Gym-spiration – I Need Some

Two years ago I joined Planet Fitness, determined to get out of my funk of being overweight and exhausted. I had a goal of getting my body back to where it was in my twenties. Now being in my 40s, I realize that was quite a lofty goal, nonetheless I worked hard at it. Because of certain health issues that I have, including COPD and asthma, it does make it hard to keep up with workouts the way healthier people would. I was actually proud of myself because I was going to the gym 5 days a week without fail and continuously upping my workouts to beat my personal bests. I did end up losing about 20 lbs, gaining a lot of strength but not a lot of tone. I still had quite a few inches of fat to lose.


Then the pandemic hit. In March and April, all of our gyms started closing down. Membership fees were frozen until an unknown reopening date. I went ahead and canceled mine because I didn’t want to be surprised with a membership fee when they decided to reopen. During that time of being stuck at home, no longer able to go to the gym which was directly between home and my office, which had also shut down, my motivation went to shit. Now I was waking up to walk 20 steps to my desk where I sat for 10 to 11 hours everyday only to walk 20 steps back to bed at the end of my shift. Working at home redefined a sedentary lifestyle. The pounds came back quickly. The energy left quickly.


Now that the gyms are open again, I have been trying to get back on the path albeit slowly. My lack of energy makes it difficult, as does no longer passing by the gym on the way to the office and back home. Now instead of ending my shift at 8:00 p.m. and going to bed, it means actually getting dressed for the gym, driving down there, wearing myself out, and driving back home. When you haven’t really left the house for 8 months, that’s a heck of a chore. I know that one option would be to wake up a couple hours early and go work out before I start my shift but I’m always leery of doing that because anything could happen to make me late for work. I am no stranger to flat tires and dead batteries. I’m also no stranger to back injuries which lay me up for a few days at a time. One wrong move and my scoliosis reminds me it’s there.


I desperately want to get back to my 5-day a week workout routine. The trouble is finding the energy and motivation to do so. I suppose I do have the motivation in being sick and tired of looking the way I do. I know that the more weight I lose the more energy I will have. So what’s my problem? I think once I got into the gym habit it was easy to go. It was my personal time, my alone time, and I looked forward to it. The lockdown broke that habit however and now it is extremely difficult trying to get back into it.


For those of you who continue to go to the gym, I would love to hear what inspires you to keep at it. Let me know in the comment section below what motivates you to be your best self.

Product Placement Fail (Back Pain Revisited)

Having scoliosis has been a boon for my activity level the majority of my life as even the slightest wrong move sends my sciatic nerve blazing in pain and surrounding lower back muscles seizing up as my body tries to immobilize the affected area.  A few years ago, I ended up pulling my back out by catching my daughter in my arms as she jumped precariously off the back of my car (always the adventurer, she).  As the pain got worse and my back got tighter, I dragged myself to Wal-Mart for some Doans because that was the only thing that has ever helped my back pain when simple heat application and stretching would not loosen it up.  Making it to the pharmacy, I stood there helpless and shaking my head to find the coveted back pain medicine on the bottom shelf where I had no hope of bending over to reach and retrieve it due to my lower back being locked up (though that didn’t stop me from trying in pain vain).  Finally, some kind person did wander by and, realizing my predicament, was nice enough to assist.  I mentioned this obvious oversight in product placement to the cashier who just kind of laughed.

For the past couple months, I have been working a job that requires heavy lifting – which incidentally was not mentioned in the interview – and frankly, it’s done my back in.  The past week, I have been experiencing pretty intense nerve pain throughout my lower back and legs and finally come Friday, my back became stiff enough that I got sharp pains trying to do even simple bending (such as getting up from a chair or lying down in bed).  Again, no heating pad or pain pill is working.  My neighbor C. gave me a Soma, which I took hoping it would relax the muscles enough to at least leave me pain-free for a couple hours but it did not help.  This time I headed to CVS for my Doans, thinking to myself, “History cannot repeat itself.”  Sure enough…

Thankfully, my daughter was with me this time and she automatically dove down to get the boxes of Doans (luckily marked buy-one-get-one-free) that were once again on the bottom shelf.  I actually complained to the cashier on this one too, saying Wal-Mart does this too but I expect such an oversight from them, not from CVS.  She agreed with me, she apologized and said she would bring it up to the manager.  Think about it… someone with back pain is going to have trouble bending over. If they’re going to a pharmacy to buy some back pain pills and those pills are on the very bottom shelf – isn’t that a little cruel?  It reflects poor planning at the least and I can’t believe that two separate stores would fail to see this logic when creating their stock layout.