Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays

"The road will be long. The climb will be steep." - President Elect Barack Obama

"My ass will be throbbing." - Zesty

Buy up stocks in Epsom salts companies y'all. This week I did something I had always wanted to do. I hired a personal trainer.

For the next seven months I'll be working out regularly with "Debbie", three times a week the first eight weeks, twice a week the remaining weeks after that with another cycle through the program and another bought of 3 and 2 times a week intervals.

My muscles hurt just thinking about it.

But here's the thing; I'm not getting any younger and despite not wanting to spend my thirties overweight, that's exactly what has happened so far. I seemed to have conquered my weight as an issue in my life by my late twenties, but looking back now, I see that wasn't the case really. I still had some fundamental health problems and just wasn't dealing with other things as constructively as I could have.

Collapsing when I was 28 and not getting back to work for over a year didn't help either. It's been a long slog back the last decade, but now that both my iron and vitamin D levels are in the low normal range, I've been feeling a lot better generally. I've still been feeling worn down with work, but there's a minor consolation in feeling tired because your pace is ballistic, versus just being tired, period. It's occurred to me lately how much better I could be handling all of this if I were more fit.

My physicality is still the one remaining "issue" in my life. I'm tired of having a body I can't count on, and given that I don't have any major chronic ailments to contend with, there's no reason I should feel that way. The only person holding me back is me.

And I suppose that's what I'm ready to deal with. Yes, I've had compelling deficiencies to deal with [most of my life if you ask me. My doctor thinks I just have a body that doesn't uptake iron or most other nutrients "well"], but the time has now come to move forward. Despite all the grand ambitions I've ever had for myself, there is still a part of me that thinks I can't.

That's what I really need to deal with. It's a difficult thing for me to admit, but the results speak for themselves. Despite how competent and intelligent I am in most other areas of my life, my body says otherwise and I need to reckon with the choices that have got me to this point. It isn't all my fault, but I'm not blameless either.

When I first looked into personal training, my inner critic inevitably started chatting. All the reasons not to do it were mentally indexed and readily available. But there was another part of me that was stronger this time, another voice I rarely hear, a part of myself saying this is not who you are. You can change this. You need to change this.

When I met with "Linda" one of the head trainers at my club, she put me through some testing and asked me about my goals.

Goals seemed a bit redundant after the BMI machine spat out a reciept saying I was 44% body fat.

44. That is the number that cancer, heart attacks, stroke, arthritis and diabetes are made of. It's the number assigned to never being able to wear clothes I like or feeling good in a bathing suit.

"What about running a 5K?"

"What?"

Linda looked me in the eye. "Well you just said you'd always wanted to run. Why don't we make running a 5K by next summer one of your goals?"

I must have had the same look my cats have when I've placed a substandard brand of wet food before them.

"A 5K. By next summer."

"Sure." Linda replied. "It's totally doable. It isn't some pipe dream." She wrote it down on my list of goals, then paused. "Is there some other goal you'd like to attain?"

A voice that was not mine said "I want to take hip hop dance classes."

"Yup. What else." Linda kept writing.

The voice continued

"I want to look hot."
"I want to sleep right through the night." and in my head it just kept going.

I want to garden early mornings in the summer before work. I want to take flamenco dance classes too. Screw the 5K. I want to run a marathon. I want to learn how to surf. I want to hike the Southern Upland Way in Scotland. "

I walked out of the club on Monday floating. Everything seemed possible, but there was the not so minor consideration of cost. The Marine and I talked, and we decided we could do it, but by Wednesday morning, I'd spent a sleepless Tuesday night worrying about it. It just seemed a bridge too far.

I sent Linda an email. Then I lamented with Ragdoll on G-chat. [Thanks for that chicka.]

Then Linda sent an email back. The club has a policy of always planning to goals initially, but there were some other options. Would I meet with her again?

So I did, and I walked out of the club Thursday night having signed on for a package that was workable and completely affordable. It means I have a Level 1 trainer instead of a Level 4, but Linda will be supervising my program and more importantly I can get started now.

Debbie called me yesterday to get things set up. For the next eight weeks at 7:15 am, I'll be training with her Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

"Where should I meet you." I asked, "At the front?"

"Sure." Debbie replied. "I'm a tall black girl about 5'7" with short hair."

"Cool." I said. "I'm a short chubby white girl about 5"4' with brown hair."

Debbie laughed. "Oh Zesty," she said "I like you already."