First Personal Training Experience

Today I had my first personal training experience.
At first I was really excited and looking forward to this opportunity because I have always wanted to try something like this out.
This was a free complimentary session from the gym I just joined.
My personal trainer was named Amber, and I was surprised that she was my age.  23 years old and has been a professional trainer for 2 years and is being promoted and running her own prof. training service in Waterford, CT. And she's only 23!
Amber was bubbly and perky, the perfect motivator/professional trainer.  She was also quite determined to get me in shape and told me it is possible to get back in shape.

The first thing I did was warm up on the treadmill by walking for 10 minutes.  Ok, that's nothing.  But as I'm walking, Amber tells me that the exercises today will be 'intense.' And of course she says this with a smile on her face.  Ok, so now fear comes through me cause then I start doubting myself.
"This is going to be hard..."
"WHat are we going to do?"
"Am I going to be able to do it correctly?"

And here I can see that I have purposely created fear in myself by believing that I have to be perfect and look good and not look weak when about to do these exercises.  Maybe even as a way to show me that "I am not weak-- I can do these exercises and be completely successful."

Pushups.
Shit.
I haven't done a push up in years.  Let alone 3 sets of 12.

And yes, my friends.  I did (quite painfully) 3 separate sets of 12 push ups on a bench.

I didn't even know I had it in me, especially since I'm large busted and made up the justification that "my boobs are too big to do pushups." LOL.

But now I know I can do some pushups.  But let me tell you, I dreaded that. And I caught myself saying in my mind "I hate push ups."  So there you have judgement and hate -- no no no.  Stop that.  Because once you resist/judge/hate something, that's going to make it all worse for you. And it did for me, because during those moments where I would tell myself, when doing push ups "I can't do this, it's too hard..." that's when I began to lose focus, breathing is off, self doubt comes in.

When doubt comes in, that's when you need to stop it.  Delete that self doubt from your mind because that is like an infection to me.  If you don't stop it in time it will only spread and infect your mind and then you'll start believing you can't do it...

So in between pushups we did squats against the wall supported by those big plastic work-out balls.  They weren't too too bad, but what was the most difficult was holding the sitting pose for 5 seconds.  That felt like forever, of course.  And it was hard to stand back up!

And during these moments we had a personal trainer in training watch me and Amber and I felt a little bit timid and insecure, but quickly got over it.  Whatever the guy had to think/say/judge about me I didn't care.  For a split second I wondered what he thought when I had a hard time doing push-ups, like if he judged me like but like I said I got over that quickly. Whatever.  I see what I have done to my body, the fat I accumulated and I am paying for it.  But it's not out of "hateful payback" meaning, putting my body into this intense workout because I feel like it needs to get back into the strictest shape possible.  No, actually, the whole point of me going to the gym and seeing a personal trainer once a week is for me to develop self-discipline in the area of physical exercise and pushing myself physically.  Because I have realized how active I use to be as a child.  Hell, looking back at old childhood videos, I was, to say, "above" average in terms of energy.  I could not sit still, and yes, children usually cannot sit still for long periods of time, but my energy was like "I need to use my body, I need to do something."  And so as a child I would literally do this activity where I would climb up between the sides of the door. Like a spider -- I hope I'm making a good enough description.  Also I would swim a lot, dance a lot, I was in constant motion, constantly working, utilizing, enjoying my body.
And that is what I'm getting back -- enjoyment of my physical body. And I want to push myself so I can become that natural physical being who moves so comfortably in her own body.

Doing "the plank" was difficult.  I began to doubt again, wonder what Amber thought of me, if I was the worst out of all her clients.  If she even cared or was doing this out of money.  WHo knows, who cares, but I realized in that moment how out of shape I really was.  It's not a judgment, but an observation -- I really am out of "shape" and have spent the last 7 years completely lazy, completely stagnant.  And those years of laziness and comfort sure came to this experience of observation -- I am out of shape and I want to change this.

And during those moments of amazement by how out of shape, how overweight I was, I began to laugh. And this laugh was of me realizing the ridiculousness of who I have become.  That I became this person who is soooooo

So this laughter was of me just laughing at myself.  It's nice to release that within you, to just laugh as self expression.

OK and I also wanted to mention that because I was doubting myself and saying to myself "this is so hard" this actually pushed me to sign up with a personal trainer for the year.  Because I know it's so easy and comfortable to give up and go to the gym 3 days a week and walk on the treadmill.  NO, that's "too easy" for me.  I want a challenge, I want to get back to my natural body weight and tone it so my body is an efficient machine.

And there is no starting point of "losing weight to look good" psssh I'm over that bullshit.  Besides, I realized that if I were to become this "hot looking thing" (whatever that means) due to working out/eating right, many men are just going to lust after my body and that will not make me happy.  Many women work out for the sole purpose of looking good for their man.  For me, it's not about looking good, but feeling good in the body, actually being connected to it, getting proper coordination back -- just being an awesome person with an awesome working machine of a body.