How do you keep pushing on?

My very good friend Kim e-mailed me recently. She just joined a gym with her new husband and wanted to ask me "how do you get past the point on the treadmill when every minute seems so torturous?" She's so cute! She said I could answer on my blog, so here it is!

I think it's pretty fair to say we all know which moment she's talking about. It's that moment in time when your body is a little tired but you're just bored to death of what your doing and no matter what song is playing on your IPOD it doesn't help the hands on the clock tick any faster.

I've said this in a previous post so I won't go into lengthy detail (not that I could ever be long winded!), I sometimes cover up the time on the machine with my towel. That makes me think about something other than how long I've been on the stupid machine. I also don't allow myself to look at the time until it's past 20 minutes or else I make myself do ten minutes longer, so basically I make deals with myself.

I also force myself to think about something that really makes me think, like I'll think about what I want to blog about and try to come up with 2 or 3 new topics to write about. That usually distracts me for a while if not the whole workout.

I also think about how my body is going to look when I am done with this whole journey. Will I always have 'big people' legs? You know the ones I mean? When people who are very big lose a lot of weight they always seem to keep their 'big people' legs. Of course their legs look better and are thinner but they always seem to still be a bit bigger than your average set of stems. Maybe this is a delusion that only I would notice but it is something that I think about. I think about my belly and how it will look after losing 100 pounds. Will I need surgery? Will 100 pounds be enough? I think about my underarm flab and wonder if it will ever pack it's stuff and get the hell out.

I think about Oprah quite a bit. (quit laughing) Yes I mean THE Oprah. I wonder silly things like what she's doing and what her plans for the day are. (I said quit laughing!) I wonder if she's in a good place with her weight right now. I´ve grown up watching Oprah and seeing her at all different sizes and she seems to have finally gotten a hold of her weight and I wonder if she has a certain peace with it. I wonder if I'll ever have that peace myself. I wonder what I'd do with all that money she makes on a daily basis. Yeah, thinking about Oprah can take up a whole workout, no problem.

I also suggest to Kim that whatever her goals are (maybe fitting into a dress she loved) that she should just think about that and know you're doing this for that specific goal. I also suggest that if she is having a really hard time with it then she could use a different machine or two or three machines in one workout. Use a bike for 15 minutes, then the cross trainer for 15 then the treadmill for 15. Just splitting it up helps because then you're not doing one thing for the whole hour or however long your exercising for. It's good to keep your body guessing what's going to happen next anyway so then it doesn't become "used" to your routine.

And my favorite way to pass the time at the gym was my last little piece of advice for her. I told her to think up stories about the other people at the gym. They can be as crazy or devious or evil (I tend to lean towards evil for some reason). Imagine what their lives are like at home. If you see some girl on the treadmill running like she's in a race make up a story about her. What's she running away from? What's she going to do after the gym? What was the happiest day in her life? What will she look like in 20 years? What's her dirty little secret?

Every time I see "Inappropriate Man" I think of a new story about him. He has all kinds of adventures in being inappropriate. He's been inappropriate in the melon section at the grocery store, in the mirror in the locker room, in the confessional at church, while riding his bike... his inappropriateness is endless!

So there you have it... Sarah's ways to get ya through the daily grind at the gym.