Fitness is in the eye of the beholder.

So I signed up for a Fitness & Nutrition program being offered through my company. Part of the program is to assess your physical activity and how fit you are. The other part reviews your eating habits.

Before the program’s official kick-off you are required to get some bloodwork done in order to check your cholesterol levels and your potential risk for heart disease and diabetes. I got my blookwork back yesterday and my overview with the nurse showed me to be perfectly healthy. The kind of healthy that people are striving for. The kind of healthy you put on a tshirt and wear around. The kind of healthy you flaunt about in a blog post. 

I was shocked to hear this. Not because I didn’t think I wouldn’t be healthy – living a smoke-free, alcohol-free, clean living existence SHOULD make me healthy – but I knew I had abused my body for years and imagined that those party years must have done some sort of damage to my system. Apparently not enough to make an appearance in these tests.

I was on a high! Finally some validation that I indeed have been doing good for my body! All of the hard work having to quit smoking and stop drinking and changing my life around to become healthy had now been confirmed.

It was around that time after having received my results that a friend asked me to attend a class at my gym that evening called MetCon3. I did a quick search and found out that the class was a high-intensity cardio and circuit training class using dumbbell, a weight bar and a medicine ball. It sounded a bit daunting, but after having received news that I was exceptionally healthy, I was confident I was up for the challenge.

That confidence was quickly beaten out of me about ten minutes into the class.

The class started off with a warm-up of calisthenics. A series of jumping jacks, side-to-side jumps, arm reaches while jumping, variations of jumping jacks and side-to-side jumps. It was in the middle of these first ten minutes that I begin to think I might be in over my head. We were already at what I would consider a full blown high intensity workout. This was just the WARM-UP!!!

By the time we moved to the first of the three rounds that made up the class I didn't know how I would muster up the energy to endure another half-hour. Each round consisted of 10 exercises. Each exercise lasting one minute. They were exercises utilizing the different equipment doing different things. Burpies, backward lunges, push-ups, upright rows, side thrusts - everything that I can normally do. However, when you have to do each for one minute continuously and then launch into the next exercise immediately following with no rest and then immediately into the following and then the following after that and so on - I started to wear out really really quickly.

Sweat was dripping down around my eyes, my entire tank top was saturated, my breath was coming hard and fast, I felt my body fatigue, my joints began aching. 

And then we finished the first round. I had done it! I made it through! But oh dear goodness, we still had two more rounds to go! We had a minute break between rounds. It was barely enough time for me to catch my breath and swallow some water. And then we were back at it.

If my first round was considered a struggle, the second round should just be called survival. Because that's basically all I was trying to do: survive. I was stopping short of finishing the minute of each exercise, I would find it difficult to get up from the floor to start into the next exercise, I was even losing basic coordination like picking up a dumbbell. I thought to myself just push through! Listen to the instructor! He's telling you what you need to hear! "Don't' give up! Keep on pushing! You can do it! Push past that wall of exhaustion!" It was then I knew what I needed to do.

I needed to leave.

As soon as round two I grabbed my equipment, put them in their bins and I walked out of the room. They can say I wasn't able to finish the class, but they can't say I don't clean up after myself.

My entire body was aching before I even walked out of the gym. I woke up this morning and every ounce of my body was sore. I write this now an entire day after the class and my body is still fully aware that I had my butt handed to me on a platter yesterday.

The moral of the story is, don't judge a book by it's cover. I was told I was healthy but I could barely make it through a fitness class. And I've seen guys at my gym who have huge chest muscles and ripped abdominals and bulging biceps yet after the gym I've seen them smoking cigarettes. And there are some people who barely workout and have amazing bodies. And there are some people who eat whatever they want and don't gain a pound.

Everybody's body is different. We play the hand we are dealt and do the best we can to change something if we don't like.

And come next Monday, I will go back to MetCon3. And I will try my darnedest to make it to round three.