So devastatingly tired

It has, sadly, been the sort of week wherein I'm so enormously tired that my brain ceases to... well. Ceases to anything. Sentences do not finish themselves, I have discovered.

Curious, that.

I'm pleased to say that it's only the writing I've been skipping out on, and the gymming has been continuing uninterrupted. Progress has been made, mostly, and my trainer got to see some of the most spectacularly hideous faces I've ever made.

You just know I want to share my embarrassment.

It's cathartic.

Regular updates will resume soon. Meanwhile, I'll leave "The Girl from Ipanema" playing quietly in the background of this blog, for your listening enjoyment.

Fitness check-in

Tonight was all-cardio, all the time. I put in a short session, as I try to do on Sundays, in anticipation of the regular butt-kicking I receive on Mondays.

I didn't go easy on myself, however. I cut another few seconds off my mile, coming in at 14:25. That's thirty seconds less than my mile of ten days ago. I stepped off the belt and twisted my bad knee 'round about the twelve minute mark, and while my quick consultation with myself said I could continue, I cut myself short of the two-mile run I wanted to do tonight. I wrapped up at 1.5 miles in 23:20.

Incidentally, this is why I don't run outside. I can't run in a straight line, and given half a chance, I trip easily. And a lot. It wouldn't end well.

I took the chance and weighed myself for the first time since Monday. I'm at 228.

Wow.

Not only was this week a holiday week, but I ate more garbage than I ever allow myself anymore. Somehow, I still made gains. I don't understand, but I will not complain.

I also won't make the mistake of thinking I can get away with it all again. You hear that, subconscious? I am still not allowed to eat cheeseburgers.

It just goes to show that no matter how bad a day is, the next day may be waiting to turn it all around.

Changing the dialogue

I hate pity. I really do.

So when I made the decision to first join a gym, it was agonizing for me. I was convinced, absolutely convinced, that everyone would be looking at me. Critiquing me. Pitying me.

Look at that poor fat girl. She's trying so hard.

It's why I never went for walks, or for bike rides. It's why I didn't want to go out alone. In a group, I could blend in. With another person, I could talk and laugh, looking so carefree and fun-loving that nobody would ever think to pity me. Just a couple of folks out for a stroll.

But alone? I'm just that poor fat girl, sweating, red-faced.

Joining the gym was hard for me. It was stepping into a room of judgement, full of athletes. Full of mirrors.

I knew that my first session with my trainer was going to be a challenge. I had met him only once before, for my evaluation, and he didn't yet know what I was able to do. The first exercise we did was simple: stepping up with one leg onto a bench, bringing up the other foot, tapping the toe, then stepping back down with the same leg.

It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The bench was nearly knee-high on my 5'2" body and my torn ACL made it difficult to find the right way to step. I was unsteady on my feet, shaking with each step. I was hunched over ungraciously as the sweat dripped into my eyes, and J hovered nearby, arms outstretched, ready to catch me if I fell.

All the while, I was acutely aware of my position. I was front and center, dozens of cardio machines pointing forward. Right at me. Fat girl.

The next night, when I hobbled into the gym for a visit with the elliptical, I took a good look around. There were elderly men and young women, people my size and people much smaller, some succeeding and some struggling. They were all there for a reason, just like me.

They all have a journey.

And I realized that none of them are judging me. They may look at me and wonder, just as I do them, but they have their own story. They don't care about mine. We're just strangers in a gym, all of us trying to become better.

When I went home, I put away the old words and I found a new dialogue. That night, the poor fat girl disappeared. I haven't seen her since.

I'm just a stranger in the gym, becoming better.

Fast food hangovers and why I can't feel like that again

Yea verily, I have sinned.

On Wednesday, I took the day off from the gym, as I do every week. I caved in and ate a cheeseburger on lunch break; it just sounded so good! I counted my little calories, scolded myself, and promised to do better.

I should know better than to trust that voice. Sometimes, it's just a little too conciliatory.

Thursday, this week masquerading as Thanksgiving, was another work day for me. I like to volunteer for holidays, since my family does our celebrating on the weekend following. Nevertheless, I was in holiday mode, and I made my first bad choice of the day when I elected to buy a Mountain Dew from the vending machine. I knew better. I really did. But I promised to do better, later.

On the way home at the end of the day, I thought I might grab a few groceries and made the move to turn into the local big box on my way home. The parking lot was packed, in anticipation of the Black Friday sales. I aborted the mission and instead, sighing, turned into McDonald's to get some dinner. I was hungry, it was fast, and besides, they have salads.

And then I ordered a cheeseburger.

I'm not sure what I was thinking and I can only assume that I simply wasn't thinking. The gym had closed mid-day, due to the holiday, and I knew the deck was already stacked against me. So what did I do? Gave myself a 650-calorie pile of grease on a bun. Good choice.

When the feeling of sickness came on, I thought maybe I was just cranky. It had been a long day - long week, actually - and I felt very disordered. I was out-of-sorts from not having the chance to go to the gym. But the feeling got worse.

It wasn't a stomach ache, exactly. More of a fuzzy, nauseous feeling. I felt flushed, a little dizzy, a bit like my mind just wasn't processing things normally. Five hours after that cheeseburger, it was still sitting like a rock in my stomach, and I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. It was the most miserable feeling of recent memory.

My trainer had mentioned the "fast food hangover" to me, as something he feels if he tries to get away with eating garbage foods, and I chuckled at the terminology. I figured he was exaggerating.

No, he wasn't.

Half a gallon of Powerade and nearly half a gallon of water later, I was feeling closer to human. But that vaguely-wrong "hangover" feeling stuck with me all day today. By mid-afternoon, I was desperate for the gym. Desperate.

Now at home, gymmed and fed with food that wasn't a cheeseburger, I can reflect on what happened. Two days in a row without the gym and with garbage for food. I made bad choices, yes. Do I forgive myself? Of course.

But was it okay? Not really. I knew better, and I know from previous experience that when I become to permissive about my own bad behavior, it gets worse. See: this whole entry.

What I'm saying is that I am a petulant child. It's true.

So I fell off the wagon this week. It's going to happen plenty of times in this journey. But today was a new day, tomorrow is another new one, and every day I have a new chance to do things right.

And I will.

The foot bone's connected to the leg bone

I decided to make tonight a short night at the gym and go for cardio only, running a mile and change. A few minutes into my mile, I felt a twinge in my left ankle. I shook it off and felt myself shifting, only slightly, to compensate for it.

Within the next minute, my left calf started to ache and cramp. When my calves start to cramp, there's no saving them - or if there is, I sure haven't figured it out yet. I pushed through the rest of my mile, determined to improve on my last mile time.

It worked, but barely. I trimmed a modest five seconds off my mile, finishing in 14:51. The walking cooldown did nothing for my cramped calf, which by this time was resulting in a pronounced limp.

I was frustrated. Very frustrated. I had warmed up well and I knew I could do better on that mile tonight. Nothing felt tight. Nothing felt out of place. It wasn't until I threw my things into my car and sat outside the gym, annoyed with myself, that I remembered how I'd compensated for my ankle hurting.

Oh. That.

Tonight's "I can't believe I had to learn this one the hard way" lesson is that everything is connected. There are precious few parts of my body that operate independently, and how I use each part affects dozens of other parts. When I changed my stride to keep my ankle from hurting, I did something that I can only classify as "made my calf angry." It's still angry, nearly two hours later.

Lesson learned, body.

Tomorrow will a well-deserved day off from the gym, and I hope that by the time I come back, my calf will be ready to play nicely with others. After all, I have a new mile time to beat.

Getting real with the numbers

I knew this day was coming. After last week's brutal training session, I requested that we have a chance to look at my progress, to give myself some new benchmarks. Maybe give myself a little hope.

For the past week, I've been focusing on the things I knew we would test tonight. During my regular routines, I've thrown in my sit-ups, push-ups, lat pulldowns, all the things that we used as benchmarks last month. This was going to be my first check-up, and I'll be damned if I was going to blow it.

And let me tell you, I was nervous. By the time I left work to head for the gym, I was sick to my stomach with apprehension. Will I be good enough?

In retrospect, it was funny: I was terrified that I wouldn't have made enough progress. As if my trainer was going to tell me that I was a lost cause, or that the lack of change would have caused me to quit altogether. I've been watching my progress constantly, and still, today scared me.

Always looking for evidence of my own mediocrity. That's me.

I'm pleased to report that my nervousness was misplaced. Six weeks after beginning, I weighed in at 230. Eight pounds lost. My BMI is down a full point to 42, my body fat percentage is down three points, also at 42. My measurements are all down approximately 1/2 inch, except my hips, which are down a phenomenal two inches. Okay, they're still 53 inches. But this is progress.

My lat pulldowns, leg presses, and chest presses all improved dramatically. I nearly doubled my lat pulldown reps, doubled my chest press reps, and increased my leg press weight. My muscular endurance tests were even better: I completed 35 push-ups in a minute (from the knees, I'm a cheater like that), up from 28 six weeks ago, and I didn't fatigue in my sit-ups until time was up, ending with 50 in a minute, up from 36.

My biggest nemesis, the twelve-minute run, was easily the hardest part. At the time, I felt like I was falling short of recent runs. I beat myself up about it until I got home and was able to log into RunKeeper to check my progress. I ran .8 miles in 12:00, and sure enough, that's a 15-minute mile. Right on track with what I've been doing. Six weeks ago, I managed only .69 miles in the 12:00 allowed.

Someday, I'll learn not to doubt myself.

And that, I think, is the biggest take-away from this experience. I've said it before and I'll say it a hundred times over before I remember it when it counts the most.

I am capable of great things.

My trainer was thrilled with my results, which was as gratifying as the numbers themselves. He warned me that the next evaluation will be harder, that it's much easier to make big gains at the beginning and I shouldn't be discouraged if my gains are smaller.

Bring it on, J. Bring. It. On.

Gym forecast: 10% chance of making it there alive

Where I live, we're getting our first appreciable snowfall of the year right now. Half an hour ago, when I looked out the window and saw big flakes lazily drifting through the trees, I thought this would be the perfect time to sneak out to the gym.

As I spun my tires, carefully dragging myself up the hill just outside my complex, unable to see more than a few feet in front of my windshield, I realized that it just might be snowing a little harder than I thought. And so I, a steadfast Minnesotan with no patience for people who whine about the weather, turned around and came back home.

Fitness is worthless if you don't live to see it.

But my resolve has been tested, and if I ever needed proof about how much the gym matters to me, I got it today.

The snow is meant to ease up later this afternoon. When it does, I'll be trudging back out to the car, clearing it off yet again for another try at the gym. If left with no choice, my meager assortment of weights and the sets of stairs in my building give me plenty of opportunities to get a little work done.

Meanwhile, I watch out the window and bide my time. There's much more day ahead!

Edit: I finally made it to the gym around 8pm, after two failed attempts to get there during the day. My younger brother (who is kind, handsome, has a stable job, and is single, ladies) came to push me out of my parking lot - who knew it would be that slippery? - then push himself out of my parking lot after he got stuck as well. One quick shopping trip later, for a shovel and road salt, and I got to the gym. Hooray!

Scale, I wish I could quit you

I weigh myself every day.

I can't help it! It's a compulsion. It's a fascination. It's interesting to see what happens day-to-day.

But try as I might to keep it framed as a curiosity, I can't help but take it personally when the scale doesn't say what I want it to. I'm setting myself up for near-daily disappointment, knowing that I'll be unhappy, maybe even discouraged. I'm giving myself a reason to fail.

I really need to quit doing that.

The reality is that the scale very, very rarely will ever say what I want it to. I know, from past experience, that my daily weight can fluctuate very widely, more than I ever realized. This means that I can go in one day and weigh in at 232 (my current low), then come in the next and discover I'm magically 234.

Did I really gain two pounds overnight, for real? Of course not. In order to really gain that much fat, I'd need to have eaten more than 5000 calories in a day. I know for a fact that I'm doing well on that front, staying around 1700 nearly every day. So it's literally not possible for me to have packed on two pounds of fat overnight, even on a crappy food day.

There are plenty of reasons that a daily weigh-in is inaccurate. Sometimes, we're still digesting food when we step on the scale. Other times, we're retaining fluid. When we're working on fitness as well as weight loss, the actual fat loss won't register on the scale, since gaining muscle makes the whole deal a trade-off: gaining muscle weight while losing fat weight. The scale doesn't discriminate.

Knowing all of this doesn't take away the disappointment of a bad weigh-in, however, and I carry that negativity with me through my workout. Sometimes, I shake it off by the time I'm done with my warm-up, but not always. Carrying that burden makes an exhausting workout that much worse.

Rather than focus on what the scale told me tonight, I think I'll instead focus on 14:56, the time of tonight's first mile. Or 4.7, the miles per hour I was running my intervals at. Or maybe I'll focus on 15, the number of pounds I was bicep-curling. All of these are better than anything I've been able to do since last winter. They're my current records.

From this day forward, I solemnly swear that I won't weigh myself more than once a week. I won't take its numbers as anything other than an interesting benchmark, and I won't ever allow myself to think that they're the most important part this journey.

There are better numbers out there.

Keeping my eye on the prize

You would think that the days that challenge my resolve the most are the ones like Monday, where I'm pushed to my limit and exhausted nearly to tears, where my trainer's words resonate deeply and strike fragile parts of me: This is how you lose pounds. Do it again.

But they're not. Not really.

See, I'm a runner by nature. Not the sort that gets on treadmills, but the sort that runs from difficult situations and never looks back. If I don't have a chance to run, I step up and confront my fears. That's what makes me stronger.

Given half a chance, though, I'm out the door. I don't come back.

I think that's why my rest days can be so difficult for me. Those are the days when I get the chance to sit at home and think about all of this. How hard it is, maybe too hard. How long the road is. When I'm not doing, I'm thinking.

And when I'm thinking, I get into trouble. (Just ask my mother.)

So on those dangerous rest days, like today, I work twice as hard to keep my head in the game. Reminding myself of why I'm doing this and what's at stake. My fitness magazines have taken up permanent residence next to my bed and I flip through them before turning off the light. I've read all the articles a dozen times or more; my favorite magazine only comes out every two months, but I keep reading, hoping that every time I'll retain something new.

I remind myself of my injury, my torn ACL, and how I don't get to have it fixed. I didn't have insurance when it happened, so if I'm ever lucky enough to find coverage for myself again, ACL surgery probably won't be included. Strengthening what I have and reducing the burden of my body weight is critical.

I remind myself of the horses I used to ride and how badly I want to do it again. I rode regularly, several times a week, a few years ago. It was the most significant time of my life. In order to reclaim that, I need to get fit again.

I remind myself that, somewhere out there, there's a pair of booty shorts with JUICY on the butt, just for me. I want to wear them before I'm 40. I will love them.

And I remind myself that I deserve this. I can achieve this. I'm already achieving it.

Two hours ago, when I sat down to write this blog post, I failed. I felt unhappy and uninspired. It wasn't until I'd packed my things away and crawled into bed that I realized that this feeling is what blogging was made for. Overcoming this feeling is what this blog was made for.

Thank you all for giving me another reminder. Back to the gym tomorrow, no excuses.

Humility, part 1

I'm pretty sure that "humility" will be a recurring theme here. So I've numbered this entry just in case.

In everything I do, there's a learning curve. It's hard, then it gets easier, and then I peak. It may be a tiny little peak, but nevertheless, I'm shouting from the rooftops that I get it!

Ever have that feeling? Enjoy it. It won't last.

I don't say this to be discouraging. I think that we, as humans, spend so much time embracing the good and not nearly enough time embracing the bad. Sometimes, we just need to accept that things suck, and the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can change it.

Onward and upward, my friends.

And so I found myself at the gym tonight, ready for another training session. I was coming off my high from yesterday, a two mile run in 32:20. I won't bore you with benchmarks, but for me, this is pretty darn good. I was hoping we might do our first check-up on my progress tonight and I'd have the chance to show just how awesome I've gotten in a month.

No, really. This is what my mind was telling me.

I got signed in, met up with J, and we made a bit of small talk while walking through the gym. Only we went right past the mats where I would do my sit-ups and push-ups, past the room with the scale and measuring tapes. We went instead into an equipment room where he picked up a kettlebell and began demonstrating some very straightforward, very pedestrian squats.

Huh, I thought. How strange. This isn't how evaluations go, and this isn't how we start our arms days.

My little heart sank when, in the middle of my second set of squats, I finally clued in that this was another leg day. I squatted and performed wall-sits and did some reverse hamstring extensions. I used this machine early on in the routine:



Holy cheesecake, I've never sweat so much in my life. I can only assume this model's smile was brought on by gas.

The highlight of the night - and by "highlight" I mean "worst thing ever and I hope to gravy I built some character or something" - came toward the end, back in the equipment room. My trusty trainer brought out a medicine ball and demonstrated throwing it as high up the wall as he could, bouncing it off and catching it again. He repeated this several times, bending his knees and propelling himself upward.

"You'll do sets of 45-seconds," he said, handing me the ball. "And sorry," he continued as I nearly audibly oofed, "I couldn't find the ten-pounder. So we'll use this one. I think it's fifteen."

And he smiled.

Intentional? Y/N?

I labored through the first 45-seconds, resting for thirty. I grunted my way through the second 45-seconds, then rested again. Okay. Very very very hard. But I made it. And then he told me I'd do it two more times.

You know that noise you make when something's heavy, like a grunt, but you're really not happy about it? So it's kinda like an angry whine? That noise. I made that noise for the next two minutes. I kept forgetting to breathe.

By the time it was all over, I was sure I haven't been that tired, emotionally or physically, in a very long time. It was a far cry from the triumphant "Look how good I am now!" I'd had planned for the night. It was a lot harder and a lot sadder. An awful lot more humbling.

But you know what? It was better. I can say that now that I'm home and showered, and all my muscles have stopped quivering. All this shortest path stuff means that the hard work is the most important part, and I need to keep believing that.

And I'll believe it until the next time we do legs again.

Changing my relationship with food

Food is fuel.

I wanted to get that out of the way, because it's something I need to tell myself every single day. My relationship with food has been less a sensible partnership and more a torrid love affair, and changing that relationship has been a long, difficult road.

Name a food vice and I've probably had it. I over-eat my favorite foods to the point of making myself sick. I eat when bored. I eat when emotional. I give into cravings. I'm that person who'll leave the house at 2am to get a candy bar at the grocery store, and after buying it, will eat it shamefaced in the car and hate myself ten minutes later.

At least, I was that person.

When starting a fitness program, I can't change everything at once. I start with exercise, and I let myself eat normally for the first few weeks while I'm gearing up. That's when I notice the first major change in myself: I stop craving garbage. I firmly believe that the body often craves what it needs, and when I'm hitting the gym, the only thing I can think about eating afterward is a big piece of chicken. And let me tell you, I give in to every one of those good cravings. I need to capitalize on them, reward myself for them.

Once I'm finding myself in a groove with going to the gym and having some good cravings, I take steps to change the rest of my diet. I start replacing my calorie-laden beverages with water. I replace my mid-morning candy bar with a granola bar. I eat an apple an hour before going to the gym not because I want to, but because I should.

An interesting thing happens once you make these changes. You start craving these foods. The body starts expecting them. So even though I don't like granola bars, I don't particularly like water, and apples have never been at the top of my snack list, I start to look forward to them.

There are days when the food-obsessed version of me comes out again. Some days, I'll grab a hot fudge sundae along with my plain grilled chicken wrap. I'll have a big slice of cake (or two) when I feel I need it. But like with everything else, I need to be honest with myself. Why am I eating this? Will I feel better for having eaten it? Am I acting reasonably right now?

And always, when I let myself indulge, I still count my calories. Just because I'm cheating doesn't mean I give up, and my storied history with food has shown me that I can still make progress on the days I exceed my desired calorie count. If I eat 2200 calories on Wednesday (Pizza Night, hello!) all is not lost. I still have six other days of the week to make a difference.

The important thing for me to remember is that a slice of cake doesn't undo all the good I've done since I started down this path. It may be a stumbling block, but if there's one thing I've learned it's that stumbling doesn't mean falling.

I'll never be cured of my food obsessions. It's a constant battle, this relationship. But every day I can log my calories with a smile on my face is a major accomplishment, something to be proud of.

The importance of rest and learning to deal with pain

When it comes to fitness, I've started to see everything I do as a transaction. I'm a calorie counter, so every morning I start with a balance of 1700, and every meal counts as a deduction. Throughout the day, I'm thinking of how much I have left.

Don't cringe. It really does work. It's an aspect of my fitness that I can be engaged in all day.

It's not just calories, though. Every week, I start knowing how many days off I'll allow myself that week. I know that I want to put in five days a week at the gym; I like that number because it feels like an authoritative majority. My mind is convinced that there's a tremendous difference between four and five, and don't try telling it otherwise. It won't believe you.

With that in mind, every week looks similar for me: I meet with my trainer on Mondays because it sets me up for the week. I know it'll work my muscles to screaming, letting me ease up and work on cardio Tuesdays, with some lifting sets working whatever muscle groups were spared on Monday. I take Wednesdays off, because I said so. (Incidentally, this is Pizza Night at my house. Beginning Wednesday morning, I start planning how many calories I can deduct during the day, knowing that dinner will be filled with cheesy, carb-y goodness.) Thursday is whatever muscle groups we worked during training on Monday. Thursday is non-negotiable; something serious has to come up for me to take Thursday off. Two days off in a row is just not allowed.

And here, beginning Friday, is the only leeway I allow myself. I know that one of the next three days, Friday through Sunday, I get to take off. I like saving that day off for Sunday, knowing that Monday will be a rough day.

There's a reason I plan my week so strictly, and that reason is this: My body is a liar.

When I ask my body, "Body? How do you feel today? Are you tired?" the answer is, "Holy crap, yes. I would like lie down on the couch and stay there until tomorrow." This is because I'm human. My newly-found enjoyment of the gym will never, ever change how painfully lazy I am.

But there's another reason, and it's something that every person who's ever exercised or played a sport can relate to. It's this little thing called delayed onset muscle soreness.

DOMS is that miserable ache you get in your muscles a day or two after exercise. If you weren't warned about it, it can be hugely discouraging, making you think that perhaps you weren't ready for a fitness program. Depending on the muscle groups involved, it can make life difficult for the next few days - or, at the very least, it can make everything you do hilarious to everyone around you.

Just ask my coworkers about me trying to put on headphones after my first heavy arms day. (Or, you know, don't. 'Cause yikes.)

The thing about DOMS is that light exercise is good for it. That's right, the body is such a lying jerk that the very thing you don't want to do is exactly what you should do.

This doesn't mean that pain should be ignored. There are certain kinds of pains that I refuse to work with, period. Because of my chiropractic history, I won't work through twinges in my spine and will instead visit my doctor. I will never work on a sprain.

Most importantly, I won't work with joint pain. Like many larger people, I've always had dodgy knees, and I made it a millionty-jillion times worse last year when an ill-planned personal dance party snapped the ACL in my left knee. The rehab of this has been long and boring, but the short story is that I have never had surgery and I instead work to strengthen the mechanism of my knee. It's going very well and I refuse to do anything that will jeopardize my progress. This means that joint pain keeps me at home with an ice pack.

The more I work, the more I understand the different aches and pains that my body hands me. While my weekly plan doesn't always work out, having planned days off keeps me accountable. It keeps me honest. Maybe, just maybe, it keeps me progressing.

My new-old favorite workout

For some reason I never entirely understood, I've always been enthralled with kickboxing. While I don't exactly have the demeanor to pummel someone into submission, I definitely have the wherewithal to beat the stuffing out of a heavy bag.

So when I saw kickboxing classes offered at the local YMCA some seven years ago, I signed up.

It was officially one of the most empowering, emboldening, and downright coolest things I've ever done with my body. Like many overweight folks, I have a lot of power; my legs are strong by virtue of carrying my body weight around. It was liberating to find an exercise in which I could not only participate, but excel.

I may have been surrounded by beautiful, skinny, high school cheerleaders, but in that class, I was queen.

The class didn't last long, only ten weeks, but ever since then I've been missing it. Seven years is a long time to miss something.

Tonight, I decided to do something about it. Something easy, something free, and something sure to make my back and arms scream for delicious, delicious mercy.

I shadow-boxed.

Shadow boxing is typically regarded as a warm-up. It's something you do before you step up to a bag, or before you move onto other training. But tonight, darn it, I wanted to make it count.

I put myself through the paces of warm-up: static and dynamic stretching, then some core work in the form of crunches and a feeble plank (that's just got to get better someday). The weight room where I was working at the gym was starting to fill up, so I grabbed a set of weights and staked my claim on a patch of carpet in front of the mirror.

Starting with three-pound dumbbells, I went through the jabs, dancing back and forth as much as I dared when surrounded by ladies who wanted the prime real estate I was taking up. A minute of boxing alternated with a set of squats to keep my body moving, repeated several times. I was sweating in less than five minutes.

Don't ever let anyone shame you for using three-pound weights. After a few reps, those things get heavy. Like, really heavy.

I wasn't satisfied to leave it at that, and before I'd spent my shoulders I picked up the five-pounders. I put in another few minutes before finally giving in and dropping the weights. Once I saw my jabs drooping below my shoulder line in the mirror, I knew it was time to give it a rest.

That was nearly two hours ago and my traps are still dancing like giddy schoolgirls.

Tonight was, without a doubt, the most fun I've had yet in the gym. I've promised myself that, when I hit that glorious 200lb mark, I'll be gifting myself with some gloves and a bag to put in the garage.

Meanwhile, you better believe I'll be boxing again, in my little corner of the gym.

Taking credit where credit is due

If there's one thing I've learned from going to the gym, it's that I'm capable of great things. More than I ever would have dreamed.

But when you have the sort of on-again, off-again relationship with the gym that I have, you forget these things. Last February, when I was at the gym regularly, I met my first major goals. And then something funny happened.

I stopped going.

It was as though I'd forgotten the point of it all. I'd climbed halfway up the mountain, stuck my flag in the snow, and went home. How anti-climactic.

Now, I find myself at the base of the mountain again. Not only do I need to meet those goals again, but I need to learn to set new ones.

The worst part is that I don't remember meeting those goals in the first place.

Over the winter, I was diligently logging my routines. Every time I got off the treadmill, I recorded my distance and time into RunKeeper. I appreciated the congratulatory emails the system sent to me every time I set a new personal record, and there was something enjoyable about seeing all those dates in a row, showing when I went to the gym. It's like having my very own grown-up star chart.

Speaking of which, I recommend making one of those. Bet you'll surprise yourself with how badly you want to put another star on the calendar. Nobody is immune.

The best part about having a tracking program is having proof of what I've done. I logged in tonight to record my 15:15 mile (over which there was much rejoicing) and I happened to look back to February.

Much to my surprise, I was awesome. Do you know, I was running two miles at a time? Five days a week? I'd forgotten.

It's easy to forget what you're capable of when you're not paying attention. Don't let yourself forget.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line

I considered this mathematical truth at 6:15am today as the younger cat, Mimi, determined that the fastest way to get to the other side of the bed was to stroll across my back. She needed to get to that side, see, because I was facing that way and she needed to look me in the face to find out if I was awake.

Protip: Don't open your eyes.

This truth struck me again, albeit in a less feline way, as I headed for the gym tonight. It was a training night and it was going to be legs again, I just knew it. Legs. The last time we did legs, I limped for five days, the first two of which were so bad I needed assistance to slither up to my third-floor apartment.

I'm not too proud to admit that I crawled. In public.

By the time my trainer smiled that It's too late to run now... smile and said, "Legs tonight, right?" part of me was I was wishing I'd stayed home.

I suppose I could have lied, said something about how it was definitely an arms day.

But that's not the shortest distance. And me, I need the shortest distance. Every minute of every day.

I've spent more than half my life as an overweight person. Nearly ten years ago I tipped into "obese" territory for the first time and I swore I wouldn't let it define me. But no matter how many times I looked at that scale and said "I won't be this person anymore," it never worked. I never took the shortest path.

Let me tell you something: The long route looks great. It looks like a land of rainbows and unicorns, where all you need to do is wish hard enough and you'll lose weight. Cut out a snack here, climb some stairs there, and before you know it you're wearing booty shorts and bringing all the boys to the yard. Some people tell you this works, that their aunt's second cousin's friend's dogwalker did it and now she's running the New York City Marathon.

The truth is that it isn't real. The long route might be a first step, but it's a first step I've taken hundreds of times in my life. It's just as heartbreaking to lose your will on the first step as it is on the tenth step. And I just won't do it anymore.

So tonight, I looked J in the eye and said "Yep, it's legs tonight. What's first?"

I whimpered on my last set of stability ball wall squats. I cried out "Cramp!" in a crowded gym when my right hamstring tried to give up. I was sick with apprehension when asked to do lateral moves that I just knew would hurt my knee, and I'm pretty sure I said "I'm terrified, J" at least three times.

But you know what? I did it. Every last damned rep of every last damned set. (Trust your trainer; it didn't hurt my knee. Not one bit.)

As I laid on the floor, staring at the ceiling after my last set of crunches, I thought about how much the shortest path hurts. In order to push yourself to be something better, you need to first admit that you need to be better. No hamstring cramp in the world hurts as much as that sort of introspection. And when you challenge yourself to take the shortest path, to put it all on the line and really go for it for the first time in your life, it's scary. And exhilarating.

It's the only way.

There you are, weightloss! I've been looking for you!

Last week I took two days in a row off from the gym.

I know, I know. "That's not a bad thing. You go five days a week. You're allowed to rest." But the thought process that happens is deadly. That third day, when I'm heading to work with my gym bag in hand, I start to think You know, it wasn't the end of the world to take those days off. I could take today off, too....

And there begins the spiral. Last time, that spiral ended with three months off. Then came injury, then came fifteen more pounds. It was bad enough when I was only 100lbs overweight. Now, I was nearly 120lbs overweight. Literally twice what I should weigh if I were an active individual with a sensible diet.

If I want this time to be different, I need to cut the excuses. I needed a little inspiration, so I hit the web looking for words of wisdom from professionals. I found them. Felicia Romero wrote this great blog a few weeks ago and it was exactly what I needed to hear:

I recently saw a quote, “It takes 4 weeks for you to notice your body changing, 8 weeks for your friends to notice, and 12 weeks for the rest of the world to notice. Give it 12 weeks. Don’t QUIT!”

I've hit the gym hard the past few days, killing myself with cardio and following my workouts with my favorite protein and fast carb combo, the delicious chicken with garlic sauce at the local Chinese place. And finally, five weeks into this, I've seen results. My body must have been storing them up, because as of today I'm down five pounds from my weigh-in on Oct 13th.

I try not to be too self-congratulatory; there's a long way to go. It's going to suck, except for when it doesn't, and I'll hate myself once in a while. Every day, this routine gets more normal. Can't ask for much more than that.

If my scale had a face, I would punch it in the nose.

I've been at this again for almost a month and I'm really making progress. My time on my mile is low enough that I feel challenged rather than discouraged, I can run longer intervals every time, and I can lift heavier weights.

But the physical changes are taking their sweet damned time, yo. I've lost a leeeeettle around the middle, just enough to slide into a pair of shorts I could wear ten pounds ago, and I've lost a whopping two pounds. I wasn't expecting miracles here, especially with all the weights I've been doing, but come on.

Still happy, still encouraged. Feeling really awesome about it all. Just a little annoyed at the passive-aggressive warfare being waged by my ample hips.