Written on the evening of 18 August 2012

After talking about it—and being nagged about it— for weeks on end, I finally took the step.

The step into Zumba class.

Okay, it was actually my third (oops, pa lang!) time to go. Then again, this was the first time I did it alone.Yes, I said I would make it an MWF + S/Sn routine. I did make it to the Monday class, but one of the major motivators was that I knew my cousin was coming with me. Come Wednesday morning…well, let’s just say I didn’t get out of bed ‘til lunchtime.

And I didn’t get myself off the La-Z boy for the evening class, either. (I can now sense the shaking of the head and tsk-tsking of my sister)

To be fair, I tried to compensate for it by exercising on my Dad’s elliptical trainer that evening.

I’ll be honest. Like shopping, exercising is one of those things I find easier to do with a companion. Then I have someone to commiserate with and laugh with, even though the laughing would probably be directed at me.

It’s a whole different ball game when I do it all by myself, without anyone to nudge me along.

This morning, I wasn’t sure about attending the class. Even after the deadly lunch buffet I had with my relatives, I still wasn’t sure. It wasn’t until I was reading in bed after arriving home that I realized that I was just beating around the bush, just procrastinating. No matter all the mental planning and goal envisioning, nothing was going to happen until I actually got up off that bed and changed into my exercise gear. So though it was one hour early, I got myself dressed up, got back in bed and read while passing the time until 3:45 PM.

How was my first experience alone? Well, let me just say that I felt pretty conspicuous. I was probably the worst in the group (hopefully just the second-worst), especially considering that there were only a few of us there. I won’t lie and say that I don’t care because I do. But the feeling of achievement I got when I made it through that one hour surpasses whatever embarrassment I felt when I couldn’t quite catch up with the steps. Heck, I’m sure not everyone there was born a dancer. They’ve just been at it for a longer time.

So for the sake of the fifteen pounds I want to lose, and for the sake of being able to dance to the steps of Step Up Revolution without looking like a total loser (I live out my dance frustrations by inhaling those Step Up movies. The latest one was awesooome), I’ll just have to keep at it until Zumba (or going to the gym in general) becomes a habit for me.

They say it takes three weeks to start a habit. That’ll bring me to the second week of September. I’ll let you know if I’ve made it then. *crosses fingers*