The Gym Thing (and a little bit of a rant)

So I'm that girl that's always on a diet. Always working out. I've been on both ends of the scale (really heavy/really skinny) but I'm naturally a thick girl. I am for the most part content with my body. When I returned from London I'd peaked at my highest weight ever due to not getting ANY physical activity and messed up eating habits that came due to my inability to deal with the time difference. It didn't help that I'm also dealing with PCOS (google it lol) which added an even bigger struggle to me trying to keep my weight within the so-called healthy range. 

Anyway this post isn't about my weight history. It isn't to bitch and moan about me not losing weight because I am. What it's about, however, are persons who want the benefit of working out but don't want to put the work in. For the past 5 months I've been going to the gym 4-5 days a week for about 1 1/2hrs each time. I'm not always diligent (I've missed days on end at times) but I make sure that I am there. I got into a routine of going before I decided to aggressively attack my eating habits. I am not a bad eater. I don't eat a lot and I don't go off on junk food (admittedly I have a sweet tooth but shit...I'm bloody allowed!) so I knew that my diet could not have been the ONLY thing to blame as some assholes wanted to imply. So after 2 months of working out and no significant difference on the scale, I decided to cut carbs. Bread. Rice. Sugar. Crackers. Cakes. Cookies. I stopped eating it. Instead, I have vegetables and fruit and lots of protein (chicken breast and fish) and I MEASURE everything. After a week of this I lost 8lbs and my body started pulling itself together. That I am happy about.

And then...people start noticing.

"Ooh, what did you do? (I explain)

"But isn't that expensive? (In reference to the no carbs)

"OMG, I wish I had your dedication"

Now you see...this pisses me off. Why? Because it came from someone who attends the same gym that I do, comes to the same class I do YET isn't as consistent or dedicated or motivated to pull through because they only have a 'little' weigh to lose. Are you for fucking real??? If you want a particular result, why are you allowing the cost of having a healthy lifestyle outweigh the cost of having an UN-healthy one? When I'm in the gym (and these days the only one who bothers to show up for the aerobics class...no lie) you're out galavanting and partying and sipping wine....so yes, I will lose weight and I will be more toned and I will look as if I found some 'secret' but I haven't. It's called hard work and discipline. That's it. Definitely not rocket science.

It was something as simple as switching out loads of pasta and replacing it with spaghetti squash, giving up coffee and sipping herbal tea instead and snacking on apples instead of any other nonsense I may have a craving for. Yes I have days when I want the bad stuff. Yes I have days when I eat them. But I allow myself that 'privilege' because I usually bust my ass at the end of the day to make sure I work that extra calorie off. I'm tired of hearing people 'talk' about wanting to do something. Just do it and get on with it. What do you really have to lose (other than the obvious)?

The Gym Thing

So last year around this time, I was hunkered down in london freezing my booty off wishing I was back in the sunshiney caribbean. However, I had opted to spend Christmas in the UK as exams were right around the corner and I couldn't allow my home-sickness to distract from it. The me, in London though, was not as active as the me pre-UK. Now I've never been naturally skinny. In the days when I weighed 128lbs, it came from months of hard work (translation:hours in the gym) and a strict diet. Two years later, I was diagnosed with PCOS, a condition that affected my already messed up metabolism and left me feeling perpetually tired. Added to the expense of the gyms and health studios in London.....I returned to St. Vincent 20lbs heavier than I was when I left (egads!).

For months I agonized about going back to the gym. I fantasized about walking in and having to face people that knew me at my fittest and having to deal with the 'oh my God, you gained so much weight' comments. Sounds simple enough, but for someone that grew up ALWAYS hearing about weight, I was terrified!!!! So, I hired a personal trainer who didn't need a gym for us to workout. Unfortunately....he's very good..and very in demand....thus his schedule and mine didn't always mesh....and our sessions became few and in between (I secretly think he was also frustrated that I wasn't as fit as I used to be as he was the one that used to train me before but I could be wrong).

But to be honest...I got tired of eating like a rabbit hoping to starve the weight off when I KNEW that what I needed was the exercise....and so today....I took the step. Grabbed my gym clothes (along with oversized t-shirt to hide the booty), paid my subscription and had my first work out in over a year! And guess what?? I loved it! SO much so that I'm planning to revert to my gym rat ways...maybe set up camp there...spend a few hours working out instead of stuck behind the computer watching episodes of Criminal Minds...ok I'm addicted to that show but they're gonna have to share my spare time with a long lost love.

:)