I have to tell you, I am very happy with my weight loss this week, and pretty motivated to keep up the work. Naturally I wanted to go home and celebrate the accomplishment by eating everything in sight, but I resisted, and had a regular meal instead.
After the meeting I had the opportunity to talk to the Mentor that had spoken to us last week. She is a lovely young woman that is about half way to her ideal weight. Not to mention that she is a pastry chef, and has temptation in front of her everyday, a job I know I would seriously struggle with. I asked her if she is at the point of not wanting the food she creates, and she said "Heck no", that she loves the things she cooks, and has to make the conscience effort not to taste, smell, and sample what she bakes. During her presentation she spoke about not being able to run at all when she started, and how she now has completed a number of 5K runs. My teammate asked her how she got to the point where she like running, and could run 3 + miles without stopping. Her answer was that she doesn't enjoy running at all, but she knew that she couldn't stop pushing herself when her journey was over, so she just adopted the running / jogging / walking into her daily routine. Whatever she is doing is working because she is the # 1 woman loser on the mentor board. She was so honest and real to me. I could relate to the struggles she shared, because I remember being in my 20's and feeling pressured to be thin, even then more than now that I'm in my late 30's.....Oh, alright, I'll admit it, my late 40's...
I appreciate her courage to get up in front of us and share her story.
On Friday the work out was at 6:00 in the man gym. It is sort of fun being an observer at times, just looking around at the people in the gym, especially the man gym. There are all makes and models of people there, the majority of them males, and the occasional giant bodybuilder. There are very few people that look like me, and at first I was real intimidated being there, but not anymore. It is more comfortable and I don't feel like such an outsider. By no stretch of the imagination would I begin to think I belonged there, but I see familiar faces, and we do that head nod thing...like "hey, how's it going?"..."fine, just fine, & you?". I don't consider them my homies or anything, but it is getting more comfortable.
The work out was pretty similar to the circuits we have been doing. Ron had us doing the workout with dumbbells again, and he was doing some new core strengthening exercises. At one point he had us balancing on one foot, like a flamingo, for a slow count of 20. Then we had to swing our foot back and forth, and do circles and kick backs, all while balancing on one foot. Guess what? I really stink at that game. I have no balance at all. I was all over the place, and at one point I grabbed my team mate just to steady myself. Ron told us to find a spot on the floor and focus on it to steady ourselves, I asked if that was the place we should aim for when we fell down, because I was fairly sure it would be the domino effect. He wasn't amused, however he did let me put one finger on the wall to steady myself. I don't know how my core was, but I had a bad case of the flaming butt cheeks, and it was all I could do not to complain. The work out lasted about 45 minutes and was actually pretty good since Ron is stepping up the ab work as well. When I finally went home I was ready for a hot shower, a snack, and bed.
Saturday we went to the man gym and did some warm up exercises before really hitting it hard with a circuit focusing on our legs. We did the usual squats, lunges, burpies, jump squats, leg extensions, and leg presses, then we added some bars, and then abs. It was a good day until Ron did that evil smile and told us we were going on a field trip. Oh boy! I thought we might do the tractor tires again, but nope...we went to the parking garage across the street. All eight stories of it. We were instructed to do the stairs, up and down as fast as we could, so off we went. I don't know if I mentioned that I have been having trouble with my right knee, but it had gotten quite sore lately, especially when I do the lunges. It feels like it needs to pop, and then it would loosen up, but I'm pretty sure a pop would be a bad thing. Anyway...we started the stairs, and I tried very hard to go fast, but I just found myself hurrying...not sprinting, just going faster than usual. It was great to reach the top deck, and the going down went well too. The next instruction was for us to do squats on each landing, both going up and coming down. That was difficult. I was really fatigued by the time I got down and I found myself dragging my right foot. The next instruction was to sprint to the top and back down. Man...I wasn't real sure I could make it. I didn't sprint, but I walked fastish...kind of like I was walking into the wind, head down, mustering on. At the bottom of the stairs, Ron gave us a quick water break, then told us to lunge across the parking garage, and run back, then we would be done....alright....I knew I could lunge slowly, but the run back was going to be the tricky part. I knew that I didn't want to be last so I put on my big girl panties, and took off. I am happy to say that my knee popped about half way across the garage, and it made it possible for me to go a faster, and the jog back wasn't too bad either. We started back to the gym to get our stuff since we were done, and had to pass right by two snack machines...how mean! Not to mention that my car was about 50 feet from the parking garage...man...that figures!
I ate an apple AND banana on my way home. I know I deserved it! The Sunday HCC work out is Yoga / Pilates at 2:30....I think I better lay off the fiber for the rest of the day.....
Kelly
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