I have lost the weight from my commute but I am still struggling to get past that point. I know I am not eating the BEST but I am staying under a specific amount of calories. And I have been noticing at my workouts that I am not sweating as much, so I have just recently started to mix it up, so that my body doesn’t get used to it. But I know I need to start working with weights and I am intimidated by them and slightly frightened at the thought of the pain I will have from using them.

That being said I went in search of finding a trainer, someone who can help me with my workout, help me with weights and basically kick my ass. My first stop was Goodlife as that is where I workout. The program they worked out for me was amazing. It starts out slow, teaching me weights, working on posture and joint integrity. Further they would look at my nutrition and re-work what I eat. That’s the first 36 weeks. The next 18 weeks we go into build mode, where I start building muscle. My nutrition would get changed to aid in that. After that, for 12 weeks, we would start a burn period, where I would do interval and circuit training and sport specific training (soccer). At this point, because my body goes through a “learned” state, where the repetition of the training makes a lot of change to my body. Then we enter another 18 week phase, another build phase. There aren’t a lot of notes on this section, but what I remember is that the weights change and I start playing soccer in my area. After build phase #2, I enter an 18 week strength building phase. I do push/pull/leg workouts. At this point I am teaching my body to recruit more muscle. Then I have a final 15 weeks of burning and tapering. At this point I do traditional and hybrid training and enter into a strict nutrition/final prep for my wedding. At this point I should have lost the majority of the weight on my body and I enter a maintenance phase. This plan is extensive and it made me cry to think I could be at a normal body weight in a year. And not just that, I could be playing soccer by next summer. Unfortunately the cost of this is over half the cost of my wedding, meaning I simply do not have the money to do this.

As luck would have it, my mom did some research for me at her gym, where she has a trainer–The Y. And to workout there with a trainer is half the price of Goodlife. And they have great equipment and a trainer on the floor at all times to help people. Plus a nutritionist on-site to look at people’s food journals.

But then life threw me another option–a girl who I worked with off and on at Blockbuster who has now become a personal trainer. She is slightly less expensive than The Y and she offers personal attention. Here is what she offers:

– fit test twice per month to see how much you have increased in areas of cardio, strength and flexibility
– measurement done twice per month to measure your progress
– individualized workout programs – aka bootcamp in the home
– equipment brought to you – all I ask is that you have your own yoga mat for our sessions.
– two weekend workouts to choose from
– nutrition and wellness consulting
– Weekly healthy recipes to enjoy in your home and with friends

And she can workout with me at my gym. I am definitely leaning towards Jacquie, but will go to the Y this week, check things out and then go from there.

And lastly, one tactic that I have started using this week: whenever I feel the urge to eat something off my plan I snap an elastic around my wrist really hard. It’s like Pavlove’s dogs, retraining my brain to associate those thoughts with pain. It’s worked so far and yes, my wrist is in pain!!