Working Out For Real

A couple of years ago I embarked on a health journey.

Specifically "health" and not "fitness." I'm trying to be healthier overall and to avoid getting caught up in macros and weight and things like that - which I know that I'm prone to do.

I'd been more focused on my food intake than my time spent in the gym. After all, everything that I'd read or watched said that your diet is what will make the most difference in weight loss.

My weight has continued to fluctuate due to things like stress, but that I was prepared for. While weight loss is one of my goals, my primary mission was to create sustainable habits that would set me up for success in the long term without making me absolutely miserable.

The first step was meal prepping. I'd been doing it off and on for years, but I finally went back to it and really made it a habit. Sundays are meal prep days (unless I have a rare outing, and then I do it on Saturdays). One recipe for each of the three meals, portioned, packed, and ready to go. I don't mind eating the same thing several days in a row, so it worked out fine for me. I used to make two dinner meals to switch things up, but I got lazy and cut that out.

Meal prepping had the added benefit of giving me more time in the evening after work to focus on writing or self-improvement projects. And of course, working out.

I had a pretty steady evening routine. Make my Tiktok, change clothes, work out. Some days I'd go and take a four-mile walk on a path near my house. Other days I'd do twenty minutes on the indoor bike, then come upstairs and do muscle groups with my weights. The whole process would take maybe two hours, and then I'd shower, eat dinner, clean the kitchen, and pack lunch before retreating to my computer (or the Switch, depending on what kind of day I'd had).

Everyone in my life knew about my routine. My Dad would even urge me off of the phone when he knew I was stalling so that I didn't work out that day.

I thought that I was really pushing myself and making gains, though my weight didn't seem to go anywhere. I reminded myself that I was building muscle - the heavier weights that I was lifting proved that - and that muscle weighed more than fat. Even some of my shirts felt tighter in the shoulders, which was also encouraging.

Dear reader, I was not doing all that I could have been doing.

Moving in with my boyfriend and his son brought adjustments to the routine. I live farther from work now, so I don't always get home at around the same time. There isn't a gym in this apartment, so we have to leave to go to the gym. Even meal-prepping is different since there are three of us instead of one and we have to navigate likes and dislikes and when we're cooking and who is cooking.

We went to the gym a few scattered times, and I walked around my new neighborhood. Though my routine hadn't quite adjusted yet, I knew that things would get easier once everything was settled.

Easier isn't quite the word I'd use...but in a good way.

While at work one day, I asked if we could go to the gym that afternoon. My boyfriend found a routine, and we went at it with a will. I'll be honest and tell you there was much protesting on my part. I don't like this exercise. I can't do this one. Can't the weight go down?

My pleas fell on deaf ears, and I somehow made it through. After a week of being at the gym almost daily, there wasn't a body part not sore. I thought I'd really been pushing myself, but that soreness was nothing compared to what I was going through. Maybe it was the encouragement from my boyfriend. Maybe it was the new machines at the gym that I'd never used before. Maybe it was the fact that I realized that he wasn't going to let me take it easy on myself, so I started pushing even harder. But I began working out - really working out.

We're still navigating meal prep - more than one post-workout meal was fast food (but there was protein!) - but we're working and tweaking to get it right. I'm also still working on not scowling at him when we're moving to an exercise that I don't like or he adds weights when I don't want him to. Working.

I know that there is still a ways to go to get my weight to start moving, but the sense of accomplishment that I've been feeling that accompanies my soreness is...new. And I like it.

I guess that's what happens when you start working out for real.