Have you ever worked out at the gym until your face was beet red and radiating heat? And no matter how much you try, you can’t lift another weight because your legs are shaking and you feel like you’re going to spontaneously combust from the inside out? And you have to talk yourself into being able to do 10 more seconds of climbing the stairs, or 5 more reps one bicep curl or another, I can’t remember. These are what my Tuesdays and Thursdays have been like for the past 2 months or so. Yes it’s true, I caved in and found myself employing a personal trainer to whip me into shape, or at least try to.

This might be child’s play for some people, but for me, as someone whose only exercise has consisted of running to get to the next store in the mall before they close and running to find a place to eat because of hunger that’s settled in, this is a huge deal. Big. Gargantuan. Humongous.

I signed up for 10 sessions of personal training at a gym close to where I work, and this coming tuesday will be the last of my sessions, unless I decide to fork over some more money and continue.

After 6 weeks of blood, sweat, tears and stress, I can say that it was definitely worth it, even though I haven’t followed the diet (or cardio) to a tee. For someone like me, who views exercising like the plague, having someone tell you exactly what you need to do, how much you need to do and then forcing you to do it, is the best way to accomplish any type of exercise goals you set for yourself.

If I was to do this on my own, without a trainer (which I tried to do and failed miserably in the past), I would never have known how to use more than half of any of the weight machines in the gym, or that I do have some upper body strength which I never knew about, or that over time, I really did get stronger. It’s worth the money. I wish I could leave work and life in general to spend 3 or 4 months just concentrating on getting myself in shape, just like The Biggest Loser. I think that’s really the only way to do it. If nothing gets in your way, then you have no excuse but to achieve your weight loss/physical goals. But life just sometimes, get in the way. I told my trainer that life sometimes just gets in the way and he got mad and said, “well, let’s just make a gym and call it ‘Life Gets In The Way Gym.’” Go figure.

So Tuesday will be my last training session. I most probably won’t continue, but that doesn’t mean I won’t continue doing weights. Now that I won’t have commitments to attend the sessions, I’m going to be using that time to do cardio. Hopefully the muscle I’ve supposedly built will come through once I melt the fat away with diet and cardio. My weight loss goals are a bit insignificant compared to life changing goals some people might have; I only really need to lose about 15 to 20 lbs, still however, doing that is horribly difficult, as anyone who has tried can tell you.

1 lb is equal to 3500 calories. That means, that if I wanted to lose 20 lbs, I would need to burn 700,000 calories. I get discouraged just by looking at that number. I feel like the best advice I can give anyone who is trying to lose weight is to prepare. Preparation is key. Prepare your food, your menu beforehand, prepare your day beforehand to fit in some exercise. Prepare a water bottle to take with you wherever you go. It’s when you’re not prepared, that you run into trouble. It’s when you’re invited to eat out that you can’t resist or when you don’t plan your lunch, that you forget that you shouldn’t be eating what you end up eating. So make a list and plan your meals, plan your day more or less. Because without a rigid plan, you won’t lose weight. And really, I guess that philosophy extends to all parts of life. If you’re going to do things half-assed, there’s no point in doing them really.