Inside My Velvet Rope

Well, what do you know: I’m fat.

Don’t worry: this is a statement of fact, not a statement of judgment or of something that bothers me (at the moment), surprisingly enough.

Yesterday T and I went to our neighborhood gym to check out the facility for the first time. As soon as we walked through the door I was hit with a strong sense of relief…and homesickness. I realized I missed spending hours at the gym each week. I missed interacting with people in the classes. I missed watching my body grow stronger week by week. I missed the sense of accomplishment as I racked up fitness minutes on SparkPeople. I missed the satisfying ache in my muscles the next day, as they testified to the previous day’s workout. After a lifetime of claiming I was not a gym person, I was surprised by my feelings. I haven’t worked out regularly since spring of 2012, but all of those workouts in 2010 and 2011 have left a mark on me.

I’ve gone from working out to lose weight to believing working out is FUN! Who knew that could happen for me in a GYM? Also, since I am all for having fun, I decided to make time for this fun as much as I can manage, effective immediately.

Since the gym is only a 10-15 minute walk down the block and around the corner from where we live, I popped in this morning for my first workout there. Before heading into the 9:30 spin class I hopped on the scale. Fully clothed, I am an even 200 lbs. The number didn’t disturb me, though. I’ve known my pants were more snug than I wanted, and I’d felt my waistline balloon out past the point I am comfortable with. In fact, over the past month or two of doing simple core exercises nearly every day, I lost an inch on my waist, while my clothing has remained as snug as ever. So rather than the number being a problem, it was the answer to some questions I had been asking. No wonder my pants and some of my shirts are more snug in the waist. No wonder I haven’t as much endurance as I am used to having. No wonder certain positions are not as comfortable as they were in the summer of 2011, when I was 18 months into working out 3-4 times a week for at least an hour at a time. I felt like a key piece of a puzzle had fallen into place.

I’m not going to work on the number, though. I am going to work on having fun. I know a side effect of the fun I plan to have will be that number will go back down, but I don’t want to stress it. If I set a weight goal, it will be 190 lbs, because I felt good at that weight in 2011. I was doing just as much strength training as cardio (if not more strength training), so a lot of the poundage was muscle mass, even while my clothes fit well. I just want to focus on being active and attending classes, since I realized just how much fun that has been for me. Plus this gym has a POOL, which I happily hopped into after spin class for 25 minutes of swimming breaststroke. My pecs and triceps have been speaking to me about that. Ibuprofen is my friend.

Oh, and spin class was a blast. The class was small, and half the women in there were rounder than I am. I felt right at home.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2013 at 11:44 PM and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.