Category: workout

Shiny Car

Yesterday I did a 2-hour workout, but not in the gym: it was in our own driveway! I had read that you should wax a new car as soon as possible, so I stocked up on car care supplies and gave my car a spa day: wash, vacuum, hand-wax, and detailing. After all that buffing, my shoulders are reminding me today that I probably should have stretched.

I still miss my old car. I had it so long that it just felt like part of me while I was driving. My husband joked that the driver’s side was molded perfectly to my butt, and my butt only.

I’m still getting used to all the lights, buttons, and fancy gadgets in this one that my old one didn’t have. I’m not quite as terrified to drive this one now, slowly feeling more comfortable in it, but I still don’t know what everything does. The car came with four manuals that I am making my way through, learning new things every time I open one.

Driving to work this morning, I admired my detailing work, the shiny interior, clean touch-screen, everything sleek and new and beautiful. It was a lot of work, but definitely worth it.

When I got to work, I found myself turning in the parking lot to glance back at my car one more time, and I smiled. I will always miss my old car, but this one is certainly starting to grow on me, too.

Do It Again

Yesterday’s goal was simple: just move. Anything. Anywhere. For any length of time. I just wanted to set a goal, no matter how small, and actually stick to it. I felt like working out about as much as I felt like licking a toad, but I made myself change clothes, tie up my sneakers, and hop onto my stationary bike for a bit.

I wish I could say it was an exhilarating experience and made me fall deeply in love with working out again, but mostly I grumbled irritably under my breath and watched the clock and counted each agonizingly slow second until it was over. About halfway through, my husband wandered into the room, gave me a kiss, and told me, “Good job, baby”, so that helped a lot and got me through to the end.

This evening, I will do it again. And the day after that, I will do it once again. What other choice do I have? Gain more weight? Get even more out of shape? Let my health decline even further? I am at an age where this isn’t all about fitting into a favorite pair of jeans anymore. It’s much more about health and quality of life and setting the stage for rest of my life.

A friend of mine wrote yesterday about her self-care goals, and she takes it seriously enough that she is tracking it each day. It got me to thinking about how I treat myself, talk to myself, especially when I am not on track or doing well, by my own standards. I would like to set some self-care goals myself, but I need to think more about that, how to make it meaningful for me.

Whiner

Before I even left for work yesterday morning, I made plans to go to the gym after work. I was gung-ho, all for it, wahoo, let’s do this…until I was driving home yesterday evening. Until it was time to actually make the effort and put in the work.

It’s too hot! Once I get inside the air-conditioned house, I don’t want to go out again. And look, I think it’s going to rain! Who wants wet sneakers?

Yeah. I actually thought those things. “It’s hot, and it might rain” actually sounded like reasonable excuses to skip the gym.

Seriously? When did I become such a whiner? Ugh. I snapped out of it, whipped this hair into a braid, laced up, and headed out into the blazing heat to make my way to the gym.

It wasn’t the greatest workout in the world. I didn’t cherish every moment of it, and confetti didn’t rain down on me as the entire gym erupted into thunderous applause, tossing long-stemmed roses and monetary tokens of their admiration at my treadmill. (Wouldn’t that be nice?) But I went. I moved. I sweat.

Oh, and yes, it was raining when I left the gym. And I didn’t die 🙂

Sizzling Fajitas

I was swamped at work yesterday, and I left much later than I had expected. Traffic was, of course, slower than my liking, and it took forever to get home. I was only home a few minutes when my cat started sneezing, and I called the vet, turned around, went right back out the door, and went to the pharmacy to pick up the antihistamines the vet said I could give to him.

When I got home the second time, it was oh-so-tempting to toss my work clothes into the hamper, put on comfy pajamas, and snuggle up with my husband. But I had promised myself I would work out when I got home, so I grit my teeth, wiggled into workout clothes, and hopped onto my exercise bike.

One of my favorite Peloton instructors is Cody Rigsby, because he is just so silly and goofy and funny. You never know what is going to come out of his mouth next, or what dance move he’s going to throw down, defying gravity by not falling right off his bike.

So I chose one of his classes, and I am glad I did. I randomly picked one that seemed like it had good music. It was a good workout, and Cody said something that made me laugh but also stayed in my head. When we were getting ready to increase the intensity of the ride, he described how, at a restaurant, when the server walks by with that sizzling plate of fajitas, everyone turns and looks and wonders who is getting those flashy fajitas. The fajitas capture everyone’s attention. He encouraged us to be the sizzling fajitas, not the complimentary tortilla chips, ha ha.

There you have it: immortal words of boundless inspiration and infinite wisdom, straight from Cody! Be the sizzling fajitas today, ladies and gentlemen. I am glad I chose to be sizzling fajitas last night instead of tortilla chips! Time to sizzle again today. What about you? 🙂

Mosquitoes

It was so beautiful outside the other day, and as I sat on our bench on the deck, I dreaded going inside to work out. Then I had a brilliant thought: why go inside at all? Why not work out right there on the deck?

I grabbed my tablet, opened up a workout online, and strutted my stuff and worked up a sweat right there in a cool breeze on our deck, with one of the outdoor cats staring at me with huge eyes, wondering what on earth I was doing. I loved it. Why had I never thought of that before?

I could look around at the trees gently swaying, flowers blooming beside the deck, feel the wind in my ponytail. Yes, definitely going to do this again!

But…if you decide to try the same…I strongly urge you to wear bug spray! I was so into my workout that I did not notice that every mosquito in a 100-mile radius zoomed in on me for a buffet feast. I slapped one or two but clearly missed most of them. My legs currently have so many mosquito bites that my poor skin is polka-dotted. And itchy as hell!

My husband, the comedian, keeps teasing me that my legs look like I was attacked by fleas. I am not exaggerating: I have about 15 mosquito bites on each leg. I am irresistible to ants, bees, jealous stalkers (couldn’t resist), and now hungry mosquitoes.

Lesson learned. If being outside means I am more likely to work out, then I will stock up on bug spray and citronella candles.

Yesterday, by the time I finished working well past 7 o’clock, with barely a break for lunch, the last thing I wanted to do was work out. I earned a break. I gave myself the night off. But when I had to turn the computer on to print something, I thought, what about just 10 minutes? I could handle that, right?

Well, 25 minutes later, I could proudly say I had worked out after a long day. I took a long, hot shower, deep-conditioned my hair, used my new body scrub that smells like roses (I adore roses), and then relaxed and unwound with my husband…and tried not to scratch my mosquito bites!

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