I Workout...Sort of

I have some baby weight to lose. But it's OK right? Because I worked for 10 loooong months to bring a beautiful person into this world. Except that beautiful person is now 18 months old. Hmmm....At what point does it stop being "baby weight" and just become "weight". I can still get away with saying I had a baby last year. Because I did! No one needs to know it was in the beginning of last year, right?

I find myself thinking back to my 20's. Ah the 20's. When if you wanted to lose some weight, you skipped a meal and lost 5lbs. If you sneezed you lost another 5. If you thought about working out, boom! Off goes 10lbs. Those were the golden years.

So here I am now, in my 30's 2 kids later. I don't look the way I used to. Ok, I'm only about 5lbs over my pre pregnancy weight. But as far as consistency of that weight...no where near what it was pre pregnancy. After trying diets, sporadic work outs and really wishing really really hard that I would get back to my pre baby body I had to face facts. It's time to really work out.

So, here is my DIY gym work out:

1. Find a gym. I can't go to a gym where hundreds of perfectly tanned, lulu lemon wearing perfect bodied people are. I just can't. I feel bad about myself enough at the gym without having to workout next to real life barbie. After a bit of research I found a gym that decently fit what I was looking for. You can't avoid the perfect people everywhere. And honestly I guess they are good motivation to get my but in gear. But I found one that is not to far away, easy on the budget and offers the basic things I need.

2.Actually work out. I went to the gym and did a Zumba class three times in 1 week! Three times! Then I didn't go for a month. For some reason, I'm not seeing any results here.

3. Really actually go to the gym and work out. After my month long hiatus I realized while I enjoy Zumba, it's too hard to tie myself into 1 hour of the day. And the class is soo packed ( seriously, they have to be over capacity in there) that I'd have to get there 20 min early to get a spot. It was time. Time to woman up and actually work out. Like on gym equipment.

A little pre story here:
Back pre kids, when I was in school and worked part time I worked out quite a bit. Back when I had nothing but time on my hands. I was never in fantastic shape, but I was in the best shape of my life. That was in 2009. I haven't touched a gym machine since then. After I had my first baby, I did Pilates to get back into shape. And then I really got into Zumba. Then I got pregnant with Claire and considered rolling off my couch high intensity cardio.

4. Get ready to look stupid, but it will be worth it ( hopefully). So, I went to the gym to actually work out. Like on machines. The machines that I haven't used in 6 years. I walked in already feeling like I didn't belong there. Would everyone else be able to see I had no idea what I was doing? Probably. But the only way to know what I was doing was to actually try it.

I started on the stair master. I pressed a bunch of random buttons until things started moving. It asked me for my weight, which I found quite rude. We've only just met stair master. I don't give that info out freely. But, in attempt to get the best workout possible, I obliged. It popped up with a time of 8 min. Ok, I can do 8 min. Right? Easy. After 4 min, not so easy. Really not so easy. I honestly thought I was gong to be one of those people who goes flying off the equipment because they couldn't keep up. But, I was determined. I just about died, but I was determined.

Next, the weighted equipment. Hmm. It was all over the place. Some looked familiar, some not so much. I bopped around from machine to machine looking like a chicken with my head cut off. I was trying to figure out what each thing did. Some machines, I literally could not figure out. Honestly. Instead of asking someone ( like a normal person) I scurried away and onto the next machine. I went over to the mats and tried to do a 100 ( which is a pilates ab move if you don't know). My version ended up being a 60. The icing on my cake was when 2 elderly men came over to me to tell me I was using a machine wrong. They kindly showed me how to do it the right way. Wow! When father time is correcting your machine usage, it's a new kind of low.

In life, sometimes we look stupid. There is no way around it. And boy did I look stupid. Putting your self out there to be ridiculed is hard!  However, hopefully the next time I go to the gym ( which will be sooner rather than later) I won't look as stupid. And maybe at some point I'll actually feel like I know what i'm doing when I go there. But, thanks to those nice 2 old men I'll at least know I'm doing one machine correctly!