The Gunnar Challenge : A Mom's Quest for Ab(s)

By Sarah Dyer on May 16, 2012

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Sometimes I wonder why I get myself into some situations and almost immediately I get that feeling of, um, maybe I should have taken a second and thought about what I was committing to. But here we are, I am going to take the 8 week online fitness program called The Gunnar Challenge. Thank you to Modernmom for giving me the chance to participate. In exchange for trying out the program, I will blog about it. It sounded like a win/win, until I took a breath and thought about what that meant, I’m kidding, I’m very grateful for the chance to give this a try. I just had my third and final baby and I am in need of some butt kicking. Good luck to you Gunnar because if there is one thing I’m deficient at, its kicking my own butt.

I don’t know if you all watch the Biggest Loser, I do. I’m the one that Bob calls out, telling me to put down my bowl of ice cream and get off the couch. I’m not lazy, I’m just tired. And really Bob, come on, The Biggest Loser is on at like 8 o’clock at night! I’m not working out at 8 o’clock at night. I digress, while I’m tired, I’m also full of excuses. I can think of 101 other things I’d rather be doing with my time than working out.

I actually went to the gym today, in anticipation of the May 21st start date for the Gunnar Challenge, thinking I maybe needed to warn my muscles that bad things might be coming down the pipe. The 10:30am conversation in my head went something like, okay, Wes (the baby) needs to eat (his bottle) sometime between 11 and 11:30, I need to leave the northside at noon to pick up my daughter at school by 12:30, fortunately my other son has a playdate immediately after school so I don’t need to pick him up at his regular 11:45am time. So that should leave me time to get in a work out. But Wes can take over half an hour to eat, so maybe that won’t work. Well, as long as he eats at 11:30 I should be ok. But its really nice out and my car is dirty, maybe I should get a car wash, and fill up the gas, its kind of low. Ok, no wait, I really should work out. Shoot there are those Old Navy bathing suits I promised Luke I’d exchange for the right size before swimming class this week, maybe I should go and do that. NO. STOP. YOU’RE GOING TO DO THIS WORKOUT RIGHT NOW. (I do actually yell at myself in my head).

You see, there are some people that get the ‘runner’s high’ or crave that just-worked-out feeling. My husband uses it to reduce stress. For me, it really just adds a lot of stress to my life. Mostly because of the negotiating I have to do with my brain. It’s a really big battle most days. However, I generally do feel better afterward and it really does make a big difference to my body. Working out combined with knowing what foods work for me.

I’m an active person, I’ve done one mini-triathalon (never to be repeated), one half marathon (again, never to be repeated) both out of peer pressure (those are the kinds of friends I have), I played sports in school but a very very very long time ago. I like to try different activities and I REALLY like being told what to do. I don’t like coming up with my own workouts, but I also don’t really like having a personal trainer standing there while I make idle chit chat while gasping and wheezing. So I’m hoping this will be the best of both worlds, being told what to do without Mr. Gunnar staring me in the face; as far as I know he is nowhere near Chicago.

Man, I just looked up how long 8 weeks is, that will take us right through until my birthday. How fitting. So June 12th I will be popping some bubbly, celebrating being (almost) done with this challenge and toasting a fabulous year.

So here is my promise to you. I can’t tell you that I’m going to like it. But I can tell you that for the next 8 weeks I will do it. I will do it because saying this out loud will hopefully quiet that person in my brain that keeps trying to prioritize other things.

You can either join me in the pain, or cheer me on from the sidelines. Or you can make fun of me, because that kind of thing makes me laugh. But whichever way you do it, I hope you follow along in my progress (pain) because I could really use the support.

Bring it Mr. Gunnar.

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