What Would I Do For a Prize

I have alluded to the fact that I am a stubborn individual. To illustrate this principle, I will show you how I internally react to different invitations to act.

Invitation 1: "Dannette, take out the trash".

Internal Response 1: "Umm, that will be a no for me".

Invitation 2: "Dannette, you need to watch the _________ movie".

Internal Response 2: "I do not need to do anything".

Invitation 3: "Dannette, can you help with _________".

Internal Response 3: "I need to check my schedule and weigh the pros and cons. Unless there is a major need and then I will help, obviously, because I am not a monster".

Invitation 4: "Dannette, if you do _____, you might win a gift card".

Response 4: How many cats do I need to bathe, elephants do I need to eat, and alligators do I need to wrestle to earn this?! I need that gift card.

It is the mentality of the last response that has gotten me into a pickle recently. You see, EOS gym just started a new monthly challenge. If a gym member attends 20 group fitness classes in the month of August, they will be entered to win 1 of 15, $200 gift cards to a particular athletic wear company. I am not a fancy gym clothing wearer (hello high school t-shirts and cheap Amazon bike shorts), but who can say no to free gear??? To qualify for the drawing, I have to average 5 classes a week. Well, prior to August, I was going to the gym 2 to 3 times a week; I focused on running 3 to 3.5 miles (got to start prepping for a Thanksgiving 10K) and then proceeded to work on upper back, core, and gluteal muscle strengthening. So, mistake 1 is deciding that I could complete full-body workouts 5 days in a row without repercussions. Mistake 2 is even bigger, and it is that I started the challenge, bright and early on Monday morning (August 2nd), by participating in the BodyPump class. The music was fun, the instructor was engaging, and this body that I thought was so strong looked and felt like a bag of lumpy potatoes. I kid you not, I have not had my butt kicked in a workout like that in a long time (at least a decade). I was sweating profusely, walking around on wobbly legs, and taking breaks mid-exercise because my muscles were screaming. My natural body composition tricks people into thinking that I lift weights on the daily and lived a past life as a gymnast/firefighter, all of which are untrue and laughable. The class made it nearly impossible to put on mascara within a few hours (my arms were trembling) and stairs within a day (my poor, poor quad muscles). You can appreciate my horror at thinking about filling the next 4 days with any kind of exercise. Luckily, I was able to keep my body moving with Zumba on Tuesday, Upbeat Barre on Wednesday, Gentle Yoga on Thursday, and Zumba on Friday, all without signs of dehydration, cognitive impairment, or muscle break down.

Now that I have started this month-long journey, I am changing my expectations and perspective; it would be insanity not to. I have realized that I do not have to go all-out on weights in the classes because the number of repetitions will compensate for a decrease in overall resistance (silly me thought that the timed resistance training of previous weeks would measure up to the difficulty of high repetition exercises during the classes). I have decided that movement is movement, so whether I choose to swim, dance, lift, or step it out, my body systems will be happier and healthier because of it. And I have given myself permission to look incompetent, smile, laugh at myself, and try because I love what Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed. Brene Brown quotes him as saying,

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat".

This doing, arena-arriving, sweating and bleeding, enthusiastic, valiant, and stubborn soul is going to finish this challenge, obviously to try to win the gift card, but more importantly to prove that I can do the hard things that I set my mind to. This may be 1 of the handful of times where I can harness my stubbornness for good! Stay tuned to see if mistake number 3 is giving BodyPump on Monday morning a second chance!