As I entered the YMCA this week, it occurred to me that there is a lot of energy being expended that if it could be harnessed and some how channeled into a force of good, we'd be an unstoppable nation.
Yes, my friends, the impossible has happened. I started an exercise program this week. I decided that if I spent hard earned cash on a membership, I might actually go. I have a very complex relationship with the thought of exercising and weight loss, but basically I can see the writing on the wall with obamacare. I can either pay an insurance company scads of cash for pitiful, measly insurance or I can pay the Y and try to get some benefit out of it. Either way, I'm paying money that I don't want to fork over because I'm fat. And, because we have a country that really isn't all that free anymore and there are too many people who have decided that my extra poundage is more of a problem than deadbeats who want handouts instead of working for a living. Never mind I'm one of the tax paying middle class that is getting squeezed in that area too. But, enough of my soap box issues.
I have started out on a treadmill that knows my heart rate, calories burned, and has settings from a stroll in the park to death mountain footrace. As I walk the pounds away, I keep imagining what my grandmother would make of this. She, of the generation where you did hard farm labor which kept the pounds off, would have been stymied that I'm paying money for the privilege of working my ass off (hopefully, literally) instead of pulling weeds in the garden, mucking out the barn, or cutting hay. But I don't live on a farm and as this country steadily loses the family farm we have put on poundage galore. When we were laborers, we didn't need gym memberships but as we "progress" as a country and evolve, so does our waist line. However, I have always been big-boned. I have a fluffy, sturdy frame from hardy farmer stock. But, there is no denying that when I got a desk job, the pounds came along with it.
As I pound along the belt of the treadmill with my fellow fitness buffs, I feel like the kid struggling to keep up with the older siblings. Today was the perfect mixture of "in-shape" people who not only knew what they were doing, but looked good while doing it. And, mostly younger than me too, but there were a fair amount of oldsters on the outer ring (looking in at the beautiful people) using some contraption that looked like it had heavy bars of iron on the end of a rope. I'm sure I will find out what those are in due time as my "trainer" promises to show me in two weeks. For now, I have to master the treadmill and the recumbent bike. The death bike from hell, more likely. I got on this contraption after a half hour on the treadmill and thought I would be ok. Yeah. Well, it has a mind of its own too, and decided that I wasn't working hard enough so it kept increasing the resistance so that I could hardly push the pedals. Then, because apparently I'm unable to realize I've stopped pedaling, it beeps at you and tells you to pedal. Well, stupid bike, if you would stop increasing the resistance maybe I could keep pedaling???? Just sayin'... Actually, I'm sure I probably hit the wrong button, but honestly, does it really have to keep beeping at me and announcing to the whole gym that I'm incapable of understanding the buttons? Or that I'm incapable of pedaling? Bad enough I'm in a baggy tee shirt and sweats and not the tight, form fitting fitness wear that promises to do all sorts of bodily functions for you, but does the bike have to draw attention to me too? I very fit gentleman came over to help me with it, and had that "oh, look, she's trying to exercise, how adorable" look on his face. I didn't know whether to smack him or thank him. For the record, I thanked him.
As I watched the number go higher for calories burned, I kept thinking of how pitiful a number that is for the amount of work it takes. Why again, can I consume in a mouthful what just took me an hour of hard walking to get rid of? How does that motivate a person to work that hard only to understand that with the eating of supper the expenditure is erased? Yes, I know. Rabbit food and water. Maybe I will feel differently when I've lose some weight. But in the mean time, I will keep searching for that "exercise high" that is supposed to carry me through the work out. And, it doesn't help that the tv I'm watching plays pizza commercials. How rude!
No comments:
Post a Comment