Follow My Progress – Jessica Blog 1

Fitness Qatar would like to introduce you to one of our clients, Jessica. She has kindly agreed to blog her fitness experiences and progress. Here is her first blog post. Enjoy.

Hello, my name is Jessica, and I have a confession.

I’m fat.

Ok maybe that’s not the shocker I thought it was. For me though, it sort of was. I know what you’re thinking, the same thing I always thought when I looked at heavily obese woman, particularly the ones using those little motorized scooters. I wondered: how did that happen? How did they not notice, somewhere between 150 pounds and 350 pounds, what was happening? But for me, it actually did sneak up. I didn’t clue in when I started buying my jeans a size bigger. I didn’t really clue in either when my wardrobe got gradually smaller, most of my tops and skirts retreating to the never-worn portion of the closet, while my stretchy cottons and floaty, loose dresses seemed to be getting a lot of wear in the rotation. Nope, I noticed on an airplane. I actually noticed getting on the airplane, when the flight attendant stopped me as I was getting on to ask if I were pregnant.

Nope, just fat.

I walked down the aisle, feeling like I’d been catapulted back to my deeply self conscious teen years. Could it be? Was I fat enough people thought I was growing a person? My fears were confirmed when I sat down and realized the little tray was uncomfortably close to my belly. And more importantly, when I realized my belly was resting in my lap like a
warm, obnoxious kitten.

Actions had to be taken, something had to be done.  But what? 26 years as a tall and, ahem, ‘solid’ individual has taught me that I cannot be trusted with my own health. That way lies frustration, self recrimination, and excuses. I’m not one for the middle road either: I’m either whole hog, obsessively monitoring everything that goes in my mouth and working out like a fiend, or I’m sprawled on my sofa convincing myself reaching for the cheetos while watching What Not to Wear is a cardio workout.

Thankfully, I have faith in other people. When it comes to my waistline I’m a fan of outsourcing. Enter, Fitness Qatar. My first meeting with Becca was intriguing: we met in a coffee shop, and while I order my virtuous skinny latte (in some sort of vain denial effort—‘what, me? I’m not fat. This is just some costume I’ve put on to fool you. It has absolutely nothing to do with my secret addiction to mocha frappucinos with a shot of raspberry syrup), she gets something frothy and creamy. Once we get talking, it also seems that she was neither of the fitness stereotypes television has led me to embrace: she’s neither a Napoleonic fitness dictator, nor is she the obsessively perky ‘you go gurrrl’ type. She actually seems. . . normal. More importantly, she seems to think I’m not either a lost cause or a hopeless case. Curiouser and Curiouser. As we chat about the goals and aims I’m looking for, she seems reasonable, and excited, and more importantly, enthusiastically sure that I can actually do this.

I know, right?

See, as much as I can talk the talk when needed about gradual change and the benefits of slow and steady, I am not a tortoise. In my brain I’m a hare, one raised on 80s movies.  I want this coffee shop meeting to be the intro to an epic montage, sound tracked by an Olivia Newton John song and directed by John Hughes. I want to do two lunges and a couple of curls while wearing coordinating sweatbands as guitar solos surge in the background. I want it all done in under thirty sections, possibly with a humorous interlude
involving a medicine ball, before I emerge, perfect and resplendent. And because I was all of five when the 80s ended, and thus my reference points are tragically mired in the late 90s, I want the big reveal moment. I want this:

Well, almost. I want the big staircase reveal and the pretty-ugly-girl ‘She’s all that’ moment, but maybe without Freddie Prince Jr. He’s gotten weird. Also I could do without the falling, but in this I am realistic: the height of grace I am not.

But, alas, this only happens in movies (although I’m still working on that sound tracking my life thing). Becca and I agree on a slow and steady plan that just might, with a little luck and more sweat than Olivia Newton John is willing to tolerate, get me that staircase
reveal. Six months, 60 pounds. Can I do it? Check back to find out.

Also to see if I’ve fallen on anything lately.

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