A couple of months ago I talked to my doctor about joining a gym. I have some endocrine issues that truely do hamper my ability to lose weight in the traditional manner of cutting calories. When I do that my metabolism goes into a panic and says "Oh no! Save everything!" and stores every single calorie I ingest. I may lose about ten pounds eating all salads all day but then I can keep on eating salad and nothing will happen. In fact, I might even start gaining weight. Have you ever met anyone that gains weight eating vegetables??
I have no doubt that I did it to myself. Years of the binge purge bulemic lifestyle I forced my body to endure more than likely contributed to the malfunctioning of my thyroid and other important glands.
It's an annoying little disorder and even when I take all my meds nothing changes except that I have less sugar crashes. Anyway, at this point my only desire is to stay healthy so that I can enjoy life and be active with my kids. A few lost pounds would be like Christmas to a four year old but I am not looking for miracles. So I thought joining a gym might be helpful.
I will not mention the treadmill that sits in my living room. Yes, my livingroom.
Anyway, I have this amazing doctor who has like seven kids (really!) and a thriving practice yet he seems to know everything about everything and always has time to discuss my questions and concerns. It doesn't even bother him that I might actually know a little bit about what we are discussing or that I have done a little research on my own before coming to him. Before I was a teacher, I was in chemical research so its in my nature to look things up and I have had a doctor or two in the past that just didn't appreciate that quality in me. So, I tell him my idea and he tells me about a study he read recently that might actually be helpful.
Two groups of thirty people were tasked with working out. The first group followed the traditional route by cutting calories, forcing aerobic exercise into their lives and toning with weights. The second group did just a minimal amount of aerobic exercise to warm up then concentrating on building muscle mass. The first group lost thirty pounds of fat. The second group lost 20 pounds of fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle. Since muscle weighs more than fat the second group actually lost a comparable amount of body mass yet increased muscle mass and thus increased their resting metabolism rate. This sounded pretty good to me since I quickly get bored walking miles to nowhere on the treadmill and I have never been much of a runner.
So I joined the local gym for $19 a month. This appealed to my frugal nature and they have a nice kid's care.
I should explain that this was an incredibly big step for me. Bigger than for the average couch potato. Since I am a teacher in our neighborhood, I am surrounded by current, past and even future students. Everywhere I go,literally, I run into at least one youngster that I once had in my classroom. This is so so true that even my future brother in law once said, "Gee, Sis, we can't go anywhere..." That is the primary reason that we stopped going to the YMCA several years ago (that and the fact that it did not appeal to my frugal nature!). I find it unnerving to be clad in sweat soaked clothes with my hair hanging in my face as I struggle to finish the las three minutes on the elyptical surrounded by kids that are supposed to respect me in the classroom.
Knowing that I had just signed a contract with the cheapest gym in town where I knew that most of the kids worked out was a really big step for me.
What changed?
I had a conversation not too long ago with a lady named Jackie. Her son is in my son's TKD class. She is as fit as can be, oozes confidence and a real "I don't care what anyone thinks" aura that I envy. Jackie is from St. Lucia, her husband from Puerto Rico. She told me a story of a church she once attended in the midwest where she was literally shunned at the entrance because of the mixed nature of her marriage. The elderly women made snide comments, cast her dirty looks and whispered as she and her husband sat among them.
Personally? I never would have gone back. My emotional psyche would have been damaged for life.
But she wanted to go to that church so she went.
I asked her what this had to do with me going to the gym.
She said "Who cares if the kids are there? You are going for you. Maybe they will respect you more if they see you doing what you want and need to do."
How right she was.
Working out is so not my favorite thing. I hate to feel sweaty, I get bored and I keep thinking of the million other things I need to get done.
All the stress of recent years took my perfect blood pressure and shot it through the roof about a year ago. Dozens of tests couldn't accredit it to anything physical and so here I am not even forty yet and I have to take BP meds every day.
The doctor says if I can release some of my stress through other outlets, medication may become a thing of the past.
And so I drag myself to the gym two or three days a week.
Thank you Apple for the IPOD.
Mostly I have gone in the morning when it is relatively quiet and I don't see many teenagers or twenty somethings. But last night I decided to go while my boy was in TKD class.
Things are a little different at five in the evening. The young man working the desk? Former student. The boy on the stair climber? Former student.
I almost left.
But I stayed.
Plugging myself into the IPOD, I blasted some good workout music and blocked out everything around me as I plugged away at the elyptical, sweat soaking my clothes and my stringy hair hanging in my face. As I casually glanced around I noticed that everyone was doing the same thing. No one was staring or laughing or pointing. I didn't see any cell phones snapping pictures for later posting on Facebook and everyone was sweaty with hair hanging in their faces.
I have been following my doctor's suggestions and find that I really prefer the weight machines to the cardio machines anyway. I feel like I am accomplishing something as I move from place to place and really feel my relatively weak muscles working with me to get stronger and healthier. Last night was no different.
What did change for me was my mindset.
As a kid and even into my teenage years, I was a prime target for being picked on. I was always taller than everyone else- reaching nearly 5'7" in sixth grade and there is nothing about me that could ever be described as petite or delicate. The boys teased me, the girls wanted nothing to do with me and I became used to standing on the sidelines in gymclass or on the playgound. Don't get me wrong, I had friends. Good friends. But I still often felt like the third wheel in a group- I wasn't athletic or even coordinated and no one ever wanted me on their teams in PE.
Somewhere in my adult mind I still felt like that little kid. I imagined myself on the sidelines trying not to act like I cared that I was the last person picked for a team and only by default.
What I seem to have forgotten is that I am an adult. I am an accomplished human being who no longer has to prove herself to her peers. All I have to do is live and be me and take care of myself and my family.
I am feeling pretty good these days. I haven't last dozens of pounds but my shorts are looser, my muscles a bit toner and I have alot more energy. A lifetime of fighting with eating disorders, crash diets and uncooperative metabolism seems like such a waste of time now as I sit here and reflect on it all.
I am not sure if there will ever be enough time to sweat out all the stress in my life but I enjoy the small amount of time I have carved into my routine to take care of me. I don't have a weight loss goal at this point- I am over looking at scales and stressing about pounds. I just want to stay healthy and strong, set a good example for my boys and maybe one day get off the damned medicine- all of it.
Love to hear you say that you are getting more self confidence!!
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