In high school, my mom started me on my path of loathing exercise by demanding that I play a sport in order to be "well-rounded." I ran cross country and hated every friggin' footstep of it. HATED IT. It was hard, unglamorous, and I was really bad at it. I was a terrible runner - slow, heavy-footed and crabby. But I did it, for two long, ugly years. I even got a letter (our team wasn't exactly stellar.) But, as soon as I could quit, I did.
However, the running did one thing for me. I could eat ANYTHING I wanted and stay thin. I would eat all my dinner, seconds, my brother's dinner and then whatever my dad didn't want. I would polish off a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food, not because I was depressed (that was later in life, after the second divorce) but because I wanted to win a bet. I didn't think about calories, fat or anything else. I just ATE. When I was 15, I weighed about 118 pounds, which is right on the threshold of too thin for my height and my aunt expressed concern that I might have an eating disorder. My mom disabused her of that notion by taking her to dinner with us and having her watch me devour the trucker's special plus the dessert tray. I think at that point she was worried more about my cholesterol than my weight.
Don't get me wrong about exercise, though. I like playing pick-up basketball, I like backyard football, I like aerobics classes and Spinning. I like to move and have fun, but I really hate running. It is boring, long and unfortunately, the best thing for me to do to get in shape. Nothing peels the weight off my chunky buns like jogging.
Through my 20's, I've had various gym memberships, trainers, diets and fitness programs. My weight has held pretty steady, until the last year, when I ballooned like Janet Jackson in the off-season. (Okay, I gained 20 pounds, but it still pains me to write that. I like to pretend my organs just got heavier.) Now that I'm not working, my goal is to get fit. And to fit into more than three items of clothing in my closet. And be able to wear stilettos without wanting to saw off my own feet. (They say that gaining one pound puts 30 pounds on your knees or something. I will tell you that every pound of weight you gain puts 10,000 more pounds of pressure on the 1/4" of foot that connects to your heel. AND I DON'T CARE. I'm going to keep wearing awesome shoes until my feet secede and run away from me.)
So, I've been eating better and exercising. Unfortunately, no one sent the memo to my body that we were working on a goal here. It seems determined to sideline me at every turn. In May, I screwed my back up big-time mowing the grass. (Reserved judgement until you see the size of my lawn compared to my lawnmower.) When I got back from being with Tony's family in Europe, I was able to work out for three weeks until my girl-parts (because I know I have men reading this) got evil and I spent a week doped out on Vicodin and unable to control my limbs in any meaningful way. Once that was fixed, I strained a groin muscle (doing something stupid that looked much better in my head) and have spent two weeks nursing that back to health. I've been trying to work out every other day this week, and that seems to be going pretty well. (Famous last words.)
The frustrating part is that I really do want to work out. I want to continue the progress I've made so far, losing six and a half pounds and some serious inches. In fact, I wanted to lose about 10 more pounds before Vegas, but that's not going to happen in the next three days, no matter how many laxatives I take. (Sigh.)
So, all I can do is hope that this groin thing is the last indignity my ever-older (29!) body will put me through and I can cruise through the rest of my time off work losing about a pound a week until I've achieved my ultimate goal.
Which is eating an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. BECAUSE I CAN.
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