Success...

There comes a time when you have to buck up and face your problems head on and that day is today. After my horrendous performance on Saturday, the last thing I want to do is walk in to the gym and have to suffer through the lecture that I'm expecting and completely deserve. Thank goodness Fit Andrew decides to go at the same time that I do and that I have someone to distract me on the drive over. Believe it or not, the five minute drive is plenty of time to psych myself out with thoughts of the horror of what tonight could bring.

The nice thing about under performing last time (if there could possibly be a silver lining to it) is that I am incredibly motivated to kick-butt. This means I go faster on the cross trainer. I lip-synch in an outrageously animated way to the new Fall Out Boy single. I become unnecessarily outraged over the design decisions being made on HGTV. This is SPARTA!

When I'm finished, Justin and I head in to the weight room and conveniently enter a state of denial, each refusing to reference the awful Saturday. I start by alternating single leg presses and push-ups; 60 presses on each leg, 20 push ups, 50 presses on each leg, 20 pushups, all the way down to 10 leg presses per leg. I only have to do five sets of push ups because I don't know the reason why. Maybe it's generosity, maybe the workout was always designed that way. Maybe my arms would fall off if I did any more. 

I do take the down time while Justin is counting my leg presses as an opportunity to apologize to him for Saturday. He's receptive but claims it's unnecessary. I just want to make sure he knows that I value what he's doing for me and even though I know he's getting paid, he wants to see me succeed. I'm really quite eloquent and Justin get's slightly teary-eyed. Just kidding, I babble like an idiot and no crying happens. Except by my legs because 420 leg presses is a lot of leg presses.

Then we move on to the core exercises, which will need to be somewhat self motivated because my half hour is almost up. Justin shows me the two exercises and watches me do a set of each, all the while telling me to stop stalling and just keep going. Then he's gone and the challenge becomes forcing myself to keep up with the same pacing when the only person I have to answer to is my own inner coach. And my own inner coach seems to think it would be better to stop and rest for a while. But that coach is ignored by my own personal desire to succeed and I consider the remaining sets that I do to be an incredible victory. Am I back to where I was or where I should be? No. But I worked and pushed myself. Only good can come out of this.

It's taken me six, almost seven months to fully grasp the idea that I can push myself and survive. It's supposed to be a struggle. Similar to playing against an opponent who is better than you to really improve your game. People, it's possible to make a change in your life and most of us need to somewhere. For me, it's exercise. For you, it may be eating healthy or not stealing the punchline of someone else's joke.