Nemesis! I Don't Feel Like It!

Blah! After a long day at work the last thing I want to do is more work. My head hurts. All the other drivers are behaving like morons and costing me precious minutes on the road that I could be using to sip a tea and unwind with my cats. Someone darts out in front of me and then proceeds to slow down, 10 k under the speed limit. Is it their mission to keep me on the road or am I just imagining things?

I. Hate. Everybody. Especially red lights and stop signs.

The biggest thing that prevents me from doing my workout is simply not feeling like it. I want to go home. I want to relax. I want the world to leave me alone until I have to get up and do it all over again. I have come to accept that visiting the gym directly post-work is not only a bad idea but more likely to prevent the visit from happening.

Why?

1. I need to want to go to the gym. Trying to make the gym right after work when I hate everyone and everything just makes me resent it. "Screw you weight machine. Suck it, exercise bike." Blah. I need time to unwind. Often I make the decision to go home. Screw the gym, only to find myself there, contentedly peddling and lifting, three hours later. Giving myself permission to go home and do absolutely nothing for a few hours is not slacking off and does not lead to gym avoidance, it helps me go there and to keep a healthy perspective. Working out is good for you. Resenting it is not.

2. I need my me time. For some people me-time is the gym. Not for me. I am a solitary person who enjoys rest. My me-time is really just hanging with my cats and doing nothing for an hour or two. Recognizing my needs rather than trying to adopt the habits of others, is important. It's not just  knowing what my needs are by accepting them and making time for them. For me, the gym is work. Work I can enjoy, but still work. If I put that work above my, often psychological, needs then I am doing myself a dis-service. I want to want to go to the gym. So I wait until I do, and it comes with surprising regularity around 7:00 pm. A mere 2-3 hours after I finally arrive home. Who knew?

3. Where, what, when. I have managed to pick-up some weights from local thrift shops. This means that I can do the things I enjoy at the gym and lift at home while watching Hannibal make meals of rude people. I have come to accept that a certain amount of anxiety will always be there, especially when trying new things around new people. But it can still make things a bit of a struggle and have me yearning for the comfort of home half way through a work out. I have met it half way with home weights. There are certain things I do at the gym but a lot of the lifting I can now do at home. The gyms gives me the bike and the pool. Which makes it totally worth it, especially in the winter when a bike ride means battling cold and ice!

Conquering my workout Nemesis is a work in progress but so far it seems to be working. I can't avoid the end of day Blahs but I can use them to my advantage and look forward to a bit of me time before venturing back out into the world.

Hannibal picture courtesy of:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Madsmikkelsen.jpg

5 Things I Have Learned Working Out On My Own

When I first began my fitness journey it was rife with fear and doubt. But here I am... I've lost weight, run a Tough Mudder and I find myself facing phase two.

I've had to move from a small gym that specializes in Bootcamp-style classes to a community centre that specializes in being cheap. The challenge that I now face, after a couple months off, is creating my own workouts and executing them. The challenge is the anxiety that I typically carry around with me and learning to differentiate between my own defense mechanisms and reality.  

1. YES! You can be independent!

Having friends or buddies with you makes things WAY easier. I miss my old gym because of the social aspect. It was way easier having buddies to share the pain with. Now it is totally up to me. I have to be my own buddy and my own cheerleader. If I'm having a hard time of it, there's no one there to push me or say “Come on Karyn! You can do better than that!” but me.

The up side is that I have had to learn how to be my own cheerleader. Yeah, having a coach or a friend encourage you feels great but so does encouraging yourself. I do know that I can do better and after doing this for a week I have begun to remember how to ask: “Do I think I can do more?” and to respond “Let's try it.” So yeah, let's try the scary looking machine... that's why we're here.

2. Keys to finding and creating your own program.

Having a coach or a class teacher makes things a lot easier. I have issues with anxiety and perfectionism. “Am I doing this right? Will I hurt myself? Do I look stupid?” These thoughts have no basis in reality, indeed nobody even looks at me while I'm flailing through my workout, but the feeling of AAAAHHHHHH doesn't help. Having someone tell me what to do was amazing. I think I put off finding a gym I could afford longer because I was intimidated by the idea of deciding my own workout.

So, I went online and spent many hours in Chapters. In finally settled on a book by Bodybuilding.com that has a twelve week program. I like this book because it has great success stories, it explains all the basics in a way a layman like myself can understand, and, as a woman, I was happy to see that the example photos of lifting had both a man and a woman.

This program is super simple and removes all the thought from my workout. I am back to doing as I am told while simultaneously learning what the exercises do, where etc.

3. Connecting to a community can happen anywhere.

The biggest thing that kept me coming to my old gym was the sense of community. I missed my community. I felt lost and lonely without it. However, part of the book suggested I visit the website where a community was already established. I was able to find the support here that I was missing from my old classes. I may not see these people during my workouts but they are there. A post before or after and I am guaranteed a response.

Does community have to come from the people around us? I still connect with my old classmates over Facebook etc. So, how is that different from connecting to people on a forum online? It's not and it actually gives me something to look forward to. Often, I will check the site as I am moving through my workout and already have responses.

I also have "workout buddies" to whom I will text a photo as I enter the gym or the results of my bike warm-up. It keeps us honest even though we live in different cities. 

4. Goals. Goals. Goals.

Goals are important to any fitness routine. I totally didn't have one. What was worse I worried that without my trainer I couldn't meet any. I needed something that gave me focus but was low stakes. I settled upon the Bodybuilding.com 12 Week Challenge. It was perfect, I was competing only against myself and it ran over the same length of time I had settled on for my preliminary routine. It also has weekly challenges that are built to remind you why you're doing this in the first place.

5. Nobody's looking at you.

This is the most important thing that I have learned. I have years of unpacked anxiety and fears attached to anything that I do with my body. Experiences in my youth also led me to be hyper-aware of any new space that I was in and to be cognizant of who was there, who had access to me, and how could I escape if necessary. This generally translated into “Forget escaping! Why not just stay home?”

I have had to force myself to become conscious of the “They're not looking at you”-ness of my workout area. Truly, nobody cares but you. Stay in the present where you are and just focus on you and what you are doing and really... just how awesome it is and how good it makes you feel to do it. I never thought I would even lift anything heavier than my purse. But I was wrong, and I love the changes in my ability.

They're not watching you. You don't have to be perfect. It's safe here. Trust me.

I have just started my twelve weeks and I invite my friends, both virtual and in rl to join me.

Connect at:

https://www.facebook.com/FailingUp/