12 Week Transformation Program Begins…

Let the Training begin!!
Last week, Holly and I shelled out some bucks for personal trainers and began a 12 week heavy-duty fitness program. For me, this is actually my second time through the program since I decided to hire a personal trainer and try to take my fitness goals to a new level. This was something I had never done before even though fitness has been a top priority of mine for more than 10 years. But after lots of attempts, I eventually realized you can only do so much by yourself. So I went to Bungalow Fitness – a gym that does only personal training – and hired one of the trainers named Angie to kick my butt and make me look fabulous. It worked! Well, maybe not the fabulous part, but the she certainly kicked my butt and helped me reach my goals.

Holly Jumps In
Holly was watching to see how it all went, and very slowly warmed up to the idea of joining the same program. She had some obstacles to overcome before finally making the leap to commit to 12 weeks of struggle and sweat. Her struggles were NOT so much physical, but more emotional as she tends to have an exaggerated dislike of anyone she perceives as “pushy” or “demanding” or “telling me what to do”. Of course, a trainers main job is to push you, lay demands on you, tell you what to do to help you lose weight and get stronger. So for Holly to finally step back, take a serious look at her problem with conflict-aversion, put all those fears and prejudices in check and say, “Okay, I’m going to do this.” – is quite revolutionary for her.

A Short Term Goal
One of our goals is to go jogging together. I look forward to the time when Holly and run the 3 mile loop in Memorial Park. I go there often with my friends and slip into the stream of hundreds of people who run there everyday. It’s fun and challenging loop with never a shortage of interesting-looking people on parade. Some are super serious about fitness, while others are just showing off. Still others look like they are about to die, while some make it look so easy. One day pretty soon I am confident Holly will be running right along with me and maybe we’ll even be one of those super-sexy parents running together and pushing a jogging-stroller (which I just bought at a garage sale last week for $30.00!)

Giving KFC the Finger While Looking Good
Holly added yet another surprise to our 12 week Fitness plan: she joined ANOTHER gym across the street from where she works and began doing a half hour of cardio each day during lunch!! She hops on the machine directly facing KFC and burns an extra 200 or 300 calories in total defiance. That’s TWO trips to the gym in one day. You are an animal!!

The Food
It gets even better. This last weekend we put our efforts together to completely revolutionize our Food and Nutrition habits. Food is one area where Holly and I haven’t always been in lock-step with each other. She is a foodie who enjoys cooking and is generally interested in the creative, tasty, and social aspects of food. I’m NOT a foodie, enjoy exercising and fitness, and much more interested in food in terms of nutrition and fuel. Holly thinks the concept of bonding through exercise and struggling and sweating with a friend to accomplish goals together is very strange and foreign, while I find the concept of bonding over a heaping plate of pasta a little cheesy (parmasan, of course) and would much rather be out slapping a volleyball around with my friends. But we finally combined our strengths this last weekend and stocked our kitchen with both tasty AND nutritious foods, as well as put in place a 12 week structure for healthy eating every single day. We are doing our research on how to eat properly while committed to a Fitness Regime and we are determined to stick to it. We are even pre-making meals to have ready to go every day of the week. Gone are the days of dieting and endless negotiating with Food to lose weight! Now it is eat-right and exercise every day! This is definitely a lifestyle change that is a very refreshing and welcomed.

The Reward
We’ve decided to treat ourselves and celebrate our success after finishing this 12-week season of healthiness by taking a trip to New York City. So, stay tuned here to find out how things are going, as we both work hard towards becoming more fit and fabulous than ever!

So here we go. 1 week down, 11 to go! We’ll keep you posted with our progress.