Friday, December 23, 2011

Strength in Pain


I am approaching my one year anniversary of starting to workout at Tyler English Fitness.  Honestly I did not know what to expect to get out of it.  I thought I would loose some weight and get a little healthier.  What I actually got was something so much more.

I remember the orientation class I went to on a Sunday in early January 2011.  There must have been at least 80 people there (there had been a groupon for the bootcamp on January 1) and I was tucked off in the corner listening to Tyler and some of his trainers talk about the class and then they had us do some excercises and that was the exact moment I realized just how badly I was out of shape.  I was winded by the end of the short set and that's when they told us that was just the typical warm up!


That first week was hell.  The morning after my first official class I thought I couldn't walk.  I was sore from head to toe.  I kept going back and the soreness didn't stop. Eventually it got better and I could feel my body changing.  In those first few weeks I dropped 16 lbs without blinking.  It was a great feeling.

In the months since then, I have come to appreciate and even enjoy the soreness that I get from a good workout.  My weight dropped but then fluctuated for awhile.  I took part in a 49-day challenge and ended up finishing in the top 30.  One very important lesson I learned from that was that Tyler wasn't lying when he said "you can't out train a bad diet" and that "nutrition is at least 80% of this".

So as I said before, I didn't know what to expect out of this but what i ended up getting is a whole new outlook on life.  I know that may sound corny but it really is true.  Getting better just builds confidence and makes you want to push harder to see what else is possible. 

There are 135 days until the Tough Mudder in Vermont and while I am taking a few weeks off from boot camp but have started running on the treadmill (running is not my strong point) so I am ready for a whole new type of soreness.  So as New Year's approaches I expect to be sore as hell again but loving it.

Merry Christmas to all and remember to go easy on the cookies. 

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