Redemption

So after yesterday's whiny blah blah blah... I always mess up this time of year... blah blah blah post, I fessed up to He-who-trains.  (Not that I needed to, because dude is kinda like Santa Claus-- knows when you've been bad or good.)  But he  knows me, and my life as a pastor, so he's backed off on me this week-- knowing that I was struggling.  And while I appreciate his giving me a little breathing room and not being the training nazi this week, I also want more for myself.

I let him convince me to meet him at his gym, after he'd done a fine job convincing me that I was ready for it.  Up until now, he's trained DH and me at home-- in the privacy and comfort of our own little den. (Um, which is blessedly without mirrors.)  But he was right, I was ready.  Things were definitely amped up a notch or two. He swears that my next post will read, "He-who-trains took me to the gym...and DANG!"  But he's wrong.  Because I wasn't whipped.  Because after a minute of feeling crappy in the middle, I was ready to work. He had us doing cardio after burning us out on the weights, but I could've gone a lot longer and harder than I did.  He also swears that I'm not going to be able to lift my arms to do the benediction today, but I aim to prove him wrong on that too. (Now what he doesn't know is that my calves may be too toasted to wear heels.  Moses preached barefoot, right?)

So I didn't hate going to the gym with him as badly as I thought I would.  I hated the mirrors, which he kept insisting I use.  I hated some of the looks I got.  But I liked the new things.  Even though I was freaked out by what he kept calling the "next phase of training", I liked the amped up feeling.  I liked that he didn't stop me when he might've liked to, because he looked in my face and knew that I wasn't lying when I said "I'm fine."

It was a redemption of sorts-- at least a redemption of a week of bad behavior.  It was a chance to see that my body is getting stronger, to be reminded that what I eat matters, and to look to a future when the strange looks turn to looks of awe.  Yeah.

And in other news, it was weigh-day.  After a month of not looking at a scale, the news was decent.  8lbs down. I haven't had a chance to ask He-who-trains about it, but I'm guessing most of that loss was fat.  (And I'm also guessing that there was a gain of some muscle mass too, but since He-who-trains hasn't yet subjected me to fat-pinchy things, then we'll just have to guess about that.  And really, I'm ok with that!) For that loss to happen during the worst time of the year for me...well, that's a win. Imagine what I can do when I can give this a lot more time and enery.