The nervous feeling you get before walking into the gym, the clueless expression you have on your face as you try to decide where to start and the ultimate dread of how you will feel when you wake up in the morning. You and I have both experienced it. The pre-, during-, and post-workout feelings are very real and extremely unavoidable for those of us who are sane enough to know that having the perfect body is not the only thing in the world that matters. If you are anything like me, you probably face these feelings in five stages.
1. Stepping on the scale and realizing you (or maybe, for your standards) are fat.
For myself, and many other like me, after stepping on the scale and seeing I have gained a pound or two, the fear of becoming fat becomes evident. You think that maybe you shouldn't have had that third donut at breakfast or added all those bacon bits to your seemingly healthy salad. All those days of constant snacking because "you're just kind of hungry" have finally caught up to you and it is ugly. You rack your brain for any idea about how to lose those few extra pounds and then it dawns on you that you actually have to do something about it. Enter stage two.
2. Deciding you have to take action to fight this terrible fate.
The hardest part about losing weight is actually having the motivation to go to the gym. Waking up early, staying up late, or anything in-between never seems like the right time to go to the gym. We make constant excuses to avoid walking into the place that many have avoided for months on end. A common time for people to experience stage two is after New Years and in April to be beach ready for the summer. Frequent gym-goers are extremely frustrated around these times of year when their space is invaded by those of us who stick to our resolutions for about a week or two and then quit. After deciding we need to go to the gym, we move on to stage three.
3. Conjuring up the fierce determination needed to take on the gym and getting to it.
You walk into the gym and take a huge whiff of the stale smell of dry sweat. That is the smell of pain and frustration with a hint of victory. There were many before you and there will be many after you who decide to take on the treacherous land of the gym. But this is your time, and you will make the gym your metaphorical beeotch. As you look around, you come to realization that you know nothing about the gym. The machines are foreign, you don't know how to work them, and quite frankly, you feel like an idiot. Fear not! You are not the only person to feel this way and the only way to get over it is to jump right in and start! Once you get into the swing of things, you just go! For thirty glorious minutes, you feel accomplished and ready to do anything. Your workout is over and as you are walking to your car, you enter stage four.4. Uncontrollable hunger and the desire to eat anything that crosses your path.
As you are driving home, you pass a billboard for a McDonalds or Chick-Fil-A and know that there is nothing more in the world you want than to eat a delicious burger or chicken sandwich. You want to eat everything in the world and you could because you just worked out and you stomach is emptier than it has ever been in your entire life. You don't eat a salad or a protein bar, you want a thick juicy burger that will clog your arteries and make your post-workout stomach stop trying to eat itself. Being the imperfect human that you are, you stomach and eat that deliciously fatty burger and feel zero shame until you look at yourself in the mirror ad realize you ate a double cheeseburger and large fries while downing a large Coke. The shame has never been as real as it is now. This is the beginning of stage five.
5. Realizing resistance is futile and continuing to stuff your face.
Now that you have started eating, you know you can't stop. You have no choice so you shamefully continue to eat when you get home, completely ruining any progress you made during your workout. But if you really think about it, you had fun (kinda?) and tried to be healthy!
Rome wasn't built in a day and you need to remember that healthy habits take time and dedication. If you're not all in, it's going to be a long road to getting the body you want. Just remember to have fun and keep at it because the best things in life don't come easy, a nice body included. So take some advice from the girl who hates working out enough to make a scene while refusing to do planks, do whats going to make you happy even if in the moment you aren't!
