Archives for March 2014

“These last minutes that you DON’T want to do are the most important minutes of your workout.”

– Jen Mulford

I’ll agree with Jen here and then take it up a notch.  I think that the minutes you spend doing stuff you don’t want to do are some of the most important minutes of your life.  And I don’t think this because I have decided that there is some inherent value in suffering. Doing your taxes, getting the oil changed, listening to some boring person talk.  Enduring these things will not magically transform your life into a pile of awesome.  But it may transform you.

I am bombarded on a daily basis by people telling me that they only do what they ‘love’.  Or that we should all follow our’ bliss’.  Or that if something makes you unhappy, it must be excised from your life.  (And understand, I am hearing this from social media.  I have very few real life friends and they don’t talk this nonsense.) Can we all just take a minute to see how goofy this advice is?  Now honestly if you are being  abused, then by all means, remove yourself from that situation.  I’m not suggesting at all that we try to live in pain and struggle.  But seriously.  Getting your tags renewed is no fun.  But it’s not a punishment.  It’s real life.

You know who lives their lives doing only the stuff they love?  3 year olds.

Sometime last year, I was doing a bit of bragging on myself.  I was telling a friend “I have consistently worked out twice a week for three months.”  Now this may sound like no big deal to you.  But, for me…ya’ll you just cannot even begin to understand what an accomplishment that was.  I am the queen of giving up. The countess of quit.  My friend was proud of me and applauded my efforts. She asked eagerly. “And do you just love it?!?!?”  And I responded, “Nope.”

I do not love doing lunges, or planks, or squats, or crunches.  I do not love it now. I did not love it then.  I have no plans to love them in the future. I have never, in the history of ever, jumped out of bed in the morning excited to do some bicep curls and burpees.   Here’s the cold hard truth.  Lunges don’t care if you love them.  They work whether you are smiling or cursing.

I think maybe all the inspirational fitness programs on TV  have seduced us into believing that there is some magical place in time where we will just love to run marathons, or jump on top of really high boxes for no good reason.  Quit checking the calendar my friend. That day ain’t coming.

Maybe you have found an exercise that you just love.  If so, count yourself lucky and enjoy the gift.  I actually have found some things I really enjoy doing in the gym.  But I still go do the stuff I hate.  And I don’t do it to punish myself.  I do it because it is important and necessary.

I have stopped thinking there is something wrong with me because I don’t love to exercise.

I love this body that God has given me.  I love healing it from the damage I inflicted upon it.  I love changing it a tiny bit every day.

And, for me, this is more than enough.

Sometimes failure is an option.

Since I have been working out with Jen, there have been LOTS of circuit exercises that I could not do well.  Some of them were downright hysterically executed if I am being honest.  But I never had one I could not do…until now.

The gym has this thing called a TRX trainer.  If Satan bought out Anytime Fitness, it’s the kind of thing you would expect to find there. It’s just a strap attached to the wall and it’s used to torture fat people.  True story.

We’ve used this deal in many ways and while I won’t be expecting a call to be featured in the TRX trainer brochure anytime soon, I’ve been able to do all the exercises presented to me.  But a few weeks ago I stood before this contraption and nearly lost my mind.  This particular exercise involved holding on to both sides of the long yellow strap, lowering oneself down and then doing a type of pull up back to near standing.  I admit that may be a bad description but the part you need to know is that it basically involved using your upper body to lift your own body weight…REPEATEDLY!

Now clearly this exercise is discriminatory against the obese.  I mentioned this and no one seemed to car about this injustice.  So I set up and made some half-hearted attempts.  Ya’ll, my pride hurt a lot worse than my biceps.  Until that moment, I had no idea how proud I had been of not failing in the gym.  Sensing a meltdown, Jen came over to cheer me on.  “4 more” she said.  (This is the Jen equivalent of cheering me on.  Trust me.  It’s great.)  I looked at her and thought “Wow, she actually thinks I can do this.”

Wouldn’t this be a great story if it ended with Jen’s belief in me giving me the strength to do 4 more reps?

Yeah, well it didn’t.  I crumpled.

I didn’t cry.  But I wanted to.

I didn’t cuss.  But I wanted to.

I didn’t run straight out the door.  But I really, really wanted to.

I took a deep breath (It may have been a strangled sob…whatever) and I started over.

And I did 4 friggin more.

Because temporary failure is an option on this journey to permanent success.

This was a bad week.

To summarize :  Spring Break; trip to Florida; hours in the mini van; Florida is way cold in March; stayed with my parents, my brother and 4 children in a camper in cold Florida; Gulf too cold; no beach time; no exercise (unless you count whining); more hours in the mini van; the end.

And you know what?  Eating crappy foods didn’t make any of those situations any better.  And, yes, it seems like I would have learned that lesson many times over by now.  But here we are…again.

Unlike past bad weeks, I am not beating myself up too badly this time.  You see I’m playing a long game here.  This is not a change I am trying to make for 52 weeks.  It’s a change I am making for all the rest of my weeks.

And I am guessing that a few of them will be bad.

But there is one lesson I have learned.

This week was bad.

My choices were bad.

Swiss Cake Rolls are delicious but bad.

But my plan is not bad.

My goal is not bad.

And I am not bad.