Pumping Iron
or; I Finally Made Good On My Resolution to Exercise for Once!
By December of 2019, I was absolutely through with all 365 of these crappy days.
I had become some kind of shut-in, I was bitter about where I was at in life, a depressing pall was cast over that year’s Christmas festivities, and I felt fatter than ever.
I mean, technically, I was…but there’s also a mental component of that, just mentally…feeling fatter. I was kicking myself further for something I always had trouble losing — weight — and the defeatist attitude I had was just as weighty as the pounds on my person. In New Year’s previous, I made the same kind of pledge most of America makes every drop of the ball and every auld lang syne in sung: “I’m going to lose weight this year!”
And, like most of America, the allure wore off after the first couple weeks, and my fat self got tired of it and went crawling back into the comforting arms of sweets.
But this time, I was determined to make it different.
The 2020s were about to begin; the Roaring Twenty-Twenties! I got totally wrapped up in the enthusiasm for starting the new decade off with some serious life changes. Chief among them? I think you know by this point. I swore up and down that this year would be the year; for sure, for realsies.
To make sure my lazy carcass couldn’t back out now, on January 1, 2020, I joined a local Crunch Fitness gym about five or so minutes’ drive from my house, signing up for its basic membership rate. It was quite a trip receiving the key badge and slipping it onto my keychain; like being handed the keys to a shiny new Lambo.
Aight, we’re here! Les’ go! Let’s get at it!
I wasted no time in kicking off the routine:
January 2: boom! I’m in there on cardio, but I pushed myself a bit too much trying to be Superman and ended up with Jell-O legs the next morning.
January 3: tackled the upper body at the shoulder press and the triceps extension machine, just to give my legs a day off. I got all serious about calculating how many sets I thought I could do without bruising a muscle or tearing a rotator cuff or something.
January 4: began working out a more structured routine: first warm-up cardio on the treadmill, then leg presses, then leg curls, then cool-down cardio. Starting and ending with the treadmill became more and more of a good idea to me.
And so on and so forth, the routine went for the rest of January and into February. Of course, being in college at the time and working a schizophrenic schedule at my lousy customer service job, I had to make my workout time in the evenings, around 7:30. Whatever it was, it strangely worked at that time of night; if anything, it seemed more people went there, most likely after finishing the 9 to 5 grind at the office and needing to exercise those tired limbs.
Like a kid in a candy store, I was eager to try every machine and try every routine I could to burn the fat and tone the muscle. One day it would be upper body, another day it would be legs, one day push-ups and sit-ups, the next day hitting the weights and dumbbells. The weights were one of the best parts of it all: stacking the weights, setting myself on the bench, removing the bar from its hooks and beginning the slow but sure up-and-down, up-and-down, while the music from the exercising playlist I specially curated blasted through my eardrums.
Everyone has “that song” when they’re going at it, and there was only one that matched the vibe of the weights, every time: a little ditty by a fella named Pigeon John:
“I got a good good, a good feelin’, yeah…”
Even though each day was an incremental improvement, and though my impatient side wanted to ‘roid out (not for real) and go full bodybuilder by pushing it to the limit, I held myself back and abided by the idea of slow, but compounding gains.
To my great delight, I was beginning to see the hard work pay off: my portly stomach began to shrink. I felt stronger in my arms and legs. I had so much energy to face the day and felt less and less like a fat slug that wanted to lie in bed. I coupled my workout by introducing salads and other healthy foods to my daily feeding routine.
For the first time since — shoot, ever — I was on my way to being the thin self I always wanted to be, and actually seeing tangible results along the way. The future took on this whole brighter dimension; like when people say “anything’s possible” and actually mean it rather than use it as some empty buzz-phrase. Most of all, I was finally proud of myself that I was sticking to something I said I would do and making it happen; a bold turnaround from the person I was only a month ago.
Things were finally starting to look up! If a month or two was bringing in good progress, what would half a year bring?
It sure wasn’t gains, I’ll tell you that much right now.
February became March, and just as soon as I felt at the height of my achievement, a viral pandemic shut down the entire conceivable world as I knew it. Gyms were the first ones to be mandated closed by government officials, and Crunch Fitness shut the doors and turned off the lights.
Like most of us during the initial round of lockdowns, we tried to be optimistic and believe that things would blow over, establishments would soon open up, and we’d resume our lives as normal.
There wasn’t nearly enough New Year’s enthusiasm in the coffers to warrant that as true.
When I received news that my Crunch Fitness branch was closing down permanently due to tenant rent issues, I was so incredibly saddened. Not only would the gyms not be opened for a long time comin’, but the next nearest Crunch Fitness towards me was about a half an hour’s drive away. Truth be told, a lot of the appeal of the place was in its convenient distance from my house. Now that that was gone, well…I just ended up closing my membership account soon after.
It’s been two years since I first signed up and took the plunge, and I haven’t joined another gym since, even with the regulations relaxed. I’ve certainly been thinking about it again, since it was such a positive experience. Right now, most of my exercises consist of walking and tracking my steps, outside of again re-correcting my eating habits. Now that I’ve been saving my money and taking care of other expenses, I’ve been looking into how much I could set aside each month for another membership at a different gym brand.
Even though I’ve been forced to tunnel around a large obstacle and re-orient myself, I’m not worried about it for one bit. Even after so many starts and stops, I’ve discovered that you can’t break a will that does not want to be broken. Besides, what does that song say?
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
