A Conversation with my Vivofit.

July 6, 2015 / Wanda / Leave a comment

I’m forty-five minutes into an hour workout with my trainer, Carrie.

I’m dripping in sweat and about to go into another super-set of exercises. I casually glance down at my Vivofit. It’s the fitness band I wear that tracks my activity levels. If there’s an extended red line across the top of the display screen then that indicates you’ve been inactive for to long and need to step it up. As I look at the band, the red line is blazing across the display because it doesn’t count anything but a full stride of movement, walking or running.

So I say, “Look at this Carrie! The red line is mocking me! It says, move your ass fat girl, you’ve been stationary too long!”

Carrie is quietly laughing at my outrage.

So I look at the Vivofit on my wrist and say, “Fuck you Vivofit! You don’t count the 100+ lunges I’ve done today, or the eighty squats I did with weights! You don’t count the rowing machine, or the fact that I bench pressed 45 fucking pounds! Screw you and your red line of ridicule and judgment!”

Carrie is still laughing. And then she says, “That could make a good blog post.”

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You’re number one, Vivofit!

Wanda Says…I can do anything for a count of ten!

March 15, 2015March 15, 2015 / Wanda / 14 Comments

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The good news is that in my attempt to increase my levels of physical fitness, I walked over 12,000 steps yesterday. The bad news is that I’m pretty sure my knees and ankles are now plotting to murder me in my sleep.

I’ve been plugging along with my diet and exercise routine with somewhat slow but still fairly decent results. The first week with my trainer I gained two pounds which she assured me was normal. Then I lost the two pounds and gained them back when my bestie came into town for the weekend. Apparently drinking gallons of wine and eating out two meals a day is not exactly healthy or good for my diet. Whatever.

Even though I’m not shedding pounds quickly, and I accept the fact that this is my fault and directly related to my weekend activities, I am getting stronger. I can feel it in my arms and legs. And I notice the difference in what I can do in my workouts.

My trainer, Carrie, is amazing. I actually look forward to working out with her. Can you believe that? I look forward to an hour of physical punishment twice a week. I describe it as punishment because after the workout I feel like I need to crawl into bed and sleep for the rest of the day. The other day I came home from the gym and went into my son’s room to play with him. I laid down on his bed and passed out for over an hour. I slept in his bed in the middle of the day while he played around me. That one hour with Carrie is so exhausting, and my whole body has been continuously sore for weeks. My armpits are even sore. I actually feel like someone punched me in the armpit, repeatedly. Who knew that was possible? But during the workout I don’t feel exhausted. I just feel strong and curious to see what I can do. I never watch the clock, either. When I workout with her I never feel like I have to check and see how much time is left before I can be done.

Prior to our workout, I do a quick warm up on the treadmill in a small, woman’s only section of the gym. This room has mirrors on every wall, so while I’m on the treadmill I can see my body from every angle. This has proved to be very motivating for me. By the time I’m done with that warm up and join Carrie in the larger section of the gym I am mentally prepared for her to put me through my paces. Seeing my body from every angle while I walk on that treadmill reinforces why I’m there. I told Carrie about this and then said to her, “I don’t care what you ask me to do as long as you help me get rid of my second ass. I only need one, and this bitch has been free-loading on my backside for long enough.”

She also pushes me in ways that I would never think to push myself. I’ve learned to not even look at the amount of weight she hands me. My first workout I thought she was crazy when she handed me ten pound dumbbells. Now, I just trust that she knows what she’s doing and she wouldn’t give it to me if she thought I couldn’t really do it. It is hard. I have to fight through the exercises and I’ve learned what people mean when they talk about the mental aspect of pushing through physical barriers. I mentally chant to myself during difficult exercises, which is almost every exercise she asks me to do. I quietly tell myself, over and over, “I can do anything for a count of ten.” Of course, it’s actually three sets of ten, but in that moment I just need to get through ten. I focus on that and it helps me to wrap my head around what I am pushing my body to do.

My first week I could only plank for twenty seconds. My whole body vibrates with the effort necessary to hold the position. At week four I can do fifty seconds. I hate that fifty seconds. Carries says, “Close your eyes, breathe and go to your happy place.” Instead, I close my eyes and repeatedly think, “I can do anything for fifty seconds.”

And I can.

Wanda Says…I lost my mind, and joined a gym.

February 1, 2015February 1, 2015 / Wanda / 5 Comments

I did it.

Today, I did what I swore for years I would never do.

Today, I bought a gym membership. And signed a contract. For one year. And paid money (or a small piece of my soul) to have several sessions with a personal trainer.

Whhhhhaaaaatttttt??????????

I know. I must be out of my fucking mind.

This vector is proof that I’m not wrong in my opinion of this.

I hate gyms. I’ve always hated gyms and the culture of organized fitness clubs. I find the atmosphere in these places to be very intimidating, shallow, competitive and judgey. I’ve mentioned this before in previous posts, but I will say it again….it does not motivate me or make me feel good to work out next to a person wearing panty shorts and a sports bra. Or a guy who looks like He-Man on steroids and refuses to put on a shirt.

While I can appreciate the hard work it takes to maintain that level of physical fitness, and I can admit to a small amount of envy for my own lack of mental strength and stick-to-it-ness in achieving my own fitness goals, it’s more the flaunting of flesh and show-boating that turns me off. It’s the fact that the gym is as much of a meat market and pick up joint as any trendy Hollywood club. It’s the cancerous feeling that screams if you don’t look like this, something is wrong with you and not the culture these attitudes create. (And for the record, I have several really fit, attractive friends who work out in gyms regularly and they admit this environment is also a turn off for them as well, so I’m not just making this shit up, folks).

Anyway, although I prefer to work out at home, that hasn’t been working out too well for me. It’s too easy for me to find a thousand excuses to put it off because I have so many other things that need to get done. I don’t have any real accountability, and I’m sick of feeling like a big, fat cow. I’ve been holding onto this baby weight for too long and its aging me. I feel it in the slowness of my steps and the daily fatigue that is not commensurate with my activity levels.

So at my husband’s suggestion, off to the gym we went. We took both kids and had an appointment to take a tour. Dan chose an upscale, popular gym in our area that has several amenities he thought would appeal to me. Amenities that make this gym feel more like a resort than just a fitness club. There’s a restaurant/café and day spa on the premises in addition to the pools, basketball courts, group exercise rooms, daycare, and equipment areas. There is also a women’s only workout room, which Dan thought I would really like.

This is NOT allowed.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived at the gym. There were a lot of middle age to older people working out and most of the clientele were dressed in appropriate workout gear. And it turns out that this gym has rules with regard to how you’re allowed to dress in the public areas of the club. There was a whole list of ‘gym etiquette’ rules the sales rep gave us to review that had my head spinning and challenging all my preconceptions about what this gym experience would entail. (Most of you probably already knew many gyms did that, but I’m the ignorant one because I’ve refused to step foot in a fitness club for years).

I began to feel hopeful that maybe this could work. Maybe I could actually join a gym and not feel like Martha Dump-Truck working out in my baggy t-shirt and sweats. Maybe there would be real people working out next to me, and not caricatures of Ken and Barbie, and I would feel supported in my efforts to lose weight and be healthy instead of judged and laughed at for being the only person in the room who doesn’t have a clue how to use a spin cycle.

We also met with the personal training director, and he was incredibly attentive and considerate toward my concerns with working out with a trainer. I admitted that I need someone with experience to help me set up a fitness plan and check in with me every month so I can keep moving in the right direction. I need someone to push me and kick my ass a little. But I adamantly explained that I had no interest in working out with a 25 year old that had never had kids and had no personal experience with how the body changes in middle age after having children. Again, he totally understood and said he had a few trainers he thought would work really well for me.

I was shocked! I couldn’t believe that this could be so simple. That I can have a trainer who is a middle-aged woman with kids, and understands how the body changes after advanced maternal age pregnancy, and I don’t have to work out next to Adam Ab-Crusher is more than I could have hoped for!

Until……I toured the women’s locker room. Sigh.

I guess it was too much to expect that everything would be perfect. The locker room was as nice and well-appointed as any locker room at a high end spa. It was clean, beautifully decorated with a state of the art steam room, sauna, private whirlpool in the room for women only and curtained changing areas to protect your modesty, if you care about that sort of thing. What I found shocking on this part of the tour was how many women didn’t care about that. Their modesty, that is.

To quote my friend Stacia, who is intimately familiar with gym locker rooms, the atmosphere is very “YWCA circa 1964.” All the younger women were decently covered with towels or their clothing. However, most of the older women were strolling around naked from head to toe, with the only towel they had wrapped around their head. Bryn was with me on the tour and she got quite an eyeful. To her credit, she kept her composure and didn’t say anything to reveal how embarrassed she was. It was a lot of National Geographic style boobies and gray pubes on display for everyone to see. Now, I was raised to appreciate my body and not be ashamed of it, but I was also raised to have a sense of modesty in the presence of others. These women had no problem being stark naked in front of complete strangers! While I could never do that, no matter how good I looked, I would still kill for that kind of confidence!

So, the upside to all this is that I don’t have to work out next to someone wearing panty shorts and a sports bra, and I get to have a trainer who will understand my body and how to help me change it. The downside is that I have to share a locker room with naked grannies who like to rock what they’ve got.

LOL! Wish me luck!

Wanda Says…Losing weight is hard.

October 11, 2014 / Wanda / Leave a comment

In a recent post (Move your ass, sister!) I talked about some of my challenges with physical fitness and weight loss over the years. I also discussed how in recent months I’ve overcome some of my motivational barriers and begun working out regularly.

I’m still working out six days a week and surprisingly, I’m enjoying it. I like the way I look after a workout, all covered in sweat and red in the face. It’s validation that I worked hard. I feel my body getting stronger in some ways, especially through my arms, and I am definitely less fatigued throughout the day and have more energy. However, I’m losing weight at a snail’s pace, and it’s incredibly frustrating.

When I first started increasing my workouts, in the first two weeks I gained four pounds. Four fucking pounds! Everyone said, “Oh, don’t worry, you’re probably just gaining muscle. This happens.” Despite the fact that I was calorie counting and working out daily, these four pounds just sat there, shaming me every time I got on the scale. After a couple of weeks the scale began to slowly eek its way down, a half-pound at a time. To date, I’ve lost those four pounds, but only those four pounds over a nine week period. At this pace, I need to change Operation Hot by 40 to Operation-Hot-By-The- Time-You-Stop-Giving-A- Fuck-About-Being-Hot.

I talked to my doctor and she didn’t have answers for me. I’m very healthy and my bloodwork is always great. The logical answer is for me to look at my diet, and admittedly, I could be making some better choices. But I will never be that girl who can survive on salad and lemon water. I enjoy food, and while I understand calorie counting and calorie quality is important, I believe in moderation versus elimination. I know from experience that if I’m too extreme in my diet or calorie reduction, it will just set me up for failure. I start to feel sick and lethargic for days, and then ultimately throw the diet out the window out of frustration and physical misery.

More importantly, I get cranky and snappish when I’m hungry. Have you spent time with super thin people who don’t eat? They’re assholes! And they should be crabby because they’re starving! Living in LA, you hear about this stuff all the time. It’s really popular for people to take appetite suppressants or other drugs to help control their weight, because God forbid, if your thigh is wider than your arm, California may just kick you out for not conforming to the standard. If there’s some actress or model throwing a fit on set because her imported bottled water isn’t the right temperature, I guarantee you she probably isn’t really a bitch as much as she just needs a sandwich.

I know liquid diets are really popular these days, too. That’s one thing I will never be able to wrap my head around. I don’t know about you, but when I’m hungry I want to feel like I really ate something. I want to chew my food. I love the flavor and texture and aroma of good food. I can’t just choke down a green shake made from ten kinds of lettuce that tastes like horse piss and feel even remotely satisfied. Can you?

A girlfriend of mine tried this diet where she had a list of all these different drinks she had to rotate through in a day. It was so complicated everything had to be written down to keep track, and there was a different mix or shake you had to take every hour or two. And then for dinner she could have a small salad with an ounce of chicken. An ounce of chicken! That’s like two bites! But I would call her to offer support and encouragement because that’s what friends do. She can usually make it to day three or four before she goes crazy and eats an entire pizza by herself out of desperation, and honestly, who could blame her?

I just can’t live like that, but I know that I have to find a balance between my diet and exercise if I’m going to make this work, and I feel like if I don’t get this right, all the hard work I’ve done so far will be for nothing. I’ve recently started a new diet I found floating around Facebook. It requires me to eat five small meals a day with a lot of protein, vegetables and whole foods only. I’m on day four and so far I’m not starving and I don’t have the urge to kill people. In my book, that’s a win!