Today marks one month that I've been OBSESSED with Orange Theory. I've taken 19 classes in 30 days, which makes me feel like an underachiever. Kidding, it's a lot. What does make me feel (decreasingly) like an underachiever is the picture up top, which was taken in 2014, when I'd been going OT HAM on like, EV-ER-Y-thing in my life: grad school, nighttime studio art classes, work, flying somewhere every weekend, working out literally 3x a day (wtf to that last one especially). I have no idea how I had time or energy (or desire) for all of that. It seems completely impossible, ridiculous, and tiring now. I think I might have taken all the non-lazy juice allotted to my/this lifetime and squeezed it into a span of two years. This photo has been inspiration for what I'd been working at a lesser pace to return to, but lesser does not equal abbage, especially as I become more life-refined (aka older, lolz).
Enter OT. After a month of it, I don't even care much anymore about returning to 2014 body. Maybe it's because my energy is depleted and I have barely any resources left to care. Maybe it's because it actually is bringing me back to 2014 body, as I had been plotting for years (wtf) now. Either way, since you were about to ask what I've learned from the unwitting guru of one month of going OT on the OT...
- I am surprisingly not as lazy as I thought I was. (Lol.) Sometimes I avoid challenges under the guise of spiritual tenets such as non-attachment and being super swaha, two ideas which I do generally and genuinely adhere to in my life. But I did grow up in an culty religious school which twisted Bible verses to back up their judgments and hate, so we can't really expect for me to not have learned how to lie to myself on occasion. Speaking of the Bible, you know how there's that verse that talks about when two or three are gathered in Jesus' name, he will appear (not literally appear)? And you know how meditation has a much doper and deeper vibe when practiced in a group? OT is like that. Working out alongside others who are also dying a fast-paced, sweaty death just makes it easier to tough it out, and then all of a sudden class is done and you've earned seven billion splat points and a necessary shower. Which brings me to my next point..
- Hair washing. I want to be one of those people who wash their hair once a week and everything remains fine. I'm naturally greasy, but sweating that intensely demands a hair washing way more than once a week. This might seem trivial to some, but long hair, while wonderful to have, can be a real bitch, just like me as a girlfriend.
- I'm slowly getting over my fear of commitment. Sure, I harbor zero fear over committing to one person until I die, but for most everything else in life, forget it. I can't even show up to work five days a week or eight hours in one day, or stay off of a plane for more than three weeks. When I was signing up for an OT plan and they told me I couldn't cancel less than 8 hours before the class, I almost got an ulcer. I need flexibility on my own terms, and AF! Otherwise I just feel trapped, and you know how that goes.. someone always ends up getting murdered. But making workout plans and sticking to 'em (in order to avoid a fee) has been both serving to get me pumped like Arnold (not as big) and keeping me from losing money making it rain on OT.
- Building stamina is a legit concept. In my first class, I was like, there's no way I'm going to run for this many minutes straight, and so I stopped running (lol, no judgment here). I truly thought that it would be like that forever, not that I cared if that were the case. In reality, that only lasted for a week and then all of a sudden I could run for longer than I dreamed possible! Not that I dreamed of running for any period of time, because I don't care for it at all. Running has only served two purposes in my life: 1) to reduce fat; and 2) to run away from Roman candles being fired at me at the neighborhood park when I was stoned with my friends sometime in the early 2000s. It's just cool to see the change in endurance.
- It's a metaphor for life. Okay, this one is my being a stoner without being stoned. One's ideal heart-rate graph, at the end of class, looks like a pyramid: little bit of super chill heart rate comfort (gray) zone on the left, little bit of killing yourself by expending all of your energy on the (red zone) right, with the biggest (green zone) area in the middle dedicated to challenging yourself at a comfortable and sustainable pace. Being depressed (gray zone), or alternatively, manic (red zone), all the time is not ideal. Recognizing that life has ups and downs, and observing rather than riding the rollercoaster of emotions (green zone), is more ideal. Honestly, I could go on and on with metaphors, but let's not.
In conclusion: I love that there are locations eeeeverywhere because I need the option to work out when I travel, I was super hesitant about paying anything more than the $15 gym membership I currently have but it turns out I obviously find OT worth the more-than-$15 a month I'm paying, I am otsessed (get it? OT + obsessed ha ha ha), I feel fit and fantastic, and I feel so much less self-loathing when it comes to the food I eat and the way this 5-years-after-2014-body looks.