Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Gym Guy and the Revealing of The Challenge

Well, today was my post 12 weeks of personal training appointment with Gym Guy (someone I'd never had the pleasure of meeting before). I was so excited. (At this point you probably don't realize I'm being sarcastic, but I am).

I had every intention in the world in skipping this lovely meeting of two separate worlds (the fitness consultant and the consulted) but Dee was rather insistent on me going to find out my results thus far (half way through my torture sessions). You see there are 12 week contests that you are signed up for and there are prizes for those who lose the most whatevers. For some silly reason Dee got it in his head that I could possibly win him something, or myself. There are all sorts of prizes.

Knowing that I hadn't put in my entire all (just perhaps say 75% of it) I knew I wouldn't get anything but I figured it may be good to see my progress. If nothing else my percentage of body fat (as that's what everyone keeps sayin' is important).

Anyhoo, I made my appointment with the Gym Guy (I got the Gym Gal for my initial fitness consultation and loved her, Wally had Gym Guy and hated him), I knew this could be fun - for one of us.

I arrived 5 minutes early to see Dee deep in concentration at the bar writing something out. I made a few jokes about it and learned he was doing up a menu for Skinny Chick. Skinny Chick was the 'Manager' who introduced us to the gym when we first inquired and gave us a tour. She weighs 135 pounds and is somewhere around my height or a tad shorter. She's sweet as pie and has a super high pleasant voice. I'm quite sure she'd allow bees to sting her, just to be nice to them.

I of course nearly fell off of my stool when he said Skinny wanted an 'eating plan', because apparently she wants a bikini body. I'm thinking 'Are you kidding me? All that will be left of her are a couple of bones and if she's lucky her liver.' Dee insisted she was not crazy, I maintained that both he and her were and I waited.

While I waited I complained about doing the consultation, about the fact he never made me a menu plan, and a bit more about having to be man handled by Gym Guy. Until Dee's gal Cherry Blaster took him away and Gym Guy appeared to whisk me off to The Room.

Dee quickly informed Gym Guy that I was too hard on myself and that I had gotten great results. When Gym Guy asked how my day was going I said it woudl be better when I left and that I was only here because Dee insisted. Gym Guy asked (rather seriously) if I was depressed. I never said ... 'ahhhhh ...'

We entered The Room, you know, where all of the magic happens. Dreams are realized, goals are achieved, people cry, thank God for the academy award ... oh wait wrong event. Anyways, we settled in and Gym Guy immediately asked me a bunch of questions like: 'What gets you excited in life? What are your goals? Has working out with your husband improved your marriage?'

I'm thinking: 'Settle down cowboy, we just met. I don't get naked on the first date.'

Instead I stood there and resisted telling him my new found passion for writing, or that I loved 'connecting with people', or that my relationship with Wally had deepened in an interesting way that I couldn't spit out in four words or less.

I thought to myself 'This guy could really use a lesson in communication foreplay if you ask me'. But no one asked so I kept that thought to myself.

While we ... sort of chatted, I stepped on the scale, off the scale, put my arms up, arms down, bent this, bent that, pulled up, yanked down and then got pinched a bunch of times in various places. It was all so fun (sarcasm fully intended).

At one point Gym Guy asked what I did for a living. I told him I worked with people with disabilities. He said: 'Do you find them really frustrating?'. I thought: 'Not nearly as frustrating as you pal.'

Another time he asked me if I knew what a certain muscle was and why it was important blah, blah, blah and I said no. He said 'It's called the thingamajigeritisofusagus muscle and it's used for scratching your head' (Ok I'm not quoting directly).

I respond with 'Oh yeah I knew that I just forgot'. I waited a good 3 seconds before saying the often unnecessary 'Just kidding'. and he said: 'Oh I thought you were being serious. (He really did). I took a deep breath in and realized what I was dealing with. Wally's assessment of him was dead on.

I continued my dry humour giving him no bone to chew the entire time. I asked a question about my blood pressure to which he replied 'Yeah it could have been up because you are anxious, or went down the stairs or you saw a hot guy or something (insert his smirk and my eye rolling)'.

He went over my results with me in full. I learned that I lost 21 pounds of fat, gained 8 pounds of muscle, lost 10% of my overall body fat. My body age before was 37 and now it's 32, another 5 years is good. I lost 22 inches over half of my body (I'm not sure what happened to the other half - they didn't measure it I guess).

So I guess that's good. Not really sure. I know I didn't do my very best, but I did it while doing life at a normal pace and don't feel like I had to live unrealistically to get this accomplished. I am very glad that we have another 12 weeks to keep seeing improvement.

He went over what a healthy weight goal would be for me right now, which helped me feel better about what I should be aiming for.

The whole process took a max of 20 minutes. Felt like longer, but I survived.

I'm wondering if now's a good time to share my new challenge with you....

Probably it is.

I am a little scared to share this. For a couple of reasons. I feel as though it will come across vain and I'm afraid I'm not ready to go for the challenge.

I don't have a time limit on my challenge really because I'm not sure how you measure mental state.

Ok so my physical challenge is: to achieve a weight of 145 pounds and/or approximately a body fat percentage of 19%.

My mental challenge is: to accept this healthy living thing. Accept myself the way that I am. Accept that I'm good enough here, just like I'll be good enough there. Accept that I can do this.

I CAN do this.

Though I know I have a lot of work to do in the gym ... and the kitchen. I know I have ten times more work to do in my head in this area of me.

Dee told me the other day that the fact that I'm intelligent makes this harder for me. He said that I am constantly looking for and trying to figure out an easier way to get results, rather than giving in and accepting the truth of what you have to do to get what you want. He said I needed to just accept the process, accept my results (be excited for them), accept this new life.

Therefore, I am going to focus on that this round about. I am not going to think that if I don't achieve everything in 12 weeks that I'm a failure - every step in the right direction is a worth while step. Instead I'm going to really focus on my thoughts and changing my attitude towards myself during this time.

Of course that doesn't negate the fact I'm going to have to haul some serious ass in the gym. Ugh.

There you go. That's my challenge.

19%

(I love that I can't get distracted by trying to measure this myself every week, because I can't. It's do the work, stay focused on what I need to do, and change my inner thoughts. I do it or I don't, no way of cheating here).

More importantly.

100% acceptance of the little girl inside who struggled with suicide when she was only 8 years old over being bullied about her weight.

That will be the real challenge.