The Gym

The gym is suddenly quite a large part of my life, for the first time ever. I've been every day for the last three days; today was 2 hours, beginning with an hour personal training test-run. I feel so accomplished! And also so sore.

Today was odd for me, and oddly revolved around the gym. I woke up around 8:45, on the understanding that the painters would be here at 9 to paint our rooms, and I would flee to the gym's 10 o'clock fitness yoga class to escape the fumes. Yeah...that did not happen. I realized that a) I didn't really want to go anywhere, b) I didn't have a yoga mat, and c) I had an appointment for later and didn't want to be too exhausted for that.

Instead, I spent the morning lounging about my room and reading, in turns, my email, my Facebook, my Bible, and my new Kindle version of the New Yorker (Oct. 3 issue--LOVE LOVE LOVE Kindle subscriptions, for the record). And it was lovely--means I should wake up at the proper time every Thursday!

After school, then, I had like 20 minutes at home (during which I scarfed several handfuls of nuts, since I had only eaten an apple for lunch) before I had my scheduled meeting at the Fitness Factory with Gaudin.

Oh, Gaudin. He was great! He speaks some English--better than he thinks but not fluent--and he put me on this body mass/make-up analyzer and then explained to me that I'm pretty average, but that I could stand to lose a little fat and gain a little muscle. (To which my question is--why else would you go to a gym?) He then had me walk on a treadmill for 5 minutes while chatting with me (actually a welcome distraction--and another of his clients came in who had studied in Bellevue, Washington, so I got a little moment to talk about how amazing Seattle is!), then taught me how to use a bunch of the leg/back/chest machines.

As "homework," he told me to do the treadmill/elliptical for 40 minutes, trying to keep my heart rate in the weight loss range. Then, while I was doing this, he came over and told me to speed up! Getting mixed messages here...

Not entirely sure whether I'll be able to do personal training going forward (this one was a one-time complimentary feature of the gym), but I will definitely grab hold of the things he taught me and start adding machines into my gym regimen.

And I have a regimen now! I've discovered the secret to making myself work out: pay for it, don't do too much too fast, and make sure there are individual TVs attached to the elliptical machines. I'm not going to lie, I think that last one is what is making it easy--as long as I don't think about the fact that I'm working, all I really notice is the endorphin rush when I'm done, with the added bonus of getting to feel healthy. :)

I'm thinking I'll add a Zumba class on Sundays and, if I can get up next time, Thursday morning fitness yoga.

So yeah, the gym is great! For the first time ever.