Week 26

For the first time since I've been going to the Baptist Fitness Center, I felt under-dressed. One of the reasons I love going there is it's not full of "pretty people." You know the kind. They are the ones who don't need to be working out but just love wearing the $80 chic workout gear. No, the people at BFC are regular everyday people wearing their worn t-shirts and shorts/sweat pants who are in there sweating and jiggling and moaning. I feel right at home!

Not this week. Monday, the first day back after Thanksgiving, the place was crowded. I added to the extra crowd because I had two cancellations, so I stayed two hours. Plus, part of me wanted to say, "If you really want to work off those holiday pounds you should have started this summer when I did!" But, I refrained. I was looking around the room when there she was, a super senior on a rowing machine wearing a black pant-suit and pearls! Yep, you read it right, PEARLS. I don't even wear my wedding band when I work out, much less pearls! I smiled, not to myself but right out there on the front of my face so everyone could see and wonder what I was up to, smiled because this woman reminded me so much of my own mother! My mom, who changes clothes and puts on make-up to go to Wal-Mart, would dress up to work out, maybe not that much but she wouldn't be caught dead wearing what I wear. Come to think of it, she wouldn't be caught dead being with me wearing what I wear either. Anyway, I smiled and said a prayer thanking God for that woman's health and success in working out, for a healthy self-esteem that allows me to go out in public the way I do, and for my Mom, who wonders just where she went wrong.

I've had a good work-out week. After tomorrow, I will have had my first 5-day workout week. I will be in Little Rock on Friday and actually was scheduling a time to work-out before I realized I was doing it. Now that's the habit I've been waiting for! I feel so much better about myself when I work out, especially when I make it through one of the killer circuits Jeremy has me do. And that elliptical trainer! OH MY STARS! That machine will kick my tail! Problem is it will kick my tail through my thighs! For the first 5 months of going to the Center, I watched with envy people on that machine, thinking I could never do what they do. Now, I see "newbies" watching me that way, and I feel like I've accomplished something. I lift weights and women ask me how long it took to build up to where I am. I feel more confidence.

So, what is my beef? I DON'T LOOK ANY SMALLER! It's like my eyebrows when I was a kid. I'm a true red-head (figure it out), and I have blonde eye lashes and eyebrows. Kids would say, "You don't have any eyebrows," to which I would respond, "I do, too, feel!" Now, I want to tell people, "I do too work out...FEEL!" But then I feel like such the narcissist. Oh, well, if the personality fits...

(looks around, flexes...Feel that!)