I want to pass out, run a marathon, and puke all at the same time. Is this natural? In the last 24 hours I have pushed myself harder and farther than I ever have in my life. This is what my day looked like: 9:30am go buy 5 desks and 2 shelving units for a client from Ikea (I own a small interior design firm), load all these heavy items into my cart and car solo (talk about a core workout). 11:30 head to gym for PT appointment with Q. 2pm head to Wegmans and buy all the food in my nutrition plan, 3pm get home, prep and cook all the food for the next 4 days. 7pm back to gym for Krank and Moi Boost with Steven. 8pm come home and bake kale chips (OMG, yum). 9pm email clients, log all my food and upload my Exerspy data for the day. 10pm start writing about todays adventure. I think it is safe to say obsession is taking over and my lifestyle is changing.
This whole whirlwind of activity started last night. I
thought I was just going to MOI Cycle and about an hour before class, Q calls
me out on Facebook and says “Kettlebell at 6pm, Suspension training at 6:30,
Zumba at 7:15. Be there, or be square”. I managed to negotiate for 30 minutes
of cycle instead of Zumba, but that didn’t really do me any favors. I have
grown to love cycling, but trying to do it the day after your trainer works
your legs is borderline irrational. After I left cycle I headed for Kettlebell
with Caesare where we did 2 circuits of different exercises. It was fairly “standard” exercises until the end… "burpees over kettlebell". What. The. Hell. This was the first
burpee I had ever done in my life and I SUCKED at it. Thankfully the class was
at max capacity so everyone got to see me suck at it. Then you have squats where Caes made me grab a heavier weight. To make matters even better,
Q is standing by the boxing ring watching us. During squats I hear her yell “Nicole,
get your butt down”. If looks could kill, she would have been dead.
Once kettlebell ended we immediately transitioned into TRX
training. TRX is a suspension system where you use your body weight for a full
body work out. I had never done it before. If I was asked to describe TRX, I
would use the word “satanic” because that class came straight from the pits of
hell. Let’s make one thing clear, I have ZERO upper body strength. I couldn’t
do a proper pushup to save my life. So when you are 280 pounds and 39% body fat, TRX
makes you want to DIE. There is a way you could make TRX easy on
yourself IF the instructor wasn’t
paying attention and your own trainer wasn’t lurking in the shadows correcting your
form (thanks for that Q). Thankfully (that is sarcasm in case you didn’t
catch that) Steven pays attention like a hawk.
Oh Steven, instructor extraordinaire.
I really thought I loved him. He was the first trainer I ever worked with at
ETC. During those first two sessions he was patient, funny, charming, all of
the things you would THEORETICALLY want in a personal trainer. I don’t even know
where that man went, because I swear on everything holy he turned into Satan
himself during TRX (pointy tail and all). See, I LOVE to bitch and/or crack jokes when I am doing
something hard. I am a regular freaking comedian, but I will tell you one
thing,... do NOT joke about not knowing what triceps are in front of trainers.
This is how you get forced into Krank classes. How do I know? Because that is
what I did. I left TRX last night hating everything and everyone, I was ready
to quit. I was so tired and embarrassed I was just over it. Then the strangest
thing happened…
I got home and realized I just did something I would
have never done 6 months ago or hell, even 6 days ago. I laid in bed, stared at
the ceiling and I cried. Much like I am doing right now reliving that moment.
Something changed inside of me. I grabbed my phone and I re-read the last couple
days of this blog and I decided that I am going to do everything in my power to win
this challenge. Not for the money or the glory, but for myself. This means I
have to be serious about eating clean. I had the tools in place, I just wasn’t mentally
ready to use them. I don’t think I would have gotten there this soon if it wasn’t
for that specific set of circumstances involving Q, Caesare and Steven.
So this morning, I hit the ground running (after taking an Epsom
salt bath and laying on my inversion table, because otherwise I wouldn’t have
made it out of my house). I went and did what I needed to do for work and
then focused on nothing but setting myself up for success. I got to the gym and
Q worked the hell out of my upper body. It was 2 sets of 6 different exercises,
30 reps each. I never knew how badly arms could hurt. Sometimes I think that
none of this is real and I have finally surrendered to a psychotic state, so here
is a picture I asked her to take for evidence:
After we were done, we went over to the training desk and she
wrote out a shopping list of everything I should eat this week and
confirmed I really did need to come back for the 7pm Krank and Moi class. So I
grabbed a smoothie and some supplements and headed to Wegmans (the holy mecca
of grocery stores). Once I got home I was a chopping and cooking fool. I made
delicious stuffed bell peppers, premade salads, sorted snacks, all sorts of
yummies. I was really impressed with how pretty healthy food is. See, check
this out:
Colorful right? At 6:45 I headed back to the gym for this Krank class I have
been talking about. Krank is basically a cycling class for your arms. This is a
shot of the studio from tonight’s class:
I was honestly prepared to hate it, but it turned out quite the
opposite. I actually fell in love with it. Steven was the instructor again and he was
OUTSTANDING. He is no longer the
pointy tailed devil I concocted in my head last night, but he is still a hard ass. He
knows how to push people in a group setting in a way I didn’t think possible.
He pays attention to every student and he holds us all accountable. He made us announce
our heart rates and reps to the class at random points to keep us accountable. If you weren’t at your assigned numbers,
he called you out and demanded you speed it up. The energy in there was so powerful. At one point, my muscles
locked and I couldn’t open my right hand. It was kind of scary to be honest,
but I pushed through and all the pain melted away, and my muscles unlocked. At that point I turned
up the tension and rocked the hell out of the rest of that class. When I left,
I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment, like I had broken down a barrier
and reached the next level. So I will take that pride into tomorrow and live to
see another day. Goodnight friends. I will talk to you tomorrow.
