In high school one of my least favorite classes was always P.E. (Granted, most of my high school classes are numbered among my least favorite classes, because high school is mostly terrible terrible terrible, but this is off the subject.) I hated changing clothes in a big open locker room. I hated playing sports. I hated getting sweaty. I hated changing back into my school clothes in the big open locker room and sitting through the rest of my classes all sweaty and gross.
But I was thin.
And so I am now looking back at those P.E. classes through post-baby eyes, and ... they're still horrible in my memory. So I've eliminated the changing-clothes-in-front-of-people and sitting-in-other-classes-all-sweaty-and-gross parts, and what is left is just a cool fitness class that might help me lose some post-baby fat!
It's called "Total Body Express." The name says it all. After the first class, my total body totally hurt! I was so wobbly I was afraid I'd fall down the stairs and embarrass myself as badly as I did when I fell off the treadmill in a full gym in college (pure, unadulterated embarrassment, that was). We did squats and crunches and lunges and push ups. We had to balance on huge "body balls" and do more crunches and other exercises I'd never imagined. I worked muscles I'm sure I've never used before.
Many of the other people in the class, I'm sure, did not have a baby four months ago. They look rather like they were babies themselves a scant nineteen years ago, and have spent a majority of those nineteen years taking fitness classes. So I am ever-so-glad that I asked my friend Megan to take the class with me. Together we can giggle over what might otherwise be extremely discouraging and demoralizing. She hasn't done any fitness stuff since school and childbirth either, so we're on about the same level.
Isn't it amazing? I'm actually doing something for me! I leave the children with Rob for almost an hour and go out and exercise! And I enjoy it! Actually, it's still quite tortuous, but I have hope that it will do me good.
Now if only my sore muscles would let me get off the couch...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Good for you! I know it's hard, but stick with it. It always helps to have someone to workout with you. It is nice to get away for just a little while, isn't it? :) I always liked taking classes and lifting weights. Now that I'm just trying to jog and workout at home it's much more difficult.
Yes, a workout buddy or someone to be accountable to really makes a difference! How nice for you to have some "you" time. I also am on a massive exercise program, determined to lose the baby weight plus the extra marriage weight I've been carrying around as well. I figure since they are almost 2 years old, now is as good a time as any :-) And I'd like to be healthy before I'm 30!!
That sounds so fun...and painful of course. I will have to do that soon enough too. I may be calling for exercise tips now that you know all the tricks.
Your exercise is tortuous, you say? One would hope so, of course. It would hardly do you any good otherwise.
Perhaps it is also torturous, in which case the unpleasantness of it would be balanced out by the hope for 'some good' that you expressed.
(And perhaps I should *shut up*!)
("Why are you giving me the secret signal to shut up?")
("Richmond's not in his room! He's out of his room! He's supposed to be in his room! Why is he not in his room?")
("Switch it on, and just WALK AWAY.")
("Germs come from Germany.")
Post a Comment