It was May 28th last year when I was talking to my parents about how I really wanted to start moving a bit again after a few years of hardly any exercise and WAAAYYYY too much food intake. I was fully aware that, with my excess weight, it would be very smart to get some guidance, but the gym membershipfee was a little too steep for my budget. Then suddenly, my dad looks at me and says: If you join a gym now, and have the discipline to go there twice a week for a year long, I will repay you the membership fee.
I guess you already figured that I accepted the challenge, else why would I write about it? Well, I did. On Monday 29th of May I had a meeting at this club called HealthCity. It’s fancy, their machines are well maintained, they have a sauna / steamcabin / sunbed you can use for free. 2 squash courts, 5 tenniscourts, and of course, grouplessons are included, as are coffee/tea and other refreshments. Most importantly, when I walked in there, there weren’t 20 sets of eyes belonging to bodybuilder muscle guys staring me straight back out, I actually felt at ease. They told me they could help me get started back up, but of course I had to be willing to put in the time and effort to actually show up. I decided if I didn’t sign up right then and there, I would probably end up not joining, and then continue to waste my life away on my couch, playing computer games.
My first time ‘working out’, was a bit of an embarrassment. It was that introduction thingy, where they show you how to set up your bike or treadmill. After 10 minutes on the bike, and another 15 on the treadmill (both at extremely low speed/resistance), the instructor told me I could try out some other machines if I wanted. So, remembering how much I used to enjoy it like 10 years ago, I headed for the crosstrainer. I lasted 3 whole minutes on that. The last 2 of them were just me being too short of breath to bother getting off. I ended up going upstairs to the dressing room, and spent 10 minutes in the shower crying my eyes out. I felt so useless, and so horribly out of shape and I didn’t think it would ever change. That same evening I told myself: Ok, welcome to rock bottom. Do not enjoy it for long, you are gonna get off this asap and never coming back here.
For the first months, I decided that each workout would just be focusing on building up a little bit of stamina, so cardio fitness only (besides, my lard didn’t fit in half of the muscle training things anyways).20 minutes on the bike , 20 minutes on the treadmill (walk at the fastest pace i could handle), and for the first week, I had to do 5 minutes on the crosstrainer, and every week I would add a minute to that.
This really paid off. After about 6 weeks I was totally hooked on the crosstrainer, even lasting 30 minutes, but still at very low resistance, and never really going over 100 rpm. But it offered me more fun, and I was able to last so much longer before getting bored like i do on the bike/treadmill.
After about 3 months, my instructor sat down with me to make a new plan. We decided to still focus mainly on the bike/treadmill/crosstrainer, as I was making lots of progress still, and not too confident about putting extra strain on my back and other joints (yea i know, opinions vary on this, but this worked for me). I started letting the machines dictate me what to do by using preset interval programs. Those were nice, it gave variation, I didn’t have to think, just follow. The first time the treadmill told me to walk at an 8% incline, I was like: ISTHISTHINGBROKEN??THISISNUTS!!11!!1!, but little by little I started to be able to keep up and started to enjoy it too.
And then October came. And brought my first official crisis. One Saturday morning, October 8th to be precise, I arrived at the gym, in good spirits actually, but once I tried to workout, it was like my body went on strike. I just couldn’t get myself motivated to do anything. Now instead of forcing myself to still do a full workout, I decided to cut myself some slack that day. I just took my waterbottle and towel, and went to the lounge for a nice cup of tea and chats to random people. Then I went and had a nice 8 minute sunbed powersession, a long hot shower and went home again. I still laugh at this but it was the only right thing to do, for me. That evening I made a new plan:
From that day, until the end of the year, I was going to put in 2500 minutes of pure cardio fitness. It boiled down to 3 sessions of 70 minutes each per week. That’s steep, for me. But it actually got me right back on track, and I managed to complete my goal on December 29th.
But then.. what next? I was a little done with doing 4 things. Somewhere down the line, my instructor had also told me the powerplate might be good for some muscletoning, so my routine, in all these months, still hadn’t come much further than treadmill, crosstrainer, bike if I really was up for it, and lots of powerplating.
Then one day, after a rough day at work, I jokingly told one of the staffmembers that I would love to try boxing. She said: well, why don’t you come to my Kickfun class, I think you might like it.
And like, I do! It’s torture every time. I suck at squats, and obviously my tummy gets in the way when i need to do a lot of kicking. But I feel SOOOO much progress. I think I’ve been doing this for 3 months now, or so, and a few weeks after my first Kickfun lesson I started doing Bodybalance once a week as well, and my body is really really responding well to both.
I’m down 4 (yes, FOUR) dress sizes for pants, and 3 for shirts/sweaters. If you don’t know me, and see me now, you’ll still think I’m overweight, even obese, but I am probably down about 30-35 kilos in weight. I’m wearing clothes in a size I last wore about 8 years ago. (about the weight and weightloss thing: that’s a whole different story which I’ll get into next post)
The year is almost up. My dad will surely lose the bet, I am not gonna let it slip in the last week. Even better: I’m not ending my membership. So long as my finances allow me to, I will keep going there and making progress. Just need to keep setting myself new little goals.. and need to think about a new one as we speak. I’ll get on that once my vacation starts, this coming Wednesday.
For now, have a wonderful weekend, peeps!
Love, TaLoeLoe
TaLoeLoe moves 