How the gym made me fat

Is it sacrilige to say such a thing? Gyms? Making people FAT? Well, mine did. Or, rather, kept me fat. Kept me from losing a single pound of baby weight after I had Patrick for almost an entire year! *sigh*

Basically it comes down to this:

I need someone to do my thinking for me, when it comes to exercise. I can't push myself on the tredmill unless someone is breathing down my neck. I don't know how to set goals on the weight machines, or how to set up a regular lifting routine. I'd rather have someone else come up with that plan for me, tell me what the results ought to be, and then let me go. That's what I liked about Curves: no adjusting the weights on the machines, no wondering "Hmm, should I do cardio or resistance training today?", no figuring out which exercises to do as part of a circuit, how many reps, or in what order on which days. The YMCA is more of a "do-it-yourself" type gym, and fitness isn't something I'm very good at "doing myself" aparently.

I have now fully embraced my "workout video junkee" persona. In the last 3 months I've bought almost every workout DVD Jillian Michaels has put out (or appears in). I even asked for 30 Day Shred for my birthday, and her Wii game for Christmas.

Since the beginning of April (when George and I started our friendly Biggest Looser competition) I've lost 15 pounds. I've lost 25 pounds since Christmas. I now only step into the Y for Saturday morning Zumba, and my kids' swim lessons.

At least George is still there every day to justify the membership. :op

I loooove getting fit though. I love seeing my body change. I even love how you can sometimes go weeks without seeing results, and then suddenly the scale will make a 4 pound dip, or you'll look at your arms and realize that your tricepts aren't flapping in the wind the way they used to. (I don't have to flex my arms anymore to feel the hard muscles of my biceps! Booya!) I love the sense of accomplishment, and the growing self-confidence. I am the keeper of my own health, and I am grabbing it by the horns. I started out this year 188.8 lbs. Halfway through I'm now 163.7. My goal is to get back to 135 lbs, which I haven't seen since the summer of '05.

I have a bunch of mantras that I keep running through my head to keep my momentum up. Things like "Sucks versus sucks less" which I tell myself when I get tired of counting calories, and remind myself that I could be having to deal with "dietary exchanges" or medications because of poor health, or when I *really* want to skip a workout and sleep in, but then the chances of getting in a workout would be reduced to near nil and the scale could potentially start sliding up again.

And then there's "A year is going to go by no matter what I do" which I repeat often when I hit platues, or when I feel like it's taking forever to reach my goal. No matter how long it takes, six months, a year, two years, that time is going to go by reguardless, so I might as well do the work *now* rather than wake up a year or two from now only *wishing* I'd done the work, instead of staying in poor shape for two more years.

But beyond mantras, what really keeps me going is my daughter. I want her to see a mother with a healthy body image. I didn't *hate* myself fat, but I knew it wasn't good for me, and that the only one who could change that was myself, and the only *lasting* way to change it is through healthy eating and exercise. I count calories, but I don't "diet". No foods are restricted, just limited. I exercise reguarly, but not excessively. I don't obsess and beat myself up if I overindulge on a given day, I just start over the next morning determined to do better. I enjoy my morning exercise and the way it makes me feel (strong, capable, able to meet a challenge). And I try to make Raia a witness to as much of this as possible. I don't want her thinking that being skinny requires starving oneself and then binging, or sweating until you pass out. I don't want her thinking that she should hate herself if she *is* fat. I felt beautiful at 188, even though I didn't like being that weight. But if I don't like something about myself, then it's up to *me* to change it.

And of course I couldn't do any of this without George. I feel so incredibly blessed to have found a guy who loves me at any weight. He's seen me at my highest weight (220 - right after we got married) and my lowest (135, between having Raia and Errol) and just about everywhere in between, and it's never changed the way he sees me. And I think that's the thing I'm most thrilled to be able to show my daughter. Love ignores the scale.