There are few questions I get asked on a regular basis. One of them is, “Do you workout/exercise?”
The answer to that is yes.
There is no rule that you have to workout and I know many people don’t love it. I didn’t love it my entire life. It always felt like a chore. It really is something to do mostly for enjoyment because when it comes to weight loss it really isn’t that much of a factor.
Growing up I was not an active person. As a kid I rode my bike and ran around the neighborhood, but when I got to high school it was a whole different story.
I was the girl who was always looking for a way out of P.E. class. I especially despised having to run the track and I was almost always the last one in – the one everybody was waiting for to finish.
I was queen of getting a doctor’s note to opt out of P.E. Sometimes asthma got me out of it. Times when the P.E. teacher was female I would claim cramps. (Which I am sure they caught on to because you know, you can’t have cramps all month long, year round.) I would say I had a headache, a toothache and there were times I actually went home sick to avoid P.E. Anytime I needed a dentist appointment I would have my mom schedule it so I had to be picked up from school before P.E. Oh and then there was, “I can’t run today, I forgot my inhaler.”
Exercise was something I saw as punishment. I associated it with something I needed to do to lose weight.
I did not see it as enjoyable. Ever.
Over the years while I battled obesity I would always say things like, “I need to start exercising.” or “Ugh, I have got to find a way to exercise.” or “I just don’t have the time.” Funny, I had time for tv and reading and chit chatting on the phone with friends, and I definitely had time for eating, but “no time” to workout.
Exercise was daunting. It was exhausting and I never had that “Oh I am so glad I worked out – I feel so much better.” experience. No, I felt like I had been hit by a truck, I was exhausted and all I wanted when it was over was food.
I wish I could say that as soon as I went Keto all that changed, but it didn’t happen quite that way. I started Keto and my plan was to WAIT for exercise and I did.
I didn’t start working out until I had lost about 50 pounds which was about 5 months in. I started slow. A couple of times a week I did some body weight exercises and floor exercises (think old Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons videos…hey, I am an 80’s girl). I would do leg lifts, high knee raises, I would twist back and forth (whittling that waist don’t you know!) and I would jog in place. All this took about 10 minutes.
I would gradually increase my time and I worked up to 4 or 5 days a week and eventually starting running up and down my stairs and jogging in a circle around my living room and got my workout time up to 20-30 minutes.
I had Keto energy I needed to burn. I did the occasional power walk too, but back then walking fast would hurt my back so I used that as an excuse not to do it.
I ultimately ended up joining a gym 7 months after starting keto and I haven’t looked back.
I started at the treadmill because, hey isn’t that why everyone joins a gym? To mindlessly walk fast on a machine that could kill you? Okay, that may be extreme, but have you ever fallen off one? I haven’t….uh…lately.
Anyway, after tiring of the treadmill I graduated to the elliptical and wow that was fun. (not really)
I would do the torture (read cardio) for 2o minutes and then I would work my way around the machines with weight plates.
All of them.
Everyday.
All of them.
I had no concept of “leg day” or any other “work only this group of muscles today” concept.
I was dedicated though. So much so that sometimes I went twice a day.
Eventually, I realized that there were more efficient ways to workout. I really wanted to do “real weight lifting” versus what I was doing with the machines. Don’t get me wrong the machines are good, but in my research I learned they did a lot of the work for me.
I stared in to the free weight room for a couple of months. I was intimidated (read terrified) by the weight room. Mainly because there were big buffed and often good looking guys in there who scared me. I mean, seriously, I would probably get in their way and they would think, “Who is this fat chick in my squat rack and who is she kidding?”
Somehow I talked myself in to going in there. The first time I did there was no one in there so I made a beeline and picked up some dumbells. Then someone came in and I fled. But those few minutes I was alone, I was hooked.
I had to have a come to Jesus talk with myself. I had been online, I read the benefits and I saw pictures of women with results that I wanted. So I decided to walk in the weight room like a boss and pretend I belonged there.
And I do.
