He's Gonna Pump...Me Up!

I have 6 months until I turn 40, and I am determined to get in shape by then. I've decided to work with a personal trainer to help me achieve my goal of getting rid of the small tire that has creeped around my waist and firm up the rest of me. Watching a couple of seasons of The Biggest Loser has really gotten me motivated.

Yesterday I had my first session with my personal trainer, Steve. He looks sort of like Christopher Reeve as Superman, but he's in between Clark Kent and Superman. He's got the body, complete with tree trunk thighs, but he wears glasses.

As soon as I walked in the gym, I got nervous. It's a whole different world in a gym, one I am not used to at all. I feel the same way when I walk into a church or a bar. Places I am immediately comfortable in include playgrounds, Prince concerts, and huge cities like New York and Tokyo.

I had forgotten to bring a lock with me, so Steve offered to put my bag in the office. I went in the locker room to put my jacket and sweatshirt in a locker. I went around opening all the lockers that didn't have locks in them, and most of them were occupied. Guess people are really trusting here. I find one, and looked around. There were showers and toilets. People really do take showers in gyms?? I guess. I wasn't about to. I took a deep breath, and set off to get trained.

I was scheduled for an hour. Steve walked me through a list of exercises and stretches, that he said would take 5 minutes in a couple of weeks. I barked out, "HA!"; you should have seen how long that list was! We went through all of them, and it took the whole hour. If I ever finish that list in 5 minutes, I will be very proud of myself.

Some were harder than others. The most fascinating one was one in which you stand up, then slowly squat down all the way, keeping your butt sticking out, and your feet flat on the floor. When Steve was showing me, all I could think of was that he looked like a frog on steroids. I tried it, and I swear to God, alls I could do was go down halfway. He told me I'd get there, and gave me homework so I could work on it at home. I'm determined to look like a frog.

There was one where he stretched out on his side, leaning on his forearm. He showed me the position, and said, "...and then you lift your hips up like this." I laughed out loud, as if I was saying, "And you expect me to do that??" He asked me if that was nervous laughter, and I told him I supposed it was. Guess what? I did it on the first try! Thing is, I had never put my body in that position before and tried to lift my hips, so how was I to know? It just looked hard.

One thing I learned is that my confidence in what I can do is pretty low. Interesting, because I could do just about everything he showed me. This will be an interesting experience, for sure.

I took some Advil before I went to bed, fully expecting to be sore this morning, and I was right. It was not fun to climb down the ladder of my loft bed, let me tell you. I took a hot bath, and now I feel well enough to trek over to Starbucks. Later on, I will practice my frog stance. Ribbit!