The Painful Truth About Exercise

Today, I hit a wall (hit the wall? ran into a wall?). I'm not sure what the fitness jargon is, but today was day five of my new routine and the day I was willing to chuck the whole thing. I had to force myself out of bed, and once on the track, turned into a whiny baby -- Most of it stemming from the pain radiating from my left shin. I've decided to blame my new sneakers. I bought the Reebok EasyTones because like most people, I'm looking for a quick way to get fit without much effort.

My favorite line from the show Absolutely Fabulous happens when the mother walks through the door with a HUGE stack of diet and exercise books and explains to her daughter that she is going to read every single one of those books to find the secret to losing weight. The daughter looks at her and tells her that she doesn't need to read all those books. The secret to losing weight is to eat less and exercise more to which Mum replies, "Don't be ridiculous darling. If it were that easy, everyone would do it!" Ah, how true.

I too thought that maybe, somewhere I would discover the magical secret to losing weight. Surely there was a plan/food/pill that with very little effort and probably exorbitant sums of money, the pounds would melt away or I would grow a few inches, really either way would be fine with me.

But now I realize that once you resign yourself to the fact that you just need to eat less and exercise more, the you really don't need anything except a brain (or in my case half a brain) to do it.

Yet, even though I resigned myself to that basic fact of fitness and weight loss, it didn't stop me from buying the shoes. Because the shoes would magically transform my butt into, well, what was promised to me in the Reebok ad which was a butt that looked like a tight, little, upside down heart instead of my current jumbo bowl of large curd cottage cheese.

So my legs were in pain and I was willing to consider blaming the shoes. My brain probably went there first because of the article I read this Sunday about this man who continued to run in the latest running-fad shoes despite the extreme pain he was in. I thought, what an idiot. Why didn't he stop? But then here I was, thinking, I'm taxing new muscles, working my body in ways it has not worked in, well, ever. So, I'll just tough it out and I'm sure it will get better. Yeah, that's what the guy in the article thought too. In a few months when the research comes out that these Reebok EasyTone shoes are an easy way to wreck your body, I'll be the idiot who the reporter quotes saying, "yeah, well they hurt real bad but I thought that meant they were working..."

Which brings us to the painful point of this blog entry: No pain no gain right? This morning, I could not get my pace up. No matter how badly I yelled at myself or sweetly encourage, or blatantly bribed, my legs just wouldn't bust a move. And the thing that I have learned by tracking my exercise on my new iPad is that pace is everything. That woman who I watch on the track in her best Talbot’s clothes, hair and make up pristine, getting a quick little bit of exercise in before she sets off to the office... well she might have spared herself the trouble and got an extra 30 minutes sleep since she’d burn about the same amount of calories with a lot less trouble. At her pace, she'll be lucky to burn 25 calories which she'll probably put back in her coffee with her first mini-moo. So, I thought, maybe the pain in my shins was the price I am paying for my 4mph pace which is the slowest you can walk and still break 100 calories burned for 30 minutes.

And then, just when I was getting a little hopeful that the end was near, and I watch my clicker and the clock get ready to do the Flintstone whistle in my head, I remembered I had an appointment this morning with my new personal trainer. What the hell was I thinking?

He was a nice enough man, my new best friend Wally. Retired high school science and gym teacher (yep about cliché as you can get), he started me on my new "resistance training" program. By the time I got home today, I could barely move my left shoulder and my legs were like jelly, and of course the ever present pain in my shin. But hey, no pain no gain right? That means the exercise is working right? Can someone pass the Advil please....