I have been working out regularly for a little bit more than a year now. I do it twice a week, with a personal trainer, for 45 minutes, at 7am. When I’m finished, I get a coffee from my favourite café across the street and walk to the office, which takes about 20 brisk minutes (I am a very fast walker, as I seem to be telling everyone these days). To anyone who has known me for more than two years, this must sound extremely improbable. Frankly, it even sounds improbable to me: I was never a morning person nor a gym person and now, 2in1.

However, as I have noted before, circumstances change and with them, sometimes also people*. This set-up works perfectly for me. It is early enough not to interfere with work (it is nearly impossible for me to get away during the day or finish early in the evenings); having a personal trainer is motivating and instils discipline; resistance training suits me and when I stick with it, I can see results quickly. I am still not a morning person per se and getting up is difficult, but by now I know how good I feel after my training session, so I pull myself together and get out of bed. If there’s one change I’d make in an ideal world, it’s training three times a week instead of two, but that might be too ambitious both financially and time-wise**.

I’m not sure how much difference others detect – it’s not like I look extremely fit or muscly, I certainly am not slimmer. I DO have muscles, also in places where I never had them before (I mean my back). But I need to move or flex for them to be visible, and I only do the latter when drunk and/or alone. It is a fact, however, that I am stronger than before, my muscle mass has increased and my energy levels are significantly higher than they used to be.

So far, so expected. There are a few things I didn’t see coming, though, and as there are many better places on the web for exercise advice and training plans, I’ll tell you about the surprises.

1. The body changes. I see how this point could be confusing, as the body is expected to change, right? Right. It’s likely that other people are smarter than me and find nothing at all surprising in this, but I kinda expected my body to change, while still remain the same. Not that I envisaged any very specific results at all, but when I did think about it, I imagined that I would be pretty much the same, just a bit tauter, more defined.

While the tautness thing came true, my body is also noticeably different to me: my shoulders are broader, my butt is bigger, I look more powerful and less elegant than I used to. I can no longer wear all my clothes, as they were extremely tight to begin with and now they can be impossible to get into. Some just don’t look the same, even if I manage to get them on. This is not to complain, I’m not going to look like a 19-year-old waif in any case, working out or not. If I minded more, I could choose a different form of exercise like running or yoga. But I don’t, it’s just something to acknowledge and consider.

2. The hunger. I’ve been known through the years to skip my breakfasts and lunches on a regular basis while still functioning pretty well. I can no longer do that. Especially on the gym days, I HAVE TO eat after exercise, otherwise it seems like I’m being eaten alive from inside (I of course need to eat something before the workout as well, to be able to train properly). But even on other days, I feel my appetite has increased, as a result of me being more active and having a little bit more muscle.

This took me a while to adjust to and I have actually put on some weight since starting training. It’s not much, it’s partly muscle and I was borderline underweight when I started out anyway, so this is not an issue. Still, I feel like I haven’t quite figured out the eating part of the equation just yet; for example: how to get more protein while trying to reduce my meat intake (I know, you are going to say eggs, but I cannot subsist on eggs alone). This is my goal for the coming months.

3. Egoboost. I fully expected to have more energy and feel better, and I do – both right after the workout and in general. When I train in the morning, I’m almost guaranteed to have a good day: by the time I get to work, I’m wide awake, full of energy and in a good mood. I’ve always loved walking, but now it’s even nicer, as I can feel my own strength as I move.

What I didn’t quite foresee is what exercise does for one’s self-confidence and drive. When I walk to work from the gym, I feel like the queen of the world: I have woken up at 6am, I have gone to the gym, I have survived the session, I CAN DO ANYTHING. I wonder if for those who are by nature morning/gym persons the egoboost is less noticeable, but surely it still exists.

4. Easier periods. My periods have always been long, painful and heavy. They are better now than in my teens, but still bad. During the last year, I have suffered much less, however. While I have no direct evidence that this is thanks to regular exercise, I have a strong suspicion. There are many reasons why exercise is recommended for people with difficult cycles, including the fact that it helps to reduce the level of oestrogen when it’s too high. It would not be surprising at all if there is a correlation between my regime and less horrible periods.

5. Appreciating ladybrawn. I have always been a fan of strong women, but I admit that I used to find women with very prominent muscles a bit scary. I am not proud of this and fortunately, that attitude started to change already years ago. It has definitely been accelerated and ultimately completely reversed by my gym experience. As members of society, we are not conditioned to find physical strength in women particularly attractive (although that too is changing, very slowly). So it helps to be exposed to women who are very fit and to identify – even if only in small ways – with those who push their bodies hard.

It is of course not news, but it has still been a bit of a shock to realise that in most contexts, a female body is only valued for its appearance and sensuality – with the possible exception of creating a baby. I struggle to find any examples outside sport (and physical activity in general) where your body gets points that are not related to looks. In the gym, you get positive feedback when you lift something heavier or do things faster. I had no idea how liberating that would be.

6. Becoming boring. I’ve always hated those people who become evangelical about things and just do not shut up. Well, I’ve become one of those people. I think this process of finding my exercise mojo has been such a revelation for me that I cannot help but talk about it. Fortunately, I have friends who are interested in these things as well, so often I manage to channel my enthusiasm towards people who aren’t excessively bored by it. Not always, though, I’m afraid. At least on the blog, you have the choice not to read, if this isn’t your kind of a thing!

If you have any questions about the consequences of me working out, be they intended or otherwise, feel free to ask in the comments. As you can see, I’ve managed to write 1500 words even without going into much detail about the exercise itself. It seems my blog is lately mostly providing lengthy descriptions of my daily activities, which sounds somewhat underwhelming to me.

Finally, I wanted to say that this photoshoot for the post almost didn’t happen: I had everything organised, but was feeling extremely pre-menstrual, fat and bloated and was very close to cancelling the whole thing. Then I thought that taking pictures only when I feel in peak condition undermines everything I’m trying to do with my blog and in my real life. So what if I’m not perfectly lean? I can live with it. I can live with others seeing it. In the end, though, the dream team did such a great job making me look the way exercise makes me feel that my brave statement doesn’t really come across very clearly 🙂

*I am, indeed, a deep thinker.
**I don’t do much outside of my gym sessions, apart from my 10 000 steps a day, so I feel 3 sessions a week would be optimal. If there is one thing I’ve learned from this year, it’s that there’s a huge difference between training once a week and training twice a week.

Images Krõõt Tarkmeel, makeup Gerda Miller, hair Natallia at Helen Heinroos Hair.