I love my gym

I've been telling people I really like my gym since the day I started there.  I don't get all cultist about it and try to get everyone I know to join my gym, but I do think it's an excellent place to get a solid workout.  Today it sunk in: I LOVE my gym.

There have been several reasons why I've liked it: challenging yet supportive trainers, friendly members who genuinely encourage me and care about my success, it's fun, and I'm getting results.

Today was a "friends for free" workout day, a day for members to bring friends and do a fun (but exhausting) workout together. A perfect opportunity for people to see what we do when we workout. Our gym offers free intro workouts for friends anyway, but this was a fun event where people could all participate together.  All of the trainers were there too. It involved teaming up groups of two doing a certain workout for best time.

I didn't bring a friend, but I was still lumped into the group because my trainer wanted me to get an extra workout today. I was partnered up with a guy whose girlfriend is a member, but couldn't participate due to a recent surgery on her collar bone. And this guy was much fitter than me.  The pressure was on to push through this workout!

Right off the bat, the guy outperformed me. Seemed like he was doing the entire workout alongside me without breaking a sweat. My chest was heaving for air and my legs felt as heavy as tree trunks. And other teams were doing better than us as well.

But here's why I love my gym: I could hear every single trainer cheering me with encouragement. "Keep moving," "Great job, Darrin," "You've got this, push through it!" "This is too easy for you!" It felt like every trainer's focus was on me during the workout.  I know that's not the case; of course the trainers are motivating everyone involved. But I felt like I was important. I heard other members cheering me on too that weren't participating in the workout. 

The amount of support people give at my gym is amazing. Even when I feel like I haven't done well, I continue to receive encouragement and reinforcement of my overall improvement. It makes me feel on top of the world when I break personal records. I feel worth something and I’m getting stronger. That's why I love my gym.

Friends at work

Not having friends at work is wearing me down. There aren’t very many people with whom I’d enjoy spending lunch. The ones I would enjoy having lunch with, they have very hectic schedules and not much time to eat as it is.

Having a group of friends that work at another company together and seem to neglect inviting me out to lunch any more is also wearing me down.  Especially after I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion that I miss the lunches we used to have together.  I’d like to think that it’s not on purpose, but knowing that my friends have gone out to lunch with another mutual friend that doesn’t work with them makes me feel hurt when I’m not invited as well. I think I’ve become oversensitive to it because of the fact I spend my days in an office that is a shell of what it used to be and that I don’t get to see my friends at work like they do.  In fact, they get to see the same friends after work. But all of this is another rant.

Where I work used to be fun. There used to be over 40 people in my department alone and we were all friends. Almost all of us had been to a happy hour together a time or two and most of us even more so. And it wasn’t just people in my department we were friends with.  Every department had its people with whom we’d all hang out (and some of us do more than just hang out). We formed flag football tournaments. We’d have house parties. We’d go clubbing on Thursdays, stay after-hours, sleep in our cars in the office parking lot, and go back to work at 7am wearing the same clothes we had on the night before (at least until we realized it was going to happen frequently and left spare clothes in our cars). It was fun to go into work.

Unfortunately, after a company spin-off and major layoffs, that changed the dynamic of a lot of things.  People move on and grow apart when they’re no longer working together and have other things entering their lives (like marriage, children, moving out of state, etc.).

I know it’s called “work” for a reason, but I miss when my office place was fun. I long for a workplace like that again. If not for the extreme flexibility I have where I’m at now and the pay I get, I think I’d be hard pressed to look for another job. Perhaps I should anyway and deal with the pay cut. At least maybe I’d make some new friends—ones that want to go to lunch with me; ones with whom I’d enjoy having lunch. I need social interaction!

Silly traditions

When I’ve visited my parents for the holidays over the past 7 or 8 years, we’ve always gone to Red Lobster for dinner one of the days I’m there.  Somehow, it became a tradition. Plus, those cheese biscuits are irresistible!

This year, now that I have my own place, my parents are coming down to visit me for the holidays. I’m super excited for this since they haven’t been down to California for about 8 years. My mom loves palm trees. She’s going to be so happy being here. And it makes me really happy to see her happy.

I just got an email from my mom tonight that made me laugh. She asked if there is a Red Lobster down here. “Tradition,” she said. Fortunately, there are two Red Lobsters in Orange County. Now, I can’t wait to go. But with my weight-loss challenge, I’ll have to resist those cheese biscuits!