A Year of Physical Fitness

I wrote this post 3 months ago, the week after Halloween and just stumbled on it. Since I'm not feeling particularly writer-ish right now, I figure this might tide the blog over while I try to organize my holiday photos for posting.

November 2014:

This time last year I wrote this post. I can hardly believe it, but a year has passed and I haven't quit my gym routine! With maybe only one or two exceptions when I was out of town managing events for work and couldn't find the time, I've gone to the gym 5 times per week for an entire year.

Most of the things I have to say about this are cliched - I feel better than ever! I now look forward to going to the gym! Exercising has finally become a habit for me! - you get the idea. But that doesn't make any of those things less true. I sometimes find myself feeling a bit grumpy or short tempered in the evening and can often connect that feeling to the fact that it was a non-gym day. I've made friends with the gym staff and many know me and Edie by name. I think of the kids club gym staff as beloved Saturday morning babysitters. On my cardio days I help myself to the TV remote at the front desk and change my favorite screen to HGTV and I've found my favorite show ever that makes the stair-mill bearable - Fixer Upper. I can leg-press more than my body weight. I've lowered my body fat percentage by almost 10% since last November. I sometimes feel like running (but not often) and can do it without wanting to die - especially if Chip and Joanna Gains are on the TV screen in front of my treadmill, bringing the charm back into a neglected Texas farmhouse. I (mostly) eat what I want without gaining weight. I can do the monkey bars at the playground with Edie. I went to Hawaii and wore a bikini and just like I hoped when I wrote that blog post in November of 2013 - I felt like hot shit doing it. I may have even pranced.

Lifting weights and working with a trainer has made me feel more powerful and in control than I ever expected. I watched this TED talk that was circling the internet a month or two ago about how striking "large poses" for just 2 minutes a day can make you feel more powerful and that feeling can actually translate to BEING more powerful/successful. I think about that often when I'm doing this move:

Well, that's all I guess. Hopefully it's not too annoying to write all these braggy things, but it felt wrong to let the anniversary of my entry into physical fitness pass by unannounced. Everything in my life isn't coming up roses all the time, but the gym has become one of the places where I feel in control and can channel my energy. I feel all kinds of lucky to be self employed and that I have the ability to mostly make my own schedule, cramming gym visits in at random times during the day and I hope that I'm able to keep up this now cemented routine. I have no idea why my desire to get in shape actually "took" this time, but I guess it was just the right thing at the right time. Now excuse me because I have to go brush my teeth so I'll stop eating all of Edie's Halloween candy…