Not Living Up To My Potential

"You're not living up to your potential." Those are probably the scariest words anyone has ever spoken to me. I've spent my entire life running as fast and as far as I can, trying to grasp that elusive goal. It seems like I should be able to do it - after all it is my potential - and yet I never quite get there.

My teen years were a blur of trying to always be ten steps ahead of where I was. I couldn't be thin enough or smart enough or fun enough to represent the real me. College was worse. I never got so much as an A- and was Valedictorian of every graduating class I've ever been in. I gave my Valedictory address with an IV catheter still taped to my hand because I'd worried myself literally sick about what was next. How do you top 6 years of hyperachievement?

Mostly it was fear. Because the corollary of "you could be so much more" is "you aren't good as you are now." And if straight A's and scholarships and slim hips wasn't good enough then what was I going to have to do to get there? Could I possibly do anymore? Perhaps I was just dumber and fatter and lazier than people realized. Maybe I was at my full potential and they were the ones who didn't get it. But I didn't dare tell them lest they be disappointed in me.

It was with this attitude that I approached everything in my life, including gymnastics. Have you ever loved something with your whole being - so much that you dreamed about it and cried about it and read about it until you were so full of it that you couldn't bear it all - and then not been good at it? I was a competitive gymnast. I practiced gymnastics up through my sophomore year of college. And I sucked. I'm not being modest.

I never made it to a level 10 (the highest competitive level) much less the elite level. I flailed and fell. I broke my foot three times in six weeks in the same spot doing the same trick. I was too tall and too heavy. I lacked the grace and skill that is characteristic of the sport. But I loved it. Oh, how I loved it. That feeling of flying under nothing more than your own power is magnificent. I still dream about it to this day.


But for all the flying there is even more falling. First of all, everything in gymnastics is measured deductions. Unlike other sports where you start at zero and then get credit for what you do, in gymnastics your routines are ranked at what score you would get if you performed everything perfectly, at your full potential. And then every little wobble, kneebend and misstep is deducted from that perfect mark. From the second you step onto the spring floor (you do know that floor has two-foot steel springs underneath it, right?) people are subtracting you.

It doesn't stop with the scoring. "The less you weigh, the higher you fly," was the motto at my gym. They never encouraged disordered eating outright but the constant weigh-ins in front of your teammates surely made even the strongest girls consider it.

Jennifer Sey, 1986 US National Champion, outlines this dilemma perfectly in her new book Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastic's Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders and Elusive Dreams. (Seriously, how did that title get okayed by an editor?? That's not a title, it's a freaking plot summary.) In it, she details the tragedy that can occur when you take very young girls - gymnasts usually peak by 16 - with competitive, perfectionistic personalities and put them in a sport that demands nothing short of everything.

In the most heartbreaking moment in the book, Jennifer recounts how her highest gymnastic achievement - winning the national championships and becoming internationally ranked - was turned into just one more failure. Sporting two black eyes (covered for the cameras by makeup) and an open head wound sustained from a fall on the beam due to living for months on 500 calories a day while enduring 7 hour workouts, along with a shattered ankle and a broken-and-never-healed femur that required cortisone shots before every event, she was told that all of it meant nothing unless she made the Olympic team. Which would have meant maintaining her grueling workouts for another two years. Broken, battered, abused and eating disordered, she walked away from the sport she loved because even after everything she'd sacrificed, she still wasn't good enough.

I wish there was a happy ending to this story - she did get married and have two kids and repair relations with her family - but she writes that every day, every mistake she makes, reminds her of what a failure she is. Because she didn't live up to her full potential.

This year, in the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese team includes He Kexin (pictured in all 3 photos). World renowned for her unparalleled skill on the uneven bars, she is a controversial figure. Olympic rules state a competitor must be at least 16 years old. But in gymnastics, the younger girls are more flexible, more fearless, more agile and, of course, smaller. He Kexin is 16 according to her Chinese-issued passport. She is 14 according to her actual birth certificate.

Yet no one will file a complaint for fear of retribution from the Chinese judges. And I fear that even if someone were to intervene on behalf of the tiny girl, she wouldn't take it. Because she has to live up to her potential.

Running Scared: How I Got Into Fitness

We should institute a paper-bag mask and trench coat uniform for all would-be pervs. Make them so much easier to spot! Photo Credit.

It started with running away.

The Backstory
At nineteen I was sexually assaulted by a boy whom I was dating, hereafter referred to as Very Bad Boyfriend. The physical toll it took on me was rather minor (I had a worse recovery from my appendix surgery and don't even get me started about child birth). But after the dust settled, I realized that the mental toll was immense. I was depressed, withdrawn and suffered from frequent nightmares mixed with bouts of pull-that-crazy-woman-off-the-bridge PTSD. My remedy of choice was simple: pretend it never happened.

But it had. I was forced to admit this when I discovered through a newspaper article that, five years later, VBB had done it again. And again. I called the police department that same day and made a report. By the time I hung up the phone I was shaking so badly that I threw up. This will be so healing for you, everyone told me. You'll get to face him and show him what he really did to you. You can finally get really angry and justice will be served. In the end, after nine months of court battles, the only part of that that came true was the getting really angry part. He went to prison for three months and jail for nine but, strangely, it didn't feel just to me. I still felt hurt. If anything, I felt more hurt by him. Dredging up all the old memories and then listening to what he did to the other girls only made me wallow in my pain and the guilt I felt for not reporting him sooner.

In an ironic twist, the day after he was sentenced, my third baby was born. And the next day I started running. Never having been a runner before, at first it was just running away. I couldn't feel the emotional pain when I was in physical pain so as soon as I finished my 5 am nursing, I'd be out the door and into the dark. But my legs couldn't carry me fast enough or far enough to escape my thoughts, or the ten pounds of post-partum weight than I had decided to focus all my misguided anger on. Running was a good release but I was still scared.

The Beginning

I thought perhaps muscles would make me feel less vulnerable so I took up weight lifting. My first gym was one of those really sweaty, kinda dirty, 80's-metal-pumping gyms. It was fun to see muscles where literally none had existed before (How does one function without a tricep? To this day I don't know how I was able to drive or lift my children or brush my teeth without that telltale little cut across my arm), but I was still riddled with insecurity, scared of my own shadow and plagued with nightmares.

When my husband decided to go to night school I was worried. "Why don't you go to the Y," he suggested. "Maybe try kickboxing? They have a class the night I'm in school." "I don't have any gloves," I protested weakly. "You better start punching some bricks to toughen up then," he grinned.

The Power of A Good Teacher

It was the head strike that sold me. "Imagine you are actually grabbing someone's head and pulling it into your knee," the instructor yelled. That I could do. I had crash landed in Turbo Jennie's TurboKick class. A petite blond with biceps that could crack a walnut, she projected a no-nonsense, slightly dangerous air. When she punched I could see people going down. By the next class I was looking around the room for a real specimen to try it on, preferably someone I wasn’t related to but I wasn’t going to be picky.

One day after class I decided to ask her. "Have you ever, you know, punched someone? For real?"

"Like in a bar fight?" Her eyes lit up as she considered it and frat boys everywhere got a simultaneous, inexplicable shiver. Then she waved it off, "Nah. But I was a competitive boxer in college." That explained a lot. She wouldn't punch your lights out and send you home with your pride in a take-out box but, by golly, she could. No one would dare mess with Jennie.

And that's what I was lacking. All these years I had made it about him, about my attacker. When the truth was, the problem was with me. I felt weak. Scared. Ever-vulnerable. I was living in a world that felt unsafe to me and I didn't know how to deal.

I know I'm not alone. A 2007 University of Minnesota study reported that almost a quarter of female college students had been sexually assaulted. Take four of your best girl friends and then ask them. Their answers might surprise you. My point is the world is a beautiful, exciting and fun place but a safe place? Not so much.

During the court case VBB said that he had picked his victims because he knew we weren't the type to fight back. And here's my dirty little secret: I didn't fight back. I just cried. Sure he had the element of surprise, not to mention six inches and 60 pounds on me, and I've had enough therapy by now to be able to say that it wasn't all my fault - a typical reaction of victims trying to control the uncontrollable - but what I did, or didn't do rather, definitely affected the outcome. From the moment we went out together, VBB was in control. I let him set the boundaries, the mood, the location and almost every other aspect of the date. So by the time the battle came, I was exhausted, isolated and so far outside of normal that I lost the fight before it began.

I am not that girl anymore. Besides flat abs and arms that no longer wave like they're sending a sailor off to sea, Jennie helped me regain confidence in myself, whether I was doing a roundhouse (and picturing my attacker's head) or doing a body roll and realizing that it's okay to be sexy again. I don't have any delusions that the kind of cardio kickboxing I do will actually save me from a determined attack – I'm pretty sure no one has ever been TurboKicked to death – but I like to think it makes me less of an easy mark. I stand taller, walk faster and meet people's eyes when I pass them on the street. If it looks like I’m sizing you up, it’s because I am.

The Appendix

A few weeks ago I noticed a teenage girl watching me in the mirror during kick boxing. I could tell she was trying not to be obvious but she was watching me. And laughing. During a break I approached her. "Hey, are you enjoying the class?" I asked, trying not to feel like the last kid picked in gym class. Grinning, she answered, "It's great. I'm sorry to keep laughing but you just have this totally intense expression on your face. It's like you think you're really killing someone."

Grateful: My Body is a Gift

This post was done as a joint endeavor with the inimitable and beloved MizFit as our tribute to gratitude.

It seems like sometimes we fit bloggers get a bit obsessive about our bodies. (That would be the understatement of the year except that "Michael Jackson is a bit off" wins every time.) We tweak what we put into our bodies and catalog what comes out. We monitor the various ways, times and parts of it that we exercise. We love it, we restrict it, we dream about it, we punish it. We can even get obsessive about not being obsessive about it. And really, it's quite understandable. The human body is a miracle. It works like no machine ever could. When everything goes right - and the majority of the time it does - it is so seamless that I sometimes take it for granted.

Today I am all about the gratitude for my body.

My Top 5 Favorite Things About My Body
1. I have carried and birthed four children. Three were healthy, all were beautiful. Even in the death of my infant daughter, I was grateful to my body for taking care of her as best as it could and I was grateful to her body for sticking with me as long as she did.

2. I have a quick mind. When we talk about our bodies, we often neglect to think about the part that does all the thinking. I may forget some of the minutae (What Mrs. X? It was my son's pretend birthday today in Kindergarten and I forgot to bring treats for the whole class and make a poster of what a special kid he is and now he's sobbing at his desk? Um...) but I have a great memory and love for the stories in my life, the epic tales that have made it worth every minute of my time on this ride.

3. I can run fast. I'm no Olympian but I can sprint to a toddler chasing a ball into the street like you wouldn't believe. My legs have never ever failed me when I have truly needed them. They are strong and powerful and beautiful.

4. I have a great immune system. This is one of those things that you don't think about it until it isn't working. The truth is that I rarely get sick. And when I do, I recover quickly.

5. I feel everything. Sometimes it's hard living in this world when you are a very intense person but at the same time I firmly believe that that same intensity makes colors brighter, smells linger and the gentle words of a friend more meaningful. I cry a lot but I also laugh a lot and it all adds to the experience.

Reader Becky's Story

Becky, her mom and her sister

I recently came across a very inspiring entry on Reader Becky's (a.k.a. chilerocks) blog. Her mother, her sister and herself all decided to join a Master's swimming club and compete in a relay race together. Swimming was always something they had shared growing up but the years intervened and all three moved away. But swimming reunited them more than the miles could separate them and they took on this new challenge as a family. Each woman brought her own challenges to overcome. Becky recently gave birth to her second son (and incidentally has the most horrifying childbirth story I've ever heard - she had a c-section and was not numb.) Her mother recently overcame a long and difficult battle with cancer. Her younger sister is just starting the process of figuring out who she is and launching her life.


The team swam the 200m medley with Becky (that's her above) doing a beautiful butterfly. Despite their best efforts, all the other teams finished first and so Becky's sister had to do the final lap on her own. The women were undeterred in their passion for their sport and just grateful for the opportunity to do it. Becky sums up their experience by saying, "It was a fun meet and a good check on our "Someday I'd like to do that" list. Hopefully it will also motivate us to swim even more so we can do more meets." I am quite sure they will.

Life Lessons I Have Learned From Karate

Karate surprised me. As you may recall, I informed Sensei Don at the beginning of the Experiment that I was less interested in the mental aspects of Karate and more interested in the killing people. He was kind enough to tell me some things about the more lethal aspects but also gently guided me back toward the mental and spiritual aspects of the martial art. It turns out that to do the former well, you have to be good at the latter.

This irritated me. I don't like busy work and the standing basics and kata repetitions were a bit reminiscent of Madonna/Gwyneth Paltrow's 100-rep workout. Usually it entailed me ordering one of the Gym Buddies to count to 100 while I chattered and used them for free therapy (they're very good to me!). But somewhere along the way, I started to realize what Sensei Don meant.

Three Life Lessons I Have Learned From 30 Days of Karate
1. When Someone Pushes, Pull Them Towards You. One of the things Sensei Don taught us was a game called "Sticky Hands." Check out this video to watch as Gym Buddy Allison and I explain the game and give a very giggly demonstration of how to do it (Yes, I know how very unKarate like we look. You think this was bad, you should have seen us in the Dojo. Sensei Don is nothing if not patient.)

No, I'm not getting ready to feel up Allison. Seriously, YouTube - what's up with that??

The hard part of the game is that it is counter-intuitive. What is your gut reaction when someone pushes you? To push back, of course! But Karate taught me the power in pulling them in closer - not only do you use their momentum against them but it usually unbalances them. And I discovered that this little lesson applies to more than just punches and shirt grabs.

This past month I was having an intense emotional struggle with one of my good friends. I won't detail the cattiness that ensued but succificeth to say I ended up at the gym in tears one night. As I bit my lip and tried not to look like the 12-year-old I really am, I remembered the Sticky Hands game and something Sensei Don had told me: "The hardest part is giving up control to the other person." You know what a control freak I am. But I decided that he was right. There was no point in fighting with a person who was dear to me. Instead, I let her decide when and if to throw the (emotional) punches. When she did, instead of retaliating or feeling hurt, I simply drew her into me. I did my best to redirect the hurt and be gentle while she worked through her own momentum. I can't even tell you what a difference that made. Within days, my peace was restored. I found that to get control, I had to give it up first.

2. There Is Beauty In the Details. This is the part I wanted most to skip over in my Karate training. The kata is like a dance but made up of stances, kicks and punches. A very stilted and formal dance. With no music. Unless you count the funny "ki-ya"s we got to do. And yet because Sensei Don told us it was important to learn, the Gym Buddies and I did our best to squelch our silliness and practiced it faithfully several times a day. Although we may have broken out into Rockette kicks on a few occasions. It couldn't be helped.

Then one day I realized I liked it. There was a sense of mastery in remembering the order and I felt amazingly accomplished the first time we all got it right. (There was screaming and a few cheerleader jumps. No chest bumping though - Gym Buddy Megan is pregnant, remember?)

How much do I hate the sound of my voice on video? It sounds so much better in my head!

But the moment when I truly realized its worth was when we performed it for Sensei Don. He stepped in and showed us what we had really learned: a sequence of moves that was not arbitrary, like I had thought, but was designed to block and attack a certain offense. And when I did it right, it worked! In all the self-defense classes I've taken, I've never actually ended up with a move that really worked. And now I had three! I was positively giddy. I went home and tried them on my husband. They worked on him too! That is until he decided to just throw me over his shoulder and tickle me until I threatened to pee on him. That little technique isn't covered in self-defense books but I've had good results with it.

3. Unrestrained Emotion Hurts. I wrote early on about how Karate was more emotional for me than I had expected due to my previous experience with being assaulted. Never before have I ever felt so very fragile during an Experiment. And I think it made me stronger. Karate is good therapy.

The first time I felt this strength was during one of the first lessons when Sensei Don asked if he could touch my throat. He had no way of knowing that that is my absolute panic spot. Even now, thinking about it, makes my heart pound and the bile rise in my throat. I don't let anyone touch my neck, not even my children. I believe my response was to throw Gym Buddy Megan under the bus. "Can you do it on her?" Sensei Don replied that he would but he wanted me to feel where the pressure points on the neck were. And so I said yes. And you know what? I was okay. Not great - I did tear up a bit but I don't think anyone noticed - but I was okay. And now I know that about myself.

The second time was much more dramatic. After all those weeks of drills, Sensei Don finally deemed us ready to punch something. So he got out his pads and showed us a drill where we did two punches and a block as hard as we could for two minutes straight. Now, I have done intervals. And I will tell you that this rivals the 800m sprint as the highest intensity interval training I have ever done. It had something that sprinting does not though: I got to hit stuff. Within just a few punches I discovered the satisfying thrill of smashing my hand into something - hard. It felt really good. In fact, it felt so good that I didn't realize until after the first interval was over that my left hand had two split knuckles and I was about to leave blood spatter in the Dojo. I quickly taped it up though because I didn't want to miss my next interval and Sensei Don was not stopping the clock for me.

For some reason that I still can't fully explain, all that punching did something to me. Like my knuckles, something inside me split open and while it hurt, it felt good to get it out. I cried when I got home and it wasn't because of the pain in my hands (although seriously, that hurt! I do not recommend splitting your knuckles). Afterwards I felt lighter than I have in a really long time. It was a high that didn't leave me for days. I even dreamt about installing my own makiwara (a leather punching/kicking post) in my basement so I could do it again.

I learned that those tides of emotions that overwhelm me at times can be controlled without repressing them. And they can be experienced without being consumed by them.

For a good example of control, check out Sensei Don first breaking a board (don't blink or you'll miss it, he makes it look that easy) and then demonstrating the practical application of the move on Good Sport Bill, another student.



Conclusions
So how was Karate as a workout? That was the original point of this Experiment, right? It was fairly rigorous. Like many workouts it is as hard as you make it. Sensei Don kept things tough for us by having us do daily conditioning exercises like push-ups (although never again on our knuckles), sit-ups and squats. At his Dojo he came up with some circuit training that involved functional weight exercises specific to Karate movements that we were training. And of course the repeated punches and kicks could definitely bring on a good sweat. We added some free weights and cardio of our own as well as daily standing basics and kata drills. Despite never targeting specific muscles groups with our Karate training, I found that my shoulders and upper arms got some additional muscle definition.

Karate was definitely one of my most favorite Experiments. Generally as the Gym Buddies and I get to the end of the month, it gets harder to motivate ourselves to do the workout. We're ready to be done and move on to the next thing. This time however, I wished I had more time to continue it. One month was simply not enough to learn everything that I want to know about Karate. Don't worry though, Sensei Don and I are in talks to continue with the lessons so I'll get my punching fix somehow!

For kicks and giggles, here is Sensei Don performing his favorite move on Bill. Kill Bill!



So tell me: those of you who have martial arts experience - was it like this for you? Was anyone else surprised by the mental aspects like I was? Have any of the rest of you experienced a mental or spiritual element in conjunction with a particular kind of workout?

PS> Tomorrow I'll announce January's Great Fitness Experiment - and it's one EVERYBODY can follow along with this time. Perfect for New Year's Resolutions or just a change up, so no excuses this time! I even enlisted an additional Gym Buddy, Krista, to join us. Also, look for upcoming posts on binge eating and compulsive exercise as requested by several readers in the comments!

Finding Safety in an Unsafe World [The Four Steps of Self-Defense You Need to Know.]

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The Beauty of Strong Women [Rachel Cosgrove Experiment Results are in!]

Fragile. Tiny. Vulnerable. Weak. I'll admit it: I liked being those things. For a long time (most of my life?), I enjoyed people grabbing my arm and cooing "Oh, I've never seen such a tiny wrist!" I liked that men got things down from high shelves for me without me even having to ask. I liked how boyfriends stood protectively around me, their arms a barrier between me and everything that was scary. I liked how I could punch a male friend on the arm and he'd just laugh. I liked being the damsel in distress, liked being carried over mud puddles and -heaven help me - liked being rescued. (Yes, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this now.)

Muscles did not fit in with that image I held of myself. In fact, muscles made it hard to fit into all the uber-girly dresses that defined my image. I was one of those girls who would look at Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby and think, "I would never want to look like that, she's way too muscular." I used to covet the spaghetti-like arms of starlets and catwalk models, arms that are widest at the elbow. Besides, female bodybuilders are widely ridiculed in our society; childish women are still the ideal.

Then something inside me began to change. Maybe it was the realization, courtesy of my abusive ex-boyfriend, that the same arms that held me up could also be used to hold me down. I learned that my softness could be used against me. Or maybe it was discovering, as a teacher, that people don't listen to a shrinking violet. Or perhaps it was the epiphany after so many times of falling on my face that there is no one to rescue me. No one but me.

Moreover, now that I'm a mother, I'm the rescuer. I'm the one that has to be strong and steady. I'm the one carrying tiny bodies up six flights of stairs. I'm the one encircling my arms protectively against the harsh realities that fly at my children with alarming force. It's impossible for me to be needy in the face of their bottomless need.

This shift has caused me considerable consternation. If I am not the princess then who am I? A cross-dressing knight with the wrong genitalia? I'm pretty sure there weren't any of those at King Arthur's round table. An Amazon woman in a culture where "amazonian" is generally not a compliment? This ambivalence about being "strong" translated into a strange love-hate relationship with my muscles. I wanted to be strong but I didn't want to look like it and while there are many ways for women to be strong, having distinct muscles is an obvious way to proclaim your strength.

For years I have lived with this competing notion of always wanting to be ever smaller and yet needing to be ever stronger. I'd bemoan a few pounds gained on the scale but rejoice in the pull-ups that new muscle let me do. (Think pull-ups aren't a life skill? Once in college I locked myself out of my apartment with the only way in being through a second story balcony. I enlisted the help of the guy next door. He promptly jumped, pulled himself up and climbed over the railing. I'd been locked out for an hour. He was in in 30 seconds. A feat he and his roommates later repeated to relocate all our furniture to their garage but that's another story. Being able to do a pull-up would have been useful, is all I'm saying.) I'd cry about a dress not fitting but be ecstatic that I could heft the 50-lb bag of flour into my cart at Costco.

Then kickboxing and karate came into my life and the martial arts showed me that not only are muscles handy, they're life-saving. There was something so deeply satisfying, healing even, about punching and kicking. Sure it's not always the strongest one who wins - karate taught me the value of using my weaknesses - but muscles certainly don't hurt.

And that's the beauty of and the problem with strong women: we're immensely powerful. Even more powerful, perhaps, than we know.

All of this is a prelude to telling you about the conclusion of my Great Rachel Cosgrove's The Female Body Breakthrough Fitness Experiment. In a nutshell: I put on some serious muscle. And I think I like it. In the past 4 years of doing fitness Experiments, I've liked a lot of things. I've enjoyed doing the vast majority of the programs I've tried but there are only a few I have loved. CrossFit. Karate. And now this one. This program certainly ranks in my top 3 and is possibly number 1! I know!

What I liked

1. It lives up to its promises. I significantly changed my body composition. Dropping nearly all my steady state cardio (I kept 1-2 days/week of TurboKick) and really lifting heavy made a huge difference. Despite the fact that it flaunts the conventional wisdom that cardio is the all-mighty fat burner, over the past two months I've dropped 1.5 pants sizes (I know, half of a pants size makes no sense but I'm down at least a whole size and in some brands two whole sizes so I averaged that to 1.5.)

2. Real, measurable results. I'm down 5% body fat. (Yes, this month the calipers showed a 5% drop although I think that was probably spread across the two months and the trainer who did my body fat last month was off.) I've lost 1.5 inches off of my waist, 1 inch off each thigh and and half an inch off my hips. I didn't think to measure my shoulders but judging from the way my shirts fit, I'm betting they went up quite a bit. My biceps, chest and calves remained the same. The nice thing about not weighing myself during this Experiment is that I'm pretty sure all this new muscle added up on the scale but seeing as I don't know, I don't care! Seriously, people keep stopping the Gym Buddies and I at the gym to ask what we're doing because we look so different.

3. Nice variety. There are a lot of different weight routines so we didn't get bored. Often I find myself complaining that workouts aren't challenging enough but this one with its four phases had routines basic enough for the total beginner and yet also had workouts that kicked our been-there-bought-the-t-shirt butts. (Hello "complexes" - my butt's been sore for 2 months straight!)

4. The post-workout shakes. I should clarify: I didn't like the smoothies themselves. I never could get past the "chew" factor. (All of you that told me to put chia seeds in there to give it texture? I literally dry heaved on the stretching mats. That's like trying to drink tapioca! Gah, even typing that makes me shudder. Sorry you guys but I detest pudding - even creme brulee reminds me of snot once I get past the sugar shell.) However, I did like the effect the smoothies had. It was so nice to not be all shaky from low blood sugar while trying to collect my children, drive home, and shower before getting time to make myself lunch.

What I Didn't Like

1. Too easy interval training. While I adore high intensity interval (HIIT) workouts, Cosgrove's got boring. We also had a really hard time getting our heart rate up doing them. So after the first month, we switched them out for puketastic Tabata sprints on the treadmill and some harder intervals from bodyrock.tv.

2. The foam rolling. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong (if I posted a video would you guys critique it for me? Deb Roby??) but despite doing it religiously I never saw a difference from it. Never even felt so much as a twinge doing it. Gym Buddy Megan however liked it so much she bought her own roller for home.

3. Big training jump between phases. Gym Buddy Krista pointed out that the transition from Phase I to Phase II in the workouts was a huge leap and that beginners might need to spend a lot more time than one month in Phase I to be comfortable enough to move on. Of course we skipped Phase I entirely so, yeah.

4. The hilarious warm-up. (Although I need to clarify: I love that she has a dynamic warm-up. We are totally on board with dynamic warm-ups. We just felt kinda silly doing a maypole dance in the middle of the weight floor.)

Conclusions

I loved this. I want more of it! I'm actually sad to move on from this Experiment because I've enjoyed it so much. Plus? I love looking in the mirror when I punch and seeing rippling muscles. Maybe I'm finally coming into my own power. And I think we still look like girls:

PS. I tried to take some pics to show you guys my super duper new muscles up close but apparently I have vampire muscles - they disappear on film. Sigh. I don't know if it's because I'm so pale that porcelain gets jealous or if it's because that while the change is major to me it's actually pretty minor to everyone else. But, hey, at least you're spared more grainy pics of my messy bathroom!