Losing it, Part IV

The fourth class in my “I Lost It at the Gym” experience was a mixed experience. The team I met was “Expect to Lose, Expect to Win,” led by Jeremy and the class was fantastic. The results when I weighed in were not so good.

I did the weigh in at the beginning of class, confident that I would again be down a pound or so. When I weighed in on my Wii Fit the night before my numbers were good, but different scales, different times of day equal different weights, I guess. The previous weight was 210.5 and this time it was 212. I was visibly disappointed, but Jeremy asked me what time the other classes I had taken were. The week before (when everything was bright and shiny and good) I weighed in at 10:30 a.m. This week, I weighed in at 6 p.m. Jeremy said that could account for some of the difference.

I put my game face on and decided to work extra hard and rededicate myself to the cause. It was a good thing I steeled myself for a hard workout, too, because this was the hardest class I had faced yet (and one of the earlier classes almost had me throwing up).

The theme for the night was super sets and much of the class was designated for strength training. It was lifting weights from all sorts of positions and using this stretchy band with handles in some tortuous ways. A super set consisted of two exercises done three times each followed by an all too brief break. As with all the classes so far, I started off fine, but exhaustion closed in quickly. For instance, I found that I had loaded up too much weight on one bar and after a set and a half soon found myself struggling to lift it off my chest. Also, the exercises involving the stretchy band were particularly painful, especially when I went sweat blind. What is sweat blind? It is when sweat rolls down from your head into your eyes, blinding you with a stinging pain. While I was sweat blind, I was pulling the band across my chest and back and then back out front again. Not cool.

Still, I loved the class. Jeremy was a good motivator. He was helpful and fun and had developed a good repartee with his team. Although my arms shook from the intense workout for an hour or so afterward, I was glad that I felt pushed to my limit. Jeremy even told us that strength training was about pushing yourself to failure. We were supposed to hit a wall. The next time we did these exercises, the wall would be a little further away. He also reminded the class that the classes were getting harder. We were basically at the halfway point and things would only get harder as we got closer to the end.

After the workout, the class divided into two teams and competed in a game of health trivia. The winning team would get smoothies on Jeremy’s tab. After a tie-breaker, the two teams were still deadlocked, so Jeremy opened his offer to both teams. I looked at the menu as I was walking out but didn’t think I’d be able to lift the cup to my lips and drive home at the same time.

In the days since, I felt my body recoup quicker than it had in the past. I also made better choices food-wise and tried to stay a little more active. I have higher hopes for this week’s weigh-in and am determined that it will be closer to my target.