Exercise, anyone?

Why, oh why, is it so hard to get oneself to exercise? It's good for you - even better than peas and carrots combined. Eish, but I don't likey...I'd rather eat that plate of spinach, or go hungry altogether, than run or bike or step myself into a sweaty mess. But I also know that no amount of nuts or salad will do to your body that which a good work-out will. There's no way around it...

So it started this week when I decided to weigh myself after coming back from another holiday which always includes a lot of restaurant food and no time for exercise because of all the sightseeing, boat cruises, driving from town to city, booking in, checking out, packing, unpacking - totally exhausting!

The bathroom scale is one of those ornaments in the house that you don't display along with the glass vase from Venice or the miniature perfume bottles on the bathroom counter. So after locating it from underneath the layer of dust  - like I said : it does not form part of the dusting routine of other ornaments - I had to figure out how it actually works...electronic and all, this particular one.

It was not a pretty picture. Yes, I did not see figures on the scale but rather a boatload of chocolate bars, piled mile high, laughing at me from the tiny screen of this fancy-schmancy electronic scale. Of course this is untrue but it was my mind playing tricks with me - where in the world would you get a scale with cartoons, seriously. Although it would be a good idea to scare people right into a gym membership if the scale could stick out its tongue at you or roll its eyes at you. Now that would be something...

I immediately started a treasure hunt in my closet to find my yoga clothes - it's been a while since I've seen or used them. Alas I found them - they did not make it to the charity bin after all - and lo and behold, found a pair that still fits my current state. Tightly, but not bursting at the seams, yet...I figured that the only way I would start doing any of the moves they call "exercise" I need to be comfortable at all hours of the day, so that whenever I feel the need (like right after eating a cookie or watching the Food Channel) I can just fall down there and then and do a few sit-ups or squats or tummy rubs...

It's just so hard! And so boring. And it hurts. And makes you even hungrier. And grumpier. Which means I must do something wrong because everytime my husband finishes one of his marathon long runs on the treadmill, he tells me he feels GREAT - that exact word. Great. While he's breathing like an oxygen-deprived lab monkey - don't ask me what this means, I made it up - and gobbling down water like a camel in the Sahara desert, and gleaming with sweat like a cast member from "Jersey Shore". Maybe that's it: I don't like the "face" of exercise - it's not very becoming.

This change of pace and rationing of food has another downside for me. Another contributing factor to my sleeplessness: the growling noises from my stomach prevented me from falling asleep last night. Just lying there, listening, wondering if I should get up and read a magazine (which would inevitably have a food section and ads of perfect bodies in bikinis) or go to the computer to write this blog, or ignore my own body's needs for food in exchange for it's need to sleep, 'cause once I'm asleep, the torture will be over till tomorrow morning when the squatting and rationing starts all over again.

Well, eventually I fell asleep and now it's a new day. I'm here, sitting in my yoga gear (I'm a poet and I don't even know it) for what it's worth. A little stiff from yesterday's initiation squats. But I will not quit - not for the moment though, but I'll let you know, about my new glow, before the first snow in early No' (November, that is) - I'm trying to kill time here people...it's either this or the treadmill.

Till next time - happy running!