Some things you just don't need to see.....

I hate the entire wall, floor to ceiling mirror that the Gym or excuse me "fitness center" has positioned right in front of the cardio machines. So as I am huffing and puffing I get to stare at myself and see exactly what my body looks like when moving. It is already hard enough to get up the courage to go into the gym when you are morbidly obese, and get on the machines next to the very pretty skinny young 19 year old who has never had a weight problem in her life, but what has always helped is for me to stop thinking what I look like, think to myself "screw em" and just get down to business. That is hard to do when you get watch your thighs rubbing together in real time.

Now this isn't my regular gym, it is one of the ones that happen to be on my way home from work, so I thought I would pop in and give it a try, since I have access to all the ones in this particular chain in the province. Now I can understand having the mirror near the weights, where people may need to check their form, make sure they are positioned right etc. But in front of the cardio machines. Come on!

Saying it out loud

I never thought in a million years you would get me to verbally say my weight out loud. Maybe to a very close family member, only under duress to a friend, outright lie about it on a drivers license, but Never ever ever ever to a stranger.

But lately with this whole gym experience I have been saying it a lot. They all ask, from the membership coordinator, to the trainers, It is the first thing. How much do you weigh? How old are you? How much do you want to lose? What is the time line?

330, 330, 330, 330!

And I swear I am even starting to say it without pause, without shame attached. Almost nonchalant.

That is huge, for me.

I weigh 330 lbs (actually 328 now!) It is a fact, a statistic, a number. That is all. Yes that number represents a whole lot of work to be done. But I am working at it.

The rest of the "Gym" sessions

I have finished the rest of my Gym introduction sections, or where they try to sell you stuff in a 1 hour period.

Two of the sessions were workouts with a trainer. The first one I had the same guy from when I was all measured up. And I still found him mildly insulting. He really tried to sell me on the purchasing personal training sessions which I informed him I could not afford end of story. He kept saying how he didn't feel right "putting his name to this" since I didn't know what I was doing but in the end since I still wouldn't budge he showed me some of the gym machines and did give me some instructions. Workout number 2 was with a young female trainer, who was nice, but promptly forgot my name and called me "sweetie" the entire time. She gave me the sell spiel but dropped it when it wasn't promising. She did an actual workout with me, that I could still feel the next day.

The nutrition session was a big sales session as well basically I learned nothing from it but if I paid X amount of dollars every 2 weeks and came in for a 10 min session once a week I would learn the big secret to losing weight. Huh, imagine that. I declined.

The last session was Boxing. The Boxing gym isn't included in the membership. However boxing was fun. You can't go wrong when you get to punch things! The guy was pretty straight forward and didn't say a bunch of crap to try to make me buy a membership. And at the end of the 45 mins I was exhausted. I also learned I need to make skipping a priority, cause seriously I was supposed to skip for 2 mins and could barley go 10 seconds straight. Man I am out of shape!

Now I am done their introductory session, they can leave me alone and I can do my own thing. There is no doubt I need instruction, direction, and occasional motivation but when I feel that I have come to the point where I need a change I will think of buying some personal training sessions or a boxing membership. But until then bugger off with your sales pitches!

Weigh in Wednesday and measuring up

Well according to my scale, I am down to 328! Past the 50 lbs mark baby! whoohoo!

Today was the appointment with the gym to be all measured up and documented. And answer a lot of questions for insurance purposes, just in case I suddenly die in the midst of a zumba class or something.

First off I did have to fill out a questionnaire about my goals, my setbacks, previous attempts, my height and weight, my nutritional knowledge, fitness knowledge etc. Most of this whole questionnaire was designed so they could better sell me on their weight loss program on which I have no desire to purchase and won't be talked into. I am sure the gentleman who was doing my "assessment" has a quota to fill, and he did his best at trying to make it appear financial feasible after I informed him I'm pretty broke and just joining the gym is a stretch on the wallet. He was a little surprised that I appeared to know more about nutrition and exercise than expected.

Part two and this was really weird for me, not only did I say how much weight I wanted to lose, but I stepped on a scale, and verbally said my weight in front of a total stranger (who also happened to be a man, definitely not my comfort zone. Then out came the measuring tape. Another awkward moment between strangers. I then had my body fat percentage read using some electrodes on my hand and foot, basically I am mostly fat. This is not news to me. 67%.
My BP was a bit high, but the gym guy said that wasn't abnormal most people are stressed out. However he said my resting heart rate was unusually low, but for me that is normal.

Basically since I wasn't going to sign up for their weight loss program or hire on a personal trainer his only exercise related advice was to do "cardio, cardio, cardio" but stay off the treadmill cause this wasn't low impact and to maybe try aqua fit. And that because I wasn't going to join one of their programs I would probably be prone to injury. I do have another session with him next week, where he shows me how to work out and use some of the machines.

I did feel mildly insulted over the exercise advice, because I am sure he doesn't realize how physical my job is, and how I have been swimming 3 x a week for the last 7 months and doing 2 hour hikes. So I am not just starting out, I have been at this for awhile. I just kept thinking to myself, I have already lost 49 lbs (51 now!) on my own, so really I totally rock.

After all this, which took about 45 mins, I headed to the gym section ( the women's only part) and did a small work out, 20 mins on the elliptical machine, and 20 on the treadmill, as these are really the only machines I'm not afraid of.

First Gym experience

Well it wasn't so bad. I had feelings of trepidation, but I was also slightly excited (go figure?). I headed to the gym right after work, and met up with my friend and her mum. They had come early to try out a zumba class but weren't that thrilled with it. We are going to try another one on Sunday when I can go. It was more of a get to know the place and machines. I did some cardio on the treadmill and elliptical, and some weight machines. Then we hit the pool. I am not as thrilled with the pool, but I think that is because I have been at a pool where that is the main focus. I am thinking I may keep my membership at the rec center up, so that I can do some swimming there still (I still have several months to go before that expires). I really need a lot more instruction regarding exercises etc, but I will muddle through, I know that there are a lot of great resources out there like spark people etc.

You are now leaving the comfort zone

I'm not really ready for this excursion into the gym world. It was in my grand scheme of things eventually, maybe when I had lost 100 lbs or more, until then I was planing on sticking to the pool and walking trails, and maybe graduate to the mountain brow stairs. It was always going to be "someday" I will join a gym. While today was that day, and I still feel really uneasy about it. My friend had negotiated with the gym previously for memberships for her family getting them to knock off up front fees etc, and she was nice enough to include me in the negotiations, I was able to join as a previous client even though I have never been there before. We were supposed to go together but due to an emergency I had to brave it alone. I had to answer a questionnaire asking questions like my weight, my fitness goals etc, I received the tour, and their additional services sale pitch which I declined. As we were touring I seriously wanted to shrivel up or throw on an invisibility cloak. As we walked into each room people automatically look up, and I could feel their eyes on me, ugh it was enough to make me want to throw up.

I really need to get over this anxiety. No one is looking at you, No one cares, and if they think oh my god another New year recruit, February dropout well screw 'em . It doesn't matter, you are here for you. I think I may be spending a lot of time in the section of the gym reserved for women only, I may be more comfortable there.

The Gym provides a fitness assessment, Which I will be doing later in the week, apparently there will be a lot of measuring going on and then some sort of 5 min cardio, which I will not do all that great on.

Ahh what have I gotten myself into???