Hell on Earth

(I wrote this post on Feb 25th 2014 right after our first session with trainer Mike).

So, I worked out with a personal trainer for the first time tonight.

It was the most painful hour I have ever lived.


Ever.

Although, I have a feeling that tomorrow will be full of painful hours.

I have done a lot of different workouts in my life - I mean, clearly not super frequently - but I don't consider myself a wimp. I know I'm not in great shape but I had no idea that it would be so, so difficult.

At one point, I told Mike - my trainer, who I had just met, that he was the devil.

Not my typical behavior, I assure you.

So, my company is doing our version of the Biggest Loser for the next 12 weeks. I'm really excited. They have hired a personal trainer and we meet with him twice a week in teams. We do have to pay part of his fee, but I'll never again get a personal trainer for this price so I'm totally taking advantage of it.

All I could think of during my hour of torture was that I was actually paying him to inflict this serious pain. I'm not even being overly dramatic. This guy trains Olympians - you know, the best athletes in the whole wide world. I am far from that. I live a lot of my life on my couch, for crying out loud. I didn't really feel like he was training me any different than he would an Olympian. And the worst part? He was super nice about it - which made it so bad. I think it would have been way better had he yelled at me Gillian Michaels style the whole time.

Did I tell you that Mike is a fairly big black man from Ghana? Yeah, he is. And, he's about 1% body fat. No joke.

I'm glad he pushed me so hard though. It will be so nice in about 23 more sessions when I can get through maybe half of the workout without feeling like I am going to throw up - which totally happened right after the 'warm-up' of running a half marathon. (Okay, it was only about a quarter of a mile, but it was so hard!)

Oh, and did I mention that there were 2 girls walking around in bikinis and high heels in the small room we were dying working out in? And, they were also taking pictures of each others' butts with their cell phones.



I mean, why not?

It was like a kick in the face. I guess these girls are workout models and they were training (walking around and posing, not working out) for an event. The room is so small and it was so awkward.


I guess it's good to have something to work toward, right?

I can only hope it gets easier from here, but I have a feeling that Mike has lots of new torture methods up his Under Armour workout sleeve.