D-Day The Gym Gets a Princess (Assessment Aftermath)

D-Day 7 January 2015

The Dreaded Assessment: Let's Get Physical

Assessment Lessons Learned: The Hard Way

As I lay motionless on the floor in a puddle of unicorn tears, in a state of oxygen deprivation, the beginning flashes of soreness, and quite possibly the beginning stages of death, 'A' talked with me while she cleaned up the group exercise area. At fairly regular intervals, she would ask me how I was doing with a 'no one is going to die on my watch' look on her face. As she continued cleaning and conversing with me, 'A' said something that I wasn't expecting to hear; even more unexpected (as you will read momentarily) than what 'A' said was my uncharacteristic response to what she said:

"I feel so bad right now...I hope this hasn't turned you off to coming to the gym."

Those who know me well know precisely how I usually react to a situation such as this--it usually involves me saying a simple, two word phrase: 'F**k this!'. If I reacted with my normal 'F**k this!' attitude to my epic fail on the fitness assessment, I would avoid the Functional Training regimen, focus on more traditional workouts, and then ever so slowly vanish from the gym. However, my life-event reaction chip, loaded with it's 'F**k this!' algorithm, was apparently severely damaged during the course of my 'exercise', as can be discerned from my response to 'A's statement (I am paraphrasing because my brain was still in shock as it attempted to process what I had just put myself through, willingly, and it was sputtered out between deep gasping breaths):

"There's no reason for you to feel bad at all because this showed me exactly why I should be here in the gym. If anything, me failing this bad has inspired me to not give up, which is my usual response." 

From the look on 'A's face, that wasn't the reaction that she was expecting to get, and in fact, I think she may have been prepared to give me a pep talk so that I wouldn't give up. Instead, 'A' simply stated that I had an awesome attitude about the whole thing and that she wished others had the same outlook. After being on the floor for about 15-20 minutes, or perhaps hours (my ability to judge the passage of time was also broken), I was finally able to get up and stagger myself over to the other side of the gym to her desk so that we could talk further about the experience I had.

Look everyone, there goes my dignity.

In the course of our conversation, it became clear that I had made a rather bad, but innocent decision that helped lead to my epic fitness failure. 'A' asked me what I had eaten prior to coming to the gym, to which I told her nothing. 'A' looked rather shocked and from there, asked me how many times I normally eat in a day, to which I replied 3, when I remember to do so--on D-Day, I only had eaten twice--breakfast and lunch--nothing else. Unbeknownst to me, a gym neophyte, one should eat a snack of some sort 20-30 minutes prior to working out in order to ensure that one had enough energy to work out. In my mind, I thought I was doing the gym a service by not eating something so that the workout didn't make me throw up. Unfortunately, instead of being known as the guy who threw up because of moderate exercise, I'm the guy that nearly passed out from moderate exercise because I was a moron. The only saving grace to this unfortunate reaction to physical activity is that I at least looked good going down like I was the Titanic (and by the way my heart was beating, my heart was going onnnnnnnnnn aaaaaannnnnd onnnnnnnnnn -- sorry for the Celine Dion reference to one of the most overplayed songs in the history of music).

I wouldn't mind a solid flat stomach, no need for a
six-pack, just like my French husband Matthieu Charneau

'A' and I spent a good hour discussing my epic failure and what my overall goal was. I was candid with 'A' that my goal isn't: I want to be covered in thick layers of muscle which ripple every time I walk and sport a 12 pack which could double as a washboard to help keep my clothing spotless during a zombie apocalypse, as required by gay by-laws (an apocalypse is no excuse for looking bad). My goal is just simply to lose some excess weight and tone up, slowly, over time (six months to a full year to get where I want to be in order to not burn out based on unrealistic expectations)--anything beyond those goals are extras that I would certainly not turn down, but aren't necessary for me to feel like a success. Honestly, I want to be able to still fit in all my current clothing with just a little more definition. 'A' said that my goals for myself were absolutely doable and within reason and that my approach was excellent. 'A' again apologized for nearly breaking me, but I told her in non-breathless speech that all the epic fail did is show me how much I really needed to be in the gym. At that point, 'A' told me that she loved my attitude, especially since I was using my epic failure as motivation to stick with the program rather than give up before I was in it long enough to see results. Based on this conversation, 'A' asked me if I would be willing to give a testimonial once I had achieved my fitness goals, as it could potentially persuade people similar to me to not be intimidated by the gym and fitness in general. I told her that I would be more than happy to do so, because if someone as sedentary and uncoordinated as me could find 3 hours a week to dedicate to this, and succeed, anyone could.

Love her! She and Doctor McCoy, my spirit guides.

As I was writing this post, I ran across the following quote from Ellen DeGeneres, and I thought it appropriate to my situation:

“It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.”

Believe me, I will certainly relish performing better in my first Functional Training class than I did in this initial assessment. It won't matter if I can't complete all the circuits, that's really not the point. The point is always doing a little better than the last time. With the bar set as low as I have set it with my performance (I would actually have to dig a hole in the floor to accurately place the bar to represent my performance), doing better, even on a small level, will feel like a major victory. Though very odd for me to say, I look forward to seeing the transformation that I will undergo over time, and this blog will serve as a rather hilarious reminder of where I started when looking back from where I want to be.