Eat the cupcake

So I’m pretty sure tonight is going to be brutal at the gym. I’m really not looking forward to it. It’s like when you know torture and pain are coming how can you really *want* that? And yet if memory serves me I am paying for that. On Monday when my trainer had to reschedule my appointment for tonight she told me she had a killer abs workout planned for me. Oh, abs, you are my nemesis aren’t you? This is what I have discovered in the past 3 months or so, I can love and appreciate every kind of hard and difficult workout I put my body thru. I can handle the leg days, the back days, the arm days, the butt days. Just about any days, but the days I HATE the most are abs days. All on my own, I will do exercises that fit into every other category but abs. It hurts so bloody awful that I pretty much have to be forced to do it. And apparently that IS what will happen tonight and I’m going to have to do it with a smile on my face and a resounding sure as the answer to everything. Because that is just how I roll.

This is the irony of life, when it rains it pours. On Monday night I was first told by my trainer that Wednesday at 5:30 would be a killer abs workout. Then I took classes where I was informed that Wednesday night in the 6 PM class, which I will be taking after my personal training is going to be mostly all focused on abs. So like 1 hour of abs? I can think of little else in the gym I would less want to do. Seriously. And yet, I am choosing this. I could not go to the class after my personal training session, but that is really not my style. My abs are going to kill me tomorrow, I can already predict this. Torture. That is pretty much what I am expecting. Have you ever done a reverse crunch? Seems easy enough at first but it only takes a few and your abs are on fire. I can only imagine what I am going to be feeling after an hour of abs exercises.

I guess the thing is, since it is the thing I LEAST like to do and am most likely to not do on my own I suspect it’s probably a good thing to be forced to do. This is probably the biggest reason why I am not running away from the challenge. I learned some time ago when it comes to the gym that if it scares the crap out of me, it’s probably worth doing. Don’t ever run away from the challenge, even if I can’t completely complete it, at least I tried and perhaps next time I WILL complete it. Fun times, right?

Monday night I pretty much sucked at the gym, but I feel like I pretty much redeemed myself last night I believe. Well, as much as possible. I hadn’t intended to take the one ½ hour class last night but then before class was starting my favorite instructor came up to me and said, I’m teaching the class tonight (It’s not normally her class) so I said, okay, and went for it. This girl is a fan of the HIT, High Intensity Interval Training model. Basically its 30 seconds of 2 exercises done 4 times in a row and then you get a little rest before moving on to 2 different exercises. It pretty much kicks your ass and I sweat a lot. I kind of like the high intensity stuff really. Kind of torture of its own kind. Probably because I am such a people pleaser and when you get a personal invite from the trainer you know you probably have to perform.

After that class I headed over to testosterone land of the weights. At first there were not a lot of beefy men over there so I felt okay but eventually I was surrounded in a sea of giant men lifting giant weights and there I was this little girl with my 10 pound weights. Ha. 10 pounds are actually quite hard when you are trying to raise them up and down in repetition. That is my story and I’m sticking to it. I tried to temper the reality that at LEAST I was over in weight land even if it was only 10 pounds I was rocking. And anyway, even at 10 pounds, I have muscles in my arms so if I developed them from lifting 10 pounds or 50 doesn’t matter, I still have the muscles. And none of those guys could argue that I at least have some muscle. Maybe not their giant ugly ass muscles that I wouldn’t even want, but my feminine sexy ones :) I pretty much did a bunch of arm work for a solid 45 minutes.

And THEN I decided to end my workout with a quick 30 minutes run. Well, it wasn’t my quickest run, but a solid 5k, 3.1 miles in a little less than 30 minutes. Just me and my music zoning out. So in the end it was a 30 minute run, a 30 minute class and about 45 minutes of strength training for me. I’d say solid night. Notice no abs were harmed in the making of last night’s workout. That apparently is all reserved for tonight’s pure torture session.

On the plus side I feel pretty today. Guess that’s a good thing. I’m having a great hair day. Love those. As a woman we all can appreciate the reality of a good hair day and how no matter what we do, some days they just don’t exist despite that great event that you are wanting to go to. Funny how great hair days rarely happen on important picture taking days? Instead my great hair day is wasted as I sit in my office on a cold and cloudy day. Ah well.

So here’s a true story, last night, or rather this early morning, as I lie in bed for those 30 minutes before you have to get up and are slightly awake but still dreaming? Yeah, guess what I dreamed about? Cupcakes. I wish this were a joke, but it’s not. I dreamed about being at a bake sale and there were tables and tables of delicious cupcakes. I of course was walking around trying to decide which ones I wanted to eat, sampling them, looking for the moistest of the bunch. This is a completely real story here. I have no idea why my brain was in search of moist-ness but it was. Tables and tables of cupcakes. Sounds pretty damned fabulous to me. I woke up and was like; apparently it’s time to eat a fucking cupcake if I’m having such vivid intense dreams about them, right? How bad would it be to reward my 1 year healthy living anniversary with eating a cupcake? There is an amazing cupcake shop in town but I don’t really think I can get there until Saturday which is my 1 year date. It’s kind of odd. But apparently my body is telling me to eat a stupid cupcake. But it better be a moist one. I certainly know that I can eat a cupcake if I want and it won’t do any damage to my body or progress so I guess in the end it won’t really matter all that much.

I have pretty much completely stalled out at where I am. I am maintaining my weight, I am maintaining my fitness, my body fat seems to not really be moving all that much these days. I guess my bigger question to myself is, am I okay with this? Is this an okay place for me to live at? How much more do I want? All very real and relevant questions that I am not certain I have the answers to right now.

I think to see any major changes at this point I would have to change something up pretty drastically and I think it would have to be my food. I know what the next step is and I am just not sure if I really want to take it. I know it’s something like trying to go Paelo or eat really clean, take out the processed, etc. I am just not sure if I want it that badly. It would most likely involve eliminating my Quest Bars and my Energy Drinks and those are kind of my vices in life and I am don’t know if I want the rest of it that bad.

My goals are probably quite different than some of the really fit girls at the gym, like the trainers or a few of the other girls I’ve seen who clearly have never had weight issues. Well I am complacent or rather happy, not complacent, but happy, with my body living right here because I know what it’s like to live way on the other extreme, I imagine that for some of these women it IS about getting their body fat to 10% and having every muscle pop out. If you’ve never been 220 pounds or anywhere there abouts you really probably wouldn’t know what it’s like to be satisfied with a 140 pound body that actually has ANY muscle. Sometimes I stupidly find myself comparing or trying to keep up and I have to stop myself and go, no, no, no, we are coming at this from VERY different places and I am thrilled with ME just as I am. In the words of the great Bridget Jones world, “I like you, just as you are.”

My success comes in the form of not being afraid to sign up and run a ½ marathon. It comes in the form of on a whim flying to Vegas and not fearing not fitting it. It comes in the form of actually feeling pretty in my clothes. That’s my success, not rocking a 10% body fat and having a rock solid everything. There is no way my body will ever allow me to be rock solid anything. I admire some of the women I see at the gym, but like everything else, there are levels and degrees of what we are willing to do to get results. I can’t imagine how much work they’ve had to put in to get those bodies and I am certain that it is more work than I am willing to do. I am sure it has a lot to do with the food restrictions that they place on themselves that I am quite simply just not willing to do. If I want a processed cupcake I am going to eat a moist delicious processed cupcake. I am NOT going to eat 6 of them, but I will eat 1 of them. I am a fat girl at heart and I just like food. I won’t deny myself a cupcake because that is the surest way to gain all the weight back. Depravation does NOT work. Plain and simple. Period. Been there, done that. Eat the fucking cupcake.

Can’t believe I’m only 3 days away from my 1 year anniversary. It honestly blows my mind that its been a year already. You know those quote that say, a year from now you will wish you had started today. Yeah, here’s the year that went by and holy shit I’m glad I started a year ago. No amount of money can buy the true feeling of satisfaction and happiness I feel today as a result of this past year. Almost four months ago I walked up to that crossroads in my path and made a different choice. I walked right up to that exact stop in the road I’d been at so many times before (standing at 140 pound goal, running every night but not going beyond that) and I made a different choice for the very first time in my life. I got off the loop I’ve been traveling down and it has made all the difference in the world. This path is so untraveled to me and I have no idea what stops there are along the way but I’m sure excited to see where it goes.