Getting back into the Fitness Swing of Things

Following on from my last blog on running, I thought I would continue the theme of exercising in your forties, which for me, is a completely different experience to exercising in my twenties. I follow fitness guru, Jillian Michaels on Instagram, she is amazing, I used to do her on-line classes.  She is in her forties, fit as, and a body to match.  She is my idol, and how I wish I look when I am having a pity picnic and hating the person I see looking at me in the mirror.  I realise of course that I will never have a body like her, but it doesn’t hurt to aspire to great heights.  However, my ill-discipline will probably stop me from ever getting anywhere close.

 I started back at my local fitness class last week after an extremely slothful and alcohol fuelled summer holiday.  Now when I say slothful and alcohol fuelled, that doesn’t mean I did zero exercise and drank myself stupid every day.  What I mean is that I managed a walk or run most days (to keep my sanity of being home with the kids during the long, long school holidays) and drank alcohol on a regular basis (one or two glasses a night, most nights).  For me, this is significant for several reasons.  Firstly, my body, as I have discovered, loves fat.  When I say loves fat, I mean it loves to accumulate fat at every opportunity, be it through a lack of hard out exercise, or through drinking alcohol and eating crap. Secondly, if it gets even a whiff of a slowdown in the exercise department then it thinks it needs to pad itself. For what I don’t know-a famine?  I had decided that this Christmas and summer holidays, I was not under any circumstances going to do what I have done every year by taking my foot off the brake and wallowing in excess.  I bought myself some weights to supplement my in residence medicine ball and vowed to work out three times a week in addition to my running, while my usual fitness class was on a Christmas break.  Who was I kidding, I must have done three workouts all up.  My excuse, none really, just pure laziness, and we are having one of the hottest summers in years which would put anyone off exercise after 9am in the morning (actually not everyone, I have seen some crazies out there running at midday).

So last week I hauled my ever growing arse back to the gym in order to stop the spread.  Now, the class is not for the faint hearted, it is a 40 odd minute class of sprinting, boxing, weights, and other exercises with names like frogz, burpees, press ups, planks.  You get the idea, it’s no walk in the park, and it makes running with seagulls seem like a breeze.  But, it gets results, and Steve our instructor never gives us the easy option, no matter how much we whinge (and I whinge a lot).  It is so hot on my first day back that I am sweating even before we have done the warm up.  So you can just imagine how I look by the end.  Sweat is running off me, it’s like I have spent an hour in a sauna, I am sweating in places I never knew I could sweat.  My legs are shaking, and I am hoarse from complaining about every single exercise we have had to do.  But I am feeling extremely pleased with myself-I can imagine that my clothes will definitely be looser after that workout-if only from a loss of fluids from all of the sweating.  And I have managed to finish the class without vomiting or passing out-two great accomplishments.  I think of myself as being like that meme that has been going around social media, the one with the fit woman versus the elephant-what I think I look like, and what I actually look like.  Yep, I do not look like the fit girl-think more baby elephant!  Things wobble, I can’t touch my toes, the list goes on, but I am there doing it, so I am up there with that girl, regardless of what I look like.

Since then, I have been back twice-the morning classes only run twice a week and my enthusiasm wanes by evening, so evening classes are out of the question.  I had my third class today, and it definitely feels better than the first-although the legs were still shaky, and tomorrow I won’t be able to sit on the toilet without wincing.  I managed to whinge through the whole session too, which I reckon is testament to a good workout, if I didn’t complain then that would probably mean it was too easy.  And I was able, most of the time, to keep up with the thirty somethings, no small feat at times.  So far, the body looks the same, I guess I need to learn some patience-hard in a society of instant gratification.  I will stay in the oldies corner, as it was called today, and keep reminding myself that although I will never look like Jillian Michaels, I’m not doing too bad at all.