Getting started

OK.  It’s time I admitted something.  My body has failed me in epic proportions.  Of course, I am equally to blame, as I have failed my body, too.  I went from being a spectacularly fit aerobics instructor, weight lifter, cyclist and martial artist in my thirties to being a fifty-something, non-athletic  blob.  Well, not a total blob.   Maybe more of a midsection blob….  I still have some amazing muscle tone, probably thanks to the aforementioned exercise of years past.  Although there is definitely some fat marbled into those muscles, my legs are very toned and a simple flex reveals that I still have biceps and triceps, in spite of the incipient bat wings that are desperately trying to attach themselves to my upper arms.  I have fought them ferociously and am so far winning that war.  Even my larger than yesteryear butt is still toned.  Fat-marbled, but toned. Go figure.  But my back, lats, obliques and abs (what abs?) are nothing but flesh-toned Jello.  Pasty, white, flesh toned Jello, I might add, as my midsection does not reveal itself to the sun or innocent passers-by at the beach.

In my thirties, I taught aerobics.  Step aerobics and karate aerobics.  I wisely knew that if I wasn’t the teacher and thereby obligated to show up for class, that I would in fact not show up for class.  So, for completely selfish reasons,  I taught aerobics.  At one time I was teaching at three different places all at once:  Gold’s Gym, the YMCA and the karate school where I started studying martial arts at age 34.  I was busy!  And very fit.  But somewhere along the line, life intervened.  My kids got involved in their own (multiple) sports and Boy Scouts and piano lessons.  My schedule was beginning to overload and I had to let some of my aerobics classes go, as well time at the dojo, time on my bicycle, time lifting weights.  Still, I was teaching enough to maintain an adequate fitness level and keep gravity at bay.  Then, at age forty, I changed jobs and found myself having to take call.  Being on call for my job was the death knell to my part time career as an aerobics instructor.   It was also the death knell for my figure.   It was a gradual demise until my divorce-induced stress eating pushed me to my highest weight five years ago and I was ready to have a funeral for my poor, long lost normal-sized body.   But, I managed to pull myself out of my funk, start walking and dieting and I dropped 30 pounds.    However, like a bad penny, some of that weight has turned back up over the past three years.  I have gotten lazy.

I have decided that I no longer have any excuse not to do something about this sorry state of affairs.  I work from home now and no longer waste three hours of my day attempting to make myself presentable and then making a ninety mile round trip exodus to work every day.  That is three whole hours that have been added back into my daily life, Monday through Friday.  That’s fifteen hours, folks!  Fifteen hours that I could be exercising!  Well, not quite.  I think my body would go on strike if I actually attempted to exercise for fifteen hours in a week’s time.  And said strike would most likely be severely painful, possibly resulting in my untimely demise.  But I can surely add in one hour of exercise a day, right? Well RIGHT????  Sigh……  So, it is time to start a blog to help hold myself accountable.  This is tool, just like the food logging and pedometer apps on my Android phone.  I need motivation!

I say all of this as I get ready to jump on the elliptical trainer and attempt to melt off a few ounces of fat.   Even as we speak, I am contemplating mopping my floors as a way to procrastinate and put off the  mind-numbing  trek on the elliptical.  Pathetic, I know.  But it is hot and humid out there today, so I have already talked myself out of walking outdoors.   Besides, all of the experts say that you need to mix up your exercise routine.  So I am alternating between walking, the elliptical trainer and other sweat inducing activities such as trying to a erect sun shelter on the beach with a sea breeze that is trying to take the shelter airborne in kite-like fashion.   Just ask my friend Renae about that one!  But I digress.  The elliptical trainer is staring me in the face with mute disdain.  Its attitude is one of “Go ahead punk, make my day.”

Fast forward forty-five minutes and gallons of sweat later.  I have just spent my lunch break trying to exercise away the calories that I will eat for dinner – carefully measured calories, but calories none the less.  I beat the elliptical trainer into submission.  I burned actual calories and got an aerobic workout at the same time.  I have set a goal – I will exercise at least five days a week.  So, little blog of mine, are you going to hold me to it?  Stay tuned…..