Zac and I try to be healthy. I like to think we succeed more than we fail. We try to eat balanced meals, we like to cook at home, we don't eat out too often, we try to exercise regularly and we have spent time learning about exercise and nutrition to help us make good choices. Of course we're not militant about things - cheesecake is still Zac's birthday desert of choice and I'm never, ever going to turn down a glass of wine - but we're finding that as each year passes keeping those extra couple of pounds off is a little more work.
Part of Zac's job is to be physically fit. Physical training (PT) is incorporated into part of his work day. But even without command-led PT, Zac would be more dedicated to working out than I am. He's plenty happy to go for a run or hit the gym. Me? I need someone to push me. For awhile I had a workout buddy in Bernadette. Bernadette is a personal trainer so she had plenty of knowledge of what we should do each day and her personality made it fun to be at the gym, despite being sweaty and stinky and gross. She'd tell me what to do and I'd do it. When Bernadette and Ken moved I was lost as to what I should do at the gym. I felt self-conscious going by myself. I took a long break from the gym and just resigned myself to running as my primary (i.e. sole) form of exercise. (I still hate running. But that's for another time.)
I was in a rut and finally decided to call up one of Bernadette's personal trainer friends up at the gym where Bernadette used to work. (Schofield - the Army base up the hill from where we live.) I signed up for 11 sessions. And then 11 more. And then 11 more. I would go once a week, so that's almost nine months of having a trainer. And honestly? I loved it. I love the strength training. I love how she'd mix in weights, TRX, Crossfit and other sorts of functional exercise. I love not having to think about creating a workout and just following orders. I love being challenged, knowing that I would have picked up a 15lb weight when she hands me a 20lb. I love pushing out those last few reps, knowing that I would have stopped at 15 but I don't want to fail in front of my trainer so I push out the last five to get to 20. That's just my mental make up - I won't (can't?) push myself when it comes to exercise.
My personal trainer up at Schofield gave me an awesome rate for our sessions and I highly doubt I'll find anything even close to that in San Diego. I also don't know what gym I'll be going to. Military gyms are free for me, but if we end up living 15-20 miles from one I'm not sure I'm going to get off my butt and go. Paying for a gym membership might end up being the way I go, if it means that the gym just down the street. But then again, I don't want to pay for a gym membership and then end up standing there in the middle of things, trying to figure out what the heck I need to be doing, getting frustrated and eventually giving up to go home. You would think after months and months of working out with someone that I'd have a good idea of what to do. You would be wrong. I get that you're supposed to do legs, core, back (upper and lower), shoulders, biceps and triceps. But so many of the exercises we did incorporated multiple muscle groups that I never really was sure if exercise X was an arm exercise or a core exercise. And exercise Y? Yeah, that could have been legs, but it could have been arms too. With my luck I'd end up accidentally doing 10 arm exercises and only two legs.
I don't know why this is so hard for me, or why it causes me so much stress. I guess I'll just always be one of those people that has to dish out money to have someone tell me what to do. And frankly, if it keeps me going to the gym and keeps me in shape, it's money well spent. But these next few weeks are going to be tough. There's no doubt about that. I'm just hoping that I'll still fit into my jeans when we pull into San Diego.
Part of Zac's job is to be physically fit. Physical training (PT) is incorporated into part of his work day. But even without command-led PT, Zac would be more dedicated to working out than I am. He's plenty happy to go for a run or hit the gym. Me? I need someone to push me. For awhile I had a workout buddy in Bernadette. Bernadette is a personal trainer so she had plenty of knowledge of what we should do each day and her personality made it fun to be at the gym, despite being sweaty and stinky and gross. She'd tell me what to do and I'd do it. When Bernadette and Ken moved I was lost as to what I should do at the gym. I felt self-conscious going by myself. I took a long break from the gym and just resigned myself to running as my primary (i.e. sole) form of exercise. (I still hate running. But that's for another time.)
I was in a rut and finally decided to call up one of Bernadette's personal trainer friends up at the gym where Bernadette used to work. (Schofield - the Army base up the hill from where we live.) I signed up for 11 sessions. And then 11 more. And then 11 more. I would go once a week, so that's almost nine months of having a trainer. And honestly? I loved it. I love the strength training. I love how she'd mix in weights, TRX, Crossfit and other sorts of functional exercise. I love not having to think about creating a workout and just following orders. I love being challenged, knowing that I would have picked up a 15lb weight when she hands me a 20lb. I love pushing out those last few reps, knowing that I would have stopped at 15 but I don't want to fail in front of my trainer so I push out the last five to get to 20. That's just my mental make up - I won't (can't?) push myself when it comes to exercise.
My personal trainer up at Schofield gave me an awesome rate for our sessions and I highly doubt I'll find anything even close to that in San Diego. I also don't know what gym I'll be going to. Military gyms are free for me, but if we end up living 15-20 miles from one I'm not sure I'm going to get off my butt and go. Paying for a gym membership might end up being the way I go, if it means that the gym just down the street. But then again, I don't want to pay for a gym membership and then end up standing there in the middle of things, trying to figure out what the heck I need to be doing, getting frustrated and eventually giving up to go home. You would think after months and months of working out with someone that I'd have a good idea of what to do. You would be wrong. I get that you're supposed to do legs, core, back (upper and lower), shoulders, biceps and triceps. But so many of the exercises we did incorporated multiple muscle groups that I never really was sure if exercise X was an arm exercise or a core exercise. And exercise Y? Yeah, that could have been legs, but it could have been arms too. With my luck I'd end up accidentally doing 10 arm exercises and only two legs.
I don't know why this is so hard for me, or why it causes me so much stress. I guess I'll just always be one of those people that has to dish out money to have someone tell me what to do. And frankly, if it keeps me going to the gym and keeps me in shape, it's money well spent. But these next few weeks are going to be tough. There's no doubt about that. I'm just hoping that I'll still fit into my jeans when we pull into San Diego.
1 comment:
To be able to significantly increase your lean muscle mass, you might should give some attention to the big muscle groups. Abdominal exercise
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