I Work Out

A couple of weeks ago I got on the scale and for the first time weighed ten pounds more than the top weight I'd imagined not too long before (which at the time I'd considered seven pounds above my ideal weight) and realized it was time to get real with exercise.  I spent a week or so considering creative options, but finally settled on my gym--because it's already in my comfort zone, and already coming out of my paycheck.  The only thing was that I had been letting myself work out with Paul--who limits his workout's rigorously to thirty minutes, and had only been going a couple of times a week, with a yoga class on the weekend.

So for the past two weeks, I've been coming home from work and heading to the gym--and taking a class.  My willpower is not so great, so I find it's best not to think much about it. I just have to pull on workout clothes and make to the class. Whatever the class is at 4:30, I take it, and let the instructor provide the willpower from there. (I bring earplugs in case the music is too loud, which has been a deal-breaker in the past.)  It takes less will for me to do things that are asked of me--even if they are physically painful--than it does for me to refuse.  I guess this is a kind of benefit to the flaw of having bad boundaries.

And, as a whole, the experience has been pretty good.  I'm exhausted afterwards.  One night I came home and went to bed at seven, and on other nights my mental capacity is greatly diminished.  But working out makes me profoundly grateful that despite my recent neglect of my body, it still allows me to work out.  It feels like the right thing to be doing.