Gaining Weight

Had my weight lifting class today. I was so very tempted to skip because I had a migraine last night and was still a little woozy - it's a 75 minute advanced class with a trainer who (we're convinced) has a sadistic streak (but we love her anyway). But during this off-season lazy spell, this has devolved into the only resistance training I get in each week (down from 3x) so I hate to blow it off.

It took me a long time to work up the courage to join the class - for many months I did my own little 30 minute lifting sessions prescribed by the trainer, and that was enough for me. I was intimidated by the clearly athletic folks in the group (they range in size from 4-8, 3 of them are personal trainers), but once I reached a certain stage the trainer kept encouraging me and eventually I gave it a shot.

Of course I loved them all, and they were really sweet to me, and it was fine even though I felt like a huge wimp because they were using weights I couldn't lift for stuff I was using single digit dumbbells on.

Today, everything changed. I've been in the darn class for something like six months and hadn't really noticed any big improvements in what I could handle (what I get for only doing it once a week). Today, when I went to do the things we usually do, I kept checking the numbers on the dumbbells because they felt way too light. I was going through sets that used to kill me without batting an eye. I mentioned it to my partner for today (Susan #2), and she just laughed at me. She said that she remembers when Susan #3 (an awesome lady who lost 140 lbs) went through the same thing and she acted exactly like I was - surprised and confused, like there was something wrong with the weights. She had also needed someone to point out to her that she was ready to move up.

So, yeah, I'm a dork. But on the bright side, today I moved up from 5s and 8s to 10s and 12s and even one set at 15. It's not much, but it's progress, and that's always something to be happy about.