More gym issues...

I think I just have to accept that, rather than a steady pull that builds like a literal snowball from the really annoying awkward shuffling around just sort of patting a tiny ball in the snow to a giant cartoon pinwheel of snow thundering down the side of a mountain, my efforts at self-improvement will happen in broken fits and starts sort of like a manual car being driven by someone who doesn't know how to drive stick.  Momentum is not something I will ever have on my side.

In the end, I think, the best I can hope for is to cut the time between each new effort down more and more until it might seem, to an outside observer, that they are, in fact, all one consolidated effort.

Tonight was yet another of those renewed efforts.

A month or two ago Kara put me on a two week challenge to eat better and to work out regularly.  The requirements were: breakfast every day, followed by at least one other real meal a reasonable number of hours later, including one serving of fruit and one of vegetables every day; cardio three times a week; and some sort of strength building twice a week.  I think I came up short some cardio both weeks, and the eating fell apart on the weekends, but overall it was a good experience.  Then the two weeks were over and I entered into the two weeks of insanity at work.  My tender little habit seedlings didn't stand a chance and were crushed mercilessly under the boot-heels of 10-12 hour work days.  As is my custom, after the crazy work subsided I made no attempt to reinstate Kara's regimen.  I think since then I've been to the gym 2-3 times.

But what is life but a daily opportunity to improve today what you failed to do yesterday?

So tonight I went to the gym.  I did not want to.  But I went and was blessed in the form of Ever After playing in the cardio cinema.  With credits, I arrived an almost perfect 30 minutes before the end of the movie.  It was like Fate or Jesus metaphorically patting my head and rewarding me with a biscuit.

I ran my customary 15 seconds to crank my heart rate up to near-heart-attack rates as quickly as possible.  The great irony of my life these days is the fact that I actually could theoretically run longer--perhaps 30-45 seconds even.  And the struggle is not, as you might be thinking, the bosom issue.  I have acquired an impressive torture device sports bra that manages to lift and compress my chest into a sort of clavicle-level squshd boob battering ram that minimizes the bouncing from a full on coordinated beating and smothering to simply a muted pounding on my chest.  The side effects of this impressive piece of engineering have been winnowed down to a feeling that my lungs are slightly collapsed and basic arrhythmia as the pounding on my chest confuses my heart as to which rhythm it should actually be following.  Both of which are completely manageable.

No, in the end, it is a different jiggle problem that stops me running.  As it turns out, I am fat.  And my particular fat likes to hang out in two major places: boobs and waist.  The boob situation may be under control, but alas, the waist remains free to jiggle all it wants.  And jiggle it does, to the point that after only a few steps I am in danger of my shorts shimmying right off.  And while it may be dark in the cardio cinema room, I am confident that it is not yet dark enough that no one would notice the shining white legs of the girl whose pants fell off whilst she was running on the treadmill.  Thus, every few steps I have to jump off the belt and hitch my shorts up, then jump back on and run for a few more steps.  Why there are not people working on solving this problem I do not know, because I do know I'm not the only one suffering.  In the end, it is my frustration with this ritual which puts an end to my running, not my lungs, heart, or even legs.  Oh irony, truly thou art a bitch...

Sadly, tonight was not the night I conquered the bros and the machines.

Instead I came home and improvised some very technical body-weight and strength exercises.  One of the bonuses of being fat is that you come with weights built in and ready to go.  If, however, I feel that I need to augment my own natural heft I have managed to find a successful free weight alternative.  Because who wants to buy fancy rubber-gripped weights if you don't have to?  Owning  a 12" cast iron gnome means you don't have to.  Miles actually makes a really good free weight.  And somehow, lifting a gnome is just more fun than lifting a boring dumbell.

And so tonight I began again the endless battle.  Attempting to take control of my life and my body.  Fat jiggles and free weight gnomes and all.  Tomorrow I am hoping to make it to the grocery store after my hair appointment to restock on yogurt so I can make another attempt at being a person who eats breakfast.  Somehow telling the interwebs about the struggle helps, so I shall try to continue to update on my repeated attempts.  Wish me luck!