Fake it till you make it.

Woo! I’m back in game. Wow, I had a weird psych-out week, workout wise. (how’s that for some alliteration?)

Wednesday was my first workout back with my trainer since I’d gotten sick. I think, objectively I DID okay, and he was like, yeah, you’re doing great, this is awesome, BUT I was emotionally shaky. I do these sideways running hurdle things, two sets of ten. Usually I just do them. They feel good. On Wednesday, during the second set, when I was on #7, I felt myself looking anxiously at the clock, and wondering if I could actually make it. I did, but it brought up this crazy anxiety and grief about Not Being Able To Do something. Or having it hurt or feel hard. I know, I’ve been down this road before. But it’s my particular Achilles heel.

I think one of the reasons I really despised that girl Amanda on Biggest Loser is that I saw her as this big whinemuffin. Which is how I was much of my life. I hated myself for it, and I hated that this is how I was. And if things got hard, I’d be whimpering and moaning like a big baby. (she started doing this high pitched whining during her marathon and I just had to TURN IT OFF, it upset me so much) And I felt my whinemuffin self starting to rear its whiney little head on Wednesday. And I couldn’t stand it. I left the gym feeling really anxious and pissed off, and thought, this better change SOON.

On Thursday (yesterday) I sort of dragged myself to a Nia class. Most of the people there were like 75 years old, so it was not really this big consolation that I was able to get through the class without whining. In fact I felt rather pathetic. Also, I got there late because I was dragging my feet so much. I missed the first 15 minutes. I told myself that the consequence I was giving myself for being tardy was that I was going to take the class AFTER Nia, which is called something like Turbo Toning.  It’s filled with very buff college students (no senior citizens). I always see them chomping at the bit, waiting to get in as we are finishing up our Nia. (which I’m sure looks super lame to them) It’s only a half hour class. I figured I could do it.

Well, I did it. But it was hecka hard. We used 3 and 5 lb weights for endless (it felt like) repetitions. There were a lot of variations of pushups, which I hate. So I did it. I felt a little more virtuous, but still, I did not feel happy or good because I REALLY felt like whining during that class.

This morning, I trudged back to the gym. I had a little heart-to-heart with my trainer during my stretching and warmup session. I poured out all my whiney neurosis and he listened, like the great guy that he is.  He also had a bit of a devilish twinkle in his eye. He let me express all of my doubt, anxiety and whininess and then he put on my favorite Slumdog Millionaire workout mix, and we got down to it. Some of the things he had me do, I was like, you must be joking. But he was not joking, and I DID IT, and I BROUGHT IT, and it felt….. WHOOOOOOO!!

What I did today:

• stretch 15 minutes on foam roller
• bunch of lunges, monkey walks, caterpillar walks, etc to warm up
• two roundtrip sets of lunge-bicep curl-press with 10 lb barbells (each set is about 10)
• 15 squat things hugging 15 lb medicine ball
• 10 lateral running over hurdles
• 10 straight arm pivots with medicine ball
• 10 woodchoppers with medicine ball
• 15 ball-slams (throw ball down hard on ground, grab it as it bounces up, raise over head and slam again) w 15 lb ball
• 100 reps of punching with 3 lb weights while jogging on trampoline
• 15 pushups on step platform at various heights
• 15 reps of pullbacks with elastic band while sitting on ball
• 10 pullups from hanging straps
• 2 minutes of punching bag (SO hard and so exhilarating)

I did that whole circuit 2 times through. When I was done I felt like a million bucks. I loudly sang holiday tunes along with the radio all the way home.  I was so pumped.

It was interesting how my head really messed me up this week. And how it turned around. Just… interesting, this mind-body connection.