Tag Archives: fitness

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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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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Doing My Typical Thing

In the here & now, , ,

trainers

I found myself shopping on line last night for new trainers in anticipation of this new exercise-filled life I’m going to be living. That’s so typical of me, I mean at that point I hadn’t even spoken to the bloke, you know? I had no idea what kind of footwear I might need, because it’s a fitness studio not a gym, and in any event I’m hardly lacking in the trainers department, given that I bought a new pair back in January in honour of the hurt machine moving in.

Turns out that me and the hurt machine get on better when I’m barefoot so I don’t even use them for that. To be fair I have worn them a lot…mainly for dog walking. They’ve lost that just out of the box look, but they’re not exactly battered, in fact I would imagine that Nike designed them to withstand far more rigorous activity than they’ve ever seen on my feet.

I suspect my need to accessorise is driven by the fact that somewhere in my head lurks the conviction that if I look the part, I’ll be able to pull it off, in a sort of fake it till you make it kind of way. I’ve always been the same. I remember once in my later teenage years having the hots for a bloke who I knew was really into playing squash, so I tried to pretend I was too. I even bought a squash racquet so it could lean casually in the hallway when he popped round for a coffee.

My ruse worked, right up to the point where I ran out of excuses not to join him in a game, which unsurprisingly didn’t go well. He more or less stayed in the same spot on the squash court for a full hour whilst my chunky legs made a heroic effort to propel me around, chasing a ball I was never going to catch…by the end of the session I couldn’t even speak, in fact I was on the verge of needing an iron lung. It wasn’t the biggest surprise in the world when I never heard from him again. But despite the epic failure, throughout the nightmare I dripped Slazenger from head to toe.

I’m not quite sure what a fitness studio does if I’m honest..? I just know this bloke comes highly recommended as a trainer. Let’s not forget I’m a child of the eighties, so I’m seriously having to put the brakes on and stop myself running out to buy a headband and legwarmers which in my head is what everyone will be wearing. I’ve got my feet sorted out but I’m feeling slightly nervous that I’ll stick out like a sore thumb because I don’t have the right uniform.

Logic tells me it shouldn’t matter a monkey’s chuff what I’m wearing, as long as it covers the flesh and holds in a bit of the wobble. But then, if my life was remotely governed by logic I wouldn’t have gotten myself into this pickle in the first place, would I..?

So, I’m going for my assessment tonight, and tomorrow it starts. And you know how I’ve struggled with the thought of fitting everything in..? My weekend away with its enforced technology withdrawal demonstrated perfectly that it’s not all going to turn to ratshit if I don’t post every single day.

I’m going to force myself to cut back a bit and post four times a week, instead of daily…that’s going to feel very weird especially at first. But freeing up time to get serious about my fitness supports my longer term goal and I’ve got to be honest with myself… it’s the only way I can juggle all the things I need to do.

I’m thinking I’ll try and post on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Seems to make sense,  the blog is quieter over the weekend anyway. I hope that works for you guys.

You won’t all desert me, will you?

Promise..?

I can’t do this without ya 🙂

 

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So Go On, Ask Me..!

In the here & now, , ,

FUF

I can’t believe that just over a week ago I was skipping out of the office with a whole week’s worth of lovely things stretching out ahead of me and as of around 5.15am this morning when the alarm went off I came right back down to earth with a bump. I love my job, but I’ve got to be honest, I’ve loved pottering around at home even more. Sigh…I guess all good things have to come to an end.

Still, when I set off for the office this morning I was wearing a new top, and that’s always nice, right? I felt good, and even better still…go on, ask me what size it was..? Only a size twenty…I KNOW!! That’s a size sixteen to my friends over the pond I think, and I’m here to tell you I felt positively slinky as I got into the car, even with my one pound gain this week.

So that’s now four dress sizes lower than when I started. Let me hear you say YEAH! I seem to have been stuck in a size twenty two for ages, and I’ve kept on trying the next size down but you know what I mean when I say it fastened but it didn’t feel quite right..? Today, it did. Today, I was all over that bad boy. So the twenty is hard won and very satisfying, especially when people noticed, and commented…you don’t need me to tell you how wide my grin was every time someone did 🙂

It’s come just at the right time. I’m still a bit raw from being outsmarted by the Asshole voice before the weekend but there’s nothing quite like going down a dress size to give you a boost, right? I suspect my efforts this week will be turbo charged, and you know what, so they should be. I fully intend to make up lost ground, and this is the week that I’m going to pull my big girl pants on and join a gym.

I’m not looking forward to it, in fact I’m already wearing my not-impressed face at the thought of taking that first step. And all the steps that come next, as it goes. Even so, I’m doing it. A friend of mine has made a recommendation and I’m speaking to the guy tomorrow, but if for any reason it doesn’t pan out, I’ve already got a plan B…that’s how serious I am.

Tomorrow marks nine months since I started my diet. That’s a lot of skin in the game, you know? And it hasn’t all been perfect like it was in the early days. I spent a lot of time worrying that if I slipped and spoiled my perfect record it would all turn to shit but you know what, life’s not perfect. The life skill of being able to pick myself up again when things don’t go my way applies every bit as much to my journey to Skinny Town as it does to life in general. That’s what makes me a survivor in life, and that’s what’s going to get me over the Skinny Town county line.

If I pull my sensible head on for a minute, I can see it clear as day. The bumps in the road that I’ve encountered are giving me the opportunity to practise the things I need to be able to do easily if I’m going to make this stick. They’re not nice when they’re happening but without them, I’m missing an important bit of the learning. It’d be a bit like learning to drive without reverse parking being part of the test, right? I might get my license but if I ever needed to get out of a tight spot, I wouldn’t know how if I hadn’t learned that bit.

So I guess my wobbles left and right are serving a purpose, even if they don’t feel like it at the time. It’s good to know that when the fuck-up fairy visits she leaves a nugget of wisdom behind for me to find in the aftermath, and they all help to move me forward 🙂

 

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