Ok so two days ago I decided to join the gym to get rid of this last bit of weight that has been plaguing me for far too long.
I also miss working out because it makes me feel happy after.
Now here’s the thing…remember that whole shy/introversion crap?
Well it is currently annoying my life and pissing me off.
You see, I decided that in order to lose weight and tone my muscles quickly, I was going to ride to the gym – makes more sense than driving when the goal is burning calories – then I’d swim a few laps in the pool (Mon/Wed/Fri’s), do some weights, the elliptical, then ride on home.
When I say ‘a few laps’, I’d like you to be aware that it could be anywhere from five strokes to ‘until I drown during the 3rd lap’.
I’d eventually love to be one of those people who glide through the water slowly, looking like they are putting absolutely no effort into it whatsoever…but sadly exercise induced asthma and being kind of out of shape at the moment makes that somewhat impossible until I get my lungs used to this particular form of torture. Instead I splash my way from one end to the other, grab onto the wall for dear life and wait impatiently until my lungs decide to un-swell after my 4th dose of Ventolin…in two laps!
I am very determined soul…what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
Now some of you may be thinking ‘Holy crap that’s a lot of working-out in one day!!!’
Let me remind you that I’m the kind of person who gives 1000% in something once I set my mind to doing it.
Yes I may die…but at least I will have perished feeling as if I had accomplished something.
Most people’s scale of exercise accomplishment goes from ‘Mildly aching’ to ‘So freaking sore I can’t even breathe without extreme, agonizing muscle pain’.
When I start exercising for the first time in a while…I skip every single level and fall head first into the latter end of the scale, groaning in agony and limping along looking like a 90 year old who has been hit by a truck…repeatedly!
But I feel absolutely great about it.
Yes I’m a little impatient to see results when I decide I want something done. Luckily for me I’m one of those people who gets results very quickly after starting to workout.
So anyway, the whole riding to and from the gym was a fantastic idea. I had bought myself a bike earlier this year so I had all the gear: helmet, gloves, water-bottle, cycling shorts with butt padding!
I have come to the conclusion that they must have used the skinniest layer of padding possible in my cycling shorts because holy crap when I got on my bike today and sat on the seat I catapulted right back off spewing expletives aplenty.
This wouldn’t have been so embarrassing if I wasn’t on the sidewalk at the time, being watched by about twenty thousand people who were stuck in traffic.
OMG my butt bones were so freaking sore it was ridiculous.
And it was only the second day!!!
I closed my eyes and shook my head before gingerly replacing my butt on the evil devil seat and carefully riding away from the laughing traffic folk.
No excuses! I was riding to the gym damn it!
It took about five minutes for the pain to subside enough to put my full weight on the seat, but I just know tomorrow is going to suck even more. I obviously need one of those old people bike seats that’s like 6” thick because I apparently have a very delicate tush.
So for the second day in a row, I arrived at the gym and checked the pool to see if it was busy or not.
It was!
There were tiny people screaming and swimming around happily.
I should explain…lane swimming (sans tiny people) happens only between 6 and 8:15am every day. From 11 to 2pm there is ½ lane swim (which means 1 lane exactly)…and many, many tiny people thinking the lane divider is a fun plaything.
After seeing how busy it was yesterday when I went at lunch, I made up my mind wake up at 6am to swim today.
My brain had other ideas and my phone was almost beaten to death when it had the audacity to try to wake me up at such an ungodly hour.
I mean really…what was I even thinking yesterday?!?!
I woke up at 10.
So no swimming yesterday…and no swimming today.
A big gym problem for someone like me is attempting the weight machines because I know EVERY FREAKING PERSON IN THE GYM WILL BE LOOKING AT ME!!!
First of all…the machines are scary.
They are huge and…well…daunting!
They do have little pictures on them with a description of how to use them, but there was no way I was standing there squinting at those stickers looking like a moron!
I swear there are like fifty different machines there, and yesterday I walked into the gym, saw the big mean machines, my mind immediately said “NOPE!”, and I kept right on walking up the stairs to the trusty elliptical machine I actually did know how to use.
The elliptical machines overlook all the lower floor machines, so I could at least check out how people were using them for my next attempt.
After ½ an hour, I got off the elliptical thingy with jelly legs and proceeded to very carefully make my way down the HUGE flight of stairs praying to God my legs wouldn’t suddenly give out and cause my gym membership to be completely wasted.
Not because of hurting myself mind you…but because of the sheer embarrassment of thirty or more people being witness to my stair fall. I’d never be able to show my face there again!
I tried convincing myself to use the machines on my way out, but again my brain got sh*t-scared and made my legs keep walking firmly away from them.
Stupid brain!
Today I did manage to convince myself to use four of the easiest machines I could find before racing upstairs to my elliptical machine.
Baby steps.
I will conquer this stupid shy/introversion crap one day!
Until then, I’ll count the energy expended as I race away from the machines like a bat out of hell as calories burned and keep trying to do one more machine each day.
I’d also like to get into the pool at some point, but that requires a non-morning person waking up early. I’m not holding my breath.
