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Yes...this is ALL about me, and mine. Marvellously self indulgent, feel free to tell me how splendid I am, leave comments, nice ones please, I have little kids and teenagers who can do the rude stuff. I am a grandma, to the glorious Joshua, I'm allowed to look frazzled and weary, I earned it. The older I get, the more I see that hanging on and being patient is worth it! They ( whoever 'they' are) are so right when they say you never know what is around the corner, it isn't always an articulated truck! It is vital to make the time for making memories, friends are the greatest treasure, I love mine. I am rich!

Friday, June 30, 2006

Put your best foot forward.

I don't think it's going to happen. I want it to happen and I dream of it happening and when I sit and psyche myself up I can feel it happening. But it doesn't.
I read and hear about it happening to other people, hoorah, my turn soon.......and as Diana Ross explained so tunefully " but I'm still waiting" ( or did she sing AND I'm still waiting?) Anyhoo....I am just not going to get the fitness bug.
I can pretty much guarantee that you will never log on and click on my blog link to read that I am training for a marathon. I hate it.
I bought the treadmill, I envisioned getting hooked and within days becoming a sweatband wearing, water bottle holding, head up and chest out pounding fitness freak. Not yet anyway, can't see it. I walk past the dining room where that bloody thing sits next to the window ( getting more menacing and bigger every day I swear it) and it sneers at me, calls my name and taunts me
"come on fatso, get your thinning legs on my runner and get them moving girl. Its all very well getting thinner but you have to work it, tone it, help that weight loss along...GET ON ME!!!"
Why I don't just do it in the morning and laugh right back at the thing is beyond me, oh no, too easy, must punish myself all day and walk past it, hissing at it and wishing it away. As soon as I get on it I am SO BORED! I feel on the brink of tantrum, I want to whine and tell it I hate it and I stare at the wall ( because surely, if I am miserable I will get thinner and fitter much quicker, as a reward for being so marvellous and martyr like)
Tonight, I set up my laptop and watched the live stream of Big Brother eviction number 6. It helped so much to see the misery of the evictee, I felt less alone somehow. After all, misery loves company...I wasn't so bored, perhaps I had better plan entertainment for myself every day because otherwise I get so mind numbingly bored I get off after 3 minutes.What doesn't help is clicking on the 'how many calories have I burned?' button, when I am about to die and my face is throbbing, I saved that treat for the moment I can't go on. When you hit it and get ready to see just how thin you must be getting and discover you have burned 14 calories. How unfair is that? you can shovel hundreds of calories in without thinking about it. Piece of cake? 300 calories. 35 seconds. Burn that off? 3 weeks of painful sweating activity. BUM.

I do sort of like, in a masochistic way, the feeling of heat and pounding heart. Only because I know it is working. Or helping, or something. I do enjoy the after feeling of just how marvellous I am, that smug emotion. The rest, well it all seems terribly mean to me. Maybe the enjoyment will come, who knows, I might wake up one day scarcely able to wait to jump on the rolling torture mill. Perhaps that longing to wear lycra and headbands will be mine. I just don't see it somehow.

Swimming, I love it. I can happily breaststroke my way up and down a pool for many a long moment...but to do that means donning a revealing swimsuit made of stretchy material, all made with high cut legs these days it seems.
An overweight mother of 6 with unimpressive stomach muscles doesn't want to pour herself into stretchy and unforgiving bands of material and ripple her wobbly way to the poolside. I know that the idea of making swimsuits so tight and lycra-ish is that it will hold in that belly, hold up those bosoms. The thing is, that would work if they were full length and highnecked, with long sleeves and even feet in them. The problem with it, in practise, is that it squeezes the fat down and OUT of the leg holes ( and if they are high cut legs you're asking for troube with a flabby belly that's housed six children) and up and over the sides, thus making a whole new shape impossible for other unsuspecting public swimmers to avoid looking at. If only I had a pool of my own.
I enjoy the gym type exercises. Perfect when married to the first one, as he was an instructor in the army and we would go to the gym on our own in the evening, nowadays I would need to go and be scrutinised by a fit and probably young athletic type, actually I did that part and had my induction but every one else there was already so thin and beautiful, and did I mention, thin. Not a droplet of sweat in sight and , well, you can imagine.
If only I had my own gym.
I can't walk outside at the moment, I sweat, only my head and face, it's a side effect of my medication and it's not a regular sort of 'hmmm, I'm a bit hot and shiny' type of sweating, it is a 'who in heaven's name turned a tap on?' kind of sweat, with hardly any exersion, I am literally pouring sweat from my head and face. Miserable and embarrassing, the walk to school sees me arrive with absolutely soaking wet hair, plastered to my head and that's so not funny, or ladylike. The treadmill allows me to drip and pour in the privacy of my own home, with fan at my face and window open beside me. I might hate it but it has made exercising at all possible. Damn it.

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Is there an effective exercise that doesn't entail public humiliation, boredom or lycra? Oooh, oooh ---I just thought of one...wonder if H is still awake?

6 Comments:

Blogger MamaTink said...

I once read that pushing a stroller burns an extra 40 calories while walking...does that help :)

I swear, I could have written this post word for word.

HUGS!

Good luck with H!! Hehehe!!

~Lisa~

2:10 am  
Blogger LosingSanity said...

Lol at the whole swimming thing, as you perfectly described me...except the housing 6 kids part. I can only take credit for 2.

And I'm a sweater too. I drip sweat doing the simplest things. My mom and gpa are/were the same way. I hate it. I like my excersize video, although I have to admit, i haven't popped it in in a long time. I need to get back at it. OF course, as long as im drinking Coke like it's water and eating junk...what's the sense, right...lol.

yep, the best exersize is done in the bedroom, in privacy!!! Im lacking in that form too!

4:55 am  
Blogger Julie Q said...

I had the fitness bug one year, but I lost it somewhere. Perhaps in the chocolate! I do hope to get it back soon though.

:) A very fun read Helen. :)

2:07 pm  
Blogger JEFFY said...

Laughing out loud! Hahahaha! Helen! This is fantastic writing! hahahah! You are so wonderfully cute and funny and hilarious! You need to publish this post! I love it! I love it! Hans makes me work out everyday because I pay him to do it, because of my MS and sometimes I cry! HAhaha! I become 9 years old again and argue "I dont wanna feel better! I dont wanna be fit! I just wanna go to bed!" So I know how you feel! i swear to God!

By the way, I just thought Kiko and I were just going to slip around somewhere and get married and it turned into a wonderful glorious hell, I mean living hell of a weekend that I thought would never end! I didnt think people would ever stop coming and then I didnt think they would ever start going! hahaha! God! And fireworks! BAD IDEA!!! Kiss King

4:02 pm  
Blogger mom of 2 said...

I do the treadmill thing. I listen to music while I walk because I get really bored, too. I have a couple of cd's of pretty fast paced songs that keep me going.

And the swimsuit thing is hilarious! I absolutely hate bathing suits! I've found these wonderful things called swim shorts that go over your high cut bathing suit. I don't know if they make me look any better, but I feel much less exposed in them!

6:27 pm  
Blogger Lou said...

I simpley LOVE to read your blog. You have a way of making me smile even when I`m not feeling well. The description of the swimsuit ( long sleeves and legs with feet in them is toooooo funny. But if you ever find on let me know....i want one!

7:07 pm  

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