Vanessa Fox. Nude.

Frank, my torturous evil trainer, has found the blog. I went in for my session the other day, and he was woefully offended. I made him sound so mean! I explained to him that I did not make him sound mean. That I only write the truth and I was just reporting things as they are. As he was trying to convince me of his niceness, he handed me two ten pound weights, pointed at the other side of the room and told me to start doing lunges. And said that if I needed to throw up, I should wait until I got to the end of the room where the trash can was. Later, he made me do pushups. Seriously. Pushups.

So, as you can see, I was completely wrong and Frank is sweetness and light and cookies and kittens.

He did make a good point, which was that the pain and yelling is actually helping. Which is weird, because it’s not like I didn’t work out before Frank. I’ve always worked out. In fact (and this will make me sound like a crazy person), back in college, I couldn’t wait to work out. I was so busy all the time with work and school that I felt way too guilty to take any breaks. But hey, working out is good for me! That can’t make me feel guilty. So, I could not wait for the gym, when I could be free from work and papers and studying and bosses and teachers. The gym. My peaceful oasis of calm. (Crazy person. Check.)

Well, OK, after college, I did slack off a little. I mean, I still worked out. But I had the metabolism of a twenty year old! (Probably because I was twenty.) So, I ate a lot of McDonald’s and didn’t give much thought to my later years, when I would face my own mortality and impending old age and death and curse my younger self for not considering that one day being healthy might actually matter, you know for living a long time and all that.

Maybe the universe plans for us to be vain in our younger years, because with our foolish, carefree, live forever attitude, we’re not giving much thought to our health. The motivation of looking good is all that keeps us working out and branching out our eating habits beyond french fries. When we’re older, we realize that looks aren’t the only thing, and maybe french fries are worth it sometimes (when are french fries not worth it? unless they’re crappy french fries), but we can start to see the benefits of a slightly more healthful lifestyle.

The point is that I continued to work out, but apparently in a lackadaisical manner one might associate with a wandering child at an Easter egg hunt. I’ll just go over here, then maybe over there. Oh, but now I’m distracted by this bright shiny thing. Look, flowers!

Several years ago, I decided to Get Serious. Clearly, I had no idea what I was doing, healthwise. I bought this book, Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth About Exercise and Health, thinking surely it would scientifically lay it all out for me and give me all the answers. It was a good book, but I was still missing something. Mostly that something was figuring out what worked for me. Which I think is mostly different for everyone, which makes it difficult to learn from a book.

A trainer isn’t for everyone, but I tend to do the same old things every time I go to the gym and I don’t really push myself and sometimes I get kind of tired and leave early. I know! I’m so lazy! But having a trainer keeps me challenged, keeps me doing new things, doing stuff that on my own I would think, right, not doing that; that looks hard and painful. (And I do still say that to myself sometimes when I’m working out, but at least a couple of times a week, Frank’s around to yell at me. Also, sometimes when I’m working out by myself, Frank sees me and comes over and kicks me, just for fun. Or maybe that’s for motivation.)

Since I’ve been going to a trainer, I’ve seen a big difference from just going by myself. So, I suppose I shouldn’t be so mean to Frank. But hey, at least I don’t call him satan. Surely that’s niceness enough.