Project: Move it! Week Two

Week two of my Move it! eight week project done.

I thought showing up for the first session of anything unknown is hard, but showing up for the second session once knowns are known is even harder. Let me tell you - third time is actually more difficult again. 

Just a reminder, I am doing 40 sessions of scheduled group classes at the University of Auckland gym - 20 Boxfit sessions and 20 Summer Fit sessions for the eight weeks leading up to Christmas. Want to know which one is me? Look for the older woman with the bright red face gasping for breath.

Is that just me? Waking up at 6am on Wednesday morning my Lazy Brain is all like "You're a bit tired, it's okay to be tired, it's okay to miss one session, you need to rest, is your throat a little bit sore? Maybe you're getting sick and need a lie in..." This is the voice I fight with for every thing.. ev er ree thing - that involves any effort for improvement. That voice has my worst interests at heart and it's why I need to get enough sleep or I don't have the energy to battle it at six in the morning.

But at the same time, I am allowed to decide not to attend a session if I need to. I am a human and I have a life so I need to remain flexible and not try to "do it all". On Friday I decided to skip Boxfit's 7am start, instead I prioritised work over exercise. I'm glad I did to because I got to go home a reasonable time instead of two hours later if I hadn't made that decision. I've added an extra session of Boxfit to the end of my eight weeks so it's not being "missed" so much as "rescheduled" and also went to the gym* for 40 minutes of cardio before dinner that day so I did do something.

This, I had to be sure, was not an excuse from my Lazy Brain, but a plan from my Pragmatic Brain. Because that Lazy Brain is a master of disguise.

Part of my Summer Fit sessions included measurements - weight, fat, inches, all that jazz. 

Honestly, I don't mind my body. I mean I know it's big, and it doesn't serve me well due to my lack of care over many years, but I don't recoil in horror in front of the mirror, I don't really have negative self-talk (anymore). I'm really lucky, I think, that those battles are in the past. What I really want to be is a person who is fit enough to enjoy moving. To not stay in when I could go out. To be able to walk up a hill without nearly (or actually) dying. To be able to swim in the sea without being too out of breath to get back to the shore. To not feel that my weight stops me from flying or riding horses or chasing grand children or gardening or all those things that it might do if I don't do something about the situation soon.

Part of my Summer Fit sessions included measurements - weight, fat, inches, all that jazz. 

Honestly, I don't mind my body. I mean I know it's big, and it doesn't serve me well due to my lack of care over many years, but I don't recoil in horror in front of the mirror, I don't really have negative self-talk (anymore). I'm really lucky, I think, that those battles are in the past. What I really want to be is a person who is fit enough to enjoy moving. To not stay in when I could go out. To be able to walk up a hill without nearly (or actually) dying. To be able to swim in the sea without being too out of breath to get back to the shore. To not feel that my weight stops me from flying or riding horses or chasing grand children or gardening or all those things that it might do if I don't do something about the situation soon.

So I had my weight and measurements taken for a benchmark along with speed to row 500 metres, number of sit-ups, time to hold a plank. From now on I am improving myself to decrease my personal physical numbers and increase the benchmark numbers. 

I would tell you the benchmarks but I haven't even looked at them myself. They don't really interest me at the moment. I may share them at the end when I evaluate how the eight weeks went.

*On Friday after work I went to the gym to at least do something seeing as I'd missed Boxfit that morning. I decided to warm up on the rowing machine. Most under-appreciated piece of gym equipment in my opinion. 

I walked up to the rowing machine, straddled it and sat down. Unfortunately I completely missed the seat and hit the slide bar instead (girls who have borrowed boys bikes and misfired on these types of bars will know what I mean) and fell off the rowing machine. I was now turtled between two rowing machines and there wasn't enough room for me to get up. I had to reverse crab my way out into the space behind the machines so I could roll over and get up.

So if you think you're too shy to attend a exercise class or walk into a gym just remember that I do this kind of thing all the time and I just clamber up and keep going.

Project: Move it! Week One

I finished my first week of my eight week Move It! project and I'm still alive. I did four sessions this week as Monday was Labour Day, a holiday.

The sessions have been really hard. Hard to show up for the first day of class because of all my insecurities and imagined fears. Attending an event you have to have gumption to show up for is one thing; showing up for the second session when you know how hard it is and how bad you are at it is a whole 'nother level.

It was the Boxfit class that was the real eye opener. I don't think I thought about what a person did in Boxfit - boxing, I figured, but not much more thought than that - I didn't think it involved tractor-tyre flipping or massive-rope-rippling or skipping - okay now I think about it skipping makes sense. I made it two-thirds of the way through the first session, though I've never felt time slow down to quite the extent it did during that hour. "What?? We've only been at it 7 minutes??"

I was acutely aware during the warm-up when we had to run around the small space that I held people up with my slowness. So when Alan our instructor described the "stations" (like circuits, but for maniacs) I thought I would be holding people up again so bowed out. While Alan let me, he put me on a stationary bike so I still worked rather than just watched.

The second Boxfit session of the week was similar but different. No tractor tyres (which I was fully ready to attempt this time) and I lasted (very ungracefully) the whole 50 minute session. 

As hard as it was; as lumbering as I felt; as stupid as my short-term memory is; as raspberry red my face became; I enjoyed it, even while I was doing it. And the other experienced participants were gracious with their time and especially repeating sequences I continuously forgot (stupid temporal lobe).

The other session I had this week was with gym machines doing circuits. These sessions, also twice per week for an hour from next week, will be a variety of movement types so a really nice change from the intensity of Boxfit. I am one of 15 people who have committed to the sessions and Emma, our instructor, seems really down to Earth and experienced.

Next week will be another week of four sessions (rather than five) due to Ross from Busy Bodies being away for my usual Tuesday morning weights session. So another short exercise week but probably good considering how new (again) I am to this stuff. Booking the appointments in and meeting my time commitments is working well for me so far. I imagine that the second, third and fourth weeks are gonna be hard as my fitness is so low and my energy levels will be tested but so far? Week One DONE!!

Project: Move it!

I’ve been moving more lately.

When I first started it hurt. Like “use-wheel-chair-access-rather-than-the-stairs-for-three-days” kinda hurt. Now i can do squats without losing the use of my legs. Oh they wobble, but they don’t stop working.

I’m not fit. Not by a very long stretch; but I am fitter.

I can talk while I walk; further, faster, more often. I can take the stairs (to Level 4 so far). If I hadn’t been doing weights there is no way I could’ve scuba-dived in Bali.

One of the things that has worked for me, where it hasn’t worked in the past, is:

1. making exercise an appointment

2. setting an end point

Using my superpower for being too embarrassed to be late to a meeting and knowing it’s only for <insert time here> has made exercising manageable. Since I proved my point over the last six months, I’ve decided to do more.

I’ll be moving it every business day for eight weeks. Starting next week with a combination of HIIT, boxing and weights group classes. That’s 40 classes.

I thought I’d let you know what I was doing as part of being accountable to myself. Yeh I know I said that I’d be too embarrassed to break an appointment but come on: it’s me - I bail on myself all the time!

So stay tuned. You might want to gamble and see who wins which week I drop out.