Journey into a New World

Well last night was another watershed moment in this journey or transformation for me and there are a couple of reasons for this.  It was with a little trepidation that I went to my first ever gym class.  Now I have not as yet joined a gym but managed to buy a pass of one of these voucher websites for $19 that entitled me to attend 15 classes within a month of the first visit.  Both my wife and I thought this might be a good way to check out some of these classes and see if it suited what we were looking for.  Worst case scenario, if we only got to 4-5 classes it only cost us $5 per class.

Now being seriously overweight and entering the domain of the meathead is not something that makes anyone feel good about themselves, especially when all these guys that spend more time looking in the mirror at the gym than they do at home, sneer at you because you are not the perfect specimen of human flesh (in their mind) and then of course there are also the women that also look at you with 2 heads, because you are overweight.  I decided to hell with it.  This is my journey and I WANT and NEED to do this. 

My first class of choice was a Thump Boxing class.  I had no idea what to expect and even had to ask when I called up to make my appointment if I needed any gear.  NEWBIE!!!!!  Well after being shown around the gym, which was set out well with the free weights and machines in a separate section to keep the animals away from the public, I was pleasantly surprised to see a few overweight people attempting to bust out a workout on various pieces of equipment and of varying ages.  Good on them I thought, they obviously don’t care what anyone else thinks so why should I.

The clock ticked over to 8:15 and the Body Pump class finished with about 40+ people filing out of the room.  I had no idea how many would be in the Boxing class but I was hoping it wouldn’t be to many looking at the fat guy with no idea.  It turned out there were only 16 of us in the class and a couple of other guys who were attending their first class.  Amber our masochistic trainer (she was actually lovely, but I didn’t think it during the workout) decided to pair me up with a guy named Steve whom I could tell was not new to this class.  The warm up started and by the end of it I was wondering if I was going to be able to make the end of the class.  It was brutal.  Maybe that just proves that my warm ups are crap.  We go into the first exercise and Steve was great making sure I understood what was needed and doing it correctly.  This was a pattern that continued throughout the workout and made it very easy for me to relax and just work my backside off.

The workout was a good mix of boxing and running which constantly kept the heart rate high, which I need and allowed me to burn heaps of calories.  I had no idea how many I would burn but I wanted to go as hard as I could.  Thankfully Steve was fit and was driving me to keep up with him, or maybe that was me not wanting to let him down.  As the clock approached the 40 minute mark, I thought great only 5 minutes to go, but Amber was not slowing down and looking like she was going to get us to cool down and stretch.  She walked past as we were changing our gloves and I asked how long it went for.  When she told me it was an hour long class I almost keeled over there.  The last 15 or so minutes was in fact cruel and brutal.  My arms were like lead my stomach was not feeling the best, but I was determined to finish this class as best I could and prov to myself that I can do this.  When Amber said that we were to grab a mat and hit the floor I thought great.  I was looking forward to doing some ab work just as Michelle bridges always does at the end of the workouts for core strength.  Well this was a little different.  Not only were we doing crunches but we were punching out combinations at the top of the crunch.  Okay, only a second or so extra at the top, but with arms of lead and not really being able to punch any more it was tough, especially when she asked us to hold the crunch at the top for 30 seconds and punch non- stop.  Who designs these work outs?

All I can say is that once we had completed this and the stretching component of the workout I felt an overwhelming sense of achievement that not only had I completed it, but I had pushed myself to keep up with Steve.  I thoroughly enjoyed the night, even if I can’t move my arms a lot today and am struggling to type, drive, drink or anything that involves arm movement.  This moment for me highlighted that I have perhaps not been pushing myself as hard as I thought I had or needed to and that in my home/individual workouts I need to step it up.  Mich quoted in one of her videos that the “Our  body can a lot more than we think it can” which is exactly what I found out last night and with a little grit, determination and will we can achieve huge feats.  This was my first step in starting that and I now need to take that into every workout I do.

Maybe, just maybe there is a boxer trapped in this fat man’s body?  I doubt it but the thought is a nice one to hold onto at the moment.