The Lazy Lady: Come to Jesus Heart to Heart with Hubby

Now, this may come as a surprise to some folks, but...

I'm lazy.

I can be apathetic.

I have no willpower.

I lack self-discipline.

This is one of the reasons that I would sign up for at least one race a month; it gave me something to focus on... a carrot of sorts.

Back in March, when it was "15 days to flatten the curve" (don't get me started...), I used it as an excuse to just chill. No gym. No running. No laundry. No cleaning house. No grocery shopping. Just... chill. This idea was partially also driven by the fact that my weekly parkruns stopped on March 12th and Planet Fitness closed on March 20th.

And then we rolled into April and everything stayed closed. Spring races I'd signed up for were either cancelled or changed to virtual races, which I don't like to do. Between March 21st and May 30th, I went for a walk or run a big whopping seven times. And three of those were for the races that swapped over to virtual.

Screenshot from My Garmin account

So... I can't go to the gym... why can't I go for a run on the treadmill? I mean, I used to be on that treadmill religiously every Tuesday night after work. Why not now? Well, because I'm lazy!! I think I did the Shake Your Honeymaker virtual run on the treadmill, but it didn't get used for 4 months after that! I started using it again in August, when I signed up for a virtual half-marathon. Yes... I know I hate virtuals. I'll get back to this soon.

Soon, spring melted into summer and I just didn't want to go outside, even at 7am. I didn't want to deal with a community full of liberal snowflake assholes who would scream at me for not wearing a mask. I didn't want to get disgustingly sweaty and have to take a shower as soon as I got home. I just wanted to get up and sit at my desk and live vicariously through Facebook and Twitter.

Because of my inactivity, muscles that never hurt before gave me major problems (from which I've still not yet recovered, really). I've lost every gain I'd gotten over the past year or so. My little baby tushie I was cultivating is gone. My arms are so flabby, even Hubby noticed at dinner one night (he told me later that he thought to himself, "oh man, she's lost all of her gains...")

And suffice it to say, I'm the fattest I've ever been in my life, at 245 pounds.

After being jerked around with "work at home for one more week," "oh, just one more week," "two more weeks, please be patient" emails from work, we were truly ready to return to work in May. And then we got jerked around again and were basically told "yeah, just stay home until we say come back." That was a big blow to my psyche. I'm the kind of person who needs a deadline (or a carrot...) This stringing along is wreaking havoc on my day to day life, adding to the general malaise that I'm feeling, I think.

County offices reopened in June, and I worked a few hours a day in person, but after a few weeks, and when case numbers began to rise again, my boss said I should just stay home again. Yay, more indefinite-ness.

So at this point, I'm feeling useless. Why bother getting out of bed? Why take a shower? Why eat well? Why go for a walk? Why give a shit? (Looking back at it now, I was in a pretty bad place, honestly).

To try to kick myself in the ass, I signed up for a virtual half-marathon. Yes, I hate virtuals. Yes, I've said it a lot over the past 7 months. But I needed something to strive towards. So over two weeks at the beginning of August, I put in the work and walked one mile a day. I felt better. I had a task I could check off.

And then I earned my medal. And I stopped walking again. I didn't do anything again for 6 weeks, when I did a virtual for Arc.

Oh, and to make matters worse, I didn't know that Planet Fitness reopened. AFTER MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND!! They've been open for months and I had no idea... Although. Let's be honest... if it was open, was I actually gonna go at this point??

So that brings us to October.

One night, I don't know how or why, but my dam broke. I was lying in bed with Hubby and he said something, and I kind of just unloaded on him. I'm unhappy with the situation I'm in. I don't like this floating from day to day type crap. I don't like that I'm sitting so much and I hurt at the end of the day. I don't like that I've eaten more fast food in the past 6 months than I had in the past 2 years. He just lay there with me, stroking my shoulders, or stroking my hair, listening to me vent, and then he said the most glorious thing that any man could have said... he said "What can I do to help you?"

I told him that I needed his encouragement, but not a gung-ho PE teacher type attitude. I wanted him to be proud of me when I made good choices, but to not scold me when I made bad ones. If I felt I was being "forced" to go to the gym, I wouldn't do it. If I felt I was "getting in trouble" for eating a cookie, I'd eat 10 of them.

Between the two of us in this impromptu brainstorming session, I made some plans. I would do the following:

Hang my workout clothes in the bathroom where I will see them all day long, every time I go in there.
Always have my gym water bottle in the freezer (half-full) so I can grab it and go.
Go to the gym (or to the park) every day that I have to take him to work early in the morning (he generally works at 7am).

In turn he would do the following:

Applaud my attempt every day.
NOT chastise me for not going to the gym/park, nor chastise me for poor eating choices.
Grab my ass multiple times a day :)

One other thing I added to this plan was a small package of star stickers. Remember how awesome you felt in school when you got a gold star on your addition homework or your book report? Yeah. I'm that kind of person. Sure... I could put smiley faces or sad faces on my calendar, but come on... stars!

So as you can see, since having this Come to Jesus moment with myself at the beginning of October, I have been to the gym 7 times, and I've gone to the park 2 times. I'm absolutely ecstatic with that progress. If I can build on this progress moving forward, I think I'm in a good spot.

What does my typical day look like now? Well, I get up at 6:30 with hubby and get dressed while he's in the bathroom. I put on my gym clothes (so nicely laid out or hanging in the bathroom for me) then put on my sneaks after doing "morning bathroom stuff." I grab my (already frozen) water bottle from the freezer, my pre-filled the night before bottle of OJ and we head out the door. I drop him off at work and then drive to the gym. I do 10 minutes on the elliptical to warm up, then do a set of 10-12 different upper body weight machines to work the left side of my body, and then do 20 minutes on the ARC trainer while watching one episode of a sitcom on Netflix (right now, I'm watching Community.) Once I'm done, I pick up a soda at Wawa across the street, head home and take a shower. I'm usually at my desk at home by 9am at the latest, checking my email in my bathrobe. On Sundays, instead of the gym, I go do a 5k at the local park, mimicking a parkrun. Sundays are very peaceful at the park because there aren't many people there (it's much busier by the time I leave at 8:30).

And how do I feel? Physically, I feel amazing. Like I said, I'm focusing all of my workouts on upper body weight lifting, especially because the left side of my body (lats, pecs, biceps, triceps) are very tight and cause me pain on a daily basis. By the end of the day, I'm tired and worn out, which means that I'll sleep well, which is a huge bonus.

Mentally, I feel in a better place. I feel purposeful again. There's a reason to get out of bed, besides to fight with assholes on Social Media and watch YouTube (oh, okay... and to go to work...). At the end of the day, I know it's time to prep for the morning (fill the OJ, freeze the water, charge the earbuds, lay out the clothes), which gives me a task to check off (maybe I should get a gold star for that too).