Saturday, November 14, 2009

Remember when I said I liked going to the gym?

As you'll probably recall because you are a faithful reader of this blog, a few weeks ago I decided to take a hiatus from swimming to try some new stuff at the gym. Then I realized that while all this other exercise was helping me lose weight, build muscle, and feel energized, it was not helping to calm my anxiety the way swimming does. So I needed to find a way to add back swimming into my workout routine, while still keeping my 7 other classes each week.

I vowed to wake up early Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to get in a swim each morning. Monday and Wednesday I would have additional classes in the evenings, and Friday I would have a class at 8:30 a.m. (after swimming). Well, let me tell you, nothing makes you feel like more of a failure than promising to do early-morning workouts. I had planned to get up at 5:30 a.m., but Monday and Wednesday I woke up in the middle of the night and turned off my alarm. Then I beat myself up for not getting up to swim, even though I was still doing some serious workouts in the evenings on those days. But this is because no matter what I do, no matter what I accomplish, I will still be hard on myself. It's a real problem. But it's a little too heavy of a topic for a weekend blog post.

I did manage to cram in swim workouts on Sunday (no classes) and on Tuesday before yoga. Then, I'm happy to report, I got up early Friday and swam because I had to be at the gym at 8:30 for Zumba anyway. So I found 3 days a week to swim, in addition to my classes, and I think that's sufficient. I have cut down on my yardage for swimming (from 3,000 yards down to 2,000), mostly due to time constraints.

I feel like I live at the gym.

Now, let's talk about Zumba. It pains me to say this, but I don't think I like it. I do like the morning Zumba better than the evening one, because it's mostly old people and housewives, so the fact that I suck is not glaringly obvious. However, I just feel so stupid and awkward in that class. And it's hard to get the moves, and the teacher can't really stop to explain them all because she's trying to keep up a brisk workout pace. I want to like it so badly, because everybody else loves it, but it's just not working. And I kind of feel like part of the problem is that I'm not sure I'm getting a good workout out of it, since I can't really get the moves right. I can at least appreciate a class that is hard, even if I don't necessarily like it. But with Zumba I feel like I can neither love nor appreciate it. The teacher is yelling stuff like, "Isolate your ab muscles here!" or, "Really swing the hips!" and I can't get any of it. I'm thinking my time might be put to better use if I just swam a few more yards during Zumba.

And another thing: Why is it that I can feel my muscles, but I still look like a big fat-ass?

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