I foolishly took on this six-week challenge offered at the gym, of which I am a regular member, and a less than regular participant.
If all goes well, at the end of the day, the challenge will leave me healthier and skinnier and extremely proud of myself.
If all doesn’t go well and I continue to eat what I like, drink what I want and resort to my couch potato status, I will have spent $150 to prove I am, in fact, a loser.
I have been silently ‘challenging’ myself for almost two weeks now and already I have learned a few things.
I have learned 30 minutes spent on a treadmill seems to take a very long time unless I can distract myself by talking to someone on my phone while using my blue tooth.
It then looks like I’m talking to myself, which is weird enough, but then, sometimes I forget I’m at the gym with other people around and start waving my arms wildly in the air to make a point.
So far no one has said anything about this unusual behaviour. They only look at me sideways and smile sympathetically, but I’m almost sure they are thinking, “She is really weird!”
Finally, I say goodbye to the poor person on the other end of the phone that I have forced to talk to me for 30 minutes and proceed to the next part of the challenge.
Lifting weights.
I’m here to tell you lifting weights is not for the frail and the weak.
No, siree.
And by the time I’m finished I’m convinced it’s not for little old ladies like me either. And I begin to question if little old ladies such as me who are quite adept at lifting pencils and telephone receivers and not much more should be undertaking such a challenge.
That being said, I position my body into what’s called a plank, and hold it in that position for one minute, not once, but three times.
Finally I drag my weary butt out of the gym and go home to eat unbuttered popcorn and six almonds.
But, still, even as the days of the challenge march on, I have to say, I’m feeling a little bit good about myself.
The other day I listened to my sister give a talk to the Rimbey Historical Society about the Edmonton Grads. She had joined historian Michael Dawe to make the presentation at the museum.
The Edmonton Grads was a women’s basketball team that dominated from 1915 to 1940. The team won 93 per cent of all the games they ever played and no team in any sport has come close to beating the record left by these ladies.
When I drove home after the presentation, I thought about the little fitness challenge I have undertaken. Win or lose, I know one thing for sure.
I will certainly not go down in history.
And I thought about the challenges those Edmonton Grads must have faced.
The grads played basketball during the dirty ‘30s when depression gripped Alberta. They played during a time when women were supposed to be in the kitchen looking after their children and their men folk. They played and they played hard. And they won, time and time again.
Talk about a challenge.
By the time I pulled into my driveway, I realized I had a lot to learn about challenges.
And, sheepishly I had to admit, the challenge I had signed up for wasn’t really very big at all.
But, still, popcorn with no butter? That not right, not right, at all!
Treena Mielke is the editor of the Rimbey Review.