Work Out!

So one of those resolutions that people everywhere make every year and I never have.

For various reasons.

Mostly an admittance to my own abject laziness, and abject fear of failure/measuring up to parties who force it, embarrassment at figuring the damn machines out, characters exemplified by Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading etc.

So when Billy decided we were too unhealthy and that he was going to resume his natural habits of jogging/cycling/weightlifting I balked. But not too much. Turning the age Keats died has a way of scaring you a bit: read: Erika's body won't always be able to fend of the consumption and regular exercise is definitely something missing from dear John's life.

Thus, I pulled on my only pair of work out ish pants (yes, steffie, the same ones I wore when we tried doing the gym thing) and my excuse for sneakers and a camisole from White House Black Market designed for looking good, but the closest thing I have to a sports bra. I sure DID pair it with an actual bra for as much support I could Macgyver.

I was eased into the idea with an exercise bike. You can read and exercise at the same time! Did anyone know this? Multitasking the intellectual and the physical is encouraging.

From there I realized that running may not, in fact, be the worst thing in the world. He had me jog slower than I ever would left to my own devices. I found myself constantly speeding up and having to pull back. This made me not only feel kinda good about myself, but, better yet, able to run further than I would have otherwise. Jogging was also the first instance of actual tutelage in how to optimize one's body through posture and thought. I've known for ages--since my silly wiccan days--how to breathe properly and pay attention to it and use it to one's advantage, but actually pairing it with physical work brings the purpose of doing so to fruition! Huzzah!

This was awesomely developed when we got to the machines. Billy is rather an organized being and prone to over research things before doing them, meaning we were only going to work legs today, and then (after we work out our schedules and find times we can both regularly go to the gym) one day biceps/triceps, one day chest, one day back etc.

Today was Legs. There are like 7 machines for the specific muscle groups. Some are rather sexy looking (see the one where one must squeeze pads holding 55 pounds of weight together with one's thighs) and some are ridiculously unflattering (see the one where you lean back against a barbell and stick your ass way out). Billy knows how each works and how to maximise its effects and explains it all in understandable terms. Also, he incorporates thought and breath control in his instructions. This is how I relate to it. Me and my overly intellectual pretentions.

All the thought involved reassured me of my ability to belong in a gym. Telling me I was doing pretty well reassured me of inadequacies. Being lazy is something I hate about myself; doing this and scheduling it and being forced to do it alleviates my self-hatred in that arena. Being there with someone who is equally as nerdy looking as I am gave me a wall against the Brad-Pitt-in-Burn-After-Reading lookalikes. Ha!

Explorations into exercise are thus successful and life is better.

It also doesn't hurt that the gym at OSU--being financed by T. Boon Pickens--is the super happy fun mall version of over priced gyms. I'm talking plush carpets, 5 basketball courts, 3 squash courts, two pools (with whirl pool in the outdoor one), ping pong tables, a climbing wall to die for, giant TV and watching space for big games, coutless TVs hovering over the stair machines and treadmills... Bloody hell.