Gym Membership and Protein Shakes

I bit the bullet this week and signed up for gym membership, for the first time in my life. I’m very intimidated, I must tell you. I’m thin and in very good shape. I have a naturally muscular body, so it certainly looks like I would fit right in, but I don’t. I’m a runner, not a body builder. I’ve been running on and off for about thirty years, but this past winter, I finally committed and successfully translated my love/hate running relationship into a fruitful and productive habit that at this point I’m convinced I can’t live without.

I was even shocked to discover recently that if at any time anything thwarted my running schedule, I’d be depressed and preoccupied with trying to get back out again. And then, once I did and started my run, I noticed that I’d breathe an audible sigh of relief just to be back out there.

So why did I join a gym when I’ve got the roads? Turns out that a runner needs cross training as well, who knew? I lost more weight with the running than I had planned for, so now I’m on the other side of the process. Now I need to gain. It’s surprisingly difficult to gain weight and a little disheartening too, because all of the media buzz is focused on weight loss, not weight gain. I feel like a salmon fighting to swim upstream, only I don’t have any salmon buddies swimming alongside me. It’s very lonely, and being at the gym with all of those people who look like they know what they’re doing is very daunting. I’m completely intimidated, I admit. I’m doing everything that I can to conquer my intimidation and press ahead. So far so good.

Today when I got home from the gym and in the spirit of doing things right, I made myself a protein shake. I’m not going to give you a specific recipe, because it’s really just a dollop of yogurt, one splash of milk and one splash of orange juice, a smidge of flax seeds and some fresh fruit, in this case some kiwis, a banana, and a peach. All blended up, it was yummy and made me feel like I must be doing something good for the system.

  So let’s see how this thing goes. Fingers crossed it doesn't defeat me. Truth be told, I’m feeling a little delicate and inadequate right now, but I’m going to give it a go. A little more upper body strength can only be a good thing for a potter, right?