I can't tell you what urged me to change, 'cause I'm not so sure myself. It's not like I woke up one morning thinking, "Well shoot, I should probably lay off ice cream a lil bit." I just started to make wiser choices, and got my lazy bones off the couch and put some miles on my treadmill. I have lost 45 lbs. so far, and yes, I am bragging.
My employer decided to offer free Gold’s Gym passes to employees, and I began to go to the gym with my mom. We were pretty clueless, but at least we were making an effort. Then I got a trainer. He even offered to work my mom out for free. I'm not sure if it was kindness or pity, because the two of us were puttering around the gym trying to figure out how the machines worked. I imagine we looked like a cavemen might, when trying to figure out modern conveniences.
Said trainer is a pretty cool guy; all smiles and jokes, and to cheer me up when I'm frustrated likes to sing, "I am a child of God, pop-pop-popping on the apricot tree." However bad he is at remembering primary songs, he still manages to be incredibly intimidating all the same. Super tall, super lean and with a thick Ghana accent, he gets me to push myself simply because I don't want to experience his bad side.
Most people can pick up on physical cues, e.g., She looks as though vomiting is imminent, therefore perhaps she is not capable of this level of exercise. Not this guy, if he said I have to do 30 pushups then I will be doing 30 come hell or high water. He will give me a number of reps to accomplish, and will count as I go. Nevertheless, if I start to slow down or, heaven forbid, stop mid-rep he will start to count backward. It's incredibly disparaging to be so burned out that you can't push anymore, and to hear him counting backward, tacking on more reps the longer you wait. Listening to 16, 17, 18, 17, 16, is very disheartening.
The first time he worked out me and my mom together I was hoping he would take it easy on my mom. Partly because I didn't want him to kill her, but mostly I didn't want him to scare her off. Instead, he put punching bags in a circle, weights in our hands and told us to punch the bags with everything we've got. Then, when he would say "left" or "right" then we would run around the punching bag circle in that direction. He then told us that he was going to chase us. I have never been more legitimately terrified, while knowing nothing bad would actually happen. But I did know that I did not want to be caught; I had no idea what being caught entailed.
When we were running to the right I knew I was ok because my mom was behind me, and he couldn't get me. But when we were running to the left I was begging my mom to go faster 'cause I was emphatically uninterested in finding out what might happen should he catch us. And as we sprinted (read: lightly jogged) I would hear taunting from behind, "I see your ponytail. I'm going to get your ponytail!" Most people would imagine their ponytail being tugged, but mine went immediately straight to scalping, and forevermore seeing my ponytail hung on the gym wall as a trophy.
I used to think the only way I was ever going to run was if I was chased by a cheetah. Now, I can say the only way I'm going to run is if I'm chased by a cheetah, or my personal trainer. I'm not sure which scares me more.
