1. A gym is not designed to make you feel instantly better about yourself. If a gym wanted to make you feel instantly better about yourself, it would be a bar.
2. Give yourself a goal. Maybe you want to lose 10 pounds. Maybe you want to quarterback the New York Jets into the playoffs. But be warned: Losing 10 pounds is hard.
3. Develop a gym routine. Try to go at least three times a week. Do a mix of strength training and cardiovascular conditioning. After the third week, stop carrying around that satchel of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.
4. No one in the history of gyms has ever lost a pound while reading “The New Yorker” and slowly pedaling a recumbent bicycle. No one.
5. Bring your iPod. Don’t borrow the disgusting gym headphones, or use the sad plastic radio attachment on the treadmill, which always sounds like it’s playing Kenny Loggins from a sewer.
6. Don’t fall for gimmicks. The only tried-and-true method to lose 10 pounds in 48 hours is food poisoning.
7. Yes, every gym has an overenthusiastic spinning instructor who hasn’t bought a record since “Walking on Sunshine.”
8. There’s also the Strange Guy Who is Always at the Gym. Just when you think he isn’t here today…there he is, lurking by the barbells.
9. ”Great job!” is trainer-speak for “It’s not polite for me to laugh at you.”
10. Beware a hip gym with a Wilco step class.
11. Gyms have two types of members: Members who wipe down the machines after using them, and the worst people in the universe.
12. Nope, that’s not a “recovery energy bar with antioxidant dark chocolate.” That’s a chocolate bar.
13. Avoid Unsolicited Advice Guy, who, for the small fee of boring you to death, will explain the proper method for any exercise in 45 minutes or longer.
14. You can take 10 Minute Abs, 20 Minute Abs, and 30 Minute Abs. There is also Stop Eating Pizza and Eating Sheet Cake Abs—but that’s super tough!
15. If you’re motivated to buy an expensive home exercise machine, consider a “wooden coat rack.” It costs $40, uses no electricity and does the exact same thing.
16. There’s the yoga instructor everyone loves, and the yoga instructor everyone hates. Memorize who they are.
17. If you see an indoor rock climbing wall, you’re either in a really cool gym or a romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson.
18. Be cautious about any class with the words “sunrise,” “hell,” or “Moby.”
19. If a gym class is going to be effective, it’s hard. If you’re relaxed and enjoying yourself, you’re at brunch.
20. If you need to bring your children, just let them loose in the silent meditation class. Nobody minds, and kids love candles.
21. Don’t buy $150 sneakers, $100 yoga pants, and $4 water. Muscle shirts are for people with muscles, and rhythm guitarists.
22. Fancy gyms can be seductive, but once you get past the modern couches and fresh flowers and the water with lemon slices, you’re basically paying for a boutique hotel with B.O.
23. Everyone sees you secretly racing the old people in the pool.
24. If you’re at the point where you’ve bought biking shoes for the spinning class, you may as well go ahead and buy an actual bike. It’s way more fun and it doesn’t make you listen to C+C Music Factory.
25. Fact: Thinking about going to the gym burns between 0 and 0 calories.
26. A successful gym membership is like a marriage: If it’s good, you show up committed and ready for hard work. If it’s not good, you show up in sweatpants and watch a lot of bad TV.
27. There is no secret. Exercise and lay off the fries. The end.
Two more finals to go. My first quarter of college has kicked my ass, brought me amazing new friends, made me appreciate what I have, and most of all, appreciate my home and my family. There were most definitely struggles along the way (and there will be in the future too), but I think I am finally getting a good sense of how to succeed in college. I think that matters a lot.
I miss them so much, and I can’t wait to see my little brother, Mom and Jim. I can’t wait to walk into my zoo of a house and pick up Shadow and just let her give me a million kisses. I’ll try to ignore the ferrets, but secretly I think they are adorable (so long as they do not make my room into a bathroom).
Keevin has been sending me countdown texts. God, I miss him so much. He has grown up a ton in the three months that I’ve been gone. It’s going to be a shock seeing him now, for I’m sure he’s even taller and more handsome. Now him and I are a lot closer, and farther apart. I’ll get to spend a good amount of time with my whole family in the next month, and I’m sure as hell going to enjoy Costa Rica, mid-december.
I have to deal with some unresolved problems as well. They have been troubling me for a while. And I’m still not sure how I will deal with them. I am a highly emotional person, and sometimes these emotions make me impulsive—to take what I want; to be “young and reckless”. These same emotions sometimes blind me from seeing what is right in front of me.
Anyways. I am counting these days down, and I can’t wait to see the snow in Indiana!!
I know how the story ends and
it’s good It’s good
So much better than the way it all began
Oh but, I know it gets rough in the middle
Swimming up a stream, surviving seems impossible
But I know that’s what makes the end so good
Two weeks, and I’ll be on my way to plush fields, the ocean, beach houses, my new slackjaw jersey, my Downtown Brown family, skinny dipping, ethernet cords, hamachi, bowling, and waking up next to someone I love. What a weekend. What a vacation. I await the day I get to fly to Sarasota to cleat up and play for a team of my own. For now, it’s cheerleading, shit talking, taking pictures, and all I can drink.
What a way to get through midterms. I’ll be here, training as hard as my back permits. I want to be playing in Sakai, Japan next summer. It was meant to happen. WJUC2012. You can’t stop me.
“Everything burns.”
What’s your fire? I know mine.
This photo is a little bit late, but i know it’s necessary.
Pic1 YCC2k10
Pic2 YCC2k11 Trophy and Gold
Pic3 2011-2 Golds and a one-of-a-kind banner
I want that third gold in three years and here is my inspiration to get it. Push me hard, and I’ll push back harder. Who’s gonna stop me? See you on the line.
Watch out.
“When there’s something you really want, fight for it, don’t give up no matter how hopeless it seems. And when you’ve lost hope, ask yourself if you’re gonna wish you gave it just one more shot. Because the best things in life don’t come free. Ever.”
Forever.
“I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it”
(Source: sundaylatte)
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