working out

I got up with the dawn and fought my way along the freeway, lots of yukky traffic as usual, to get to the gym for my 7:30am personal training session, only to find my booking had mysteriously disappeared. I'm not very pushy when it comes to customer service so it was half way through my session time before I even ventured to the desk to ask why no one was coming to train me. Thankfully a very nice chap had a spare 20 minutes before his next victim so he fitted me in.

Previously when I've had a trainer for the very first, time they've gone pretty easy on me, not knowing my abilities or how much to push me. This mild mannered guy had all the appearance of being easy on me, but the various pulleys and weights were barely moving under my attempt at strength. I felt fat and feeble. I really should pay more attention to the weights I do with my regular trainer so that I can recognise when I'm doing more than normal and be proud of myself for pushing, rather than feeling totally weak and useless like I did this morning.

I have been struggling with being hard on myself lately, it's a really fine line between pushing myself and feeling good for it and pushing myself and feeling useless. The other night my hubby and I took a different cycle route than usual. This time there were hills. In fact I'm not even sure if you'd call them hills. The incline in some of them was barely visible, a ballbearing would have had trouble rolling back down them. I struggled big time. I went from feeling fantastic about my new found cycling prowess and instead found myself stopping dead at the tiniest sign of a slope, ready to burst into tears and give up. It was mortifying.

The good news is I didn't give up though the number of times I stopped that might be questionable, we even went again around the same roads yesterday. I reckon I took twice as long the second time, this time I knew there was worse to come so I didn't push as much as I had the first time, back when I naively kept thinking I only had to get around that next corner to be home free. I'm quite determined to keep doing the same route until I've mastered it though despite not being very in tune with that determination while I'm crying at the kerb I'll be sure to keep you posted.

I am starting to feel good about working out though and I'm starting to think I can feel the benefits - when I walk my arms feel like they swing just a little more vertically straight down, rather than straight out over my hips; my jeans aren't so camel toe tight (sooooo not a good look!) and I feel my posture may have improved.

I just can't wait for the scales to get with the programme. I really thought naively or arrogantly that the weight would just fly off. I've been exercising every day (3 x personal training, 4 x bike or boxing) and my eating's been under control. I know it's wrong to fixate on the numbers but my clothes aren't showing as willing as I'd like either. Dresses, jeans and skirts that fit as recently as October are still very much out of reach. Now I just need to turn all this impatience and frustration into motivation.