GF8WG week 3 update & feminist rant
Hi lovely people, can you believe I’ve been doing the GraceFit guide for three-weeks now? So much has changed since I purchased the guide. I’d barely even recognise the shy noodle who once crept around the cardio floor three-weeks ago!
I wanted to take some actual good-quality progress pictures this weekend, but I didn’t get round to doing it (it’s really hard when you live in England and get about 3 hours of natural light a day!) so you have to put up with my rubbish Iphone pictures I’m afraid. Week-four will be the PROPER progress picture week I swear!
So what was week three like?
GUESS WHAT? I still LOVE it! There’s no surprise there. It must be getting pretty boring reading the same thing every week, but I have never had as much love for a workout before!
I am genuinely so excited every time I go to the gym and I have managed to fit in 5 workouts last week for the third time in a row (just call me smug teacher’s pet!) The splits make it really easy to train and I am increasing my weight and reps consistently.
Let’s jump into it…how has my body changed?
Overall my body is more defined and I can see that my arms, shoulders, back and quads look noticeably more muscular and ‘toned’. My quads have always been quite muscular from training over the last year, but I feel like the fat that normally surrounds them is starting to disappear and I can see definition.
The pink leggings I’m wearing in the picture below were soo tight on me just after Christmas and now they fit really nicely. Myth busted: weight training does not make you big! It actually helps you to lose weight! I think my booty is growing? Or it’s definitely firmer, but only time will tell….
What’s my mindset like?
My confidence has grown so much this week. I can now confidently strut into the gym and not worry about how I look to people. Part of this is because I’m familiar with the exercises in the programme (as you repeat the same workouts for one month) although another part is just experience. I force myself to go in the heavy weights room, and even though I do feel a bit out of my depth, after I complete a set I realise there’s nothing to worry about.
What’s annoyed me this week?
I mentioned in my last post that sometimes the personal trainers in my gym make life difficult for me by taking up all the floor space, hogging equipment and making me feel insecure etc. Unfortunately, this trend has continued and I still feel the same way.
Another thing that’s really got on my nerves is men making comments about me while I’m working out, or trying to speak to me when I clearly don’t want to i.e WHEN I HAVE HEADPHONES IN!
Here’s a tale of unwanted harassment that many women will be familiar with….
I was doing barbell squats and there was a group of guys who were obviously watching and talking about me. As staring and laughing about me obviously wasn’t enough for them, one of them came over and told me what they were saying. I tried to be polite and put my headphones back in and carried on with my sets. Once I was finished I went upstairs to use one of the machines, as I sat down and began my set another one of the guys from the group approached me and started talking at me. Once again, I had headphones in and was clearly in the middle of my set so I had to stop and take them out. After telling me that he couldn’t not speak to a ‘pretty girl’ he then asked me questions about my age and where I lived. Again, I was polite but tried not to engage in conversation because I just wanted to get back to my workout.
The whole situation annoyed me so much that I didn’t finish all my sets and I left my brand-new pack of resistance bands in the gym because I was distracted (which someone then stole). I left feeling frustrated that I hadn’t been more aggressive with him and told him to leave me alone, but on the other hand, that goes against everything I’ve subconsciously learned about protecting myself from dangerous/uncomfortable situations. I know it wasn’t really a dangerous situation because there were other people around but it made me feel very uncomfortable. The next day I saw the same guy again and he smiled at me and looked like he was going to talk again so I just kept my headphones in and ignored him, which also made me feel rude and uncomfortable. Just because a woman is in front of you, in a space that you consider to be your ‘territory’ it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to speak to her or that she has any reason to be polite and reciprocate the conversation (I also covered this in my last post, 14 reasons why it’s annoying af being a woman at the gym.)
Not sure how my update turned into a feminist rant, but it just goes to show how instilled it is in our everyday lives. Has anyone else had a similar situation in the gym? Give me some tips about how you dealt with it.
