It’s been a running joke in the office that I exercise regularly – once a year. I suppose it’s because I’ve remained relatively the same size for the last few years. So long as my dresses still zip up and I can still pull on my jeans, I’m happy with myself.
The last few months, my stomach’s been acting up badly. I’ve been seeing a specialist and he says if I start exercising, I’ll start to see an improvement in my health. So that motivated me to buy a few yoga dvds, get a mat and buy a few yoga clothes. Just the bare minimum. I tried it for a bit. Yet I just couldn’t get into it.
But when the new girl at work convinced me to buy a couple groupons for a 1-month unlimited pass Steve Nash/Fitness World and a 1-month pass to hot yoga to join her in a get-hot regime, I figured, why not? Turns out I can easily be convinced into almost anything when friends are involved. And now somehow over the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten my butt down to the gym a few times and have more exercise clothes than I ever had in my life.
A lot of it has to do with how much I surprised myself at the gym. I didn’t fall off the elliptical which was always some sorta nightmare I had nagging in the back of my head. And I somehow managed to get on the treadmill and run/jog for a good amount of time. Considering I hate running, this was an accomplishment. The last time I ran – back in high school – I was out of breath with a bad cramp on my side. Yet, somehow I managed to run and keep running beyond what I was expecting from myself. And here’s the weird part: I kinda liked it. Not like I loved it and I had runner’s high. And I still don’t want to drag my butt to the gym, but I know it’s not so bad if I do drag my ass there.
I realize that a lot of what kept me from the gym was that I thought I’d end up looking like a fool. Because I don’t know what I’m doing and what I do know, I barely do as it is. In high school, I was not the athletic girl. I was the opposite of a sports jock; in fact I was always the last one picked in gym class. It wasn’t that I wasn’t physically capable – I just fell into the nerd stereotype so I wasn’t cool enough to be picked sooner. I was actually a tomboy in elementary school, but I kinda forgot about that in high school. And becoming a clumsy awkward girl became my truth. So I wholeheartedly believed it. Until the last couple weeks when my body proved my mind otherwise.
Anna's Rambles 