Zumba or Bust!

After my training day on Tuesday, I decided to be ambitious and go back to zumba on Wednesdays.  I am hooked.  It is fun to dance (or at least attempt to dance) to really great music.  Before you know it, the class is over and you are sweating up a storm.

I love to go to Pointe of Grace because the instructors are great and fun.  Plus, the people that take the class are regular people just there to have fun and make themselves healthier.  Kim, the owner of the studio, was my instructor on Wednesday and she did something fun that I had never seen done before.  She turned the lights off (mind you, this is at 6:00pm), but there was a lonely light in the middle of the studio and Christmas lights over both of the mirrors in the front and the back of the room.  At first, I thought she was crazy, but then I realized she is a genious!  Whenever I went before, I would always stare at myself in the mirror and the bad self talk would start. "Man, look how fat you are compared to the others".  "Look at that jiggle".  "How did you ever let yourself get that way?".  I would still have fun in the class, but I was always comparing myself to others and comparing myself to what I "should" be. 

So, when Kim turned off the lights, I was intrigued.  I wasn't looking in the mirror at myself.  I wasn't even looking at the other people and comparing myself to them.  I was focused on the moves, making sure I could keep up in the dark, and having fun.  Honestly, I think I worked harder in that workout than I had any other time I had gone.  It was a blast!  My daughter takes dance classes there every Wednesday, so I have committed to go there every Wednesday for zumba.  I need to set aside some time for me.

Because I pushed it a bit more at zumba the night before, I woke up yesterday extremely sore, and because I didn't do the normal rest between training, I decided to give my body a rest yesterday.  I will do my 30 minutes of training today.  Tomorrow morning, I'm going to freeze my butt off and run/walk a 5k that my church is putting on.  I'm not even close to being in shape for it, but I really want to see where I'm at so that I have something to compare it to at the 5k on April 27th.

Now, what got me started on this journey last year was reading a blog about a lady named Katie who started walking and then running, to lose weight.  I figured that if she could do it, then I could do it to.  Her blog is honest and encouraging.  In the middle of the year, she started training for a Ragnar relay in Florida with 11 other people that had lost over 100 lbs.  The race happened this past weekend and will be a documentary called "From Fat to Finish Line".  They were also featured on the Today show yesterday.  Here is the link to the Today show piece.  One of my favorite quotes was from Rik who said, "Just put one foot in front of the other."  That is a great mantra to live by.

So, until tomorrow, "Just put one foot in front of the other".