The time change this week has annihilated my workouts. I can barely move at my normal 4:45 AM wake up time even though I’ve been good about going to bed early. I’ve hit the snooze or slept through the alarm all but one day this week and it happened yet again today. I’d buried my phone under my pillow so I couldn’t hear the gentle “Dawning of the Day” alarm in 90 minutes and headed back to Slumbertown.
Ping
Ping
PING
My brother was about to go in for surgery and was messaging before going under the knife. The kid texts “leg day?” as I lay snuggled with my cat in a pillow fort and a wave of guilt washes over me. Not because of him but because I had been holding in my pee to avoid making a decision about going to the gym, but now it was here, clear as day, I needed to make a choice. Get up or sleep. Then I thought, that’s bullshit you feel guilty, it’s ok to have a rest day … but you have had more of a rest week if you’re being honest with yourself. Plus you ate that sleeve of cookies last night. Granted, they were Biscoff cookies and not chocolate chip but still. Then I remembered something I’d read on “The Gram” (I know, I am too old to use this slang) the other day and got my ass up and put my clothes on in the dark as my cat stared at me as if to say “You fool of a human, why would you leave this feathery down paradise”.
SAVED, LIKED, FLAGGED.
Instagram: best app ever imo (convince me otherwise, I dare you). I follow a lot of “influencers” who are all about health and spirituality and just getting off your ass. Inspo galore! Plus babies and puppies and catzzz…HOW IS IT NOT YOUR FAVORITE FUCKING APP?
Back to the gym, I am not one of those people who “hates” the gym or working out by any means, but I am lazy when I don’t want to do something. I was not an “athlete” in school even though I did sports, primarily because I didn’t try that hard a lot of the time. I knew it didn’t look “attractive” to be the 200lb girl grunting like a lunatic no matter how much weight you could leg press. This was pre- Serena Williams and fierce wasn’t a word used for girls who competed in that way, especially the big ones. Butch. Manly. Scary. Lesbo. Those were the words used. Fierce was reserved for gay men…oh the early 00’s.
Since coming to understand my body and what it responds to I’m really good about the gym and frequently have to force myself to take rest days. I do a lot of lifting, but have done bootcamps, X-fit and some pretty crazy workouts in the past- I’m a bit of gym rat and have been for at least a decade. In my late 20s I went to the local Y with my brother, who still knew quite a few people in town at the time and was frequently interrupted mid- workout. I went off on my own and got after it. At the end of my workout I went up to my brother who was talking to this girl he’d had a crush on throughout high school whom I’d never met. Brief introductions were made and she went off to an elliptical, which is the only machine many women feel comfortable using besides the treadmill. Many women still fear how others perceive them at the gym (surprise, surprise) and those of us who use the weight room are a rare breed, though this is beginning to change (thanks to Instagram!). As we left my brother said, “You know, when you were doing those sprints Britney was like ‘Who is that girl, she is so INTENSE it’s scary.”
“Oh, that’s my sister- she’s just in Beast Mode.”
At the time I was a bit offended by the word Intense, which is lobbed at me often about a plethora of things, but why did this Becky find people exerting themselves intensely AT THE GYM, scary? But then I thought, fuck it- a beast is intense and a beast is scary and I was in beast mode. I love Beast Mode, and I do like being called a beast because it appeals to this purely animal side of being human that is only easy to tap in to at the gym, it’s the only place it is really allowed.
It is true that the hardest lift of my day is often the one to get out of bed. My depression can be brutal and sometimes I just want to sleep for days on end and not face life. Those days are worse (and better) than others but sometimes all you need is that Ping or that Post or whatever it may be, to stir that inner Beast and get back up again.
too fat to be italian 