I don't just procrastinate when it comes to working out. The truth is, I HATE working out. And when I say hate, I mean LOATHE, ABHOR, and DETEST working out.
But in light of my aforementioned wedding, I joined a gym, Club H, to tone up and lose weight for the big day. That was my motivation. Now that my wedding is over, I don't have as much motivation for working out - unless of course you count the astronomical amount of money I'm spending on the yearly gym membership in New York City - which rivals that which I spent on my college education.
I've made working out easier on myself by at least doing exercises I enjoy, and skipping the ones I don't. But even then, I do the exercises half-heartedly. I'll do nine-and-a-half reps of an exercise at my own pace instead of 10, and tell myself I'll do exercises on five more machines but only make it around to three more.
It takes a lot to get me to the gym, and even then it takes more to get me to actually take advantage of the fact that I'm at the gym. I need someone to push me. That's why I usually end up going to the gym at a time when I can take one of the classes - pump, yoga, pilates, boot camp, and rebounding are my favorites. That way, I have an instructor telling me that I have 10 reps to go. I can't quit at 8 or 9 for an irrational fear that the others taking the class will notice and judge me.
However, not all instructors are created equal. Now that I've been going to the gym for seven months - and tried out a bunch of different classes - I know which ones to take to appropriately correspond to my mood.
When I'm feeling a 10 on the laziness scale, which is the laziest of all lazy - but not quite lazy enough to stay on the couch - I head to yoga with Johan. Now don't get me wrong - yoga is hard work, but it's totally minus the cardio, which is my arch nemesis of working out. So while I break out into a sweat while doing the complicated poses, some of which require intense concentration, I love the way the class ends. For the last five whole minutes, we practice shavasana, the dead pose, which is simply lying down in complete and total relaxation. Ahhhhh!
When my laziness factor is about an 8, I find myself in pilates with Christina. I need some semblance of liveliness for that class because it's difficult for me to not only concentrate on doing the exercises, but to also remember to hold up my pelvic floor (the muscles you use to hold in your pee, to put it bluntly).
In order for me to do cardio, my laziness scale needs to be less than a 5. On those (rare) days, I might head to Cheetah's pump class (yes, his name is actually Cheetah - so cool!). On the hotness scale of 1 to 10, he's about a 9.6. So while he provides amazing eye candy that I can stare at for 45 to 60 minutes at a time without looking like an obsessed weirdo (I'm studying the correct form is all, I swear!) that means he's too hot to pay attention to someone like me. And by "someone like me," I mean someone who dresses in old sweatpants and a worn T-shirt from high school with my hair twisted up into a ponytail, and not someone who dons daisy dukes with a belly-bearing tank top with my perfect curls pinned up into a perfectly messy updo to work out.
Therefore, in his classes, I might as well be invisible, even though I may be exercising in front of the women who primp BEFORE their workouts. And since I'm invisible, I can slack off a bit because he won't call me out on it.
Though Blake will not call me out, he will motivate me during his rebounding class. For probably 35 out of the 45 minutes of that class, we are all on our own mini trampolines bouncing around for exercise. Now before you think that that would be the most awesome class ever, I must tell you that you are not jumping on it to see how high you can go. It's actually the opposite. You are resisting the bounce, which KILLS your legs, but makes for a great cardio workout. On the energy scale of 1 to 10, Blake is always about a 15, so when he says GO!!!! GO!!! GO!!!!! (meaning, jog on the trampolines as fast as you can for 15 seconds) I am actually motivated to GO!!!
Now when I am feeling the extra few pounds that I'm carrying around my midsection and desperate to try and whittle it down to fit into my fat jeans, I'll make my way to the hour-long boot camp with Miguel. It's what I actually imagine boot camp to be. For the first round in his class, there are 12 stations where you do an exercise for 30 seconds at a time. The second and third rounds are for 45 seconds at a time, which is SOOOO MUCH longer than 30 seconds. It's definitely not OK to slack off in Miguel's class because he will come over and yell at me, "Girl, I know you can jump higher" or "Come on, sweetie, you can do it."
(Normally, I have an issue with random guys calling me "honey" or "sweetie," but Miguel's so hot, he could call me "crap bag" and I wouldn't care less. Plus, it's weird, but I actually want to do good so he'll tell me, "Yeah, that's it!" which is really what I need when working out - encouragement!)
And I got the best encouragement I've ever had today when I walked into Miguel's class and saw that it was made up of me and seven guys. One of them noticed the extra testosterone in the room and asked if I was feeling a challenge. Well, I couldn't let them down, could I?
So I worked out today harder than I have ever worked out in my life. Because there are usually girls in the class, Miguel sets up the stations with weights for the guys, and weights for the girls. But did I use the "girly" weights? Well, yes, but not on ALL of the stations. I had to prove that I could keep up with the guys... minus 20 pounds or so!
And I think I did a pretty good job - which is good because I'm not moving from this couch for about a week!
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