Not
that I am a big fan Arnold Arnold
I continue to do personal training at the gym, with my
third and most recent trainer, Brad. I was paranoid at first (I over
think things a lot) about him being younger, in his 20’s out of school/ how
could be possibly understand me or all of things I’ve been through? Would this
just be another person who thought I was crazy? These thoughts ran through my
head for awhile- and he took over somewhere in February where I was having some
difficult times. I was coming off of a great peak with my second trainer, Matt.
I had been seeing great results and went to no results and everyone saying the
evil “P” word to me (if you don’t know what the P word is, read my previous
posts, I rant on about it a lot). I also started to have serious issues with
food (unbeknownst to me). When I had my “check in” or measurements done at the
end of March, I had actually gained a pound (not lost any weight in two months)
and was working out 5 days a week, 2 hours a day, and did not lose any inches
from my body either. I was seriously frustrated and confused. I thought I was
doing everything I was supposed to be doing.
As you may have read in my previous posts, a trip to
my PCP encouraged me to pay attention to foods that affect my thyroid, and read
"the plan." In the past two months, since approximately March 30th or
so, I’ve lost 26 pounds- that’s not the total for the year- that’s just in
April and May alone. Holy Shit! That’s 13 pounds a month??!! I knew
that I lost significant weight while doing the plan, but I didn’t realize that
I lost that much in the past two months. In addition, I lost 2% body fat, 3
inches from my left leg, 2 inches from my right leg (don’t ask me why it’s not
the same for each leg I have no idea LOL), 1 inch from my waist (who doesn’t like
to hear that?), 3 inches from my hips ( ! ), and an inch from my chest, and 2-3
inches from my shoulders. Wow. I know (and several people are trying to break
the news to me slowly, and are breaking out the P word again) that I can’t keep
up this level of weight loss forever. 13 pounds a month is a ridiculous amount
and I am happy to have been able to do it and grateful for the help that I had.
How long will I be able to keep up this level of weight loss and how long will
my body continue to fight me before I figure it out?
For the moment, I have good support and help in
figuring out the answers to these questions. Aside from my friends and family,
I have a great personal trainer. And while I was worried that Brad
wouldn’t understand me, and that frankly, I was worried I would be an emotional
mess and difficult to handle. (Me, difficult, never!) Up to the point before
Brad took over, I had actually cried and had a few mini meltdowns at the gym
and several at home (that my poor husband can attest to). But, alas! No more
tears to be found here! I greatly underestimated him, and he is actually I
think my favorite trainer so far. I wrote a testament early on in my bloggin
career to how good Brenton was (he was my first trainer and had a lot of
convincing to do to get me with the program so I give him a lot of credit). But,
I will say, Brad has really impressed me. Brad is very approachable. He has
taken extra time to show me how to do things correctly and make up workouts for
me to do when I am not personal training with him. He encourages me on and off the clock and I
never feel like I am bothering him when I ask him a question. I will also say
that he safely but effectively pushes me harder than any of my previous
trainers and has helped me to realize my full potential. I didn’t try to hard sometimes with my
previous trainers, and if they didn’t catch me, I didn’t try to make it more
difficult. (Don’t look at me like that! Everyone cheats sometimes!) I just went
with the flow. I never thought I could run. I have written about doing sprints
in the past- and I enjoyed doing sprints and have become addicted to having a
“runner’s high.” I would never have tried or even attempted to do any long
distance running. As Brad pointed out, I have been doing intense workouts full
of “suicides” and “hurricanes” (and even if you don’t know what those are, you
can imagine that they don’t sound good) which have led me to be in great
cardio-vascular health, and aerobically my body could probably handle it he
said. My legs would not be used to running, and would probably ache but the
rest of me could probably do it. This implanted the idea in my mind that maybe
I really could run some distance. My workouts with him had prepared me to find out exactly what I could do.
A few weeks ago I decided that I would
see if I could run 1 mile. And I did, easily much to my surprise. The next week
after talking to Brad, and having encouragement from my yoga teacher, Meghan, I
decided to run and run and see if I could do 3 miles. You see,
running is more of a mental challenge, in my opinion. Convincing yourself that
you can do it, and will do, and are doing it, etc, is part of the challenge.
The feeling afterwards of success and how energetic and amazing you feel after
running is the reward. I did run the whole 3 miles. It was more like a jog to
be technical and it did take me 39 minutes to do the whole three miles (not
that I care about time at this point- at this point I just wanted to do it).
But I did it. There wasn’t many people in the gym that day, and I had to keep
giving myself pep talks as it went on. The first mile was easy. The second mile
was the hardest because my legs started to ache. After I finally finished the second one I
knew I wasn’t going to quit so the third went fairly fast. During this 39
minutes (I wish you could have seen it, it was hilarious), I clapped my hands
together, told myself “we’re doing this,” and sang Iron Maiden out loud in
order to see the goal the whole way to the end. At the end, when I got off the
treadmill, there was no one around to tell! None of the trainers or friends I
have made were there and I felt like I was having my Rocky moment or my Titanic
moment and I was literally jumping up and down and wanted to just yell at the
top of my lungs “I’m queen of the world! ” It was definitely one of the biggest
accomplishments of my life. I want to run a 5K, but for now am taking it one
day at a time. Pittsburgh
I will end on the note of saying that having positive
reinforcement and visibly tracking results as you progress is imperative to
keep up a high level of motivation. On my worst days, I still went
to my personal training sessions and always felt better when I left. After
seeing my results today, I didn’t even realize how much I have accomplished.
There are so many things I might never have tried to do or thought I couldn’t
have done if I didn’t have Brad pushing me a little further and a little harder
each time, telling me I could do it. He
taught me that if something is easy, I’m probably not doing it right. And that
the quality of the workout is important not how long it is. I have had many conversations with him
my food issues, and “The Plan,” and he has always listened with patience and
been somewhat in awe of all of the crazy foods that I am having issues with
now. Thanks for believing. I have said it before, and I will say it again-
having someone believe in me always makes me believe in myself. I give props to
all of the people at galaxy fitness in Irwin- that place has been like my home
away from home- and all of the people there have been nothing but supportive and
downright cheerful in regards to my success. A shout out to (in no particular
order) to Josh, Laura, Meghan, Nate, Janeen, Rachel, Forrest (and any of the other
girls/guys at the desk who know my name before I even check in), and all of the
members there in my yoga or other classes who take the time to tell me how good
I am doing. Another quote on mental strength I enjoy goes like this: “You know that little voice in the back of your mind,
telling you to stop? Well you can train that little voice. I taught mine to
shut up.” – (By Unknown) All of your
encouragement helped me to tell my voice to shut up. Thanks.
