Gymmin' It

So while I was away on holiday I spotted an itison deal for a month's gym membership with 3 personal trainer sessions and decided to buy it... a little motivation to get back into some physical activity after 2 months of vacay style eatin n drinkin n smokin n just being fairly sedentary...

I knew I didn't have a job to come back to, so also thought the gym would be good to get me outta the house..

Well, I had my first session with the PT (one of my friends said, PT = physical torturer! - he wasn't far wrong!) on Monday and I seriously almost died... We did 10 mins on a bike to warm up, then went through some free weight exercises... 3 sets of 12 reps of 5 different exercises including LUNGES... seriously whoever thought up that exercise should have died a slow and painful death... they are E.V.I.L.!.!.!

We did some ab work as well with a swiss ball coz I told him my back isn't the best.. we were supposed to do 3 sets of 10 reps, but something was tweaking in my upper back/shoulders so he let me off with 2 sets of each...

I somehow managed to get my jelly legs back own the spiral staircase, then promptly went to the bathroom and threw up... I have only ever thrown up one time previous due to physical exertion and that was after a championship rowing race back in high school...

I had a quick shower and thought I might sit in the jacuzzi or steam room to try and loosen up my back, but after not even 3 minutes in the sauna I was feeling a bit green around the gills again... I decided that my gym session should probably come to a close at this point!

What is surprising is just how out of shape I am! I mean I know I've been pretty lazy for the past two years since I got to the UK, but I used to walk a lot (mainly out of necessity and cheapness) and living in a hostel that was on the 4th floor of an old building, then living either up or down a floor within the hostel meant I used to do a lot of stair climbing! But I used to walk at least 30-45mins home after work each day even after moving out of the hostel, none of my flats have been on the ground floor and ALL of them have been walk ups...

I attribute the pukeyness to the fact that I didn't get much sleep the night before (oh hello insomnia, my old friend...) and also/therefore waking up feeling not the greatest anyways... so I don't really know if it was good or bad that I forced myself to go even tho I wasn't feeling that well... probably good, coz I think had I not gone.. I would have just kept putting it off...

Tho whatever tweaked in my shoulder/upper back definitely isn't happy about it.. I've had to take a lot of pain meds to even be comfortable and I had a lot of trouble moving around Monday evening... it's feeling a bit better now after yesterday tho I am for sure feeling all the muscle aches (even with the pain meds!)... hopefully after another day of chilling out and resting it, I'll be ready to head back to the gym tomorrow.. at least to hit the bike machine, pool and jacuzzi if I don't get in any weights...

The PT didn't weigh me or take any measurements and I'm not in the habit of weighing myself... tho I did get on the scales at the airport in Calgary while I was repacking my luggage so I have a vague idea of how much I weigh... so I am wondering if I want to weigh myself and take some measurements so I can a) keep track of progress and b) be held accountable or if I should just go with whatever and just do it... and hope that those jeans fitting a little looser is a good enough indication that what I'm doing is working!

I've never been very focused on my weight, I've always "measured" myself with my clothing... and things are definitely fitting pretty snug... I just think weight can be so deceiving... the whole "muscle weighs more than fat" thing... and I think it can be so discouraging when you don't see the numbers dropping as much as you think... and as much as I'd like to lose a bit of weight, I'm hoping to make this more about fitness than weight loss... I want to have a fit and healthy body (as healthy as a junk food addict can be!) and just get some definition back...

I played sport for most of my school career, I fell into hockey a bit by accident in primary school and carried on playing into high school, I made fairly short lived debuts in basketball and cricket before taking up road racing and rowing... then after high school I got into waitressing/serving and bartending so spent lots of hours on my feet running around restaurant floors and lugging ice buckets, kegs and recycling bins...

I've been practicing yoga on and off for the past decade since signing up to a mat pilates/yoga course with Sok, way back in the day... our instructors were hilarious... they made it fun and I was hooked! Then I got into snowboarding and wakeboarding... so I've always led a fairly active lifestyle... I think unbeknownst to some people... (there were a few surprised people on fb when I said I was going to the gym! - most of them runners, because anyone who knows me knows how much I D.E.T.E.S.T. running... I would even go so far as to say I loathe it... "Running is for crazy people who hate their knees" is generally my catchphrase for "those" people!)  I have no problems if you choose to run, and I have a lot of friends who DO run... I just think they're nuts! But all my friends know I'm a few sandwiches short of a picnic so we're pretty much even!! It's not that I don't DO fitness... I just don't DO running.... ok??

Annnnywhos.... well done if you're still reading!

I need your opinion... should I weigh myself and take measurements to track my progress?? Or should I "Just Do It"?? Thoughts on a postcard.. or that comment button works a treat too! ; )