Tag Archives: exercise

Yesterday, I Laughed…

In the here & now, , ,

boxing

So, let’s have a recap. My first class was Body Blast, and I’ve told you all about that one. My second was Fat Furnace, and I’ve told you about that one too.  I haven’t talked about the third one yet. That’s not me being slack, it’s more that I’m still trying to get over the shock. When you’re no longer living a life where you can reach for a packet of Hobnobs to help you to process your thoughts, it sometimes takes a while, you know?

My friend had told me that I’d laugh, in this class. She said that it’s the most fun I’d ever have. And it had the word ‘lite’ in the title, so you know, I sort of thought that this one might be easier. I believed her. I mean, pick up any item in the supermarket with the word ‘lite’ on the pack and you’re pretty much guaranteed it won’t taste of anything…go on, tell me I’m wrong. It’s something, full of nothing. So I believed her when she said I’d laugh, I mean why wouldn’t I?

My friend lied. My friend’s a bitch.

So there I was, aching muscles and a body on the edge, walking into Box-Lite like a lamb to the slaughter. Session three of my souped-up fitness regime and for the first time there was no fear, just anticipation…I’d come to laugh. This was bound to be a walk in the park compared to Body Blast and Fat Furnace, right?

Right. It started to dawn on me during the warm up that perhaps I’d jumped the gun a bit, right around the time where we had to bounce on our toes whilst holding a squat position. That hurt like crazy, the muscles in my thighs were on fire and it certainly didn’t bode well for an easy ride. God of Pain demonstrated from the front, and made it look effortless, as if he had springs on the balls of his feet.

When we really got going and pulled on the boxing gloves, I learned how to throw a punch, in fact I learned how to throw four different punches. Imaginatively named one, two, three and four. Then I learned how to duck. Well, he called it roll, but thankfully there was no actual rolling going on. And punching and rolling were easy peasy lemon squeezy. I so had this. Except for my legs, which were required to keep up a continual bounce, on the toes…my calves were not happy. Unhappy calf muscles underneath burning thigh muscles isn’t a marriage made in heaven, if you want me to be completely honest.

I was partnering God of Pain so we could work on my technique. Not said through gritted teeth at all. Apart from my legs, I coped okay, or at least I did at first. When it was one, pause, two, pause, three, pause, four, I was fine. One, roll, two, three, roll, four…still fine. He introduced quarter turns and half turns, and all the time I’m bouncing and throwing punches onto the pads he was holding up in front of me. I’m fading fast at this point, and the asshole voice in my head was in overdrive.

That’s enough now. Why don’t you pretend you need a wee so you can at least go and have a sit down for a minute….this can’t continue, everything hurts and you’re on the verge of overdoing it. He’s driving you too hard, can’t he see you’re a fat old woman who shouldn’t even be here. Enough now, time out!

Quite apart from the asshole conversation going on in my head, things got a bit complicated when God of Pain started going faster with his instructions. And then he started playing dirty, I mean one, two, three, four is one thing…one, four, two, three messed with my mojo. I looked around and saw lots of people in fits of giggles as they punched and rolled and bounced their way through it and tried to keep up. I wasn’t laughing, in fact it was all I could do to fucking breathe. And with the best will in the world, my punches landed on the man mountain like feathers on a breeze.

Onethreetwofourrollquarterturnleftonetwofourthreerollonerollhalfturnleftfourthreetworollroll…shit. That’s torn it.

Having got nowhere at all with gentle persuasion, the asshole voice leap-frogged right over the chain of command and went straight to the director of feet, screaming FUCK IT !! THAT’S ENOUGH LADS, YOU CAN’T GO ON AND SHE’S NOT FUCKING LISTENING…TAKE HER DOWN!!

And they did. The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor looking up at several Gods of Pain, arranged in a very bohemian rhapsody kind of way above my head.

Scaramoosh Scaramoosh will you do the fandango…

I got up again real quick when I clocked the look on his face…clearly being tripped up by your own feet is for wimps. And so it continued, ’till it was done. And I survived. There were two moments where I genuinely thought I was going to throw up from all the bouncing, punching, rolling and turning, and several moments where I wanted so badly to quit and tell him where to shove his gloves, but you know what, no way. My legs burned for the rest of the day. But I was back there for Fat Furnace the very next day, and yesterday I did my second box-lite session.

I wasn’t partnering God of Pain yesterday…yesterday it was easier.

Yesterday, I laughed 🙂

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This Kind Of Sore Is Good, Right?

In the here & now, , ,

pain

I don’t mind admitting that I’m a full-bodied wuss…pain is something I avoid like plague. Under any circumstances. Do you remember when seemingly all of womankind was banging on about the Fifty Shades of Grey books..?  I took one look at the concept and thought nah, not for me. Christian Grey would’ve received a swift kick in the clackers if he’d tried to pull any of that shit on me, no matter how well he filled his suit.

So, one of the things I was dreading the most about turbo-charging my fitness regime were the sore muscles that I knew were coming my way. I was probably dreading those more than actually flinging myself about in the first place. In the past, on the odd occasion where I’ve pushed myself physically I’ve been miserable for days afterwards with what felt like toothache in all my limbs.

Having said that, I’ve not really ever done anything like this before, under the supervision of someone who actually knows what they’re doing. The only guidance I can ever remember being given were the warp speed inductions at whatever gym I’d ventured into, usually delivered by a spotty teenager with a whistle around his neck who I never saw again, unless it was at a distance as he closely supervised a skinny string bean with buns of steel at the other side of the gym.

On Friday, with two classes under my belt, I was sore. I wasn’t as sore on Thursday morning as I’d been expecting, other than my bruised knees of course, but the second session was much harder and on Friday, everything ached. I had a long hard day at work, travelling to London and back with a fair bit of walking throughout the day. The first hurdle was actually getting on the train in the first place, I mean that’s a big-assed step up when your legs feel like lead. And pulling myself up on the door wasn’t really an option since my arms also felt like lead.

My arms hurt the most, I think. They’ve led a very sedentary life for ever and I’m acutely aware that I have no upper-body strength at all. Press-ups, even from my knees, not to mention planking and those dratted kettle bells had come as a shock, I’m not going to lie. I bought a coffee at the station before we set off and I’m only exaggerating a tiny bit when I say I looked at it on the table in front of me on the train and wondered whether I could get away with putting my head down and slurping it without actually picking up the cup.

At one point I sneezed, and without warning a really loud AHHHH shot out of my mouth immediately afterwards as my stomach muscles screamed in protest at the sudden need to tighten. You don’t even want to know how many heads whipped around in the carriage to see what on earth was going on, it must’ve sounded like someone was trying to murder me.

So, it hurt. But I couldn’t help thinking, that nine months ago the same schedule with trains and walking and stuff would have been equally torturous just for different reasons. At way over three hundred pounds, everything hurt. After just a few minutes of walking, my lower back used to hurt way more than any achy muscles I’ve experienced this week.

I actually used to worry that my spine was going to give way under the sheer weight of my torso, and quite apart from that, my feet and ankles would swell horribly, not to mention my left knee burning like there was a red hot poker through the middle of it. I could never get comfortable on the train, and if someone came and sat beside me I’d be so paranoid about how much space I was taking up I’d hold myself stiff and try really hard not to spill into their space.

Blimey. The weirdest thing just happened…I found myself getting a bit teary when I thought about how I used to feel. I’ve come such a long way since then. I mean, I know I’ve got a long way to go still, but genuinely, being fat doesn’t occupy my every waking thought any more. I am still fat, there’s no getting away from that. But it’s no longer the kind of fat which means I can’t do things that normal people do. And it’s only when I shine a light on the way I used to feel that I remember exactly what it was like. It was awful.

So this week I’ve felt the kind of sore that says I’ve worked for it, rather than the kind of sore that invades my body because of the tonnage I’m hauling around.

I’ll take that.

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Adjusting To My New Normal

In the here & now, , , , ,

adjustI didn’t really know what to expect this week as I shuffled into the bathroom for my weekly encounter with the bitch. The asshole voice was trying to engage me in conversation right off the bat, before I’d even got out of bed in fact, by pointing out that unless I’d dropped at least ten pounds this week I should resign from the fitness studio with immediate effect and admit that this body was not built for the kind of things I’ve been asking it to do.

I didn’t lose ten pounds, but I did lose two, and I’ll happily take that. I’ve only got five pounds to go until I hit the five stones mark and then in just one more stone’s time I’ll be able to say that I’m officially halfway to Skinny Town. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a long old slog to get this far but with your company and a few laughs along the way it’s not proving to be as bad as it otherwise might have been, you know?

Writing less often feels very strange. I’m not sure that I like it, but some of the pressure has definitely gone. You lot have been brilliant, in fact I’m blessed with an extraordinary amount of support and I think my fears about not blogging every day having an impact on the strength of the glue holding my feet in the sweet spot have proved to be unfounded. So far, at least.

I waved goodbye to a lot of my favourite fat-girl clothes last week too, after I sold them on eBay…man that felt good. As I handed them over at the Post Office parcel by parcel and waved them off to start a new life on someone else’s curves, I swear I felt lighter by the minute. The Asshole voice had an opinion, obviously. No no no nooooo…not the blue daisy top, that was your favourite!! What if you ever need it again, you’re bound to put the weight back on at some point and you’ll never find anything that you liked as much as that…

Maybe that’s true, you know? Not the re-gain, I mean I have no intention of going back there but maybe I wouldn’t ever find a fat-girl top that I liked as much as I liked that one. I felt nice in that top, I thought it hid a multitude of sins. Looking back on the photographs, it did not. What I actually looked like was a moose in a blue daisy top, so somewhere along the way, someone was getting fooled.

Anyway, as I slowly adjust to wearing clothes four sizes down from where I started, even my old favourites are no longer welcome. No emergency fatter-girl clothes needed in reserve because my new normal won’t be requiring a fallback position thank you very much.

I’m adjusting to a bunch of other stuff too…waking up and counting the number of body parts which provoke an ouch whenever I move them, then feeling happy because I remember why they’re aching…I’m working hard. Fitting at least one fitness session into my schedule every day. Saving stuff up in my head to chatter about with you guys instead of spending quite so much time at my keyboard…it all counts, and it’s all moving me to a better place, it just takes a bit of getting used to that’s all.

So, my thoughts have turned to my next goal – I’m only just nicely in a size 20, but I’m pitching to be in a comfortable size 18 by the time I go on holiday, in the middle of August. That’s do-able in 3 months, right? I might even get there more quickly, especially now I have the God of Pain on my side…by rights I should be a size 10 by next Sunday.

I did try cracking a joke in that general direction during my last session and he just nailed me with the stare, which on that occasion I interpreted to mean don’t be so fucking ridiculous. Fair enough 🙂

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What I Didn’t Realise Was…

In the here & now, , , , ,

image

…that Body Blast was simply an amuse bouche…it seems the real action goes on in Fat Furnace. Which is where I found myself at 06h30 yesterday morning. There’s definitely an air of expectation from God of Pain that you’ll pull yourself back from the brink, and be ready to go again at your first opportunity. He looks like the kind of bloke who chews sore muscles up for breakfast and I’m acutely aware that he’s still sussing me out, so I thought I’d better show willing. I’d like to get at least a week under my belt before he writes me off as a wimp.

Strangely, when I woke up yesterday, I didn’t hurt as much as I thought I might. Charlie dog looked on with interest as I limped around the bedroom trying to find a second exercise outfit, and he only learned one new word when I pressed on my knees to see if they still hurt. (FYI, they did.)

God of Pain had asked me to get there ten minutes early for the morning session, so he could walk me through what was what. I’ve got to be honest, once I clocked the way he’d set the room out all I wanted to do was go back to bed. For the rest of my life. I’ve never actually seen a kettle bell in real life but I know they regularly make people cry on Biggest Loser, so seeing them dotted liberally around the room didn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling, you know?

In Body Blast I’d had my own little corner of the room, with my own mat so I could quietly get on with the business of hurting. Fat Furnace is basically circuit training in disguise, with the whole class working their way around a series of torture stations. Given that I’m a newbie and he’s breaking me in gently (yeh what fucking ever) some of the harder stuff was reserved for the proper people.

It was more of the same from the night before, just harder. Much harder. Lots of jogging on the spot, lots of getting up and getting down again to do more stuff that hurt, and those kettle bells lived right up to their advance publicity. He gave me the baby size which were still heavier than a fully loaded suitcase and my arms were expected to swing them all over the place whilst my legs burned in a squat position…a double helping of hell, especially since those legs had jogged, lunged, squatted and hoiked this fat old body off the floor more times than I can even count in the last 24 hours.

At one point, God of Pain (who was quietly following me around to make sure that I was hurting enough) (without hurting myself, if you know what I mean) leaned in as he surveyed the room and whispered I run a tight ship…I’m not sure he meant it to sound like a threat but it definitely dissuaded the asshole voice from even trying to suggest it was time to go home and have a lie down with a cup of tea and a ginger nut.

I’ve got to be honest…doing all this in front of a wall of mirrors, is a torture all of its own. Being confronted with the reality of watching my whole body quiver as my arms valiantly tried to raise what felt like a ton weight up and away from my body, whilst my legs wobbled and my face got redder and redder was not attractive. My hair was dripping wet and my bingo wings were flapping around underneath the short sleeves that I rarely wear, with a momentum all of their own.

The very last torture station saw me rolling an exercise ball down the wall behind my back to a sitting position without a chair, on legs that wondered just what the fuck was going on…yes, those same legs that had jogged, lunged, squatted and hoiked this fat old body off the floor more times than I can even count in the last 24 hours. I swear I could almost hear them screaming we don’t do this!! This body doesn’t do this!!! Bring back our old life, bitch!!!

We had to go round twice. Not three times. I could have kissed the feet of the lady who told me that after the second klaxon sounded we’d actually finished finished. And you know what, for the second time in two days, I survived.

It was interesting, you have an opportunity to feed back on your training session when you get your summary afterwards on email…I was going to suggest Barry Manilow, mood lighting and scatter cushions for the next session, but I have a feeling that the God of Pain would disapprove…

 

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Dear Body…I’m Sorry.

In the here & now, , ,

crime scene

So on Tuesday after work I went down to the fitness studio to meet the God of Pain. I was ready to be impressed, after all he came highly recommended and he certainly seemed like a really nice man. He was interested in my goals, and didn’t even flinch when I told him that I’m planning to drag this arse up a mountain in a few months’ time, although he did nail me with a stare and tell me I was going to have to work hard. No shit, right? I can work hard.

He followed our meeting up with an email outlining his recommendations in terms of my training schedule…I’ve had to sign up to a minimum of four sessions a week but between you and me, I can tell he thinks four times a week is for fannies. That stare told me don’t even think about wimping out and doing the minimum…oh crap, it really is the end of life as I know it.

We’re going to work on stamina and strength. Or should I say I’m going to work on stamina and strength under his very close supervision…I’ve already sussed that the majority of his input comes from the stare, which he’s very good at. I think I actually want to cry.

So, let me tell you about my first training session. I’d wrestled my head into acceptance that it was going to have to talk my body into moving a bit, and I arrived complete with water bottle, and towel. Unfortunately, I’d taken my contact lenses out because it felt like the right thing to do, so the towel I grabbed on the way out turned out to be one of the ones I use for the dog. Anyway, despite a few questionable stains it did come off the clean washing pile so it was all good, if a little embarrassing. I was ready. And everyone was lovely so I felt very welcome.

So, the good news is I now know what the difference is between a fitness studio and a gym. A gym is somewhere you go to sweat, and a fitness studio is where you go to hurt. I got off to a bit of a ropey start, to be honest…the stretches were all going fine until we got to the one where you have to bend your knee and grab your foot from behind to stretch your quads – oh yes, I’ve so got this lingo – well, that’s all very well unless you’ve got a fat leg with a rogue foot that refuses to be caught.

I had about three attempts, in fact I must’ve looked like I was trying to fucking Riverdance as I waved my leg around and desperately grabbed in the general direction of my foot whilst balancing on the other leg. By some miracle I managed to hook my finger down the back of my trainer and pull my leg up so it was a minor drama and I don’t think anyone noticed. Well, except the God of Pain, who notices everything.

The session was called Body Blast, which was all about building core strength. I haven’t got too much of that so I knew it was going to hurt. Call me Mystic Meg if you must, but I wasn’t wrong. Let me paint a picture of exactly what I demanded from this knackered fat old body. Jog-on-the spot and then get down on a yoga mat to do the plank (ouch), stand up and do some lunges, get down again and do some press-ups (ouch), get up again and do some star jumps, get down again and do some side-planks (ouch), get up again and do some squats, get down again and do some bum stuff (I’d started to lose cognitive thought at this point so can’t remember what they were called) get up again and have another jog, get down again and do some arm stuff (I’m actually dying by now so didn’t care what they were called).

That all took about twenty minutes, and I’ve never been as relieved to hear a klaxon in my whole life. Except he then made us do it again. And then again. Three fucking times.

The bit I found the hardest was all the getting up and down, you know? It’s hard enough, still, to haul this body out of a chair, never mind getting down to ground level. I can’t remember the last time my knees saw that much action, I mean come on, I’m a single girl…not much call to get down on all fours in my life, wink wink. My knees are very pissed off today but to honest they just need to join the chuffing queue.

I couldn’t help looking at my yoga mat as I punch-drunkenly jogged on the spot towards the end of the hour in a kind of out-of-body experience way, and I noticed how the memory foam retains the shape of your body for a while after you get up. Well, mine did anyway. I also couldn’t help thinking that all that was missing was a chalk outline to confirm that this was in fact a crime scene. The God of Pain was attempting to murder me and what’s more, I was paying him to do so.

But you know what? I survived it. And by the end, when we did the cool down I was astonished to discover that I still had the power of movement and speech. Who knew!

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