Exhausted and SORE and Loving It!

I left the YMCA in Waltham in tears this afternoon... the good kind of tears that come along every once in a while when you realize you're attaining a goal you'd set for yourself.  My legs were shaking, my arms hurt... my face was as red as a ripe tomato and all I could think of was how truly grateful I am to the folks at the YMCA in Boston and the University of Vermont's VTrim Program for changing my life DRAMATICALLY in the last seven weeks.

My trainer, Parker, (see my 1st Parker post here) is wonderful. We've gotten past the first few weeks and things are harder and more challenging now for me... and I can't believe I'm saying that because I thought I would DIE during the 1st week of training.  But I didn't die... I just had great difficulty getting out of bed and walking up or down stairs for a few days! My muscles were yelling to me in no uncertain terms "Hey! We're here... do you feel us!?" LOL  The picture above is me on March 27th doing wall squats with the ball.  Can we say "yeowch"!?  You're probably thinking the camera makes me look red, huh? No! That is the hue of my face and my arms and chest at the end of an hour of training!

Parker's encouragement to me during training to keep going and his positive reinforcement when I feel like I really don't honestly have that last ounce of strength to pull up that curl or push down on that weight machine cord is an amazing thing for me to experience.  I have NEVER ever trained with anyone.  I've trained in a group setting in high school and college but never one-on-one like this.  People told me there would be days when I might hate him pushing me... I feel just the opposite. 

I've needed someone to push me - to make me believe I have that ONE MORE within me - for years and years.  And here he is - putting me (today) on a balance wheel to engage every single muscle I had in my body while I tried to find my center and balance... while he tells me that in a few weeks I'll be standing on that balance wheel while doing curls.  (I looked NOTHING like the girl in the photo on the wobble balance board, by the way!)  Within minutes of being on this balance apparatus I had to laugh because I was dripping with sweat just trying to BALANCE... but - because I'm now a few weeks into this and can tell that the things that once I could barely do at all, I am actually improving at, I have to believe him... I'll be balanced and doing curls.  ME! Who'd a thunk it?

When I decided to go for the training at the YMCA I made a pact with myself that I wasn't going to do it half-way.  If I was going to put in the hour at the Y with a trainer, I was going to 'go for it' and I try to do that every week.

Parker called me a "superstar" today and that made me smile, I can tell you, because I just let all my inhibitions go and go for it there.  I make exhausted grunting noises and have my hair soaked with sweat and am red in the face and chest and can barely stand sometimes my legs are shaking so badly after floor exercises but I can look at myself in the mirror and know in my heart that I did give it everything I had.  And, friends, let me tell you - this ain't no walk in the park for me! LOL  I've got my eyes squeezed shut sometimes trying to remember to keep my core tight and my belly button pulled in and my hips square and my glutes squeezed and I'm in mental and physical agony... but I'M DOING IT!!!  And, darnitall, when I had to take Parker's offered hand today to get up off the mat, I wasn't ashamed to need the help getting up, I knew I'd given it everything I could.


If you don't think you can go to a gym and exercise or do one-on-one training, I'm here to tell you - YOU CAN!  If I can do it - as out of shape and overweight as I have been - YOU CAN DO THIS, TOO!  I am sooo thankful that I have Parker as my trainer and that he is pushing me but not intimidating me - everything is explained and I don't feel stupid to say to him (which I did...) "Parker, I'm not sure what my glutes even are!".  *grin*  You need to step out of your comfort zone, find a trainer you feel comfortable with, and step into a place where you put yourself first... where you don't care who is there watching or what you look like or how many push-ups you can do.  You walk in to that gym - tell yourself (and mean it!) that you're going to DO YOUR BEST and that will be enough.  And you will be so darn proud of yourself that you've taken those first steps.  I'm proud of myself... really proud.  I had set a goal and I'm achieving it.

A separate component of my training with Parker is that the YMCA Waltham facility has great equipment, including LifeFitness equipment where you can go online to the site's Virtual Trainer and set-up a personal training experience for yourself, download that training program to a USB stick and then bring it to the YMCA, plug it into the machine and your workout is recorded.  I have the program keep my heart rate at a certain level while walking which means that the Virtual Trainer adjusts the incline as well as the rate of my walk to keep my heart rate at the exact place it is supposed to be.  I think that is all very cool - especially because I can then download my workouts to the LifeFitness site and then Parker can look at what I'm doing during the week on my own.  It's ALL good!

Paying it forward...
One final thing about training today that really just made me so happy! Parker mentioned that one of the Healthy Loser Gal blog readers contacted him to train one-on-one because of my post about training with him. I am overjoyed by that! That is kind of a 'pay it forward' moment for me because I feel so very grateful to the YMCA for giving me this opportunity, I'm really so glad that someone else will now benefit from training one-on-one with Parker, too! :) How totally awesome is that?

Thanks for all your support, my friends! There are days when I don't feel like going out to walk or heading to the gym, but then I remember something one of you may have said here in Comments or Tweeted to me, and I'm on my way.  Your faith in me means so much - and I'm so grateful for your friendship!

We're doing this! I'm more than halfway to my goal weight and am finally getting myself fit! :)  Woohooo!