Yesterday I did my first body combat class. I was very disappointed to find out that there is only one body combat class per week. They said that it wasn’t very popular at that gym and they weren’t kidding around; we had a total of 7 people in the class and that included 2 new people (me and an older lady).

I truly enjoyed it, all that punching and kicking is just wonderful and a very good stress reliever. The only thing I didn’t like were all the mirrors in that class room. Seriously, you can see yourself exercise from every possible angle. I hated it, or better said I hated the look of myself. No matter where I looked I could see every fat roll move so I just tried to concentrate real hard on looking at the instructor instead of anywhere else. Looking at yourself is a good motivator though; I have never punched and kicked so hard in my life.

The muscles in my back, arm and calves are pretty sore at the moment, but I decided to go to the gym today nevertheless. Tomorrow I want to do a boxing class, but it kind of depends on how sore my muscles will be tomorrow.

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I have given myself an early Christmas present; a gym membership. I used to go to the gym 5 or 6 times a week, but since our car accident I haven’t been able to go and sold the pass. Now that I’ve started seeing a chiropractor and actually start feeling better I got myself a new gym membership. At a different gym this time. I know it’s a bit early, feeling good for only a week and a half doesn’t mean that my neck all of the sudden is good, but I just need want to exercise.I am a sports junkie, I feel good when I sport. It’s my way of getting rid of stress, frustrations, anger, etc. I feel alive when I exercise. I love to push myself and my body to the limit. This can be a problem sometimes, because a lot of times I push myself way too hard.

I know that I am not in the shape I want to be in. I have started doing exercises after one of my crappy lawn-mowing experiences and I have to admit that my fitness level has slightly improved. I don’t get the feeling I’m getting a heart attack whenever I mow the lawn and almost start to enjoy it. I have used the leg-magic religiously since I’ve got it. Things are slowly looking up.

One thing I absolutely hate is my weight. Our weighting scale needs new batteries, but I never bothered with buying new batteries because the numbers are depressing. At my first trip to gym I finally decided to weigh myself: 85kg with my clothes/shoes on. That means I want to lose at least 25kg. From now on I will weigh myself once a week in the gym.

I’ve been to the gym two days in a row now and it just feels so good to work up a sweat. I’m surprised at how well it went. I have been able to ride a bike for 45 minutes on level 6 at 85-90 rpm and walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes on 5.5km/h. Not bad for an out-of-shape chick. Unfortunately the classes won’t start up until the 7th of January. I will be doing the boxing classes (twice a week), body combat (once a week), yoga (twice a week), weight training and cardio training.

Last Friday I was in the shopping mall with DH. I really need some new shorts so I thought we’d have a look around.Shopping with DH is a torture. I am one of those girls that walks into a shop, determines within 10 seconds if they have what I am after and walks out straight away if they don’t. But DH is not like that, he likes to look at every item in the store and ALWAYS sees something that he absolutely needs to have. To make a story short; shopping with DH is nightmare!

So after my 1o seconds scanning the store I knew they didn’t had the type of shorts I was after and wanted to go, but DH had disappeared on me. I found him at the sport section where he had the ‘Leg Magic’ in his arms. He had decided that he would give that to me as an early Christmas present. I tried to talk him out of it, but it didn’t work because he kept saying that he knew that I wanted to have it so he would buy it for me.

Of course I was happy with the present (I always love to get exercise machines, weights, etc.) and as soon as I got home we put it together and I jumped on it. I could feel my muscles within a minute of working out on it. I jumped on it several times during the rest of the day, because I thought it was fun to do.

Yesterday when I woke up I could feel it immediately; my muscles were aching like crazy. It’s pretty normal to get muscle ache after a work out, especially if your not used to it! But never in my life has it been this bad! And today… Today is even worse!!! My inner thighs are the worst… But, even though the muscle pain is annoying, in a weird way I kind of enjoy it too. Because it means I have given my muscles a ‘kick in the ass’.

After my last lawn-mowing experience where I nearly gave myself a heart attack I knew I had to do something about my fitness level. Pain or no pain, I have to get my butt in gear. If I don’t start exercising I will not only give myself a heart attack some day (also because of my high cholesterol levels), but my frustrations will get the upper hand.Prior to my car accident I went to the gym and worked out approximately 15 hours a week. I need to exercise; it helps me from going insane, gets rid of my frustrations and reduces my stress levels.

I’ve always loved to sport and making a career in waterpolo has been a passionate goal of mine. I have made it to the nationals and my goals were to make it internationally, but a neck injury caused by a d*ckhead in ‘friendly’ waterpolo match pretty much ended that dream. You can say I feel a bit lost when it comes to sport now that I can’t play waterpolo, but swimming and body combat have been a good replacement up until our car accident.

So I have to get my butt in gear. I have been thinking about how I am going to do that without putting myself in agony. I’ve asked the fysio if it would be a good idea to go to the gym, but although she wasn’t fully against it she basically told me I wasn’t able to do much. I was disappointed with that, but it is something I already knew in the back of my mind. I just hope I can pull through this quickly. I know my doctor said my neck would never be the same again, but I am not going to accept that. I feel that if I accept her statement I am giving up and I am not prepared to do that.

So I have come up with an exercise plan. It is pretty minimal in my opinion, but I know it will be a challenge to see if I can keep the pain at a level that I can tolerate. I’ve done two days of exercise now and the pain has increased a fair bit, but I’m determined to go ahead and make my muscles stronger. The plan is as follows:

• 30 min a day cardio exercise; bike riding, walking or swimming
• Neck stretches
• Crunches
• Push ups against the wall
• Leg exercises

I know it doesn’t sound like much and if I compare it to what I used to do a few months back it’s hardly anything, but for now this is the maximum of what I can put up with.