"Lifestyle Change"

Lawrence and I started a workout program this past weekend. He likes to refer to it as a "lifestyle change", I, on the other hand, refer to it as hell. I'm pretty sure he'll share the specifics with you but it's 1-hour workouts, 6 days a week, for 9 weeks. Oh, and you have a "coach" (I call her the Nazi) with whom you have to share every morsel that you eat each day and every sip of water you take. Not kidding. Every sip. And I only mention water because that's pretty much the only liquid we can have. Goodbye tailgating, see you next year!

Saturday morning was our pre-fitness test which included timed sit-ups, timed push-ups, and a timed mile run. Oh, and if that isn't bad enough you also have to get your pictures taken in your underwear (!) or a swimsuit (double !!) - front, side and rear so they can see your flab in all its glory from every angle. I haven't run a timed mile since high school and for a very good reason. I suck at running. Now, not Lawrence. He kept his nice little pace the entire time, never once stopping to walk or take a break or slow down. He ran a mile in a little over 8 minutes without breaking a sweat and one of the coaches even asked him afterwards "Are you a runner? You looked pretty comfortable out there?" Now, me on the other hand they did not ask that. They didn't ask me anything after I got done (a handful of minutes after Lawrence), but I'm pretty sure they wanted to ask me "Have you had open heart surgery recently? Did you start chain-smoking when you were four? Do we need to call the EMT?" because it wasn't pretty. I was red-faced, sweating, wheezing, and I didn't make it to the half-way point before I had to stop and walk for a minute. WTF? When did I get so out of shape?!? My only redemption is that we did this little jog at noon in Iowa where the humidity was 100% and the temperature was 94 degrees. Lawrence must have been running in his own little world of cool.

This morning at 6:30am was our first "workout". I won't go into the details, mainly because just like with any other traumatic life event I don't want to relive the pain, but here are a few lessons learned/thoughts pondered today:

1. I've completely lost my core. I'm not sure when or where or how, but somehow I've completely lost it. I'm not sure what is holding my bottom half to my top half, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot of what looks like cottage cheese and not a lot of muscle. I cannot do a plank to save my life. My planks look like they have been left out in the elements too long. They are either sagging with my stomach almost rubbing the ground, or I'm confusing the plank with downward dog and my butt sticks up in the air. Must. work. on. core.

2. Speaking of cottage cheese. It is NOT the ideal protein snack to have before working out, particularly at 6am. I was in a rush, at a loss, and panicked. Never. again.

3. In addition to fitting in the workouts and the food journaling into my daily routine, I also now have to fit in about a dozen extra bathroom breaks because with drinking an additional 100 ounces of water a day comes a need to pee. A lot.

4. I must figure out a different way to wash my hair in the morning after workouts because I literally cried in pain this morning from having to life my arm above my shoulder in the shower. Luckily, I was well-hydrated (see point 3).

5. I'm desperately looking for an in-house masseuse that will work for table scraps. They're very healthy table scraps, if that helps. Any takers?

6. And finally, I'm one day closer to being done with this crazy business, although I still don't know how I got talked into it in the first place. Lawrence should get a raise. His sales and negotiating skills have gotten much better. Obviously.

STATUS: 1 workout down, 53 to go.