V’s Journey

At my gym I am the poster girl for success.  If a new member joins and I happen to be in the vicinity, my story gets told.  I don’t mind.  I consider it an honor to be of some encouragement to anyone who is trying to change their lives.  So I smile at the new person, tell them they can do it too and then I get back to my workout.

Last week, an obese woman joined up.  I happened to walk through reception while she was finalizing her paperwork.  I greet the girls at reception and of course I become the topic of conversation.  I smile at the newcomer, hearing my story repeated to her as I make my way to the locker room.

Skip through to Saturday morning.  I’ve done my warmup, I’m setting up my weights.  And then I notice Newcomer on the circuit.  The circuit is designed to keep your heart rate up, through high repetition, low weights, alternating between a weight machine and cardio.  It is an excellent place to begin if you’re new to weight training.  (It’s where I started out.)

But you can make mistakes on the circuit too.  Typical of most enthusiastic newcomers, this woman was going too heavy for her ability.  And using far too much resistance on the cardio equipment.  Being a compassionate soul and having some experience at being the enthusiastic newcomer, I decided to help her.

Why? Because if you start out wrong, then you will get discouraged and you will not achieve your goals.  It is a common mistake when people start out.  They look at the people who’ve been training for years and then expect that they will be able to train at the same level.  Not so.  You need to graduate. 

I explain the science behind the circuit design to the Newcomer.  I explain to her in layman’s terms why she should use lower weights and make higher reps.  I explain to her that she needs to be aware of her heart rate.  She gives me a dirty look and tells me her heart is doing just fine!!  And then continues in her error.

In an instant I went from wanting to help the Newcomer to thinking, no more pearls for you then Ms Swine.  Be fat then.  Because you’re clueless and worse you have no humilty which means you are unteachable.

Please understand I am not arrogant when I approach people to help them.  I approach with warmth and kindness.  I know what it feels like to be the obese newcomer.  I know the vulnerability.  I know how exposed you feel.  But there is a big difference… I knew I needed to learn and I know today that there is still much to learn.

I watched Newcomer struggle around the circuit.  Then she moved onto the elliptical stepper.   When you’re obese, you need to focus on elevating your heart rate for a period of time and then being able to extend that time without having a heart attack.  Steady, heart rate cardio has it’s place.  You cannot begin with HIIT.  It will kill you.  She chose a HIIT program.  It took less than 5 minutes for her to give up.

I will not waste my time again by trying to help her.  There are many other women at my gym who receive regular encouragement from me and I’ve been very happy for them in their success.   

The more I learn, the more aware I am of how much I still have to learn.  Arrogance only makes the lessons harder and longer. 

I got to the office today.  Attended my weekly management meeting.  Walked out of the meeting and thought "I don’t want to be here."

So I filled in a leave form and booked myself into the best salon I could find for some self-loving. 

Behold!

French_pedi may I introduce to you french_mani & FP2

It is the quickest way to feel great about yourself.  Have someone fawn over your hands and feet.   It’s fantastic!  I have not treated myself in ages, it was time.   

When last did you treat yourself?  Most of us are very good at taking care of others.  And then we forget about ourselves. 

Yes, I am encouraging a little, teeny amount of selfishness.  Think of something you could do for yourself, that would recharge you, and then do it!

You are part of me, I am part of You.  I don’t believe we’re random or disconnected.  I believe in purpose.  I believe if you don’t know your purpose, then you are without hope or direction.  You will never know your purpose if you do not know your identity.   

Short sentences.  Long complicated discussions could be had about each.  (Maybe someday I will tackle those discussions.)

This week I want to remember the connections.  Remember family.  Remember friends.  Remember people with me.  Remember those that have departed.  Part of me.  Part of you.

Ultimately, remember the joy of connection.  That’s the theme for the week folks!  Have a good one!

I’ve written about learning from my mistakes before.  Clearly, I am a slow learner.  Here I am again, to regale you with further tales of my learnings. 

I am a pain adverse person.  In other words, if I can avoid it, I will.  Guided by this adversity I prefer to learn my lessons on a theoretical level.  Preferring to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than repeating these lessons for myself.  This is especially true when the lessons are about people and relationships. 

Unfortunately, not all learnings can be purely theoretical.  No, there are instances in my life that I have to feel the pain for it to be real. 

Pain, because the first practical, is nearly always messy.  Take last night at gym where I attempted to do my first pullup.  I did one.  It wasn’t pretty.  I understood the theory… place hands like so, pull up… doesn’t sound hard at all? It was difficult, there was no grace in the movement. 

The pullup is not the lesson I’m referring to that has caused me pain.  No, the lesson I am referring to is about people and relationships (probably the most difficult lesson of life to grasp).

 The pullup I will master.  People and relationships, I will be learning about for the rest of my life.  Hopefully, with fewer practicals.

This blog is written in the interest of improved relations between the genders.   I am here to help. 

 Men are hardwired (one sentence into this blog and we have our first pun…lol.. let’s continue) to look at women.  It is a fact.  Like Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation.  Although an unseen force, it is still a very real force.  (There’s like clever Math stuff and equations to prove it… like WoWee!)

First, let us address the female readers.  Female readers you should for your own sanities’ sake make peace with CoC (Checking Out Chicks).  I hate to be the bearer of such bad news but you will not be able to train this behavior out of your male partner, no matter how domesticated he might be.  

I assume that most of the female readers of this blog have made peace with CoC behaviours in men simply because they are wise, beautiful and strong women.   

Now, before all the nodding males think this is an entreaty to my own gender to allow bad behavior… think again… because here comes the secondly…

Secondly, let us NOW address the MALE readers. 

When you decide to engage in CoC, there is one simple RULE to be followed.  Follow this rule and you will find that life can have it’s simple pleasures:

The Rule:

NEVER, never, never, engage in CoC while you are in the company of your significant other.  Do not do it.  There are two possible consequences to this but both have only one conclusion. 

The woman you are with will either assume that they are less attractive than the Chick you are Checking Out which will make your girlfriend/partner/date miserable. Or your girlfriend/partner/wife will turn into the hellfire breathing dragon that your mother says your girlfriend/partner/wife is. 

When the woman in your life is miserable, you are miserable.  When the woman in your life is breathing hellfire, you get to be a char-grilled piece of man meat, in other words… miserable.  Two consequences, one conclusion.

If you are a smart man, you will be well practised in the Rule.  Take a moment now.  And applaud yourself. You clever devil you!   

Only CoC when invited.   

This is a little more complex as it involves interpreting the Chick signals. 

Interpretation.  A word that makes big-assed, grown up men shudder.   Brave men have attempted and failed often at this quest but have sometimes emerged with a minor grail of interpretation victory.

What would be considered an invitation?  If a Chick wears anything where any part of her body hangs out, that could fairly be judged as an invitation. 

Whoaaa! (Right now the feminists are gathering together a posse to come find me…)

Women have the choice to wear what they please.  I will concede that we are aware of the consequences of our choices (except for maybe when we’re going through puberty but this is where having a good mother will save us from our own choices). 

When we dress provocatively, it’s an invitation to check us out.  Not salaciously.  Never salaciously (unless we’re dressed like Divine Brown but then your salaciousness will cost you and that is an entirely different blog).

A few more hints:

Be very, very sure of your case before you CoC.  Are you in the same attractiveness bandwith? If not make sure your CoC’ing is inconspicuous.  If you are in a relationship, you’re CoC’ing may under no circumstances involve making eye contact with the Chick. If you are going to make eye contact during CoC ensure that your eyes are not HD reflections of your thoughts. 

CoC away boys… we know you can’t help yourselves.

This week there is definitely a theme song! I didn’t pick one last week and the week sucked.  I want a better week.  I started my cardio session today listening to concerto’s, some Black Eyed Peas, some Jennifer Hudson and then some Air Supply.  And ended my cardio with this classic… it is still a great song.  I dare you… try not to feel like a champion after listening to this!

Due to time travel, I am already enjoying Saturday morning.  I will ignore that I’ve been awake since 5am on the day I normally sleep in.  

There are no deeps thoughts to share at this time of the morning.  

Later this morning I have my leg workout and monthly assessment.  Can’t wait to deadlift my glutes until they’re on fire. 

I did not pick a theme song for this past week and frankly the week sucked.  Instead, here people I present to you a song that will be my theme for my workout this morning.  Push up the volume, engage your sub-woofer and listen to this.  LOUD.  Drop the beat NOW!

Official video (embedding disabled)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtGlHPFCH8A

 If following a link is too much, listen to this, ignore the stupid video

Tonight on the motorway I was in a nose to tail sandwich with me as the filling. 

I’ve been distracted lately and left the office with all sorts of things on my mind.  It was dark and rainy.  In bumper to bumper traffic I wasn’t paying attention.  Looked down for a second, looked up and realised the traffic had stopped a long way back.  I was still moving. 

Hit the breaks.  The only thing you’re doing at that point is minimizing the damage.  BAM!  Straight into the back of an Audi TT with personal plates.  BAM! My car gets rear-ended.  I’m the filling.

No-one was hurt, thank goodness.  But let me tell you the adrenalin still had my knees knocking.  I’m exchanging details with the other drivers and all I could think was "this is cutting into my training time!!"

 Get home, get into my gym gear and off to gym.  Frustrated and angry with myself (I should have been paying attention!).  It really winds me up when things interfere with my training. 

Thrash out my frustration with the weights and then push it on the elliptical.  I’m starting to feel better.

Until my trainer says to me that she wants to take me off the free weights and put me back on the super circuit for a while to give my body a rest. 

WHAT!?!?!

Trust me she says.  She knows what she’s doing.

WHAT!?!?!

I tell her no.  Quite the opposite we need to work heavier and harder.

She says she doesn’t want me to overtrain.  WHAT?!?!

I have been very sensible and gradual with my training.  There is no danger of overtraining here.  I can still push HARDER!

 I leave the gym more freaked out by this notion of going back to the super circuit than my car accident. 

Super circuit??!! For crying in bucket.  I’m sorry I don’t want to join the mommy/daughter tag teams, the beginners and the other super circuit users.  No thank you. 

No.  Not going to happen.

This is how you freak me out.  I think I’m going to have nightmares about super circuits tonight.

Oh yeah…

Very dirty indeed.  That’s not just an interesting opening line to get your attention.  What I did was d i r t y. 

Rushed home tonight to get my gym stuff.  Only to realise that I did not at that moment in time have a single pair of clean leggings. Uh-oh.

So what did I do?  You guessed it (Or maybe you didn’t, who would expect such dirtiness from such a pretty face?)

I pull out every single pair of dirty leggings from the laundry basket and gave each one a great BIG SNIFF.  

 Mmm… cheesy… mmm… a bit yoghurty… Mmmm… musky….  

And then I picked the pair that had the least offensive smell.  Threw them onto my body and rushed like a mad thing to get my training done. 

Yeah, it was dirty.  I am so dirty.

Right folks while most of you will still be enjoying your Sunday, I am already at Sunday evening looking ahead to the week.

 This week I really feel like dancing.  Crazy dancing.  Theme song for the week is encouraging of such outrageousness (I think I may have made up that word. lol.). 

While it thoroughly annoys me that embedding is disabled for the clip, I will encourage you to check out the link.  Put the volume up and get ready for some crazy dancing.  Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do this week.  Crazy dancing.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsltOJS4ejs&feature=related

Warning: Due to serious lack of sleep and having to wait for flights late night on a Friday which means I had way too much time to think and very little tolerance for mankind, the following blog is serious. Very serious.  It contains no humor. Whatsoever.  It is not a nice blog and it will probably not "lift your spirits".  Some of my horrible friends might still appreciate this.  Horrible friends I love you.  To the rest of you… You are warned. 

I am coming to grips with being fabulous.  I am reminded of my fabulousness everytime I catch my image in any reflective surface.  The trouble is, there aren’t always reflective surfaces around.

 Not unless you count the reflection from people. 

For a moment let me take you into The Matrix.  Remember Cypher watching the glowing green symbols move down the monitor.  He wasn’t seeing the symbols, he was actually seeing the three dimensional world the cyphers depicted.  The Wachowski brothers had to visually interpret the cyphers for the viewers because none of us got unplugged from The Matrix.  We were outsiders.

I will interpret for you some of the glowing green cyphers reflected towards me.  The cyphers aren’t always green.  Sometimes they’re red and lusty but that is indicative of different source.

In real life I almost always look like the cat that got the cream.  I have a permanent look of self-satisfaction.  I also smile very easily.

This illicits two very distinctive responses. 

From guys I normally get the red, lusty digits.  Very little interpretation required here.

From women, I get the green, glowing symbols.  Much interpretation required here.

Logically one would assume that the presentation of a friendly, warm countenance would ensure the return of warmth and good feeling.  Not so.

Often I encounter the following responses: Suspicion, judgement, cynicism and jealousy.

Silly me… I keep smiling.  There’s a part of me that believes that continuous warmth will melt the suspicion.  Will make the person reconsider their judgement.  Remedy their cynicism with hope.  For jealousy I have nothing.  But I keep smiling at the cynical deliverer of judgement.

I may have been guilty of such behavior in the past.  I never suspected that one day I would be at the receiving end of it.

The judgement stems from a notion that I receive favorable treatment because of the way I look.  Truth is, attractive people DO get favorable treatment.  I am beginning to experience that.

The suspicion is that I consider myself to be superior to the person who is assessing me.  Truth is, sometimes I am superior but that doesn’t mean I’m haughty or arrogant about it. 

The cynicism assumes that I am shallow and probably stupid (aren’t all blondes?).  The cynicism has no basis because character and intellect can only be determind by actually getting to know the person.  I am neither shallow nor stupid.  I also do not suffer from false-humility.

The jealousy tells me, they want to be me.

I don’t have the answers for the pains of of so many women.  Their issues, their pains are things for them to work through.  I work through my pain and my issues.  It is therefore, a fair expectation for others to do so.  We cannot expect from others what we will not submit too.  I am fully submitted to the process of being a better person inside and out.  Fully.

When you transmit your glowing green cyphers it confirms my fabulousness. 

Those cyphers are far more revealing of the transmitter though.  I know your story.  I see it in 3D.  I don’t get angry because you’ve decided to judge me.  No, I get sympathetic because I know your world and despite your cynicism I am not a shallow creature.   

Note: humankind, it will be better for all of us, if you stop giving me funny looks or sending me any signals of any sort especially at airports when my flights are delayed.  That way I don’t have to process and interpret them in blogs.  Just accept that I am fabulous and graciously accept my presence.  I will continue to smile upon you.