Centimetres

With my eight-week exercise challenge well and truly over, it’s time I made this health buzz less of a phase and more of a lifestyle. You’ll be pleased to know that I haven’t given up now that it’s over – in fact, I actually spend more time sweating it out on the cross trainer and pumping (albeit relatively light) iron in the weights room alongside the buff men who have muscles on top of their muscles (and, consequently, bigger boobs than I do), than I do doing anything else. It’s great. (The exercise, that is. Not the buff man boobs. Although, to be fair, they’re not bad either.)

A few weeks ago my personal trainer did all my measurements again to compare how far I’d come with what I’d started with before he beat the crap out of me over those eight weeks. I hadn’t really noticed much change in my body, although lots of friends and colleagues made regular comments on how great I looked. But I was quite apprehensive because this was the make or break moment. Had it been worth it? Or had I just wasted a whole lot of money and time and effort?

Hips: lost six centimetres.

Waist: lost four centimetres.

Front of the arm pinch test: lost two-and-a-half centimetres.

Under the bra-clasp on your back (which I maintain is a ridiculous place to do a measurement) pinch test: lost one-and-a-bit centimetres.

Weight: absolutely nothing but because I’m so buff it doesn’t really matter.

Success! But the best part of the whole thing was redoing my fitness test. Walk with me as we go back in time, when Vann timed my fitness test a few months ago (cue reminiscing Days of Our Lives-esque dream sequence):

 Vann: “I want you to do 15 standing jumps onto this here box, followed by 15 burpees with girl pushups in the middle, then 15 squats with your butt pointing out and your toes pointing out and at the lowest point your thighs being parallel to the floor, then 15 throw-this-heavy-ass-ball-with-all-your-might-onto-the-floor-and-catch-it-agains. Then 10 of each all over again. Then five of each all over again. As fast as is humanly possible. GO!”

Me: “Oh dear God.”

(Cue jolt back to reality.) Shudder. That time it took me 12 minutes and 40 hideously long seconds to do the entire combo. The burpees can take the blame for most of that because, seriously, I don’t care how good they are for you, burpees are only one step up from full-blown torture.

At the beginning of the fitness test I was feeling good. Strong, confident, possibly a little cocky .. Easy peasy lemon squeasy! Halfway through I was still feeling good, despite being yelled at because I kept stopping after every five or six burpees to take a breather. But, hey, at least it wasn’t after every single one of them – or, perhaps more realistically, halfway through every one of them – like it had been those few months earlier! Success Number Two! But towards the end I was feeling shattered. Easy peasy lemon squeasy my (admittedly much more toned) ass. I was working so hard that sweat was pouring off me and down me and all over me. Red is usually a good colour for me when it comes to clothes, but that ugly exhaustion-related red that your face gets when you feel like you might be taking your last breath ever is definitely not a good colour for me. But I continued to push and force and pretty much kill myself, and as I threw that heavy-ass-ball-with-all-my-might-onto-the-floor-and-caught-it-again for that final time, I knew I had annihilated that first timed test. 

Seven minutes and 27 seconds. More than five minutes better than my initial test. Success again! Good things always come in threes. After high fives all round, I collapsed onto the floor in sheer exhaustion, sweat pooling around me much like blood does after someone leaps to their death off a 35-storey building.

So now the gym has become a part of my daily life. I even sometimes go on the weekends! Craziness, I know. Along with the gym comes the inevitable sweaty redness and aching muscles, but the feeling of achievement and those friendly endorphins floating around your body afterwards (oh, and hanging out with the buff man boobs) always makes the bad things about it seem so small and insignificant.