Day 1 of My Journey- 3/15/2010

Well, day 1 started off great. I printed out my workout and walked into the gym ready to go. I felt a little intimidated knowing that some of the exercises would have to be done in the common area of the gym rather than in the "Women's Only Suite". The workout consisted of a variety of exercises including arms, legs, abs, jumping jacks, and cardio sprints.

Since when are jumping jacks so hard to do? Oh yeah, when you are 35 years old and overweight and out of shape! The ab machine is now my official nemesis. I sat on the machine and set the weight at 20 lbs. and tried to do my first ab crunch. I could not budge that machine with all of my might (who am I kidding- 20 lbs- yeah right!). Meanwhile, there are a few guys about 6 feet from me grunting and lifting weights. I dropped the weight to 10 lbs. as discreetly as possible since I knew I was getting some looks. Again, I could not manage to do even one crunch! I then pulled the pin out of the machine so there was no weight at all and managed to do 5 crunches. Keep in mind, I was supposed to do 3 sets of 10 reps. Needless to say, I have a long way to go.

Also, I had a funny experience doing the dumbbell presses with the exercise ball. Apparently, the exercise ball wasn't inflated enough because after I positioned the ball under my upper back, I realized that my head was only about 6 inches from the floor! Pretty sure this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

I was really looking forward to the stretches at the end of the workout since I could already feel the soreness setting in. They felt really good, but I could not do the standing quad stretch. You are supposed to reach behind yourself and grab your ankle with the opposite hand and pull your foot up towards your butt. I cannot even come close to reaching my ankle with the opposite hand!! Another area for improvement. Everything went pretty well and I finished the workout in about an hour.

I had the chance to speak to Adam for the first time on the phone a little later in the afternoon. It was then I discovered I had done the workout in the completely wrong sequence!! Oh well, at least I did it. I felt very accomplished. On to day 2...