Hatred...

I hate exercising. There, I said it. I love the feeling afterwards, but I would be willing to do almost anything else to achieve the same results, if I could. Unless it involved snakes. No snakes. I head to the gym early after a brief visit with my wonderful sister and absolutely adorable nephew. Upon arriving, I unload my crap in the locker room, change in to my workout wear, and hop on the first treadmill I can find that is positioned in such a way that I can't see myself. And then I do my half hour of cardio.

I may have mentioned it before (it's almost scary how easy it is to forget what things I have written about), but I'm using an app called 'Couch to 5K' and it is supposed to give me sample workouts that will eventually lead up to me being able to run a 5K. This very much surpasses my goal of being able to run a mile without stopping and it keeps track of when I should be walking and when I should be running which makes it really easy. Truth be told, I enjoy the running part minus the being out of breath and getting sweaty, and when I'm rocking out to the new Selena Gomez, it's easy to ignore those things that I dislike.

After my half hour workout (a total of 2.2 miles and a mile in just over thirteen minutes) Justin takes me to the gym, where we're going to do some circuit-type training. I have to do thirty seconds of high knees, ten seconds of some weird crunch position rotation things, ten seconds of single leg crunches on both legs, and ten squats with thirty seconds of rest between the end of the squats and starting the circuit again. This is when I know I hate exercise.

All exercise makes me do is realize my limitations. I can't run this long or far, I can't move this fast, I can't lift this much, I'm not strong enough to do this or that. Exercise can ruin your self esteem. For me it's like I'm constantly being told (by non-actual voices) that I can't do something. I know not a single person who would enjoy that. Instead of the much healthier 'look at all that I can do' way of looking at it, I can't ignore my inabilities. And it's hard to keep pushing myself with that knowledge.

I don't hide my displeasure from Justin, who does his best to be encouraging by telling me I did a really good job at the end. I'm willing to admit that I did a good job because I finished, but if you put me in a line up with a random selection of other gym goers, I'd be at the bottom. Plus it didn't feel great. Feeling tired and hot and out of breath sucks.

Next I have to do squats and presses with a kettle bell. Have I mentioned I hate exercise? And then, I have to do bicep curls and oblique twists. Keep in mind, this is only a half hour session that we're squeezing this all in. But a half hour walk/jog combined with a half hour training session means an hour total of exercise. That's more than nothing and that's good.

Just so all of you readers know, I never feel good immediately after exercising. In fact, I often feel awful. Depending on how hard I've worked I can sometimes feel nauseated and dizzy. The more time that passes, the better I feel. If anyone else is starting to exercise, I guess I just don't want you to get discouraged because you don't instantly feel great. And it is difficult to remain positive when you can't necessarily see the change. At least that's how I feel. But back I'll go for another day. At 6:00am. Because I work tomorrow.