the little blue ticket

I always thought exercise was a bunch of horseshit.

Well, maybe not horseshit. Just horseshit for someone like me, someone largely unfit and largely unmotivated and largely…well, large. It was fine for athletes and skinny girls in spandex, but for me not so much.

I apologize to my junior high cheerleading coach, my high school gym teacher, my drag-me-to-annoying-workout-classes friends…hell, I apologize to the very spirit of the great Jack La Lane.

I get it now. I so, so get it.

I went back to the gym tonight after a week. I wasn’t exactly dreading it, but I wasn’t so much looking forward to it either because I was doing straight cardio which is sort of the most boring thing in the world. But I sucked it up, threw on my iPod and did a 20 rep circuit on the rower, then jumped on the treadmill for half an hour.

I was dripping when I left, feeling all accomplished and proud of myself that I actually got there in the first place. Walked out into the beautiful Bay Area night and drove over to Old Navy because I wanted to grab a couple cheapo t-shirts on my way home. Had a 15 minute conversation with the adorable Asian ex-football playing checkout guy about gyms (yeah, I was looking sweaty and had my gym bag over my shoulder…he asked), and bless his heart by the time I left he was hitting on me just a little bit. Even in my state of utter disgustingness.

Jumped back in the car and Stereo Hearts by Gym Class Heroes came on the radio. I cranked it up, rolled my windows down and sang on the top of my lungs on the way home, sort of laughing and smiling all by myself. That song has special significance to me, significance that’s part of my reason and my truth (why yes, I do find inspiration in flash-in-the-pan uber awesome pop songs sometimes) and by the time I pulled into the driveway, I got it.

Crappy mood when I left the house, pride when I left the gym, laughing and singing when I got home.

THIS. MAKES. ME. HAPPY.

As fucked up as that sound TO ME, coming out of MY MOUTH, tonight was the happiest I’ve been since maybe the second or third week in March.

I’m growing to love the sweating…it means I worked my ass off.

I’ll learn to love the routine…eventually.

I love how my body’s changing, how my clothes are fitting. I love that I can even perform the simple act of walking into Old Navy and knowing certain things with fit me, and they don’t have labels with fat lady sizes on them. (Almost fat lady sizes. But not fat lady sizes. Big distinction.)

I love the random non CMcT trainer guy who knows me from seeing me around at my training sessions and how he made sure he high fived me (ugh, again with the high fives) while I was leaving, looking like I obviously worked my butt off.

In that car tonight, I felt lucky for my life. I felt lucky that I caught this all while I still have a body that’s able to transform. That I live in the most beautiful place on earth where I can blare music with my windows open in the beginning of April. That I have stunning, gorgeous, unconditional, promising love in my life.

Yes, today was a very good day. Next time I whine and moan and start spiraling, someone please bitchslap me and remind me to read this.

Goodnight, sweet pretties.

I will leave you with this, because it’s impossible not to be in a good mood after hearing it. I kiss you all.

this melody was meant for you. so sing along to my stereo.

I’m at that critical point, the one where I continue doing what I’ve been doing and actually kick the shit out of this bitch, or where I lay down and give up.

Everything in me wants to lay down and give up. I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired, and all I want to do is crawl into bed for some serious Rip Van Winkle business. But I can’t. I know I can’t, and I won’t.

The first few weeks of my March were amazing, beautiful, transformative. I was at the top of my game. I was happier than I’ve been in longer than I can remember…I could feel the confidence and surety and positivity. Then little by little, with every tiny thing that went wrong or got complicated, it started to chip away. There was no grand incident or huge event — it was just a quiet, almost silent spiral I started spinning down until last week left me feeling completely overwhelmed and unhinged.

I had some of the worst PMS last week in recent memory. The cramps, the bloating, the clinically insane level of emotion. Seriously you guys…the crying. Lots of ugly crying, the kind where you can’t catch your breath. For four or five days I didn’t get more than three hours of consistent sleep a night, and by Thursday I was so done that I left work early because I could only sit in my office with these tears coming out of seemingly nowhere for so long. I couldn’t focus, I didn’t get shit done. By the time I got home I was pretty delirious. I slept for eleven hours because my body was finally all “fuck you, whore…we can’t do it anymore”.

I burned through my initial sessions with Cutie McTrainer, and I have to wait to buy more because let’s face it — personal training is hella expensive and I have other things are taking precedence in the money department. I need a new front bumper for my car, and I have to get my brakes done. That right there is at least two months of training. So I had to break the news to him — via text, no less, because I’m a huge coward and didn’t want to actually have to talk to him — that I need to wait to renew until I get my bonus check from work. This shouldn’t have stopped me from just going to the gym and working out like a normal person but between the cramps and the crying and the lack of solid REM sleep I couldn’t bring myself to drag my ass over there.

And so the shame spiral began, that horrible circular cycle of defeat where each action made me feel crappier than the last.

Which brings us back to the beginning, to the point where I can talk and cry and write and bitch and beat the hell out of myself until I’m blue in the face or I can suck it up and get back on track. Historically I’ve chosen the former, and then everything’s just stagnated and stopped and a month or a year or two have gone by and I’ve found myself just as fat with nothing but regrets for not being stronger, not finishing what I started.

I’m not going to do it this time. I can’t do it this time.

So I’m readying myself. I’m charging my iPod and pulling out my workout clothes and spending some time refocusing. Months ago I talked about my truth, my reason. I need to reconnect with those things, remember why I’m doing this, remind myself that what’s waiting for me at the end is bigger and greater and more beautiful and powerful than any of the shit that’s going on right now. It’s the rest of my life, and it holds so much promise. I can’t lose sight of that again.

Check. My. Shit.

7.4 pound weight loss this week.

Whuuuuut?

That’s right. 7.4 pounds. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the comments and emails and encouragement, because it helped me get back on track and accomplish what I did over the past six days. I kiss you all.

So on Sunday I started tracking again. I mean really, truly, honestly tracking. And somehow between that and the gym something a little bit amazing happened. I’m pretty happy right now, considering I just got home from the gym awhile ago and I may be writing this from beyond the grave. Because I’m fairly certain CMcT killed me today.

TRX, baby. It’s so fucking hard, but I feel so good and so proud of myself afterwards that it makes the hour and the ensuing pain totally worth it. When I walked in and he told me we were doing TRX today I let out a little yay, and he actually laughed evilly. Like muahahaha. Only cute. Because everything he does is sort of cute.

Remember those reverse death crunches? Yeah, we did those, only instead of pulling both knees up at the same time I had to alternate. Which means I needed to keep myself steady and balanced with my core. Uh…I could tell you the number of times I tried it and fell flat on my stomach before figuring out exactly what I needed to do, but I don’t think I can count that high. And I’d include a youtube link to the exercise so you guys can see what I’m talking about, but they’re not really called reverse death crunches so I have no idea how to find said video. Just trust me. It sucked.

My foot’s been giving me a lot of trouble, so I finally have an appointment with a podiatrist on Tuesday for x-rays and to figure out what’s going on. CMcT and I don’t think it’s this plantar fasciitis thing because it gets worse the more I walk on it. It may be a bone spur or stress fracture (please please send good non-stress fracture mojo), but hopefully on Tuesday they’ll diagnose it so I can get on with my life.

I thought a lot about what you guys said about my weight loss or lack thereof last week, and I think I may not have been eating enough with the workouts I’ve been doing. I also think I was ingesting way too much salt and retaining a crapload of water, because it’s hard for me to believe that whole 7.4 pounds is fat. But whatever. It’s gone, hopefully forever.

I’m also going to take the sage advice of my girl felesi and measure myself, as horrifying as that may be. I’m definitely noticing a difference in my body and how my clothes fit, so having those numbers and being able to track the non-scale progress will be encouraging.

My sister’s in from the east coast, and she took a bunch of pictures yesterday. I hate having my picture taken, but I can definitely see that I may have one less chin now (I’m down to like three!) and I’m not looking as puffy. Little victories.

Drinks with the girls tonight. Tequila counts as a core food, right? On account of the grains or something?

Have a great weekend, beautiful babies.

Someone asked me recently about my blog entry titles, specifically where they come from and what the hell they have to do with anything. The simple answer is that they’re all lyrics, because I sort of live music and it’s always somewhere on my radar. Sometimes there’s some kind of tie-in to what I’m writing about, sometimes it’s just what song’s going through my head at the moment. And sometimes there’s little or no correlation to a specific entry but instead to another area of my life which I’m not writing about here. So there’s really no rhyme or reason or naming convention, just my brain purging itself of whatever’s going on up there. I wish I were more interesting and mysterious, but alas I’m not.

Enough with the meta. What up, pretty bitches?

I’m trying to keep my perspective where it needs to be right now, because frankly the scale is pissing me the fuck off and despite my lovely, perky demeanor…I’m sort of devastated.

Had a CMcT session yesterday and as usual he kicked my butt. We focused a lot on my upper body and core this time — lots of free weights, some BOSU (BOSU planks, anyone?…holy crap I thought I was going to perish), and my introduction to battling ropes which are so not what I thought they would be. I don’t know what I expected, but that shit’s heavy. We did 30 second bursts of rope for cardio, and each one felt like 30 minutes. But I kept trying to focus on his whole telling me I’m strong schtick from last week, and somehow I got through it. Yay me.

I talked to him about the fact that I’m not only NOT LOSING (hello, triple negative) weight, but playing with that two pound up and down thing again. I almost lost it and started crying because I’m so frustrated at this point. He confirmed that it must be my diet, but I honestly can’t figure it out because I’m not eating poorly, not going over my calories, not doing anything unholy.

Being sore has become my natural state of being because I’m working out so hard. I swear, I got up this morning and went to pee and thought I was going to fall on the floor trying to sit down on the toilet because my legs hurt so much. Which makes no sense because we worked my upper body yesterday, but whatever. It just upsets me to no end that I should be virtually melting at this point — I have a great deal of weight to lose so this is the time it should really be coming off fairly easily — and I’m just at a standstill.

CMcT listened to my woes and told me that it’s definitely not the exercise end of things because he knows what I’m doing and I’m bringing it in the gym. At least that part made me feel good. So he suggested I track really carefully this week and bring it to him next Saturday and he’ll take a look and tell me what I’m doing wrong. Because it’s obviously something.

I don’t want to be one of those people who lives and dies by the scale, but dude…throw me a fucking bone. I should at least see SOMETHING for all my ass busting. Grrrrr.

So I’m toying with the idea of not weighing in until next week, which really shouldn’t be a decision that’s so difficult to make. The fact that I’m spending so much time trying to make up my mind just reaffirms the fact that I’m the scale’s bitch and it’s very not good. I don’t know. I’m apparently a little bit of a mess right now.

Trying to see the bright spots though — I have Presidents’ Day off for the first time in seven years. Bonus! And my sister’s visiting from the east coast this week, so I’m picking her up from the airport late Thursday night and I’m actually taking a couple vacation days. We’ll do all the touristy stuff in San Francisco that I totally take for granted because I live here, and at some point we’ll get to the ocean which will not only be fun for her but good for my head. For some reason the ocean always centers me, and God knows I need that right now.

Today’s cleaning and errands and general life crap. And maybe some new shoes. Shoes make everything better.

Breakthroughs.

You know, I think The Biggest Loser kind of ruined me and desensitized me in some sort of bizarre way. Because there’s so much fabricated drama on the show that it’s easy to roll my eyes when I hear about people’s big mental breakthroughs when it comes to working out or weight loss or busting down walls.

Then I have days like yesterday, when it’s All About Me, and I realize what I see on the teevee isn’t necessarily such bullshit after all.

I was emotional and proud after my session with Cutie McTrainer last week, but that’s nothing compared to how I was after my first TRX workout. I did things I swore my body wasn’t capable of. It hurt. It was uncomfortable. My legs were shaking so hard when I walked out to the car that I thought I might collapse before I even got there. That’s all expected. It’s what I signed up for.

But I didn’t expect all this mental stuff that goes along with it. I knew I’d be pushing myself physically, that I’d be in pain, that I’d swear and kick and scream and have days I didn’t want to go to the gym. I just didn’t know that it would all have such an emotional impact on me.

At one point I was hooked up to the straps doing this exercise that I lovingly refer to as Reverse Death Crunches, pouring sweat and trembling so much I literally felt like I was vibrating. It was so unbelievably hard and all I wanted to do was collapse on my stomach on the mat and weep. I wanted to yell at my trainer and ask him what the fuck he was thinking. It was the first time I got legitimately mad at him. I mean seriously…how in the hell did he expect a fat girl to get through such an insane workout?

But like last week with the lunges I knew that if I quit I was setting a precedent and admitting defeat, and there was no way I was going to let that happen. I dug deep and summoned this inner beast and powered through the last four reps. Before, of course, collapsing on my stomach on the mat where I stayed panting and groaning while CMcT unhooked my feet.

He was all “okay, you get to stay there for like 15 seconds then it’s two more sets of core work and then we’re done”.

I think I may have sworn at him. I remember him laughing while he helped me up.

Then he got very serious.

“I have a question for you,” he said as I was gulping water.

“Mmmph?” was my response.

“Why don’t you think you’re strong? When we first talked before I started training you, you told me you have no upper body strength, no stamina…what’s the deal?”

I thought about it for a second. “Because…I don’t know. Because I don’t? Because I’m fat? Because back in school when we had the president’s physical fitness challenge I…”

He interrupted me.

“You couldn’t do a pull-up?” he asked.

I just looked at him. “Well, yeah.”

“Do you know how many women have said that to me?”

He was getting a little agitated and passionate.

“Look,” he said. “I’m going to tell you right now, you may never be able to do a pull-up. There are women in this gym in peak physical shape who can’t do a pull-up. There are MEN who can’t do a pull-up. IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE NOT STRONG.”

For once I didn’t have a snappy comeback.

“I want you to know something,” he continued. “What you just did isn’t some kind of easy workout. It’s hard. It’s the same kind of workout athletes do. And you didn’t just get through it, you killed it. You did everything I told you to do. Your form was good, and you didn’t quit. You talk about being the big girl, but look around. There are far bigger people in this place, and they can see what you’re doing. Half the people here who are smaller than you can’t do what you just did. It’s motivating.”

It was more words strung together at one time than he’d said to me since I met him. I just stood there, dumbfounded, staring at him.

“You ARE strong. So no more of this thinking you’re not, okay?”

I nodded.

He put his hand up for one of his CMcT high fives, and sort of grabbed my fingers and squeezed.

“I want you to know how proud I am of you right now.”

And with that I very humbly and compliantly did my last two sets before hobbling to my car and bursting into tears.

It’s not like I’ve never had people around me who believe in me. I’m so fortunate to have come from a loving, supportive family who always told me I could do anything. But that never really referred to anything physical or athletic, because we just weren’t that kind of family. So to be where I am now, at my age, with this little core group of amazing people in my life assuring me that they have faith in me, that they’re proud of me…I don’t know. It’s special. It’s empowering.

And maybe I’m starting to believe it, just a little bit

My Mount Everest. My nemesis. My new best friend.

Yes, the BOSU ball. When Cutie McTrainer introduced us this morning, I felt nauseous. See, I have absolutely no sense of balance. None whatsoever. Zilch. Zippo. And I told him this.

I said, “Cutie McTrainer, you realize I can just be standing here talking to you and tip over, right? With no warning whatsoever? So what in the name of all things holy in this world are you thinking right now, you adorable little sadist?”

Oh how he laughed. And then he was all, “I promise you I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you, and I’m right here to catch you if you start feeling like you’re going to fall”. Then he high fived me. He high fives me a lot, which is his only tragic flaw. I detest the high five and everything it represents, but since he’s a trainer he gets a pass. They’re supposed to do shit like that.

I didn’t point out to him that if he tried to catch me I’d probably crush him like a bug, and I went all internal and thought over and over again “I trust him, Itrust him, ITRUSTHIM” like a little mantra in my head.

And with that, our workout commenced.

I thought I worked out hard with him last week. I had no idea. And I know every session’s just going to get progressively more intense. Which is a good thing. But dear LORD.

We warmed up with 800 meters on the rower and stretches up and down the ladder on the floor thingy, then it was just balls out. There was no rest at all this time, no 1 1/2 minute break halfway through, no ten seconds between exercises. Instead of a lap around the gym after every set, he threw me on the rower for 200 meters, then back to the BOSU.  Pushups, crunches, a planky type of thing…it just went on and on.

Then we got to lunges.

Going into my first session with him, I told him I hate lunges, that I’m not good at them, blah blah blah complainy shit. Afterwards he said that surprised him, because it’s one of the things I’m best at. So he was all kinds of stoked for me to do them with my back foot on the BOSU. He actually told me that. “So excited — you’re going to KILL THIS!”

Then I fell over.

Okay, so not like totally onto the floor fell over, but tilted so far to the side that I had to put my arms out and make that flying motion to not wind up on my ass. I think I even did a little “whoooaaaaaaa, whoa, whoa!” thing out loud.

Lather, rinse, repeat like three times.

I told him my right leg was rebelling, that it hated me. And that it hated him just a little too.

He laughed and put his hands on my shoulders and told me to take a deep breath, focus on my core, and just relax.

So I literally closed my eyes, breathed in all cleansing-like, and started over for a fourth time. And the craziest thing happened. I didn’t land ass first on the ground, I didn’t break my leg, I didn’t squash him like a bug. And with every set, I got stronger and stronger. I was still a little wobbly, a little shaky, but I got through each and every one of those lunges without quitting.

Everyone has their own little demons, right? Their own craziness, their own schtick. Me, I talk a good game. I’m all out there and loud and silly but there’s this part of me that’s so scared to fail that I cut myself off at the knees and quit before I get the chance to. Call it self preservation, call it fear, call it whatever. And yeah, maybe they were just lunges but mentally they were so much more. And for one of the first times in my life I told that inner voice to fuck off and powered through.

We high fived (of course), we laughed (we laughed a lot today…it was awesome) and he told me how proud he was of me for pushing and for not giving up, and that I need to give myself more credit and realize what I’m capable of. So that’s what I’m going to work on this week, mentally. Slaying the dragon, killing the fear.

And God knows I’m going to need it, because I’m seeing him twice this week and he already told me that Wednesday he’s going to work me out TRX style.

TRX. Me. Who would have ever put those two things together?

My ass hurts.

Nothing like jumping right in there, huh? Sorry bout that, pretties. But fucking ouch.

(I realized that when read out loud, that last sentence implies something completely unintended. Especially after what I said about my ass hurting. Which makes me laugh, because I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old boy.)

I meant to at least write after my first official personal training session on Saturday, then the weekend got away from me. And the week too apparently. But I can tell you that, quite honestly, my first session with cutie trainer boy was one of the best workout experiences of my life. And if you’ve known me for five minutes, I don’t often — or ever — use the words “best” and “workout” so closely together in one sentence.

He busted my ass like my ass has never been busted. But like…in a nice way. Which proves that a trainer doesn’t have to be all up in your face and screamy to get results. To be fair, I think I may have told him that if he yelled at me I’d yell back but still. I came away from that workout energized and motivated and enthused and crazy proud of myself for just not dying in the middle of the gym.

I won’t get into the whole session, but we started out on the rower (yay rower!) then went to 6 really intense sets of circuit training split up with laps around the gym. I honestly never knew my body could produce that kind of sweat. I was disgusting and exhausted at the end of it, and I had all these crazy endorphins like I just had really good sex or something. They (whoever “they” are) say that’s possible, but I never believed them. And still, if given a choice, I’d pick the sex. I mean come on. Let’s be honest. But second best thing, I’d say.

He left me with instructions on how to do the same workout at home if I choose — the only thing he used that was actual equipment besides the rower was a set of 7.5 lb dumbells — so I’ve been working out at my house for the past couple nights because it’s been hella late by the time I get a chance.

But tonight. Oh, tonight. Tonight after much deliberation and some tough love from Gandhi and one of my girlfriends, I actually entered the gym to exercise. I went back to the Y because apparently I can’t quit them. (Except that I did, but I found out my membership isn’t officially cancelled till March 1 and I’m a cheapass so I’m going back there when I’m not training with cutie butt until my contract’s up. I only need to use the rower and mats and weights there, so it’s pretty okay for just that.)

I thought I was getting the same workout at home but apparently I wasn’t, based on the amount of sweat I was covered in when I was done. I don’t exactly know why the workout was better there. Maybe I pushed myself because other people were around. Maybe I felt like if I made the actual effort to go to the gym, I should give it a little bit more. Maybe…whatever. All I know is that at the end, when my body was screaming and wanted to jump out of itself, I hopped on the treadmill for about 15 minutes. I know, right? What’s up with that? But I have this little ritual — whatever workout I plan, I always push out an extra 15 minutes at the end, and that 15 minutes is fully dedicated to my reason for doing all this in the first place. It’s like a little OCD ritual I have — I play the same three songs every time, and I focus on my why and my truth. It’s when I’m exhausted and spent and I can’t really think straight, so I go all introverted and breathe my reason. And when I’m done, I feel this weird and beautiful calm.

My week’s been nuts so I couldn’t really commit to a PT session till the weekend, but Saturday at 10 I’m meeting cute boy so he can kick my ass all over again. I’m hoping for some boxing, but we’ll see. I’ll be lucky to be upright and mobile by then.

When I made the decision to get a trainer, I was sort of like “Oh hell, who do you think you are, fatty? With a trainer? YOU? How in God’s name can you justify this?” And at the risk of sounding like a L’Oreal commercial — I realized I’m worth it.

I spend money on other people. I spend money on stupid things. I spend money on $6 venti nonfat lattes, for Christ’s sake. I can blow through the monetary equivalent of a personal training session just sitting on iTunes and randomly downloading shit. This though? This is just for me, and it’s because I’m finally realizing I deserve it.

I have two more sessions before I have to re-up and buy more. I have no idea where that money’s going to come from, but even if I have to sell a kidney or something I’m at least getting this guy for a couple more months. I just keep asking myself why I didn’t do this sooner.

(The answer is crippling fear, but I’ll talk about that next time.)

And just to prove I’m still the same girl and that I haven’t turned into some gym obsessed psycho, I bought these kickass boots on Saturday:

Oh, Jessica Simpson. How you sort of suck yet are able to produce some of my very favorite shoes is like some weird paradox to me. But I have no shame. And they were on sale, bitches. I’m only human.

I am writing to you from the comfort of my home office not, as expected, from a hospital bed in traction. So that’s the first plus here.

Got home a little while ago from meeting with my trainer. Now, I know these dudes are paid to be excited about motivating and training fat girls and stuff, but I actually immediately felt some genuine enthusiasm from my guy and a sort of connection with him. Which makes me sound like a Bachelor contestant (again…all roads lead back to the Bachelor).

They originally had two trainers in mind for me, and when the big scary one didn’t have time they matched me with the littler scary one, who hasn’t been so scary yet but I weep for my fat ass on Saturday morning. We expected to do more of a full mini-workout tonight but spent a LOT of our time just getting to know each other and setting expectations, which was well worth the first session.

I was completely, brutally honest with him about how I gained and lost weight, how I’ve been maintaining, and what I eat. I said numbers out loud to him that I won’t say to any other human being. We talked about my goals and when the awful letters BMI came up I outright said “I don’t believe in that shit”. And you know what? He doesn’t either. We talked about my number goal and I told him I really don’t have one. I have an “I feel like the defender of the universe that I am” goal, and I’ll know when I’m getting close. I told him I can’t jump rope because I’m hand-eye uncoordinated, and he told me I wouldn’t believe the people he’s taught to jump rope. So from the beginning, we’re sympatico.

We went over my strong body (lower) and weak body (upper) and everything in between. We talked for 20 minutes about my foot and all the right and wrong things people have told me to do with it. He confirmed that my sister-girl (not to be confused with sister-wife) felesi could not be more right about the rower. He wants me off the treadmill for cardio and on the rower instead, and when he plunked my ass on that thing it was just like a little exergasm. He set up a workout for me. circuits of squats and pushups and crunches all punctuated by 8 minutes at a time on the rower. That’s my homework till I see him at 10 am Saturday for our first actual session.

He trains exactly the way I want to be trained. He trains you with your own body, as opposed to a bunch of fancy equipment. And that’s what I’m looking for — back to basics working out, the way God and Jack La Lane intended.

I also asked him for a list of group classes he thought would be good for me. He teaches two beginning DUT sessions (DUT is sort of the UFC version of crossfit), and another one he recommended was barbell training. They all fit into my schedule so I’m planning on gym tomorrow or Friday, training with him Saturday, and the barbell class on Sunday.

And after THAT…maybe traction.

But seriously, this is probably the most excited I’ve been about working out in…well, ever.

Oh, and he’s a boxer so he’s totally stoked I want to do some boxing training. And he’s also an MMA fighter and sports injury rehab guy. And fucking adorable. And young enough that it’s not out of the realm of mathematical possibility that I could actually be his mother. (Did I mention the fucking adorable part?)

You guys. I’m so tired.

If anyone’s been looking for me, I’ve been working like a crazy person. Today I felt like someone was going to have to pry me out of my chair with the jaws of life. Seriously, this being grown up shit is for…I don’t know. SUCKAS, that’s who. I can’t.

So I took off that 2 pounds I complained about like a whiny whiner who whines, plus 1 more. I think it was water retention or something. Or maybe I just needed a day of martinis, pedicures, and fondue with my girlfriends to shake things up a little. No matter, no complaints here. I like the idea that didi left me about throwing my scale out the window until I feel like I’m down 20 pounds or something. Sadly, I think I might be too OCD and neurotic for that. Oh how I wish I had a more normal brain that could actually facilitate such an idea. All badass like “fuck you, scale! out the window with you!”. Unfortunately I’m sort of the scale’s bitch right now. I just have to live with that.

I’ve mostly been splitting my workout time between home (because I’ve been getting home so stupid late from work) and the Y, because I’m trying to eek out the last few days of my membership there since it’s already paid through the 15th. My last visit at 7 am Sunday morning (look at me go, bitches! 7 am on a WEEKEND!) confirmed that my switch to UFC is for the best. I showed up and half the equipment was out of order or confined in some CSI-esque crime scene tape due to all the construction. They hid the rowers somwhere so that was out of the question. Just bleah.

I also had a complete gym meltdown on I think Thursday night I meant to talk about but forgot. Got to the gym, started the treadmill, put in my headphones and the right ear just stopped working. My trusty gym headphones I’ve had or like 4 years finally shit the bed.

Since I’m completely incapable of working out without music, I took my ass back to my car, bought a new pair of headphones similar to my old ones, went back to the gym, and worked out anyway. Huge progress for me. But the new headphones hurt my ears which I confirmed again on Sunday, so at lunch today my stair-climbing Gandhi-patience friend and I walked to Best Buy (walked! to Best Buy! in boots with heels, people…my fucking feet hate me tonight) and the sweet boy bought me a replacement set for the ones that broke. Because he knows of my neurosis and my attachment and that I can’t work out without them They’re exactly like the old pair, and when I tried them at work tonight I was so, so happy, and my ears were happy too. Listening to Nuthin But a G Thang right there in the middle of the office. Good times.

I’ve been in my head quite a bit leading up to tomorrow, which is my first personal training session at the new place. It’s weird, how much this is messing with me. I’m generally not a fearful person, but something about this is scaring the shit out of me. In theory, it’s not really that I think I can’t do it. I can do anything. I’m the defender of the universe, for Christ’s sake. I think I’m just totally intimidated, and there’s also money tied to it so I feel like I shelled out all this cash so I better make it worthwhile. Maybe it’s just stage fright.

But like I said, I’ve been really introspective about the whole thing, thinking about the why’s and the how’s and the why now’s and all of that. I mentioned in another post something about everyone having their own reasons, their own truths. Some of mine are obvious…I need to get healthy, it’s time, I want my inside to match my outside, family history, blah blah blah. Those are the easy ones. But for someone like me, a gross over-sharer, I just can’t talk about my truest truth, my motivation, my reason. Too close, too personal, too deep. But I guarantee you that every time I start doubting or thinking I’m going to backslide, I always have a crystal moment of clarity where I can see it all, see and touch and taste that reason and it makes it all worth it. It’s what gets me through that last set of crunches when I feel like my abs are going to explode. It’s why no matter how hard I go on the treadmill I always add another 15 minutes at the end. It’s why this time is going to be different, and it’s why this time is going to be the last time. I think about my reason and I get a sense of peace and pride and it’s all just right there for the taking.

I will, no doubt, need to play an endless loop of my little motivation movie in my head tomorrow night while this trainer dude is kicking my sizeable ass. It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be fine. (Yup, that’s me convincing myself.)

Also, as lovely and wonderful and hopeful I was about the Hate Loss Challenge, I kind of screwed the pooch on it. I got behind and then sort of lost my mojo, so unfortunately I think I’ll bow out gracefully because it was just too much for me to handle right now.

Still…awesome challenge. And I wish all of you participating in it lots of love and positive stuff.

Will try to update after the gym tomorrow night. Hopefully they’ll let me do that from the hospital. Where I may be in traction or something.

So I did it. I officially belong to this gym.

I still have some wiggle room on my Y membership before my next billing cycle, but I’m planning on breaking up with them in the next couple days. It’s not them, it’s me. Except it’s totally them.

I laid out an obscene — not as obscene as it could have been or probably will be in the future, but still — amount of money, broke down and bought some personal training sessions. Most of the guys at this place are MMA trainers. They don’t fuck around.

Waiting for my new trainer to call me and schedule our first appointment. I haven’t met him yet but I googled his ass and holy shitballs. He’s the real deal.

I’m filled with equal parts excitement and sheer, unadulterated, white hot terror. Okay, maybe more terror than excitement. But good terror. Is that an oxymoron?

Or maybe I’m just a moron.

Mother of crap, what have I gotten myself into?