The Mind-Muscle Connection

Nar is here to lay it down for you, no BS.  After being in the game awhile, he’s seen some things and got some opinions.  Not everyone wants to hear the truth, but the truth is what makes you better.  Every Wednesday you’ll get a dose of reality from someone not afraid to tell you like it is, no matter who you are or what its about.  So, listen up and take notes, this might hurt…

You’re a 35-year old woman.   You have a house, a career, a couple kids, and a loving husband.   Ain’t life grand?  Well, it would be except that you can’t stand to look at yourself in the mirror.  You had always been skinny.  After college, you moved to a new city where your hot little ass met your then future husband.  And that’s when it started.  Like many women (and men, for that matter), you turned emotional comfort and confidence into a giant, ass-backward excuse to let yourself go, gaining 30 pounds over the course of the next three years.   And when you got pregnant?  Fuggetaboutit.  Another 30 pounds of weight gain that you told yourself would “drop off” after the baby came.  (And by the way, don’t kid yourself, weight gain after pregnancy IS ABSOLUTELY YOUR FAULT and can be avoided, so please, stop with the excuses.)

But now, you’re tired of feeling like crap and you would like your husband to actually sleep in the bed with you again.  (And let’s get one thing straight.  A hot chick’s husband sleep in bed with his wife over 97% of the time.  It’s a fact.  Your husband doesn’t sleep with you because he doesn’t want to have sex with you.   He loves you, but you kind of gross him out.)

It’s time for a change.  You join the local health club, a giant, national chain club that your girlfriend recommended because she “loves it there” and it has “done so much” for her.  In the back of your mind, you sort of think she looks like crap, but you must be imagining these things; i mean, after all, she uses a personal trainer.

Being a newbie to the health club life, you purchase a month of personal training sessions for $750, in addition to the $65/month club membership fee.  Your personal trainer, Jen, is 25, seems really sweet, and tells you she’s been workout out since she was in high school.  She uses a lot of complicated words and terms like “VO2 Max” and “Basal Metabolic Rate” and seems to know her stuff.

But the other thing you notice about Jen is that, “Goddamn, she must weigh 200 pounds!”  And Jen ain’t 7 feet tall.  She’s fat.  Legitimately fat.  You just committed a freaking Lexus payment to this monster that is supposedly going to help you to once again become the girl your husband thinks about when he’s jerkin his gherkin!

But, she IS a personal trainer, so she MUST know something.  You look at her business card, and she even has a few initials after her name!   Now, you’re SURE she knows her stuff.  You feel better about your decision.  You forget about the trash can full of burger king bags under the desk, the fact that she takes the handicapped elevator to get to the second floor, or the fact that her sweat actually smells like Vegan cheese.  Have you ever smelled Vegan cheese?  Or a Vegan, for that matter?

Your workouts consist of lying on the floor and lifting various body parts haphazardly up into the air and holding them there for a few seconds.  You even get a little crazy some days and do walking lunges around the gym!  Crazy intense!   You have friendly conversation for the entire hour she trains you, even during your sets!

Wow, if you knew working out was so enjoyable and easy, you would have gotten off your fat ass years ago.  At the end of the month, you actually weigh MORE than before.  You’re a little disappointed, but Jen assures you that it’s because you’ve gained muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat.  That’s what’s happened to her for the past year or so, she re-assures.  Phew!  For a minute there, you thought you’d wasted $750 and that Jen had no f-ing clue what her fat face was talking about.  But, she IS a personal trainer.  You pay for another month.

Your husband still sleeps on the couch.