I have a good friend who isn’t allowed to work out for two weeks because……

You know, I don’t even really remember why.  My brain stopped listening to her because I was so fixated on the concept of someone being UPSET that they can’t work out for two weeks.  This is particularly ironic to me because I am presently struggling to get back into a gym/exercise routine.  If I go to the gym tonight, it will be an earth shattering three days in a row.

However, I found this to be an incredible opportunity to share with my workout withdrawal friend, and the world, my knowledge in an area where I excel.  Not working out.   Here are some tips on how to NOT work out for 2 weeks (or infinitely) and with a few rationalization techniques be just fine with that.

1. Sleep.  Sleep as much as humanly possible.  Sleep helps reduce stress, and people who don’t get enough sleep indulge in extra snacking.  Not tired, take a nap anyway.  It’s good for you.
2. Get an exercise class schedule from your local gym and then circle all the classes that sound appealing and post it to your fridge.  I find that once I circle a class, that guarantees I will never attend.
3. Living in a studio apartment, a yoga mat makes a great make-shift rug for those long narrow strips of space that are created by unnaturally partitioning what is really one big room into individual living areas.  You can tell yourself you are going to get up and stretch/do some yoga every morning.  But from experience I can say, probably won’t happen.  Also, who wants to pick up their dirty rug and drag it off to a Yoga class? (Circled on the schedule) It’s better to just let it lay.
4. Cut out exercise routines from magazines and post them close to your bed. Promise yourself that you will start doing them…  Tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.  But don’t blame yourself, you made an effort, but come on it’s not like you have a yoga mat right next to your bed or anything…
5. Go to the gym.  But don’t work out.  Just use the jacuzzi, sauna.  You feel something coming on, a head cold maybe? And this will help clear you out.  When you are sure you aren’t sick, you can come back and work out then.  And hey, at least this way you are getting your money’s worth for your gym membership.
6. Are you going out tonight? Dinner? Drinks?? What would be the point of working out today?  You are just going to eat and drink it right back on.  Take the time you would have gone to the gym to go get a haircut, or a mani/pedi so that you will look your best.
7. Never underestimate the value of  – Starting tomorrow- or  -Starting Next Week- or my favorite -Starting in the New Year- there is nothing quite like the willy nilly exsplurgsions of eat, drink, and be merry when you plan to snap to and become Mrs. Healthy McHealthnut beginning in the near distant future.
8. Hang out with smokers.  You automatically feel like you have to be ahead. No work out necessary.
9. My all time favorite.  Watch exercise equipment infomercials. If you end up purchasing the magical exercise product and /or system of the week then there is no point in working out now in an inferior way.  Best to wait until it arrives.
10. OR, just watch the infomercials.  Don’t order the products and because the people all seem like such dumb asses you now feel much better about not being anything like them.  Except maybe Susan Lucci.  I’ve really been meaning to look into that Malibu Pilates chair.  Maybe once I get that….

And there you have it.  I hereby pass my knowledge along to my friend, and the world.  She is now about half way through her two week gym banishment.  We got iced mochas this weekend at a local coffee shop.  As we were ordering, she asked the waiter not to put whipped cream on hers,

You know, because I can’t work out right now.  Actually, can you go ahead and just make it a plain iced coffee? No sugar.  Thanks.

Oh grasshopper.  There is so much yet for you to learn.

Here is another way to ease your sloth guilt.  September is Hunger Action Month.  CLICK HERE to donate to Feeding America via my Charity Badge.  Or VISIT THE HUNGER ACTION CENTER to see how you can take part.

Last year at this time, there were two things that I was resisting out of a distaste for the activity and fear of the unknown.  These two things were SPIN class and dating.  In a banal twist of fate (the common phrasing is more like in a bizarre twist of fate. But is it really bizarre that I would start dating again? Or that my FA would need to hop on a bike?  No.) these are two activities I’ve been engaging in quite frequently lately.   At first I couldn’t decide which was the more painful of the two, but they each have their benefits.  But it never occurred to me to combine these topics into a post, until something happened at my last SPIN class.

Sitting there in the dark, with the weird 80s roller-rink black light making the unicorns and moons glow on the walls of my gym’s ultra funky SPIN room, the music was pumping and our instructor Cat cranked up my resistance while shouting her usual “don’t cheat yourself!” when it happened.  The song ended, and some sort of steroid infused hip hop version of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ started to play.

This may not seem like a big deal to you, but those who know me well are laughing by now.  For some reason that I’ve never been able to pinpoint, I go completely Pavlovian for that song.  Every now and then I fall apart.  And nothing gets me in the mood quicker.  Well not Nothing, let’s leave a little room for the unpredictabilities inherent in one-on-one human contact, but it’s pretty gosh darn close.

And thus, worlds collided.  But how to best capture this collision in a amusingly endearing blog post that would inspire you to CLICK HERE to donate $12 to my Charity Badge and help Feeding America feed a family of four for a WEEK was a ponderous notion.  What to do? What to do?  What first popped to mind was how the sound bites Cat shouts at us during class could also be applied to various dating scenarios. The best of course being, “Don’t cheat yourself!”

Followed by:

• Show me what you’ve got.

• You’re not fooling anybody.

• Faster, faster, that’s it, so close.

• Now that’s what I like to see.

• Don’t give in to it.

But I decided the fun thing to do would be to compare how my personal mental time-line while suffering through a bad date can be surprisingly similar to that of a  SPIN class.  Now my rule on writing about my date life, is to heighten the generalities and not reveal any specifics.  So if you have been on a date with me recently, go ahead and assume that I am now talking about someone else.  Because obviously the date I was on with You was a good one.  And I am now charting the similarities of my mental state over the course of a really bad date and SPIN.

In the beginning, I am pumped and ready for anything.  I instinctively dread the experience but work to keep an open mind.  Feeling a little insecure about my body, I appreciate the dim lighting.  For awhile I feel good, heart racing, skin tingling in anticipation.  There is a slight moment of endorphin rush as the power of my body kicks in and its true strength overshadows my mental misconceptions.  But I pace myself, because I am instinctively aware that it is too early to sap my reserves.  Then things start to get hard.  And I alternate between struggling to achieve my best and faking it.  My whole being eventually aches with the effort and my mind drifts towards the comfort of what I might eat later as a reward.  I snap those arrant thoughts back on task and concentrate my efforts towards the moment at hand.  As the end draws near, I don’t think I’m going to make it.  Everything hurts, and there is a red flash of anger towards every moment in my past that has brought me to this bleak present.  I push through because I know I can make it.  Confident, because I’ve always made it before and stand stronger each time.  When I burst through to the other side, my body explodes in relief and embraces sweet, sweet freedom.  I’m a little sorer from the experience, but I know that ultimately it is shaping me towards my own brand of sass-sure woman.  I’m still a little pissed off.  But it is a happier pissed off.  My hair no longer looks anything like it did when I left the house, but every war has its causalities.

There you have it.  The biggest difference, however, between a bad date and my SPIN class is that at the end of every SPIN class our instructor Cat has us perform a series of stretches.  And the last one is to hug yourself.  And she always says:

Really love yourself, but know that I love you more.

Which may sound cheesy, but when it is uttered by a short squat woman who has been screaming at you for over an hour it is surprisingly charming.  And if those words were spoken to me at the end of a bad date, I’m not sure I could classify it as a bad date anymore.

To quote my Noir altra ego:

When a man looks at you like you are an Angel, and kisses you like a high class call girl, that’s a man you hold onto Detective.  That’s a man you marry.

Fun fact:  Eclipse of the Heart was originally intended for Meatloaf but he got into a fight with the songwriter and it ended up going to Bonnie Tyler.  Don’t say I never taught you nothing.

In honor of every student taking AP Tests across the country and of every AP Teacher, and AP Coordinator who has worked hard to make the magic happen-  this is for you.  You will either get the reference or you won’t. Like last year, if I told you I would have to kill you. And once again kids, for the Love of Leonidas do not take pictures of your AP Exams and post them on the web.  It helps no one.

Remember this Saturday, May 9th,  is  the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.

CLICK HERE TO SPREAD THE WORD to family and friends.  Comment on how and who you spread the word to below (or email me at wgwafa@gmail.com)  and you will be entered to win a free ticket to MEL & EL: SHOW &TELL on May 15th!!

Only one more week until I lift my personal prohibition.  Traditionally, May is one of my favorite months of the year.  This year however, for various reasons, it has sucked eggs.  There are many times over the last week when I would have loved to have stuck my whole head into a pitcher of Margaritas.   Which, little known fact, is surprisingly good for the skin.  But if you are wearing silk, avoid the darker ‘Ritas like Pomegranate or Strawberry. Lesson learned the hard way.   But I have refrained.  Why?  Because I’m Italian and my natural instinct is to guilt you people into participating in my Stamp Out Hunger campaign.  Come on people, SPREAD THE WORD, tell me about it, win ticket to fun show!

But on the upside, the lack of boozing has made me embrace better choices.  I’ve even been getting up in the mornings and going to the gym this week.  Well twice so far, but that’s two times more than before!  I feel so healthy I’m ready to punch someone in the face.   Good times.

oh and I got to see Star Trek on Tuesday (jealous? you should be!) and I liked it so much I wanted to go back in time and embrace my 15-year-0ld-ST:TNG-convention-attending-fat-teenage-ass.  Since I could not go back in time, I went home and slept with my phaser instead.  Whatever that means to you.

There was a girl I knew some years back that had a two-date rule.  No matter how lousy a time she had on the first date, she would always agree to a second date with the feller.  Her rationalization was that this way she had given things her all and was now free to cut the sub par suitor free without any pangs of guilt. I adopted this same rule the last time I was single- after Holiday Dumping ‘04, but now that I’m out of my twenties it no longer seems worth the rationalization.

I’m not husband hunting, and I’m still hitting snooze on my biological clock, so the prospect of a bad second date, that includes wasted calories on drinks I’m not even sure he will pay for and will make me miss this week’s Big Bang Theory, has become too harsh of a reality.  I’m not sure what this makes me? Old, cheap or a really big dork?

However, the notion of giving things a second try has stuck with me.  So that brings us back to SPIN.  That’s right, since moving to my new apartment I joined a swanky gym and decided to give SPIN a second try.  I still shudder at the claustrophobic, brick room, filled with twiggy hipsters that was my first SPIN experience.  One where I decided not too long into the class that I needed some water.  And that I only wanted the water I had at home.  And I never looked back. 

Since the Former Phat Fcuks I gained some of my weight back because I had lost all accountability.  Since studying Transitions, I am not only trying to make low-glycemic eating a lifestyle change but the other half of the coin is replacing body fat with lean muscle mass.  Which means I have to step up my exercising.  I am also switching my focus from body weight to inches lost.  I would like to say that all of these grandiose reasons are why I decided to face my fears and go back to SPIN.  But that wasn’t it.

As my friends know, I am a sucker for packaging.  I will only chew gum that pops out, I will buy makeup regardless of its quality if it is presented in a supercute way, and put anything is a collectible cup and it must be mine.  The SPIN room at my new gym has moons and unicorns on the wall and when they shut off the lights during class everything glows in a wicked awesome black light.  Yes I am that dorky, because I think this is SO COOL.  Plus, in the dark, no one can see the pain and horror that spreads across my face at the words, “Okay 8 full turns up!” 

For anyone who has never taken SPIN this can be translated as ”Okay get ready to walk funny for 48 hours!” My instructor is Cat, a short tough looking woman, who maintains an unflappable air of authority that is impressive in a room filled with stationary bikes and a glowing unicorn.  But she adjusted my bike so that I wouldn’t injure myself, and complimented me for my good work in class, and gave the toughest workout I have ever completed.  So I was sold.  We had to stand up and sit down, do sprints, and at one point do push-ups (in various hand positions to work both biceps and triceps) against the handles of the bikes after going like 108 full turns up.  But I did it! and while the noon class was the last thing I did all day, I was still proud.

In my second class, Cat did something that I will never forget.  Half way through, we were told to turn our bikes the dreaded ‘8 Full Turns Up’   Now in my defense I’m always getting my left and my right mixed up. Okay clearly that’s not really much of a defense, but exhausted from the series of wind sprints we had just done, I blankly stared at the bike’s resistance knob while my Dad’s phrase ‘Left Loosey, Righty Tighty’ rang through my head.  (I also had a problem putting the lid to the peanut-butter jar back on tight as a kid) And was a little behind everyone else. So I may not have turned my bike ‘8 full turns,’  okay so it was more like ‘6 half ass turns’   So when Cat came around she looked at me peddling, reached over, and gave my bike a few good turns up.  The she pointed at me and said calmly with no judgement,

Don’t cheat yourself! 

I bucked up like world’s best camper and made it through the class.  And while I again did little else that day, and it took me 48 hours to not walk funny, it felt great.  Where the hell has Cat been my whole life?  Like when my family moved to Georgia when I was a small child. We moved there quite abruptly from the Boston area and the shock of the heat lead me to hide inside watching He-Man and She-ra eating my Dad’s left over birthday cheesecake straight from the freezer. I gained so much weight in one year I looked like a inflated beach ball.  If only Cat had been there to knock the Cheesecakesicle out of my grubby little paw and shout,

Don’t cheat yourself!

While pushing me outside and forcing me to learn to ride a real bike despite the oppressive heat and an unfortunate squirrel mishap I still can’t bring myself to talk about. 

OR last year trudging up 5 flights of stairs after a long day of work and class, only to get my heart broken on the 3rd floor and never making it to the top, how great would it have been to have Cat behind me coaching,

Don’t cheat yourself! 

And I would have said exactly what was on my mind instead of being the ever patient listener.  Even better, I would have refused to climb those god awful stairs months before.   OR I like to imagine myself on a bad first date, and as I do the courtesy reach for my purse, Cat pounces demanding,

Don’t cheat yourself!

It’s my time, my heart, and my SPIN neccessitating calories that I am cheating myself out of after all when I am not treated in the manner I long to become accustomed.  So while the second-date rule worked out well for SPIN, it is now officially off the books when it comes to dating.  Thanks Cat.  It might just be time to go ’8 full turns up’ in life.   Even if that does make me walk funny (and not in the good way) for 48 hours.