A Blessing and a Curse

Days 6 and 7

I have this thing. I'm not quite sure what to call it. Some might call it stubbornness. Others might call it pride.  For today's purposes, I'll call it moxie.

So what is this thing called moxie that I have? Basically if someone tells me I can't do something I will do everything in my power to prove them wrong.

You don't think I can push this stroller up this mountain? Watch me!

You don't think I can carry this piece of furniture up the stairs? Watch me!

You get the picture, right?

Moxie can be a curse and lean slightly toward stupidity. For example, several years ago I was taking a boot camp class at the gym. We were walking across the floor on our hands while dragging a weight behind us by our feet. Within a few minutes I developed a blister on my palm. Now, a smart person would have stopped, but not me. There was no way I was going to show weakness to the others in the class, so I continued... and the blister popped.

Unfortunately, gym floors are covered in germs and, though I thoroughly cleaned the wound, it got infected. I tried to treat it myself, but instead of normal skin growth, I grew a pyogenic granuloma. (My skin looked like a sponge.) This growth had to be burned off and I had to get cortiosteriod shots monthly for about 6 months. A few minutes of stubbornness moxie set me back several months physically. And, by the way, if you've never had shots in your palm, they are excruciating.

Thankfully, moxie can also be a blessing. Such was the case yesterday.

Weight gain restricts how a person is able to move their body. Those who are obese find it difficult to do a lot of the simple movements a normal human being can do, especially when it comes to vertical movements like getting off the floor or jumping onto a short stool.

Thankfully I have stayed active throughout my weight gain, so I am slightly better off than those who have been more sedentary, but I still have issues in this area, especially where it comes to things that affect my knees. As such, my trainer is spending some time each session working on mobility.

Assisted lunges and deep squats were on yesterday's menu. No biggie deal. The main reason I needed assistance on those was so I didn't hurt my knees. But THEN he wanted me to do a one-legged squat down as far as I could go.

I didn't say anything. I just looked at him like, "You want me to do WHAT? There's no way I'm getting up from that!"

Then he said the magic words, "If you can't do this, we'll just skip it."

Oh no he didn't! That was just as good as saying, "I think you're going to fail, but let's try it anyway."

So I did every last one. It was hard and I'm definitely sore today, but yesterday Moxie turned out to be a blessing. I did something I didn't think there was a chance in Hades I was going to be able to do.