Me, a gym rat? WHAT???!!! You must be joking!

As I've stated many times throughout my blog, I've always HATED exercising.  Just hated it.  When I was much younger, I enjoyed playing tennis and racquetball, but anything else to be done for the sake of "working out" was a dreaded chore to me.  The idea of having to work out on a regular basis for the rest of my life was horrifying to me.  What a miserable life requirement!  So, of course, I never did it for long.

Through the years I tried walking regularly, I joined gyms, I hired a trainer once or twice, and I even bought a bicycle once, but I never kept with anything for long.  I hated it all.  It was always the same exact routine:  I'd start with a vengeance initially, eager to continue until it'd taper off after a few weeks or a couple of months, mostly out of boredom, until finally I became completely sedentary again.  Most often, years would pass before I again attempted any physical activity that might constitute "working out."  Of course, because I never kept up with anything for long, every time I started again, I had to start from scratch.  It was also true that as the years passed and I continued to gain weight, any activity I attempted became increasingly difficult which didn't help my desire to continue with anything for long.

When I started this journey in late 2012, I changed my approach.  Obviously what I had been doing my entire life hadn't worked for me.  First I concentrated on the food aspect of my weight loss attempts and told myself that after I lost 25 lbs., then I had to start walking regularly - not that I enjoyed walking, but it was the easiest work out I could come up with, plus it was free.  It wasn't much of a sacrifice to delay working out either since I hated it so much.  It took me about three months to lose those pounds but I kept my promise and I started walking around my neighborhood once I did.  This time around, I started slow, a couple of times a week, eventually increasing the frequency and speed as I improved.  It was incredibly difficult in the beginning because I was so heavy and out of shape.  My legs literally felt like they were encased in cement and I was dragging them through thick, muddy water.  Every step was difficult and painful because of my bad knee.  But I didn't give up.  In fact, I pushed myself to keep improving.  Pushing myself when it related to physical activity was foreign to me.  I used to just give up.  It was easier than trying.

 

A few months later I joined Curves to get me started until in late 2014 I joined Total Woman ("TW"), my gym today.  I cancelled Curves within 6 months because I outgrew it quickly.  When I joined TW, I anticipated only going there for a couple of months before giving up again.  It may seem like self-defeating negative thinking, but you have to remember this was my pattern for over 30 years - why would it be different this time?

But it would  be different this time.  Oh, boy, would it be different this time!   Whereas my pattern was to start strong with complete dedication until I eventually gave up a couple of months later, this time around I started slow, built up my exercise program slowly until eventually I became a working out fiend, a "gym rat."  Literally.   The irony is that it wasn't anything I planned or set out to do, it just happened.  The more weight I lost, the happier I became, the more I wanted to improve my life, and the more eager I became to keep doing better.

If you've been reading my blog, you know very well how instrumental my trainer, Flaminia ("Fla"), was to my eventual weight-loss success.  She and I started working out once a week in late 2014 and within about four months, we were training three times a week which we continued to do for more than a year until she moved out of state in January 2016.  She also put me on a machine circuit that includes about seven or eight different weight machines that I still do today at least once a week, often increasing the weights as I get stronger.  

And then there's spinning.  Ah, spinning.  In January 2015, Fla dragged me kicking and screaming to my first spin class which she taught at TW at the time.  After my first spin class, I was done.  I never anticipated going to another one again.  As much as I hated exercising, I hated the bike most of all.  Little did I know that Fla expected me (and forced me) to go every single week after that initial class.  Who knew back then that I'd eventually become a spinning queen who now wears cycling shoes and even cycling gloves to spin!

When Fla quit TW around April 2014, we continued to train at a small gym nearby where trainers take their clients.  It's not the sort of gym one joins and visits whenever they want, but rather you pay your trainer for their time and you only go there with your trainer.  At the same time, Fla was teaching spin classes at a hoity-toity gym in the Los Angeles area and I followed her to three of their locations every week as she was able to get me in as her guest.  When Fla informed me in late 2015 that she'd be moving to New York, I joined a spin studio to continue spinning.  Spin studios offer spinning classes every day, usually several classes in the morning and several classes in the evening, seven days a week.

Today I work out every single day of the week, usually two (and sometimes three) times a day.  That's right, A DAY!   For the first year or so of my journey, I had to force myself each and every time to go exercise.  I'd spend an hour trying to talk myself into going until finally I'd say to myself, "Just go!  For God's sake, you would've been done by now!"  Eventually, exercising became part of my daily routine and I no longer find it a dreaded chore.  I no longer have to force myself to do something active, and, in fact, nowadays I have to stop myself from doing too much.  I now automatically arrange my daily schedule around some type of physical activity be it walking, spinning, weight lifting, or training with a trainer.  Whereas before I felt guilty if I took a day or two off, now I have to force myself to take days off to let my body rest.

During my years living in obesity, I had no energy whatsoever to do anything at all.  Even running errands became a dreaded chore because it was cumbersome and tiring to be mobile.  Nowadays I have so much energy that sometimes I feel like I'm climbing out of my skin so I end up doing something active to expend that energy even though I've already worked out earlier that day.  For example, there are times I'm sitting at home bored and full of energy so I'll go to the gym to use the treadmill even though I may have attended a spin class earlier that day.

My work out routine nowadays is as follows:

Spinning:  I joined a spin studio in November 2015 and I love it.  They offer several spin classes in the mornings and several classes in the evenings, seven days a week.  Although TW offers spin classes, too, it's only a few times a week, the class times don't fit my schedule, and I don't care too much for their instructors.  At the spin studio, however, I like several of the instructors so I can go any time I want.  And I do.   

Since joining the studio a few months ago, I've been spinning at least four times a week and often up to seven times a week.  I've learned to enjoy spinning, particularly because I challenge myself to do more (spin bikes have a knob to increase/decrease resistance, meaning you have to pedal a lot harder to move the wheel the more you increase the resistance).  In every class I've attended, the instructors will scream out, "PUSH!  PUSH!  You can do anything for 60 seconds!" when a particular sequence in class is especially difficult.   Now when I struggle in spin, I scream in my head those same words and I don't give up.  In fact, when I'm walking an incline outside and I want to give up, I start saying to myself, "PUSH!  PUSH!  You can do it!  PUSH!"  Sometimes I say this out loud and I often chuckle at the thought that someone might be watching me and thinking I'm nuts for talking to myself.  I don't care.  My goal is to push myself and get it done.

There's something a lot of instructors say, including Fla, about how the burning in your legs or the struggling of pushing yourself is a sign of change, meaning that whatever torture you're going through at that moment, you're changing your life/body for the better.  It's so true!   

The benefits I have witnessed are undeniable.  It's an incredible work out.  I always leave class drenched in sweat, exhausted, but happy and proud of myself that I did it.  There are times I can't keep up with the class, there are times I do just fine, and there are times when I do great.  I don't worry about how I do anymore and I never compare myself to others in the class either.  My only goal is to go, spin, do the best I can, and just finish the hour-long class.   I have seen improvements to my strength, endurance, and the development of muscle definition in my legs that I never had before.

Walking:  I use the treadmill at my gym several times a week and I also walk outside when weather allows, which for me means it's not too hot.  I don't handle heat very well so when it's even remotely hot outside (over 85 degrees), I wilt like a flower.  That's okay, that's what treadmills are for.  When I started using the treadmill at TW in late 2014, I could only walk at a rate of 2.6 or 2.8 m.p.h. for about 30 minutes.  With time, I increased the speed and time and nowadays I'm walking at a rate of 4.1 to 4.3 m.p.h. for an hour.  On those days that I can only walk 4.0 m.p.h., I've increased my walk to an hour and a half (total 6 miles).  What's ironic now is that what used to be my normal speed of 2.6 or 2.8 m.p.h. before is now actually my cool down speed.  I still can't do inclination though because of my bad knee, but that's okay, at least I can walk.   Also, I often take my mother's dog, Mitzi, on 3-mile walks and she's excellent on the leash.  Whenever I have errands to run, I often consider walking first rather than driving, for example, going to the post office to mail something or dropping my car off at the mechanic's which is 3 miles away from my house.  

Training:  when Fla moved to New York in January 2016, I experienced some health issues (severe abdominal pain which I explained in one of my earlier posts) so I didn't hire a new trainer after she left because I didn't know if I was facing surgery or not.  After medical tests and being put on medication by my gastroenterologist, it was determined that although I do have a big gall stone and eventually will need my gall bladder removed, the surgery is not necessary at this time.  It appears that my recent medical issues were related to an ulcer that is now healing with medication.  So far, I haven't had any major medical problems since my initial bout in early January.    

Once I learned that surgery was not going to be imminently necessary, I hired a new trainer to replace Fla.  Of course, to say I "replaced" Fla, this is an impossible feat.  My special connection with Fla and what she's meant to me will never be replaced or erased.  However, I am now working out with a new trainer, Tunde.  She's a Hungarian gal who's an absolute sweetie, but we're getting used to each other.  I met Tunde over a year ago through Fla because the two were working at TW and were friends.  Eventually Tunde also moved to the small gym where Fla and I ultimately trained so my routine remains the same and the only thing that's changed is the person training me - and not to mention that I'm about 95 lbs. lighter than when I met Fla!   

Right now I'm training with Tunde twice a week but I anticipate increasing it to three times a week in April.  Whenever I train with Tunde, just like I did when I trained with Fla, I walk to the gym (1.5 miles), train for 30 minutes, and then walk home.  However, since I've been working out so much and now I have tons of energy to burn, instead of walking the final 1.5 miles home, I've been walking another  3.5 miles (for a total of 5 miles round trip) and sometimes I have to force myself to stop walking for fear I'm going to get too tired.  

Weight machines:  I continue to do the machine circuit that Fla put me on over a year ago.  It includes about seven or eight different machines and I do it about once a week.  With time, I increase the weights and sometimes the repetitions, too. 

A friend recently wondered why I was going to three different places to exercise (TW for the treadmill and machines, the small gym where I train with a trainer, and lastly the spin studio that only offers spin) and asked me, "Can't you find one place that has everything?"   But the reality is that I don't mind it at all.  It offers me a change of scenery as it were and I'm exposed to different people at each location.  Yes, it would be more cost effective to find one place that does it all, but it just didn't work out that way and I'm having fun and I'm benefiting tremendously from my efforts.  So to me, it's worth it. 

Exercising has resulted in many benefits:  improvement in strength, endurance, developing muscle definition all over my body, and lowering my heart resting rate to 48 beats per minute (the "normal" is 60 beats).  When I work out now, it takes no time at all for my heart rate to return to normal once I stop exercising.  The only "problem" now is that it takes more exertion for me to get my heart rate up while working out which is the goal.  Spin is great for that because I can increase the resistance on the bike and that always shoots my heart rate up.

Another huge benefit of losing all the weight and exercising so much is having increased energy.  It's just crazy how much energy I have nowadays.  I would never have imagined it possible during my obese days when just moving around the house became cumbersome and I was always tired and sleepy, not to mention lethargic.  For many years, particularly when I was still working, I would sleep all the time, especially on weekends and days off.  I used to call them "My lost weekends" because I'd sleep them away.  I was physically and emotionally exhausted all the time, not only due to the weight but also the stress from having a career.  Nowadays, I sleep a few hours a night and I'm up and about early.  There are times now and then when I'm very tired so I stay in bed part of the day, but these incidents are rare and far between, certainly no longer the norm as it used to be.  I often find myself asking, "Who IS  this Vilma!?!"  In fact, I have friends who ask the same thing.  One of my friends calls me "Vilma 2.0."

Although exercising is incredibly beneficial in many ways, the most important aspect of any weight-loss journey is:  FOOD.  The only reason I've succeeded is that I continue to watch my calories every single day, regardless of how much I work out.  I've never been perfect on my calories (or points when I was following the Weight Watchers program early on in my journey), but I've been good enough to continue to lose weight.  Exercising is beneficial not only physically and medically, but also emotionally and spiritually.  The feel-good endorphins that arise after a good work out can't be topped.  I used to hate sweating because I don't like to feel dirty, but nowadays sweating is a badge of honor to me.  In fact, when I'm working out and I'm not sweating, I start asking myself what is it that I'm doing wrong.  Then when I start sweating, I think, "Ah…there it is.  Whew!"

People often tell me they don't like exercising, which I wholeheartedly understand.  I tell these people to just start slow and increase their program with time; that if they keep up with it, eventually the improvements they see will be motivating to continue and they'll want to do more; however, they have to understand it's not something that happens overnight.  For me, it took many months, probably more than a year, before exercising became part of my daily routine and I no longer had to force myself to be active.  The bottom line is that it's a necessary evil.  The benefits of working out regularly are priceless.  Every single doctor I've ever seen always told me how beneficial exercising is to our bodies, regardless of wanting to lose weight.

The other major benefit of exercising, particularly spinning, has been the improvement of my bad knee.  Whereas before I cried in pain every time I moved and was often bed ridden (sometimes for days) because I couldn't walk without intense pain, not to mention that the pain would wake me up several times every night for years, now I barely feel anything at all in that "bad" knee.  I still have to be careful not to tweak it, but I barely think of it now.   For example, I used to dread having to get up every morning because I knew my knee would hurt like crazy once I stood up and it'd take me several minutes of limping around before it stretched out enough to move better, but now I jump out of bed in the mornings and go on my way without giving my knee even the slightest thought.   

The other day I went for a walk and was going to be late to an appointment so I started running down the street to make it there on time.  I felt light on my feet and although I can't run for long, I did it.  I also find myself bounding up stairs two or three steps at a time.  I would NEVER have been able to do any of that in my obese state.  In fact, going up and down stairs was a horrible chore when I was morbidly obese.  You never realize how many stairs there are in the world until you feel pain in your knee when taking them.

 

So during my journey just a little over 3 years ago, I've gone from being completely sedentary for decades to being completely active.  I must say I love the new me!!!  Whereas before my response was always, "I can't do that," now when I'm presented with a new physical challenge, my response is, "I want to try it."  If I'm not very good at it initially, I find that I want to keep trying it until I get better.  Tunde used TRX with me the other day.  It's a type of suspension exercise program that uses straps with loops and thick rubber bands.  She had me doing pull ups the other day while standing in one of these thick rubber bands.  The rubber band helps propel your body up so you're not using your full body weight.  I could only do about four pull ups and only because the rubber band helped propel me upwards, but I did them and whereas before I would have given up because I couldn't do them, this time I told Tunde, "I like that!  I want to keep trying until I can do them well."

I find that I continue to challenge myself because I want to see how much more I can do.  This is completely a new me because before I would have rather begged off doing anything that would remotely be physically difficult.  Nowadays, however, I want to do things I can't do so that I can keep trying and eventually see an improvement. 

A friend of mine used to invite me to go hiking often and that was horrifying to me.  Me? Hiking?  Are you kidding!?!   "I can barely walk around the house," I'd think to myself.  But the new me called her up one day recently and said, "Let's go hiking" and we did, for about 7 miles.  It was great.   I recently called her and said, "Let's go biking."  I'm very curious to see if I can ride a bicycle (will have to rent one) for a long stretch along a bike path.  The nice thing about spinning is that the bike doesn't move so if for some reason I can't go on, I can just stop and not worry about getting back to my car.  I told my friend that she may have to get her car and come get me if I can't go on after biking a few miles on an actual bike.  But I suspect I'll be just fine because I'm in the best physical shape I've ever been in my entire life.

A couple of weeks ago this same friend and I went whale watching and had a great day.  Where we went, there are a handful of islands that offer various daily adventures, everything from sunning on the beach to camping to hiking.  When my friend and I were reading the brochure listing the different activities for each island, I chose two:   the one where we'd be required to climb up to 200 steps on one side of a cliff and the island that offers a "rigorous" hiking trail.  The brochure for the latter informs the reader that "one must be in excellent physical shape" before undertaking this particular tour.  The reason I chose these two options was not because of what activities they offer, but rather because I wanted to prove to myself that I could physically go up those steps and survive a "rigorous" trail.  The old me would have never considered it, but the new me wants to do it, more than anything to prove to myself that I can.

I'm a completely different person inside and out today than I was just 3 years ago and it's been an amazing journey so far.  The changes in me are relatively recent because most of my weight loss happened since I met Fla in August 2014 and I'm still discovering the new me.  I have to say it's been a lot of fun so far to see how much more energy I have now and how much more I can do than even when I was young and not yet morbidly obese.

The key is to START and STAY WITH IT!