I have deliberately chosen to put off going to the gym this time, and focus on healthy eating changes. The reason for this is, as you might know, the gym has never been something that I'm consistently good at. In fact, like so many, when defeat is staring me in the face I tend to just go with it, letting it wash over me like the pull of a strong undertow. At first I fight, I go once or twice. Then I have an excuse not to go, and then more and more pathetic excuses until finally I stop thinking of it altogether. I tell myself that I'm just not the kind of person who goes to the gym at all.
In order to make this lifestyle change work, I needed to succeed. That sounds strange, of course in order to succeed I have to succeed. But I have failed so many times that I need some easy wins. I needed to love slow progress, I needed to change my frame of mind altogether.
A few weeks ago, I woke up, I got dressed. I pulled on stretchy clothes and my worn down tennis shoes, poured ice cold water into my water bottle, grabbed my fully charged iPod. I was ready to work out. I wiggled around a bit to get the blood moving
and took off to the elevator. Once in the basement, I walked right up to the gym, looked in the window, and saw three people inside. After a moments hesitation, I turned and fled.
All I can say is, "at least I got dressed."
This time, I recognized that I already took a first step. I spent much of Friday thinking about the gym. I went over in my head what it would be like to go, how it would make me feel, how it would make my body feel. Then I thought about my reasons for not going. It occurred to me that in all my anxiety of what people would do or think, that I had never actually had a negative experience at the gym. Not once in my life (scratch that, not once outside of gym class) have I actually seen someone ridicule me, or give me a look that suggested such disdain and disgust at my presence in the gym. So what was I worried about?
And today there was an older man in the gym. I smiled at him on my way in, and at the end of my workout, when he was also finishing up, he actually spoke to me and was quite nice. He asked me what one of the machines was for, like I was the expert! It made me feel so good that I'm actually embarrassed that I've let my self consciousness hold me back so much. I'm still not making the gym part of my goals, but my hope is that I will go to the gym on weekends and work out at home when I get home from work at least 3 times a week.
Big news
Alright, this might not be that big of news, but while in the gym today I had a very fortunate opportunity to weigh myself. This is the first time I've weighed myself since Christmas, and I've lost 4 pounds! Just by drinking water, cutting out some fat and sweets, and adding more fruits and vegetables. I didn't actually do anything hard, there was no real challenge here.
This means that I am only 8 pounds from my "normal" weight. Again, this is not a goal, but I am hoping that if I start adding exercise to my lifestyle change that I can easily lose those 8 pounds by my birthday (one month from yesterday). Maybe I'll weigh myself next week and decide if I want to actually make this a goal.
ps-Do you realize how hard it is to find images of an average looking woman working out? I have decided to avoid promoting the stereotyped, perfect image of a woman, and only post alternative body type images. So, although I planned to post an exciting picture of women working out, the only image I'm satisfied with today is that of my favorite America's Next Top Model winner, Whitney.
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