Thursday, March 18, 2010

On the Road to Fitness – Part 1

Okay, so Kathleen and I went to the gym on Monday to workout. Who knew that every treadmill and exercise bike would be in use at 4:30 pm? Don’t these people have jobs they should be at, for cryin’ out loud? So instead, Kat and I reluctantly hopped onto the only free elliptical trainers, one of the most punishing pieces of exercise equipment ever known to mankind. Actually, I used to really enjoy a good, sweaty workout on the elliptical when I was in shape. That was a looooonnnng time ago.

Anyways, my particular elliptical looked like some kind of futuristic torture machine, which explains why it was the only one of its kind in the gym and why no one was using it. Trying not to appear like a complete do do (as if anyone was actually looking at me), I pretended to press a few buttons on the elliptical’s keypad, grabbed the handlebars, and then started running (or is it called pedaling?). I have heard that the elliptical is supposed to be a “low-impact” machine (i.e., easy on the joints), simple to use (yeah, tell that to my body) and burns big calories. Okay, so I will agree that it burns big calories… if you can stand it for more than 30 seconds. I think I lasted 3 minutes, or 50 calories. Kathleen lasted about 8 minutes, or 100 calories. (She weighs a lot less than me.)

Not wanting to give up after less than 10 minutes at the gym, Kat and I looked at the class schedule and noticed that a Pilates class was starting in 15 minutes. So, we passed the time using the inner and outer thigh weight machines, which I have recently read are THE most useless weight machines ever. Why? Because the machines claim to reduce thigh size and tone the legs, but in reality they “create imbalances in the muscles that are responsible for stabilization of the legs during walking and running, causing potential posture problems.” Remember, this is according to what I have read, and you know the old adage, “Don’t believe everything you read.” All I know is that they cause one heck of a thigh burn, and that’s enough evidence for me to believe they work!

At 5:00, Kathleen and I sauntered over to the Pilates class. As we claimed two spots in the back of the room, we told the instructor, Debbie, that we had never before done Pilates. Debbie reassured us that during class we should feel free to modify any of the exercises to our own comfort level. I thought to myself: “This can’t be that hard. After all, it’s just a bunch of exercises on the floor.” WRONG! For those of you who know nothing about Pilates, it is a method of excruciating (my interpretation, not their’s) exercises designed to work on an individual’s core strength and torso stability. If you’re not already in some kind of decent shape, forget it! It’s just going to be way too hard. All I can say about my experience is, thank goodness I was in the rear of the room. After 10 minutes of class, I felt sick: very dizzy and nauseous. Like I was in the back of an exhaust-belching bus careening around hairpin turns through the steepest mountains. “That’s okay,” I thought; Debbie told us we could modify the exercises, and I decided to do just that. So I sat there on my mat. I believe that sitting a form of exercise. It takes at least some effort to sit in an upright position. Did you know that the average woman (5’5”, 130 lbs., 30 years old) burns 59-77 calories an hour doing absolutely nothing? And, meeting none of the requirements of the “average” woman, I actually burn more calories. Wow! After all, that’s why I was taking an exercise class. Not to build my core strength. Who needs dumb Pilates? I can just sit on the floor doing nothing and lose weight!! Except that I felt really stupid just sitting on the floor doing nothing in an exercise class. So, in between bouts of nauseousness, I did what I could, which actually turned out to be more often than when I was doing nothing, but just barely!

Needless to say, I will not be attending next Monday’s Pilates class. Instead, I think I’ll just stay home and sit on the floor.