Facing fears

First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who called, emailed, texted, commented and hugged me after my last post. It definitely gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. While I know that everyone has bad days, struggles, and fears.. when you are stuck in the middle of your own windstorm of emotions it can be hard to remember that. I feel much stronger now, and I am once again taking on the challenge of building my fitness level.

I had a fabulous workout the next day, on Sunday. First official class of the 3 month session! We started with a fitness test, which was just a tad abysmal. You'd think after a year of working out hard at Curves, swimming etc that I'd be more fit? I still can't do a push up to save my life. Or hold a plank for more than 20 seconds. But hey, we all start somewhere right?  I have a lot of admiration for everyone who started bootcamp at their lowest level of fitness! I can't even imagine how hard bootcamp would be had I not spent a year losing weight and building muscle with Curves. I have so much more strength now than when I started. One of the things I love about bootcamp is that my workouts at Curves are so much better now, even after only a week of doing it. I can already tell that my muscles are stronger because I can push myself that much further on the machines. And pushing yourself to the max for 30 seconds at a time isn't nearly as hard as pushing yourself for the whole 2 hour bootcamp! I'm also a better coach, because I've seen how what people can achieve at bootcamp at any weight, so I am not letting my members tell me they can't do something. I enjoy being in the circuit getting my members to work harder, even if they don't, haha! 

My super exciting good news is that I weighed in on Sunday... and I am now 217 pounds! I lost 5 pounds in the last week, for 82.6 gone in total! I'm down into another decade :) I know I won't be losing so much every week, but it sure is nice when you start something new and see huge results like that right away! My next milestone of 199 is looking more achievable every week. It will take dedication, hard work and will power, but I know I will get there.

The other great thing about this long weekend is that I DID go to a class with "the skinnies" (I did not coin that name, I heard someone else call them that and it made me laugh because YAY we shared a similar fear!). I went to something called "The Drill" which is an hour and a half of doing stations. Things from spinning on bikes to tire jumping jacks to chin ups to kettlebells. A little bit of everything in that class! Thank goodness I had Flora with me showing me how to do it all, I was SO appreciative. And it wasn't scary working out with tiny fit bodies all around like I thought it would be. It was actually really impressive to see how strong people are and to see what they were able to do. I may have also been dreaming of the day where I would be that fit. Everyone was there to get a good workout and were concentrating on their own thing, not scoffing at the fat chick who modified almost all the stations. Fear = faced. Next step is going to a workout not knowing if anyone else I know will be there. But even that doesn't scare me as much anymore. Funny how that happens.

I also had a moment during Drill that kinda summed up the whole past year for me. I picked up a kettlebell that I thought weighed 88 pounds and it was SO heavy. I couldn't believe that I had essentially lost all of that off my body in the last year. It was my own personal Biggest Loser vest run I suppose :) And then the best part.. the trainer told me I had the wrong one, the one I was holding was only 70 pounds. Below is a picture of me holding the actual 88 lb one. (Don't mind the sweatiness, I had just finished an hour and a half intense workout!) 

Thanks to Flora who took the photo for me :)  I'm hunched over kind of weird because that thing was HEAVY! I didn't want to try walking around the room with it, so I can't imagine those during Biggest Loser who would run around the track. No wonder it used to be so difficult for me to get off the couch. It felt really amazing to put that kettlebell back down and walk away from all that poundage. I felt light on my feet the whole day, that's for sure!

All and all, it was a great long weekend full of friends, laughter, sweat, and a little bit of tears.