Day Five

I don't want to be sexist, so I'll keep this general - guys tend to make more noise than girls when they work out. The grunting and groaning is a way of psyching themselves up. They're saying "I'm tired. This hurts. I'm accomplishing this by sheer force of will power. I'm not ready to quit, I just have reached the point where I need a little encouragement." (Side note: They aren't actually THINKING all those words in connection with their grunting. They're just grunting. What you just read was the female expanded version.)
     Today's "Legs & Back" followed by "Ab Ripper X" got me to that point. So I did the female version - I cried. Note to other females: maybe you're not a crier, I'm not saying you are, I'm saying I am. Note to males: notice that sometimes female crying is the equivalent of male grunting. It just means "I'm tired. This hurts." (And so on, read the above expansion.) A little gentle encouragement is all that's needed.
     And I finished. And I'll do my workout tomorrow. And I'll do that same workout again next week. (Though I'm trying not to contemplate that too deeply too far in advance. No need for all that extra stress in my life!) Sometimes you gotta say, "Life is hard," and then keep going.
     Not quite a decade ago, I was pretty frustrated with a certain musical genre which shall remain unnamed. It felt like all the songs were based off the children's tune. You know, the one that ends "And now I'm am happy all the day!" They rang false. Nice fairy tale, now get back to reality. Fortunately, the pendulum has swung back the other way. Now there's great songs like "The Edge" by Michael Card, "Praise You in the Storm" by Casting Crowns, and "Held" by Nichole Nordeman. Life's tough, but it's worth doing.
~Stick to it.