Doom-ba, oh wait, I mean Zumba!!

So. Here I am... I survived my first night at Zumba. I didn't know if I would make it through an ENTIRE HOUR of jumping, dancing and bending. But alas, here I am!


If you aren't aware of what Zumba is, I have been summarizing it to friends as "Latin dance inspired aerobics" If you need more info... don't ask me. I'm still figuring it out!

Well, I was inspired to sign up, because in the weeks before I hit my 50 lb goal, I had hit a pretty long plateau. In fact, I went 2 months without losing any significant weight. So I decided that unless I want to be blah for the rest of my life, I was going to need to GET OUT and DO SOMETHING. (This is a statement I have been hearing from my father probably every other day for appx 20 years now)

I can admit I am not an active person, I do enjoy going for walks and doing workout videos. I used to request to do "Sweating to the Oldies" with my mom when I was younger (and still would if we had the tapes still) but I have never been able to make exercise a priority in my life.

SO, last night I decided that I would sign up for a water aerobics class that started June 14th. PERFECT! I had 2 more weeks that I could stall and "forget" to sign up for it.

Well all my WW messageboard buddies had been RAVING about Zumba, so I decided that I would just see if they offered a beginners class and was ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE it'd be too expensive. Well shit... they had a mini-sampler that was only 3 classes for 15 dollars. An amazing deal! The first thought that entered my mind was, "hopefully it starts in 3 weeks so I'll REALLY forget to sign up"

To my chagrin, the class started TODAY. There's no way that 24 hours could prepare my body and mind for an hour of working out! And yet, something inside me pulled my debit card out of my wallet... and signed up for both water aerobics and Zumba before I could even say NO!!

So all night, and all day today I made sure to tell everyone I saw that I was signed up for Zumba. Many of you probably thought that it was because of how proud of myself I was. There was a little pride... maybe 5%. The rest, was because I KNEW that if I had 15 people ask me tomorrow how Zumba class was, and I had to say that "something came up..." I'd have A LOT of explaining to do.

So I threw on my workout clothes and filled up a nearby waterbottle before heading to the 5:45 class. I was out the door and in my car before my inner chubby girl knew what was going on. I was scared as hell, but I turned my FIJI water label out (I gotta fit in with the other East Lansing Yuppies), and waltzed into the Hannah Community center. I found the gym and of course I was the first one there.

The instructor was a 4'10 lean mean dancing machine... and here I come... the jolly redhead giant. I was the only one there until like 5:59, when appx 7 other women wandered in. Two of them being "Older" women, so I had a little faith I wouldn't be the only one that couldn't keep up.

Well... I wrote way more than I meant to, so here I will sum up everything I learned tonight, in a short list:

1. I can't dance. I've never claimed to be good at it.. but seriously I HAVE NO RHYTHM

2. This redhaired pale German girl, turns into a LOBSTER after Zumba. I mean seriously. BRIGHT RED

3. The redfaced problem doesn't go away for appx 2 hours after working out.

and finally.

4. Zumba is a lot of freaking fun! It kicked my butt, that's for sure! But it was totally doable. As much as I contemplated skipping the next two classes because of "something coming up..." I decided that my inner healthy girl wants this class WAY more than the inner chubbo.

and frankly... It's about damn time that the inner healthy girl got her way!

There's a First Time For Everything.. Including Being Healthy.

So... I honestly was so inspired by my experience at my first EVER Zumba class tonight (you'll hear more about that later), that I decided it was time for me to start a blog about my weight loss journey.

Just to catch you up to speed, I reached my heaviest in September of 2009. It REALLY hit me smack in the chubby little face when my boss handed me the team picture for my Relay For Life team taken on August 14. We had a group picture taken, and I normally slink to the back of the group and try and hide in the shadows so that no one can see my "shape" (round)... Well SOMEHOW.. SOMEONE... pushed me to the front of the group because I was the team captain. Good lord. When my boss handed me the picture I was SO ashamed of how I looked, I was afraid that she would judge me for how bad I looked in that picture. Then I realized, that's what I look like ALL the time. Everyone else saw me as that "horror" everyday, but I refused to look in mirrors and had no clue. So, I decided that enough was enough. She gave me that picture and within a week I signed up for Weight Watchers.

Ugh.. here I am.
Not the same picture but just as bad

Back to the present... Since that fateful day I have lost a total of 53 lbs. It has been 37 weeks on the Weight Watchers program and I'm loving it! =)

It has definitely taught me patience and perseverance, hope and determination. I am determined to be healthy. I dream of the day that I can run a mile without stopping, that I don't get winded and redfaced with any activity, and that I can rollerskate with a NORMAL center of gravity =)

I've come a VERY long way, a lot further than a lot of people can come. But as of today, I am still 110 lbs away from my goal weight. I am confident I will get there, and I do think this blog will help! Any support and words of encouragement would be appreciated, and any advice or constructive criticism is also welcomed!

So now that I've done my first CHEEEEESY post, now stay tuned for my adventures at Zumba!