♪♫ Fat Girl in a Little Class ♫♪

If you don't know why my title cracks me up, you need to watch this.

Today was day 1 of START Fitness: Sgt. Ken's Boot Camp. It was intense. It was insane. It was painful.

It was awesome.

My first impression upon walking into the studio was "Oh shit. I'm the only fat person here." Everyone else in the class looked fit; not necessarily contenders for the cover of Muscle Magazine, but way leaner and more solid than I am. I was sure that I was going to be the only one in the class who had to take breaks; who had to stop for a drink of water; who had to gasp for air. Everyone would feel sorry for the poor fat lady who couldn't keep up.

Then I got over myself and decided that I am going to rock this workout the best I can.

So, I'm not going to write a play-by-play of the workout session; if you want to know what we do in class, come do the free two day trial Sgt. Ken offers on the website. What I'm going to write is about my personal experience in the class.

Once we got started, I knew that this was going to be different. Even the warm-up was tough. But I have to say, there was an energy in the room right from the beginning that inspired me to push hard. Sgt. Ken yelled and barked orders at us, but it was not in a negative or demeaning way like you see drill sergeants in movies; it was in a motivational and challenging way. Okay, there were some threats ("If anyone lowers their arms, I'll start ALL OVER"). They worked, too. He demanded that we work as a team; the stronger recruits were to encourage and motivate the less advanced. No one left behind.

I did not complete the workout flawlessly today. There were some exercises that I could not do with proper form because I am too weak; there was one exercise that I could not do at all because of my knees (I'm hoping that as I get stronger, the knee pain will improve); there were some times that I just had to take a break, get some water, and recover for a moment. There were almost tears at one point. Then I realized OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING PEOPLE WILL SEE ME AND FEEL SORRY FOR THE FAT GIRL WHO STARTED CRYING so I sucked it up and continued doing push-ups. Shame is a great motivator.

But I did push hard. And one day I'll be able to finish the whole hour strong, with no breaks and with good form. I know I will.

The realization that is a little terrifying is that this is never going to get easier. When it starts to get easier, that's when it's time to push harder. I used to daydream that if I had a genie in a bottle, my first wish would be for a perfect body. Well you know what? Screw that. I don't need a stupid genie for that. I can do that myself.

I'm already starting to feel sore. It will be full-on pain in the morning. So now I'm going to go take a couple of pre-emptive ibuprofen tablets and collapse into bed. I'm going to close each of these blog posts with a reason I'm going to stick with Sgt. Ken's boot camp.

Reason #1:

Because I will look awesome as Wonder Woman at Dragon*Con in September.

Update: I almost forgot to post the photos Sgt. Ken sent me. :)