I have this grand master plan that I must fit in to my snow pants again in time to go up to Tahoe a time or two this winter. Which means that I’ve got until New Year’s, roughly, to lose some uncertain amount of weight. Because I’ve got no idea how much I weighed when I fit into those pants. It was just less.
So “grand master plan” meant that I was going to try to lose about 5 pounds per month for a total of 20 by the end of 2010. Totally reasonable, right?
The first few months of September were not being entirely amenable to the plan, so I decided to up my game and joined up with a local boot camp.
I had been pondering joining up for ages. I walk by these women every day on the way to work. Back when I did Couch to 5k, some of that motivation was to try and get myself boot camp ready. And then I started doing some Jillian Michaels DVDs in the mornings. And then I filled out the paperwork and I went.
And lo.
That first day was heinous. It was non stop do this do that, get up, get down, push up, jump, run, skip rope, bicycles, burpies, mountain climbers, lunges, gasping for breath and wiping the sweat out of my eyes.
Almost all of the other girls are very, very fit. I expect that I probably do about 2/3 of the workout that many of them do, because I’m so much slower. I gnash my teeth at them and envision catching up to them. And then I can’t even really see them any more ’cause they’ve run around the next corner already and then I think about maybe just walking a little bit for the rest of the way.
There are usually one or two other “fatties” there. Without them, I think I may have bailed on boot camp for all the shame. It is so secretly good to have someone with whom you can meet eyes and you know that you’re both just thinking “shit god damn mother fucker.”
This morning was my 15th consecutive day, excluding the weekend times when I just concentrate on asking my knees to please hold it together.
Only 4 more days to go, and then a whole month will be behind me. There’s a week off, and then it starts up again for another month, which I’m thinking I will go for.
It’s still heinous. Each and every day. I do feel pretty good when it’s all over, but Maggie being Maggie, I think the dread beforehand is a lower low than the post workout high is high.
It also gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, those snow pants can be squeezed into. I will not be trying them on any time soon. But I am hopeful.
margaret edith 