Thursday, February 01, 2007

Boot Camp It Ain't

It's interesting that I wrote this whole anti-FitWell post the other day, because I'm increasingly comfortable with matters of nutrition, health, and weight management lately. I've mentioned that I enjoy yoga oodles of times, but joining a local studio or classes at a gym is complicated what with Hubster and I sharing a car. Until it's financially and physically possible for me to get out and do yoga, I've been doing it at home with videos and books as my guides. About a month ago, though, I realized I hadn't been doing it more than once a week for a long time. I wasn't motivated anymore, and I was letting all exercise slide because of it. Oopsies!

I have four or five videos which I alternate, but they tend to seem the same after a while, and variety is the spice of every other part of my life, so shaking things up seemed like one way to get back on track. I bought a "cardio-sculpting" program that's supposed to involve both aerobic and low-resistance strength-training exercises. It's been humiliation central ever since what with my body and mind have totally separate ideas about how to accomplish all this movement, but at least I'm moving. I now realize several key things: 1) the fact that I ever learned to swing dance can only be attributed to persistence because my feet are unruly at best, 2) my heart is NOT in shape - every time I do the "cardio interval" segment I have to skip portions because my heart starts to feel like the entire cast of Stomp on speed, and 3) "boot camp" is only a figurative title. I asked myself the question "Aren’t you supposed to yell at me and call me 'homo' and motivate me over this wall?" I should have my brother revamp the entire course to more accurately reflect his experiences in Army. Yes, that's just what their target demographic of 18-34-year-old women wants - real, balls-to-the-wall, remove-your-gas-mask-in-a-contaminated-room-then-state- your-name-and-serial-number boot camp.

I'm better at the whole food angle. It's by no means easy for a gustophile to avoid those tasty, tasty plates of alfredo in favor of marinara, but I'm doing it and doing it consistently. My cooking is lowfat pretty much all the time because otherwise Hubster gets all antsy about his nutritional intake and puh-lease tell me someone else's significant other does that because I swear I WILL END HIM sometimes, and I would like to think I'm not alone out here. I guess the flip side of that coin is that I eat well most of the time and save my dietary sinning for restaurants where it is done with joy and relish (the emotion, not the condiment).

This week I've been enjoying my workouts. No, really, Mom, I'm not kidding or exaggerating (please don't have a heart attack). I'm also realizing that this will stave off back problems in the future, and since I also graduated from physical therapy this week, I am looking forward to saving my $40 co-pays for more frivolous matters. My therapist said over and over that regular, full-body workouts were a good way to ensure that my goal of financial wantonness was met.

Bottomline: I have more reasons than bad body image to eat well and exercise. More importantly, I'm able to be more consistent about pursuing those things in a way that motivates and challenges me. It's nice to have made that kind of progress.

2 comments:

Mair said...

funny, you see, I meant to get up at 7:30 this morning and do pilates, but I got up at 8:15 and am reading your blog instead...

Anonymous said...

If you're looking for some new yoga workouts you might check out iTunes in the podcasts section. There are quite a few to choose from and by now you are probably familiar enough with the names of the poses that you don't have to search out just the video podcasts (which there aren't as many of). Most of them are free too!!!