First Visit to the Fitness Center

Pounds lost since January 1st - 0
Days until my 50th birthday - 138

Prof. Wonderful decided that the way to kick off the new year was a trip to 24-Hour Fitness. That meant I had to hurry up and get out of my pajamas and brush away the cake crumbs before he got to my house.

I thought fitness centers would still be quiet as people took advantage of the long holiday weekend to stuff themselves with leftover Christmas cookies and finish the last of the eggnog. Not these folks! Most of them looked like they had no problem passing the cookie platter. In fact, a lot of them looked like they didn't eat very often at all.

Prof. Wonderful and I got on adjacent treadmills and after my 5-minute warm-up, I hit 3.5, my usual speed for a workout. Problem was, I only lasted about 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes. What have they done to the machines since I've last visited? The speeds had to be off; I felt like I was running uphill. I nonchalantly brought the speed down to 3.0. Luckily, Prof. Wonderful keeps so busy checking out his own heart rate every 30 seconds that he didn't notice at first. When he did notice that I seemed to be going sort of slow, I cursed the blasted machines saying this was as fast as the machine could go and it needed to be fixed.

When I wasn't trying to stay on the treadmill, I was thinking of how delicious a frosty cold Dr. Pepper would taste when I got home. Drat that high fructose corn syrup that was contributing to my belly fat. Even found it in my so-called healthy cereal this morning. Seems it will take some time to weed this culprit from my pantry.

STRATEGY #6 - Find a workout partner. Find lots of workout partners and do different, fun activities with each. I've had workout partners who like to power walk the mall (this can get expensive if the stores are open) and others who like to push a stroller through the park. It's all good.

AFFIRMATION #6 - "Every person in my life supports my healthy lifestyle."