That's me. Sorry.
See, I don't do gyms. I barely do exercise. I walk as a means of transportation, and I dance, and I haul 50lb bags of flour and 10lb boxes of dough, but to me an elliptical describes the orbit of an asteroid. To be honest I'm surprised my body hasn't left me for a gym-going woman who will take it for walks on the treadmill, and feed it wheat-grass smoothies, and do yoga with it.
I know a lot of people who love going to the gym. They do it at least once a day, sometimes more. They talk about the new class and the new machines and throw numbers around like they're rocket scientists. I, on the other hand, don't like gyms.
The machines are confusing and scary, especially because I can injure myself just fine when there are no hard, sharp parts moving at a high velocity. The people at gyms are worse, because they're in this little club of people who know what they're doing and look good doing it, while I'm in the club of, "What's this do? JESUSIT'SGOTMYARM!" and looking sweaty, red-faced, and awkward while the exercise equipment dislocates pieces of my anatomy. Not to mention gym memberships are expensive and I need that money for books and booze.
But every so often I look down at my mini marshmallow of a stomach - white and soft and full of sugar - and feel like maybe I should do something about it.
So this morning I got up and turned on the coffee pot and looked up an easy five minute workout I could try while my coffee brewed. I found one that looked relatively simple and cleared some books off the floor to make a workout space.My menu looked like this: 30 crunches, 1 minute plank, 15 leg lifts. I figured the crunches would be simple, the plank hard, the leg lifts somewhere in between.
At 10 crunches I was feeling pretty badass. Easy-peasy! At 14 I was getting a little worried. At 18 I was hurting. At 22 I felt like a wimp. At 27 I was going on will power only. I was not so wimpy I was going to quit at 27. At 29 I nearly gave up. At 30 I collapsed, flopping and panting on the floor like a fish out of water. But I did it! I was feeling pretty good. It was hard, but hey, I finished and despite the agony burning below my ribs I wasn't in such bad shape. So I flipped over, set a one minute timer, and tried the plank.
I watched the timer for the first 15 seconds or so and then I pushed it away. Because I was shaking and sweating and suffering after 13 seconds. It was a form of mercy to not have to watch the seconds oh-so-slowly advance from one to the next. You don't realize how long a second truly is until you are in humiliated pain. I didn't make it to one minute, to my embarrassment. I probably made it just over 30 seconds.
But that's okay, because now I have a goal. Goals are good, right? Pride and shame are healthy motivators, right?
The leg lifts went a little better. I breezed through them feeling pretty good about myself. I was quite in charity with my legs, thinking of the nice shoes I was going to buy them as thanks for restoring my dignity and self-esteem. Then I realized I was doing the left lifts wrong. When I started doing them right I swore I would never again brag about how great my legs were. I only made it through 7 leg lifts before I quit. I would like to emphasize that I was the one who quit. I probably could have kept going but I didn't. The reason is simple. It's the real reason I don't exercise.
I don't like pain.
So as soon as I collected my dignity off my dusty carpet I got up, poured myself a large mug of very strong coffee, dumped a quarter cup of whole milk in it, and gulped that sucker down like it was the last cup of coffee I'd ever drink.
To all of you who exercise regularly, and hard, I lift my coffee-and-whole-milk to you. You impress the hell out of me, and I will never, ever, be one of you.
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