Fitness Lifestyle, How I Learned to Make Peace with It – (My Fitness Journey – Vertex Fitness Diary 1)

When I first had the opportunity to work with Dwayne Wimmer at Vertex Fitness, I signed on without thinking about it too much. I knew that if I thought about it too much, I would try to punk out of it. I used to brag about how much I hated exercising. I’m hypoglycemic, and with a metabolism that high, I just don’t put on much weight. I also hate the weight loss industry. I hate the kind of advertising that tells women that they have to prepare their bodies for the beach, as though the sight of a woman’s body could be such a great offense that she must make it more acceptable for strangers. Screw that. I hated fitness advertising, I hated women’s magazine standards, and by extension I decided that I hated the fitness lifestyle.

I still hate women mags and deceitful fitness advertising, but I’ve decided to no longer take that out on my own body. My body is a temple, and I was treating mine like crap. I’m naturally small and thin, so no one ever said so, but I was not in great shape. I could barely walk up two flights of stairs without being winded. I’m a copywriter, which means long hours hunched over a keyboard and almost zero hours outside. When I got the opportunity to work with Dwayne at Vertex Fitness, I didn’t think about the fitness lifestyle, I just told him I would show up, and I did.

The Beginning

I first met Dwayne at a networking event in the city. As a copywriter, I have to constantly be meeting people to keep my workload full and find new clients. The event coordinators were raffling off a few prizes donated by attendees, and I won three personal training sessions with Vertex Fitness. When they pulled my business card out of the bowl and told me what I’d won, I started flexing for the crowd, and said, “Oh yeah, I’m gonna get RIPPED!”

The crowd laughed, as intended, since I’m about five foot nothing and not someone that you could ever describe as ‘ripped’. Little did I know that Dwayne was actually there in the audience, and when he came over to introduce himself he seemed amused, and if he thought I was crazy he was polite enough to keep it to himself.

I’d always held the value that exercise and an active lifestyle was a good thing. I love to garden. I’m happier the more time I get to dig around in the dirt and lug heavy pots around. I used to love swing dancing classes with my husband before we got busy and lazy. But I hated exercising. I’ve gone to the gym maybe a handful of times in my life, and the only thing I enjoyed was the rowing machine, because I could do it for a long time and it wouldn’t suck.

My First Session

The first session is an introductory session with moderate resistance and an emphasis on correct posture and form.  Dwayne asked me to fill out a health history form before coming in. That way, he was prepared to talk about my fitness goals and safety. I didn’t quite know what my fitness goals were, since I’d been treating ‘fitness’ as a dirty word, but I thought about it a bit. Being stronger was a goal of mine. I wanted to be healthier, and to treat my body right, and to see what I was really capable of.

That, and I wanted to be able to get in to pickle jars without having an aneurism. The gym equipment seemed a bit intimidating at first, and I had to laugh watching myself in the big gym mirrors, because I thought I looked out of place as a tiny woman.  But as the session progressed, I realized the level of professionalism that he had kept me from feeling stupid. He also seemed to really care that I understood what I was doing so I would get the best results possible while staying safe.

I left my first session at Vertex Fitness a bit tired, but hopeful, and I’m looking forward to going back.

“Fitness Lifestyle, How I Learned to Make Peace with It”, was written for Vertex Fitness Personal Training Studio by Nicole Hallberg

 

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