to say but it doesn’t make it less true. I have 100% full respect for the folks out there who make new years resolutions to slim down and shape up. I do.

But why do you all have to do it at once?

You are clogging my gym and taking my machine and you don’t have one ounce of gym ettiquette and it’s not that you shouldn’t be there but can you perhaps make your big resolution in, like, March? Or perhaps resolutions can be done by last name: A-K in January, L-P in June, Q-Z in September.

Here’s my theory, and please take this with all the compassion in the world: If you make a “resolution” you are bound to fail.

It’s time sensitive. “I will start going to the gym in January!” But let’s say the kids karate is running late more often than not or you get the flu or your shoes are worn out and you asked for the new coach purse instead of running shoes, so what’s the point?  You go the first week but you can’t make it the next. Or you go the first two weeks but February is a dud. So you give up and you say, “Maybe next year!”

But I am solution oriented, of course. So here’s my plan: Make your “resolution” in March. Or April. Or halfway through October. What does this accomplish? Well, A… it gets the influx of non-gym-using newbies out of the gym. B if gives you a chance at success! You aren’t making a true resolution in March. You’re making a decision to change. A life decision. The decision to start anew without the baggage of your old life, but more importantly without the pressure of the new year.

I am a firm believer in making a change. I did it myself. One day I woke up and said, “OK – doc says I need to lose weight and today is the day.” It was March. It was perfect.  I didn’t say “tomorrow” or “in the new year.” I said, my life was my life yesterday and it will be tomorrow and I don’t need some big event to get my life in gear.

If I sound bitter it’s not because I want you to fail. Rather, it’s because I want you to succeed and I know you aren’t going to do it this way. And in the meantime you’re taking up all the fucking ellipticals and stacking the weights like a jerk.

OK. Maybe that is a little bitter.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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?

Time for PT?

To Physical Therapy or Not to Physical Therapy… that is the question plaguing me today, months after being diagnosed with the most annoyingly named diagnosis ever: Runner’s Knee.

I haven’t actually run properly since… January? February? March? Sometime Q1 when I decided my knee pain really wasn’t something to just completely ignore. Since then, I have tried a veritable cornucopia of cardiovascular activities including but not limited to…

• “Power” yoga
• “Power” walking
• Spinning
• Swimming
• Elliptical-ing
• Kickboxing

All of them hurt in one way or the other and I’m getting a bit distraught. I can’t do lunges or squats, and I can’t do any cardio… That is a huge loss as far as my caloric expenditure goes since those big muscles burn so many nasty calories when you work them out properly.

I have been diligently doing my straight leg lifts and leg kick backs and all the little exercises the doc said I could do safely, but I am just not seeing an improvement.

Hence the question at hand: Do I go to PT to try and get this thing fixed the right way? Is that even the right idea? Doctor Cocky who diagnosed me said it wasn’t necessary since I went to the gym so much, but I feel like if they watched me doing the excercises, perhaps I’d get closer to fixing it sooner.

Y’all always have great advice. Bring it on. I need you.

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!