Getting Uncomfortable

At our first Colorado Diet class, Dr. Wyatt warned us that throughout these 16 weeks, we would have to get uncomfortable.

“True change takes place outside your comfort zone,” she had said, and proved it when, later that night, our trainers made most or all of us pretty uncomfortable in our group workout.

“I haven’t exercised like that, in like, ten years!” Natalie had said to me as we both winced in pain from the burpees, planks, butt-kicks and lunges from the night before.

For Natalie, though, it was about more than just a physically grueling workout. She hadn’t been to the gym in years and wasn’t exactly looking forward to reacquainting herself.

Gyms can be intimidating, which deters some people from working out at all. There are those gyms that make you feel uncool just for walking in. These are the gyms where people do their hair and makeup to work out; the kind of place where you can practically smell the steroids; a place you go to be seen. At these gyms, rows upon rows of treadmills and ellipticals and Stairmasters point at a mirror, where you watch yourself and everybody else. It feels like the center ring, and it makes me self-conscious.

Even our gym, the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center, can intimidate you with its high-tech key system, (a virtual personal trainer of sorts), that may take some time to learn. (Although, the staff are available and eager to help).

Natalie, who’d stayed away from gyms for so long, mustered a lot of courage to go alone for the first time, where she had to navigate the system, ask for help and actually get on a machine (but thankfully, not in a spectator atmosphere). But she did it all with a smile, and did it again the next day and the next, a champ through and through.

(Props to the other Colorado Dieters who may empathize with Natalie, or who endured their own discomforts, in the effort to become healthier people).

Of course, Dr. Wyatt is totally right, and all of this is good for us. I remember other times in my life when I had to get uncomfortable (anything from piano recitals to living abroad to high-pressure internships). I was often scared and hated a lot of it, but was a changed person when I emerged on the other side.

This certainly won’t be the only time we feel uneasy – in fact, we should probably look forward to it.