Things I have only recently learned about "going to the gym" because I have only recently started "going to the gym"

So much has happened since my last post in November--namely:

• I have tapped out Netflix's crime drama genre, and have moved on to Netflix crime documentaries
• I have Googled "namely" to make sure I was using it properly here
• the US has fallen apart, and while there are at least six hundred things about Trump that I really dislike, one of the most personal things that I dislike has been that he's made me totally change my social media vibe, and now I post all sorts of real news and serious opinions all the time, like all those people I talked isht about up until now
• I have realized how privileged I am in that the thing that affects me the most about Trump is that he's made me change my social media vibe
• I finally started "going to the gym"

Here's a little background that you don't care about right now (see last post--none of this will matter until I die and you're all sooooo bummmmmed that we didn't party enough while I was still alive so you're thinking about "Weekend at Bernie's"-ing me):

Love my parents, love public education, but my brother and I learned NOTHING about nutrition growing up.  I still only have a very vague idea of what calories even are, and if you were to tell me something had 111 grams of fat, I would say "Ohhhh wwwowww rrrrreally?" because that could be an appropriate reaction whether 111 grams of fat was really high or really low.

We had a weekly rotating meal schedule at my childhood home:

• Monday: Cathy chicken (thanks to church friend Cathy Olson, who introduced us to chicken marinated in Worcestershire and Lawry's seasoning salt)--but the Olsons got to have chicken breasts, and we had the thighs (further insight: we didn't have a lot of dollars growing up, and when I got old enough to be able to regularly afford chicken breasts instead of thighs, I thought I was living the DREAM, only to realize that chicken thighs are so much tastier.  My parents had it all figured out and we didn't even know.)
• Tuesday: some sort of "wrap"--usually tuna wrap, which was tuna with lots of mayo and American cheese in flour tortillas, all rolled up
• Wednesday: chili (from a can [because we loved it]) and cheese, OR chili-cheese dogs
• Thursday: leftovers (see above)
• Friday: spaghetti and meat sauce (which someone routinely spilled because whyyyy are those noodles soooo sliiiipperryyyy)

There was often salad available, but rarely taken advantage of by the kiddies.  It had a lot of croutons and that really creamy fake Olive Garden style Italian dressing, and my servings consisted mostly of croutons, the whitest, crunchiest pieces of lettuce in the bowl, and A LOT of dressing.  Like, sometimes so much that it made my jaw hurt like when you have old wine that you probably shouldn't be drinking still, but you hate waste so much.

Our weekly "home from school, watch the Disney Afternoon" snack was cookie dough.  Each weekend, my brother and I each made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough (yes with raw eggs that yes we ate and yes we're good today but yes we may have had a tapeworm this whole time and never realized it), dyed it with red and blue food coloring (because how else could we tell our batches apart?!) and then ate it all week long.

"Diets" in my house were complicated--I won't name any names, but let's just say that only one person in my house ever "dieted" and the "diet" involved skipping LOTS of meals, or only purchasing "fat free" chemical-laden substitutes for food, or only eating frozen vegetables steamed so hard that they surely lost all nutritional value, and talking A LOT about other people's weight. 

Anyway, I was basically a case of  type two diabetes ready to bloom, but by luck of the draw, I have some good genes (did I ever tell you about the time my Grandpa came back to life?!) and a high metabolism that meant that I was a REAL fat baby, a REAL skinny kid, and then was basically the same size from age 17-32.  I know I know I know.

Here's what's happened from 32-33:

A very slow creep of about ten pounds that I couldn't just lose again by skipping a few lunches or watching "beginning yoga" on YouTube and always hurting myself because it's impossible to get into those poses while also watching someone on TV.

Here's what happened from 33-34:

Wait what the hell none of my clothes fit anymore.

Here's now:

So after my tried and true methods stopped working (and let's be real here--my "tried and true methods" were skipping lunch everyday a day for a week but then certainly eating bigger dinners to make up for it, or walk-running on a treadmill or elliptical for 30 minutes, twice a week, or trying to figure out yoga from YouTube videos, or walking around my neighborhood for an hour with pauses to choose a new podcast to start), and I legitimately couldn't zip up half of my work clothes, I realized that I needed to "diet" like I'd learned from watching my predecessors growing up, and started only margarine eating once a week. 

JK.

I realized that I was that person who actually had to pay someone to show me a new way to get my shiz together.

So I signed up for a gym where I pay someone to spend a few hours a week with who shows me all sorts of new things that I would have never tried on my own, and am usually terrified of, and that are all really hard. 

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for (can you guys reading this in the future when I'm dead even believe that I'm dead now and you'll never know what gym I signed up for?!?): here are some things I've recently learned about "going to the gym" because I have only recently started "going to the gym."

• there are A LOT of areas on your body that can sweat that I didn't know were able to sweat.  Scalp sweat?!  Foot sweat?!  Seriously, I have lived a charmed life.  I had no idea.
• my sweat still doesn't smell that bad (this is not a new lesson, but I'm really proud of it, so I wanted to include it)
• it is not possible to FOR REAL go to the gym three times a week and only shower twice a week and still have friends.  RIP routine, I miss you, I love you, please come back to me.
• it's possible to have yellowing, dead skin peeling off your palms from callouses but to also still have long, almond-shaped, sparkling rose gold finger nails
• people at the gym will judge you for the nail polish, though
• jumping where you jump from the ground with both feet together and land on something higher than the ground with both feet still together is so much harder than it looks or should be.  I mean, BABIES DO THIS.  But I can't do it.  
• using a re-usable canvas shopping bag from Small Business Saturday as a "gym bag" is so embarrassing that someone had to tell me that it was embarrassing, because I was too far out of the loop to even know to be embarrassed by this 
• it is possible to be so sore that it hurts to just be.  Like, it hurts to stand, then it really hurts while getting into a sitting position, then it keeps hurting when you're sitting, so you lay down, which hurts, and getting up hurts SO much, and then all the breathing hurts--you can be so sore that existing is sore

That's all for now.   Future people reading this after I die because it came up when you Googled my name and you just can't believe I'm gone: I recommend eating raw egg cookie dough because nothing happens when you do.  It's not the reason I died, I swear.  I actually may have died from being so sore and sneezing.  Please look into this.  Avenge me!!!