Archive for the ‘Gym & Fitness’ Category

• I wanna do THAT

  Date: 2009.02.04 | Category: Gym & Fitness | Response: 2

  I’ve been bumping around the internet looking for posts about couples who exercise together for a BlogHer post when I happened on The Great Fitness Experiment. The post that took me there won’t work for my post but I checked out her about page.

  See that picture part way down the page of her doing that crazy yoga move?

  I wanna do THAT -  the scorpion pose.

  You know, without killing myself.

• Doing Penance

  Date: 2008.07.29 | Category: Gym & Fitness, sometimes I ramble | Response: 7

  Last week L came home after his regular Thursday night card night and I greeted him with the words, “So I’ve been thinking…” For those of you who don’t know me IRL perhaps the only worse words you want to come out of my mouth and directed to you are, “I have a question.” (The second one is particularly troublesome when it comes out on conference calls.)

  He got a bit of a deer in headlights look about him and replied, “Ok, let me have it.”

  I think proceeded to explain that I thought that perhaps we had gotten a bit too comfortable with our unemployed time. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still applying to jobs like mad. But we also were sleeping in more and more. We were turning into lumps. We’ve been unemployed for almost 5 months. It happens.

  So we set up a new little schedule – and it sucks. And I suck even more at following it. The alarm now goes off at 6:45am. We’re supposed to be out of bed by 7. That has not happened yet due to not feeling well yesterday and being damned lazy and liking the soft sheets of bed a bit too much this morning. Ok, fine. So I got up late.No biggie. But also on my schedule it says from 7-7:30am I’m supposed to do yoga.

  I made the damn schedule. You would think that I’d follow it but no, no I have not. Again, yesterday I didn’t do it because my stomach was not a happy camper. Me and downward dog were just not going to be jiving. Today I had no excuse for it other than that I was lazy.

  So I had to do penance. Penance = the stationary bike. I hate that bloody thing and if I don’t do yoga (minus a legitimate excuse) I am punishing myself with the stationary bike. My morning yoga routine takes approx 22 minutes so I have to do a minimum of 11 minutes of punishment (until that gets too easy and then the time will increase to whatever point I feel like I’m going to die and my legs feel like rubber).

  I hate the stationary bike. Hate. it. I may possibly hate the stationary bike even more than an actual bike. You know those kids that would hop on their bikes and just ride for hours and thought it was the best thing ever? I was not one of those kids. I blame my older sister. Her idea of “teaching” me how to ride a bike without training wheels was to put me on it, push me and then laugh when I toppled over and scraped my knees and elbows. Ah sisterly love (our relationship has since matured). I was about 8 when I finally learned and by then figured I was doing just fine on my own two feet thank you very much.

  I’m hoping my hatred for the damn bike will result in my doing yoga which I actually want to do. Time will tell.

• Home Court Advantage

  Date: 2008.04.10 | Category: Gym & Fitness | Response: 6

  I have to say that one of the nicest things about using the gym in my apartment building is that when the workout is over I can be in my own apartment in under two minutes and in my own shower a minute after that. And that is definitely an advantage.

  Now can someone just tell me when going to the gym switched from bone-wearying exhausting to energizing? Cause me? I’m bloody tired.

• Hi! I joined the gym!

  Date: 2008.04.07 | Category: Gym & Fitness | Response: 6

  Yes! Again! Why?

  Because I’m out of shape and my shape is changing and I sit around on my ass and do nothing all day because I’m unemployed and lazy. Not to mention a wee bit broke. And there’s a gym in my building. Yes, all this time there’s been a gym in my building. I really should have started this months ago, like when I was so stressed I couldn’t sleep, but oh well, what you going to do about it? And holy crap am I out of shape (of course that would suggest that I ever was IN shape which would really be a lie…).

  What I like about it is that most of the time I’m the only one there so I don’t feel the slightest bit self-conscious about making funny faces or about struggling with even the smallest of weights (I am such a weakling). Or about that fact that 5 minutes on the treadmill, elliptical, or bike turns me into a sweaty red-faced mess and makes my legs quiver.

  A bit part of my problem with gyms is that I’m a pussy and I don’t like it when things get tough and I hate slogging through things and feeling/looking like I’m struggling. Because at heart I really am a perfectionist.

  So my new strategy is to pretend that Paul Plakas is yelling at me. Unfortunately since I’m only pretending I can’t yell back. Well…I could but with my luck that would be the time that someone walked by the gym and decided that I was looney.

  Bonus – I found an exercise routine that my former landlord (a personal trainer) made for me and I’m using that to get going. And right now my arms are goo cause hello? I am a weakling. But some day I will have kick ass arms like Deb Roby. Or maybe I’ll run like Karen Sugarpants. Or maybe I’ll do pushups like Zandria. Right now I’ll settle for not dying when I walk up the hill.

  Or at the gym.

• You could play a tune

  Date: 2007.05.22 | Category: Gym & Fitness | Response: 6

  Remember this category? It hasn’t been totally forgotten.  I just didn’t go to the gym for a really, really, really long time. I still hate the gym. I still find the weight room to be the scariest thing in the whole damn world.  The cardio room is just slightly better.

  I’m sorry but the gym is just a damned scary place for a bookworm with the coordination of a rock.

  But I went last week. And I went this week.  What is spawning this resurgence?  Well you know I’m moving.  I’m moving to a building that’s up a large mofo of a hill.  And as I realized when I was visiting Montreal, sitting on your ass all day makes walking up said hill a bit taxing.  So I’m trying to whip my body into walking shape.

  But it’s hard.  My calf muscles don’t like it. At all.  I have to warm up. Do a bit of a stretch. Do the rest of my work out.  Change. Walk home. Stretch for another 10 minutes.  No, not constantly.  But stretch.  Walk around the apartment. Stretch some more. Rinse and repeat.

  I don’t get you people who like the gym. I think you are freaky. Seriously.  But I’m trying.  I really am.  I’m going. And when I’m there I work it.

  And hopefully by the time I move I’ll be able to walk up that damn hill without wanting to take a nap when I get home.

• I could get used to this

  Date: 2007.01.02 | Category: Gym & Fitness | Response: 3

  I think I like going to the gym in the middle of the day.  Really.  It’s fairly quiet so there’s not a lot of people on the machines.  Or in the locker rooms.  And then I come back home nicely destressed and ready to work for the rest of the afternoon. It’s really quite nice.

  I still find it odd that no one really uses the locker room though. It seems that most people come in wearing their workout clothes and then leave in them.  I guess after belonging to a university gym and then to a Y downtown in a large city I’m not used to people being able to drive to the gym. It seems very odd.

• Step 1

  Date: 2006.12.28 | Category: Gym & Fitness | Response: 5

  Well I did it. I joined a gym yesterday. Truth be told, signing all the papers and forking out the cash is a lot easier than actually *going* to the gym. My anxiety level wasn’t too bad yesterday. I’m paid up until July 1 when they will start taking money out of my account. No cancellations are possible. If I want to stop the membership I’d have to sell it to someone. So I’m locked in a for a year. I think this is a good thing.
  I got a tour of the gym. It’s nice. It’s much, much smaller than the last gym I belonged to. It made me wish I had made full use of that gym and all its facilities and services. But this one is small and clean. The weight room still scares the crap out of me but it was bound to no matter what.

  Today should be my first trip to the gym. And it will be. But I’m afraid my anxiety is getting the better of me and causing my tummy to be rather unhappy. Sigh. So I’m going to wait a bit and give my tummy a bit of time to calm down before I go. And work on remembering the combination for the new lock I had to buy. You see, I actually already own two combination locks. I can remember the combination for one but of course I can’t find that one. The one that could find I cannot remember the combination. I know where the combination *is* but of course I can’t find that notebook. Notice a pattern here? I can’t ever find things when I need them. Another case for decluttering I suppose.

  I suppose some of you are wondering why I want to go to the gym? I have multiple reasons. I need something for stress release. I was getting therapeutic massages for awhile but ummm they hurt. A lot. But even the RMT said that I needed to find something for stress release. My ability to tie myself in knots is really quite impressive. And well, while massages helps with the whole unknotting it doesn’t help prevent it. I also need to get out of this darned apartment. Don’t get me wrong, I love my little hobbit hole. But I really ought to leave it more.

  Last week I spent a lot of time out of the house running errands etc. I found that I was able to sleep better and I had a wee bit more energy. I’m tired of being tired all the time and not being able to sleep at night. I need to do *something* and the gym seems like a good thing to do.

  I haven’t figured out exactly what my schedule is going to be like yet. It will take some tuning as I’m hoping to avoid the peak times. Ideally I’d like to be able to go in the middle of day but I’m not sure how often that will be possible with work. More likely now than at the beginning of this month to be sure.

  Whatever schedule/routine I work out will change in the next few months. My plan is to start off slow on the cardio machines until my body gets used to regular exercise again. And I can’t handle the stress of classes and the dreaded weight room quite yet. One itty bitty battle at a time I say. I’m hoping that once I get used to the gym the weight room will seem a little bit less scary (ha! I can dream).

  So one hurdle down…I’m not thinking how many others there are.