Things you never thought you'd do

Okay, I know that every time I join a new gym and get a new trainer I rhapsodize about it, and it's probably getting repetitive, but I, once again, have a new gym and a new trainer and I love them! My former trainer at the gym at work left and moved back to Illinois, so I signed up with a commercial gym and have been going for three weeks now. And once again I learned that if you say "strength and endurance" as your goal, rather than "typical suburban pansy-assed worrying about my weight", you get to do REALLY FUN THINGS when you train. Like lift really heavy things, until you can't lift any more, can't even get your arms up, and then have your trainer praise you because you're doing really well and surprise him with your ability. The feeling of lifting heavy things is quite wonderful and a bit addictive - is it the blood flowing into one part of the body (no, no, bicep or quad, is what I mean) that does it, or just the general sense of accomplishment, or how good it feels when you stop? Don't know. Don't care! I'm loving training, I love having someone push me to work hard and ask me what I've been doing since we last met, it works for me, and I'm getting a bit stronger and fitter in the process to boot.

And, extra bonus, with this trainer comes a diet plan. I got it all printed out but actually haven't consulted it in any detail, I've just been watching what I eat a bit better. Kind of got the hang that meals should include protein, complex carbohydrates, vegetables and fruits. He's been having me write down everything I eat, which I'm used to from that one diet plan I was on in very early 2004, which worked quiet well for me. He reviewed about two weeks worth of meals (right at the end of a paycheck with no groceries in the house, so I was a bit concerned about how it would look), and he did say it wasn't too bad at all (no entire packs of Oreos or that kind of bad habit to deal with), but one thing I need to work on is to get some more protein, especially at breakfast. And he asked if it was a taste thing or a convenience thing, and it is certainly a convenience thing, I have exactly the same thing for breakfast every day and even that is a struggle, I certainly couldn't manage cooking an egg for myself every day, not that and also get to work sometime before midday.

So he suggested I might want to try adding in a protein supplement. They sell them at the shop right out front, did I maybe want to try one of those?

So I did. I gave it a day to think about, but this evening when I was in training, I decided to take the plunge. I am now the proud owner of one of those gargantuan, ridiculous, over the top jars of "Muscle Milk", the chocolate flavor, which has loud graphics and yellow highlighted text and outrageous claims all over the label. It's in my house right now, sitting on my kitchen counter, owned by me, and I'm just finishing off the first Pro-Evo lipid-filled catabolic-enhancing (or whatever - have to do a bit of research to see what all those jargony words mean) protein shake.

When the girl at the gym store rang up my purchase, I thanked her and then said, "This is something I never thought I'd do, ever in my life." She smiled wanly. But, seriously. I have a giant, over the top, ugly jar of chocolate flavored protein powder, in my house.

Who would have thought I'd move to Wisconsin and become Arnold Schwarzenegger?