Behold my fitness

I am now a person who goes to the gym. I am a gym-goer. Me.

At first I was forcing myself to go a couple of times a week, and now I'm up to four or five weekly visits. I am sad if I have to miss it. How could this have happened? I used to stand outside the gym, peering in the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching all those people running to nowhere while I ate my donut. I wiped powdered sugar off my cheeks and wondered why people would do that to themselves. Then I went back to the donut place and bought four more. Then I would sit outside the gym because standing was too much work. Finally I would lie down, waving dollar bills at passersby and asking them to bring me more donuts.

Okay--there was no powdered sugar. I prefer a classic glazed. And don't even mention sprinkles. I don't want to HEAR IT about the sprinkles. Do not sully my glaze.

Moving on.

I have this trainer, as I have mentioned, and he's making me do all sorts of weights and push-ups and activities with medicine balls, most of which feels comically old-fangled, like I should be wearing a woolen unitard and sport a handlebar mustache. As silly as I feel, I can't deny that there have been, well, results.

I have progressed, for instance, from being completely incapable of performing a single push-up to sort of doing a modified push-up without crying. Actually I can do three sets of (knee) push-ups (uh, on an incline) without crying or throwing up or anything disgusting at all. If you don’t count sweating. Or swearing. This is serious progress for the likes of me. My trainer keeps saying things like, "When I see how far you've come from before" and "You’re nothing like you were in the beginning..." And then he gets this haunted look in his eyes. He's also stopped comparing me to his clients who have had strokes and related brain injuries! I've really come far!

I can now see how strength training sucks you in. It's like gaining a superpower. When a weight you couldn't lift before suddenly becomes comically easy? It's like you've just traveled to this new planet and a car fell on you but the car is made of TIN FOIL so you can toss it aside but why is everyone so shocked? Why can't they lift it? Because. Because you are the strongest person in their world.

They're also very impressed when you do your girlie push-ups on your slight incline, on this planet. They are residents of the Planet of the Very Weak. But no matter. You are like a god to them.

Comments

[zan]

This post just prompted me to get down on the floor and attempt a push-up. WOW that was harder than it used to be in high school. Gravity must have gotten stronger since I was sixteen, yes?

(And I prefer crullers. The hole in regular donuts just reminds me of what I might be missing out on.)

[Daddy Scratches]

Congrats on your conversion into Super Alice.As someone struggling to stay in shape myself, I can relate.

[El Gray]

That was a highly entertaining post. I should get me some of those superpowers.

Doughnuts > Crullers ALL DAY, E'RY DAY.

[Discopitbull]

You go girl! It is an accomplishment just getting the mindset to swing towards "must go to gym" and then to actually go AND see improvements? Right on!I've lost almost a hundred pounds since the end of 2007 but more importantly I've found a more healthy lifestyle and a wonderful sense of accomplishment going to a little MMA gym and doing Jiu Jitsu. The feeling you get after a good, sweaty workout is indescribably good.

[Swedish Pankakes]

Fitness is so addicting. But yes, so are donuts.

Someone once said that "Being healthy and fit feels better than foods tastes." I, for one, completely disagree. Food tastes WAY better than being fit feels. It's just the horrid moment in time after you've swallowed, that's hard to deal with.

[Caroline]

This post MADE MY DAY. Thank you.

[Milla]

i'm with you on the classic glazed. the exercise not so much. it would be ok if there wasn't so much exertion involved. and that sweating, yuck. i've heard about the euphoria after a workout but i got vicodin for that. in any case, congratulations on your progress!!

[tomncristy]

This:

"He's also stopped comparing me to his clients who have had strokes and related brain injuries!"

cracked me UP! I love it. I've experienced that high of exercise before, but alas, it has been so long...

[Julie]

Wow - nice work! What is keeping you motivated?

[Futureblackmail]

Dollar bills for donuts? You should've added a $5 in there and asked for a coffee too!

[beyond]

i like glazed as well. thankful my favorite donut shop is nowhere near where i live. there is, however, a gym right across the street, but i just pretend it's not there.

[Marinka]

Clearly this is a cry for help. Although when you are strong like bull, you can lift more donuts.

[Kate G]

now i'm really desperate to see you with a handlebar mustache and woolen unitard. terribly tempted to photoshop a mustache on your headshot.

[Kim]

I had to laugh - I'm sitting here reading this while eating a chocolate glazed donut. AND I spent my lunch hour on the elliptical training machine. So my workout has kind of been neutralized. Congratulations on the progress!

[Liz]

You've just reminded me that I haven't let my WiiFit berate me yet today. I think that once I can make it through an hour without crying at my TV screen, I may let a real human being berate me for being so out of shape!!

[JachiCue]

"like I should be wearing a woolen unitard and sport a handlebar mustache"

Yes please. Pictures, pictures, pictures!

[Beth in SF]

Good for you! Now if I could get just half that gumption...

[Amanda Blog and Kiss]

Ahhh hopefully one day I'll be up to Finslippy fitness standards, but until then I think I'll continue to drink and blog (as per right now actually!) and work my way up there, one baby step at a time.

[Phoe]

Welcome to the dark side. :)

(I'm a glazed girl, myself.)

[Nicole]

I am super jealous. I wish I would get addicted to fitness. But I guess to get hooked you have to take that first plunge and I am too damn tired.

[amy]

i love it too- jut a bit less- but loving it- I just wrote this about my take on it all! funny sweatband pic alert http://doobleh-vay.blogspot.com/2009/09/because-thats-morning-i-have-had.html xoxoxo

[kaylen]

funny!!I have past the donut stage, but am not quite to the workout stage. Baby steps, right?

[Lynn @ human, being]

Last summer, I did this workout routine for 12 weeks called P90X. At the start, I could barely do a pushup against the wall (think almost vertical). At the end, I could do almost 70 pushups over an hour routine, half of them full MAN pushups. I was fucking strong, and I agree, it felt like having a new superpower. And then ... well, I don't know what happened. It was really an intense workout, and I burned out. Quit. And now? I just read this post while eating half of a small Snickers Blizzard and paying my $85 gym bill after not having been seen the inside of the building for 6 weeks.

So maybe you just motivated me a little. Enough, at least, to only eat HALF the Blizzard.

[Christa]

Amen on the glazed donuts.

[R]

I LOVE this! I've finally started doing my 8 min abs/arms/etc./etc. again. Yes, 8 minutes is a lot for me. I would like to join you on the Planet of the Very Weak and blow some minds!