Confessions of a Menopausal Mom at the Gym

Since I have seven months experience, six if you count that I've only been to the gym four times since Thanksgiving, I wanted to share my vast, hard-earned experience with you my fellow Menopausal Moms.

I just started wotking out last year in May. It was  12-wweek  program for people over 50. I always was an overachiever so I started at 49.  For $100 you got two visits with a nutrtionist, a weekly visit with a trainer and access to the gym. (HealthWork Baptist Health in Lexington offers the program called Joints in Motion)

Best Money I Ever Spent.

It did not start out in a great way. During my first visit the trainer didn't know what to do with me I was so nervous and sweaty. Sweaty partly because of anxiety, partly because my air conditioning didn't work in my car and partly because of the occasional hot flash which a careful reader will know by now are apparently made worse in me by stress.

He, seriously, took me past a Zumba class with a woman dancing in it with a chair in front of her so she could sit down. She easily had 100 pounds on me. There, he said, if she can do it you can.

 Looking back I guess that isn't a terrible motivational tool but it didn't feel encouraging at the time. I just got sweatier and more hot flashy.

But I stuck with it. It wasn't pretty. It was plenty sweaty. But I did it and am going to go back at it again in the New Year.

Here are some randoms thoughts, some confessions, about the gym.

• My first time at the gym the trainer told me to walk for four minutes on treadmill then left, seeming confused that walking 30 seconds seemed a challenge. I thought those four minutes would never end. It was nearly all due to nerves. In no time I was doing 15 than 20 than 30. It gets better. 
• There are very few chubby white haired women at the gym. I don't know where they all are because trips to Wal-Mart show me there are plenty of us. Let's see what we can do to change that.
• If you haven't worked out in a long time or ever then getting ready to work out can be a work out. Those damn tennis shoes don't tie themselves and gym shoes don't slip on. I was stiff, stiff, stiff. My awesome second trainer would catch me as I emerge from the dressing room, sweating from shoe-putting-on and no-airconditioning in the car and say "oh good, you are warmed up." It gets better.
• Most people aren't paying any attention to you. If you think they are judging you in some way for being in a gym but not being in shape...you are in the wrong gym and you, like me, are probably too self-conscious. That gets better too.
• Yes, sometimes, there are grunty, sweaty men which can make you, if you are like me, uncomfortable. (Women, in my experience, are 90 percent less grunty.) If you put in your ear buds, say tuned into One Direction, you can't hear them. (Or, maybe, grunt back randomly. I haven't tried that yet but I might. It's something to aspire to in 2015.)
• After the treadmill, I really, really wanted to stick with something that looked like a recumbent bike and that was it. It was where the Super Seniors at my gym hung out. I wanted nothing to do with the elliptical, no free weights, no walking to the part of the gym where the muscle-lifting, super grunters roam. I was scared. But with some encouragement I tried new things. I liked them. So, push yourself and get support.
• Sometimes there are fit young men in the gym. I feel that it is appropriate to admire them in not a creepy grandma way but in a way that honors God's good work. When I see a fit young man I say to myself, sometimes out loud, "Good Job, God. Look what you did there? Nice work!" There are some perks at the gym you just can't find anywhere else.
• Today's shout out is to Ireland. Yes, someone in Ireland has read Menopausal Moms of Kentucky. Mary Charlotte Meehan is my name. If you say it with an Irish accent you can see where my roots are. Go Ireland. Menopause and Moms are Universal.