grrlTravels

feel the spurn

Well, I'm exercising.

I keep waiting to find a way to make exercising funny. But when it's only 10 minutes 2 or 3 times per week, and I'm not exactly heading to the 2008 Olympics (even in archery), and it doesn't feel good yet, it just isn't all that funny.

I had almost given up. I felt lousy about myself (4), lousy about my weight creeping up (+25), lousy about my fitness level (-300). I also felt trapped by the kids (2). No matter how much brain power I gave it (110%) or how many times I programmed myself to dream about it (3), there didn't seem to be a way to exercise.

Oh, there's always a way. I see 10s of people out there exercising every day and I'm sure one or two of them have children, even preschoolers maybe. But none of my options were appealing enough to make me Just Do It. K. was having his own struggles with exercising, seeing how we are needy here in the house and we want time with him. He bravely went to the gym at 9:30 or 10 pm or 7:30 or 8:00 am but the schedule wasn't flowing. We had no flow.

Then we came up with a miraculous solution. We bought our own machine. A great behemoth of a elliptical contraption. We stuffed it in our lodge room at a strange angle facing the wall. It is impossible to ignore.

I was pleased and horrified at the same time. I now had a good option for exercising, and I now had a good option for exercising. I took my time about it, but then Halloween happened and the candy wouldn't stop looking my way and I felt worse with winter coming and the end of daylight savings time and the fat pants came out and stayed out and they pushed me right into the wonky arms of the contrivance.

I'm not saying there is NO humor. It's extremely humorous when I think about it too much and my feet and arms get askew and I fight not to fall off the machine. The dirty looks I direct toward the machine are funny. Ditto my attempts to ignore it or placate it.

I set some pathetically lame goals for myself, the first of which is to be able to exercise for longer than 10 minutes without falling off the elliptical trainer in a dead faint or a fit or awkwardness. I wish I was in training for our trip to China, but I find it more likely that I am in training for our trip to Disney next May, or perhaps just in training for next Halloween.

Anyway, I said it. I'm exercising (5).

Posted by grrlTravels at November 19, 2007 10:30 PM