A Conversation

Brad and I were driving to church last week and this is the conversation we had in the car…

Me: I really think that you would love taking some of these classes with me.
Brad: I think I would too, but we can’t afford it.
Me: Why not? It’s only $10 more a month…PLUS I’m working at the church to cover it anyways.
Brad: I don’t know.
Me: I want to do this. You would love it.
Brad: I know I would love it, but I just don’t know.
Me: Baby, I want to do this for you….. It’s on me.
Brad: {laughter}
Me: {laughter}

Brad is the sole income in the family. For me to say that “It’s on me” is completely ridiculous. But, it helped me win the debate and therefore, guess who the proud new owner of a YMCA membership is?!?! That’s right! I get to workout with my husband now! So exciting!

Yesterday, I convinced him to do a BODYATTACK class with me. He was hesitant, but went anyways. During the class I was pointing something out and he leaned in, I jumped back and said, “EEEEEwwwwwwwww! Don’t TOUCH ME!” Nice, huh? Well, you know how I feel about sweat….and my husband is one of the sweatiest men on the planet. Yuck.

After the class we grabbed a basketball and shot a few hoops. We wanted to make it quick so we just played a quick game of “H-O-R-S-E”. Brad played basketball all through high school, and actually has quite a good shot. But, I beat him anyways. ‘Cause I’m good like that. Not really, it was luck, and the only reason I’m even mentioning it is because I know that I will never.ever.ever beat him at that game again….so I have to get my gloating on while I can.

Can I tell you how nice it was to work out with my husband? To laugh and play around with him on the basketball court. On a Tuesday. In the middle of the week. It absolutely made my day.

 

Off Days

I’ve had a bad lower back for almost as long as I can remember. I’m sure that if I went to a chiropractor or a physical therapist they could help me…but I haven’t, so every so often, something happens and my back gets all out of whack. Well, that “something” happened on Monday when we were at the beach. It was simple enough, and if you weren’t close to me you would’ve never known anything had happened. I was walking towards Zoe, who was sitting in a chair, and there was a slight dip in the sand, which I stepped in and I could literally feel the left side of my back pull out of alignment. It was painful. I could still walk, bend over, and in general, function…but every so often I would get a twinge that felt like a knife being jammed into my back. Later that day I was sitting on my friend Kristin’s couch and I uncrossed my feet. Pain flooded my senses and for a brief moment, I couldn’t move. I, ever so slowly, found my way off the couch so that I could meet Brad downstairs. As I limped towards the elevator Kristin told me that I looked like a crippled person. She was right. Lower back pain is no fun. It was in that moment I decided that I wasn’t going to the gym on Tuesday.

And so, today has been spent exactly like every single day before I started this journey. I drank absolutely no water. For the most part, I’ve been sitting on the couch all day long. I drank entirely too much Diet Coke. I forgot to eat lunch. My joints are stiff. My energy is low. My motivation is nonexistent. I’m still in the same clothes that I woke up in.

It’s amazing how much waking up with Brad, and leaving first thing in the morning for the gym has changed my daily patterns. I do things all day long. I’m up and down and all over the place. But, when I’m sitting on my couch all day…Brad does everything. Everything. The days that I go to the gym I almost never watch the TV during the day. Today? My tv has been on since 8am. It’s currently 9:30pm. That’s over 12 hours of straight TV being on in my house. How completely ridiculous is that?

Ugh. It is an off day in every sense of the word. I find that every day that I’m not in the gym is an off day. Why is that? I wonder. You would think that even if I can’t go to the gym because my back is out of whack, I would make even more of an effort to keep the rest of my “program” on track. But just the opposite is true. I let go of everything. It’s as if the gym, at this stage, is my anchor. When I’m at the gym, working my body, I’m conscious of my body all day long. Every decision that I make, in regards to food and drink, is filtered through a workout mentality. Will this help my workout? Will I pay for this in the gym tomorrow? But give me just one day away from the gym, and all that goes to hell in a handbasket. It’s mildly disgusting to me.

My back is better now, so you’d better believe that I’m going to be at the gym first thing tomorrow morning. Two hour workout, here I come.

Does this ever happen to you? Off days where absolutely nothing productive happens towards your journey of weight-loss?

 

I just can’t help myself

**Originally posted on Confessions of a Reluctant Housewife on June 17, 2011**

I’ve been trying to wait to write anymore workout blogs until I get my weight-loss blog up and running. But, ya’ll…I just can’t help myself. I took a class yesterday that KICKED MY ASS BUTT! So, because of the crazy week and our schedule all out of whack I’m going to gym in the evenings. My friend {who is also doing VBS} and I picked 3 classes in the evenings that we could go to. This particular class is called Cx30, which translates to Core for 30 minutes. Holy.Freaking.Crap. I would love for this to be a really funny post…but I don’t think I’ve recovered enough to be funny. That’s how hard this class was.

I got there a little bit early to make sure that I was able to get 2 spots together. Mats. Towel. Water. Crazy stretchy bands. Got it. There were a few other early birds and we were all asking each other what we’d gotten ourselves into. None of us knew because we were all first-timers. Yikes. The instructor came in and started talking to the newbies. She explained that we just needed to “hang in there and do the best we can. And that the good news is that the class only lasts for 30 minutes.” Now, I don’t know about you…but when a teacher says that it’s terrifying. Oh, and she also started talking about how long we would be “hovering”. Hovering? She talked about it like it was a really hard thing. And we were going to push ourselves to see how long we could hover. I definitely raised my hand to ask what “hovering” was. Turns out it was exactly what I thought. Hovering is just a fancy word for doing the plank.

Class gets started with a warm-up. Again, you know it’s a bad sign if you start sweating during the warm-up. I can’t even begin to remember all the different exercises that we did. I just know that 10 minutes in I wanted to die. Lucky for me, I was towards the back but DIRECTLY in front of the teacher. Awesome. So, when she’s saying “Hang in there” and she’s looking directly at you during the 2 minute hover and you’re on your knees because you want to DIE…you know that she’s talking to you. And, by the way, the phrase “we’re almost done” is not a true statement if you still have 1 minute left of a song. When you’re on one elbow and one leg, sideway, with your hips off the ground, and you’re stretching your free hand and leg out and then bringing them together at your belly button…1 minute is an ETERNITY. Tell me I’m almost done when I have 20 seconds left.

I don’t even know if I can create a good word picture for how hard this class was. But, let’s just say that sweat was dripping off my face, off my elbows {what the CRAP?!?!} and there was a solid patch of STOMACH SWEAT on my mat. Oh.Lord.Jesus…that’s disgusting. At one point I just laid on my mat while the rest of the class did the exercises. Speaking of exercises, we did every core exercise you can imagine, and some you probably can’t. We did a bajillion crunches in every which way, legs lifts, rotating legs, legs to the side, legs like ice cream scoops, legs out, that damn plank thing, a side plank {that’s what I was describing earlier}, obliques, this stomach thing where you lay on your stomach and lift your legs, then your chest, then both. My favorite exercise {not} was when we used the stretchy chord thing, looped it around one foot, under the other, and then across your hips and did like these one-legged squats {why the HELL do all these teachers make you do so many squats?!?!?!} and side leg lifts, and back leg lifts {works the bum}, regular squats {but somehow they made me feel like a sumo wrestler}, then worked obliques by pulling the chord all the way across our body into a straight diagonal up to our ears. And, can somebody please tell me why squats and lunges are considered CORE exercises? Aren’t those your legs? I mean..I know they help with balance and stuff…but Good Lord!

It was intense. My friend, who has been a dancer all her life and LOVES a good burn, loved the great workout. I wanted to die. I had to go straight to church after class {like no changing, no shower…straight to church} and when I walked in the door one of my friends looked at me, laughed, and said “How was the gym.” I said, “It was He…” and then stopped myself when I realized I was about to cuss at church and there were kids around. Whoops.

So…today my whole body is incredibly sore from both Bodypump and Cx30. I would love to NOT go to the gym today. I would love to just sit on my couch and eat some of that Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream that’s in my freezer. But, I’m gonna go. Wish me luck.

Btw..I’ve narrowed the new blog down to 3 names: Diary of a Weigh-loss Virgin, Operation Skinny Jeans, or Finding Mini-Me. I’m leaning towards Diary of a Weigh-Loss Virgin…what do you think?

What did you do last night? Please tell me you had more fun than I did =)