Shashing through fear

Tuesday night I took off from exercise and stayed home.  I knew that I was coming down with some ailment and I wasn't sure what it was.  I didn't want to exacerbate any potential sickness by doing any heavy duty exercise only to come home so whipped, tired and more sick.  So I went home and took it easy.  I woke up on Wednesday and I could feel the sinus pressure in my head and the sinus drainage.  The drainage causes my throat to hurt and gives me a slight cough...but nothing major.  Overall, I felt pretty good.  No overwhelming tiredness, no achy feeling and most importantly no fever.  I pondered exercise all day long.  OK, I didn't ponder....a war was waged in my head. My fat mini me and my thin mini me were at war and the cacophony of noise in my head from this war was deafening.  On one shoulder, screaming into my ear was my fat mini me.  My fat mini me was yelling "You are sick, do not exercise...do not exercise...do not exercise!"  The thin mini me was yelling equally as loud.....but the message was very different. What was thin mini me saying?   Thin mini me was saying "Excuses....they are all excuses. Sinus drainage and pressure is NOT an illness, just an inconvenience.  They are excuses to keep you fat and far from your goal."    The battle raged in my head loud.  I listened.  I pondered. And then I made my choice.  Using sinus pressure (which I know from experience can last for weeks) IS an excuse.  So I tested the waters.  I went for my run.  I did the next installment in my c25k thing.  I felt pretty good after that so decided to roll with it.  I headed off to zumba.   It went well.   1.5 hours of pretty intense exercise completed for the day.

This morning the war started to wage again.....but this morning it wasn't the excuse of not feeling 100% (still sinus pressure).  Well, maybe a wee bit.  This morning it was fear.   That old fear reared it's ugly head.  You see, I had decided that I would go to the gym.  I decided that I would try an exercise class at the gym.  I am a chicken.  I do zumba...but I'm in my comfortable class...my zumba class is my comfort zone.  Going to a new class at the gym is totally out of my comfort zone.My confidence is racked with fear....fear about being the odd man out, the only one that doesn't know what I'm doing...etc etc etc.   Then to make matters worse, I could have to rush to the locker rooms and face that fear of the locker room showers again.  I faced it last week and I know it's not bad, but the fear wasn't totally gone.  Fear........it's debilitating.  I ALMOST stayed home and rode the exercise bike.  But then I said, "screw this" and with my stomach churning I set out.   I did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer while I waited for my class to start and then I headed into a zumba sentao class.   It was very neat to see a different approach to the same class that I attend on Monday nights.  Anita is still top notch in my book. Anita approaches the chair as an instrument to fitness.  This gal approached the chair as if were a stripper pole.  I won't lie...it was fun.  She was hard to follow...and while she wore a speaker that was piped through the sound system, the music mostly drowned her out ....which is OK because she sang along with the music most of the time.  Zumba is not a class where they usually call out instructions, so i wasn't expecting it.  I will be trying one of her 'regular' zumba classes soon I'm sure and we shall see how that is.    Regardless......I did 90 minutes of exercise this morning.  I faced the fear of doing a class.....I faced the fear of the showers.....I faced the rush between the class and my scheduled time to start work.  I faced it...and I SMASHED my fears!  :-)

Fear only serves one purpose...and that is to keep us from achieving the greatness that we are capable of!

NO FEAR~~~~~SHAZAM!