Project 365: 01/15/09

Matt still bundled up from being outside in the near-arctic temperatures, and me trying to get him to pose for today’s Project 365 picture but to no avail, because he was busy playing Sudoku and staring at me like I’m a crazy woman :-)

Workin’ Out

How thankful I am that the BSC will be open for part of Thanksgiving Day. It will provide me with a preemptive strike against the impending belly fat from all the calories I plan to consume that day. Or, maybe it won’t help that much other than ease my guilt.

Get in shape, girl!

Anyone remember those commercials for “Get in Shape, Girl” from the ’80s? I used to see them all the time, but I was a kid who hated exercise so I was never really interested.

After moving in with Matt and gaining a whopping 20 pounds in one year, I decided it was time for ME to GET IN SHAPE, GIRL!!

I’ve been a fairly regular gym-goer ever since. At first I went every day but that’s dwindled down to a few times a week. Even though I don’t go all the time anymore, I thought I was in fairly decent shape.

Until TODAY.

I took a “Studio Sampler” class at the BSC and OHHH MAN!!!!! It KILLED me!!! It combined aerobics, strength training, stretching, weight training. We had to go up and down stairs, do jumping jacks, jump rope, run, and more. I am SO tired…I came home starved and ate some ravioli and string beans, changed into my jammies, and I’m about to go up to bed. And it’s 7:59 PM!!

There was definitely a part of the class where I thought I was going to have to just give up and go home…but I stuck with it, and it was a good class, so I plan to go back.

Left foot, left foot, right foot, right. Feet in the morning, feet at night.

Well, I finally got a doctor to listen to me about my foot injury! Well, actually, it wasn’t even a doctor…it was a physician’s assistant. She pointed out that I had bruising going down from my shin to my foot. I have to wear a rather irksome splint. It’s not very comfortable and it was really awful during the heatwave…but I can already walk without pain! In fact, I am hoping to return to the gym today for some low impact exercise!

I already feel myself falling out of shape after 2 weeks without exercise!

Bad Gym Etiquette

I was just at the gym, and I saw some behavior that was so incredibly rude that I had to blog about it!!!

There are these nifty ellipticals with a nice incline that I like, and there are only two of them in the entire gym. Both were empty, but one seemed to be occupied. It had a towel, water bottle, and tabloid on it, so I assumed someone had quickly jumped off to go use the restroom or something.

I began my work-out, and about 10 minutes into it, this woman doing sit-ups on a mat behind the row of ellipticals got up and started using the elliptical. I thought it was a little odd. She worked out for about 10 minutes, then went back to the mat to do some more mat exercises, still leaving her stuff on the machine. Then she came back to the elliptical. Then, she left again.

When I was done on the elliptical, I went to go refill my water bottle, and I saw her on the weight-lifting side doing some strength training. Then I walked over to the exercise bikes and I saw that her belongings were STILL on the machine. I did fifteen minutes on the bike, and when I got up to leave, I saw her doing mat exercises again with her stuff still sitting there on the machine!

I was there for about an hour, and she was off and on that machine but left her stuff on there so nobody else could use it!!! I was absolutely appalled! She had only actually used it for 25 minutes or so, but she hogged it for close to an hour! And as I said, there are only two of these ellipticals in the whole gym, so it’s not like there are a dozen of them!

This lady needs to have a little lesson in common courtesy! I’ve never dealt with this level of inconsideration at the gym before.

What’s that in my arm?

On Monday I had a check-up and had to get a routine vaccination in my upper left arm. It’s been sore ever since. Today I was inspecting the arm and I noticed that there was a large, round, hard bump in the area of where I received the shot. “What in the world?” I thought to myself, fearing it was infected or that something was wrong.

I then inspected my upper right arm to compare. It had the same weird bump. What was going on?!?!?

I then began to realize something. It was a muscle! I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never had visible muscles in my arms before. In my legs, sure, that’s easy, but my arms were always very floppy, even when I was more slim.

I started exercising about a year ago, as chronicled here in my blog, which was an amazing feat because previously I hadn’t exercised since high school. After I stopped playing tennis and participating in mandatory gym class (which I utilized mainly to gossip in while doing the minimum required to get a decent grade), I saw no reason to exercise. But a year ago, it all changed and I realized that I had to start exercising, not only to watch my weight but also for my health. And participating in regular exercise has helped me feel better and build my immune system up.

Matt got me dumbbells for Christmas this year, which has probably made the biggest difference in my arms because now I can use them in the comfort of my own living room.

Anyway, developing muscles in my arms instead of having them look liked uncooked dough is much preferred over the prospect of having some funky vaccine-caused infection type thing!

Gym Observations

Since I joined the YMCA a few months ago, I’ve noticed a few things while using the gym…

1. At this YMCA, you have to sign up for a machine. The timeslots are 30 minutes. People take this VERY seriously. It will be 7:28 PM, and a man will poke my shoulder and alert me that it is his turn.

2. People fart a lot while exercising. The worst part is that I don’t want to lose my machine, but breathing in the fart fumes is sickening.

3. Women in the 50+ age range are more comfortable prancing around the locker room naked than women under the age of 50.
They are perfectly comfortable carrying on a conversation with a stranger while naked.

4. Sometimes people listening to their headphones wind up singing along really loudly. Do they realize this? Most recently, a man belted out some opera while on the elliptical next to me.

5. Nothing drives me more crazy than when a group of three or more teenage girls go to use the aerobic machines. They insist on taking a bunch of machines next to each other and they are incredibly loud. Gossiping at top volume, etc. Nobody else cares what Jennifer wore to the school dance last Friday!

6. Instead of accepting the fact that I have lost weight, I chose to convince myself that the scale is incorrect in my favor.

7. Some people look really funny when they exercise. I wonder if I do.

8. Pigeons do not reside on the fence.

9. Slow and steady wins the race, indeed! I exercise as slowly as a tortoise but I can exercise for a long time without getting winded.

10. I wonder how people can read while they’re on a treadmill or elliptical. I’d fall over.

Dead Pigeons

For the past two weeks, Matt and I have noticed these three dead pigeons essentially “attached” to a chain-link fence separating the YMCA and the Pike. Thanks to the condition of rigor mortis, they look artifical and frozen. Each time I see them, I get the heebie-jeebies. They’ve been there for TWO WEEKS and I fear that soon they’re going to start rotting and decaying. And as you know, nothing freaks me out more than a dead, decaying bird. :-(

I wonder whose property that is; the YMCA or the city of Newton? Birds seriously frighten me like you could NOT imagine, with the exception of parakeets and other cute little birds — but only in photographs or cages. Pigeons freak me out because they’re kind of gross.

One, ah ha ha! Two, ah ha ha!

Yesterday I was at my beloved YMCA. After an intense uphill work-out on the treadmill, I went back to the locker room. A bunch of women came running into the locker room in their bathing suits because someone barfed right next to the pool and the premises had to be cleared. Aww, man! I had to stifle my laughter as to not appear insane.

Call me immature, but I think vomit is hilarious. (OK, it’s less funny when it’s actually happening to someone; I hate the act of vomiting!!!) My amusement with vomit is a direct result of having a graphic dream at the age of three in which The Count from Sesame Street vomited so much that he filled up my grandmother’s entire apartment. I woke up, petrified, and my mom assured me that if I went back to sleep the dream would not continue. So I went back to sleep…and the dream CONTINUED! He was still throwing up. A few years later the dream stopped scaring me, and I began to find it funny. It makes me laugh until this day.

I feel bad for the person who threw up by the pool. At least it wasn’t in the pool though. I hope they’re OK. Nobody ever forgets when they see someone throwing up in public. The worst is when someone throws up in school…that’s unforgettable. I still remember, quite vividly, when a boy threw up in my kindergarten class. I also remember when I was in junior high and a kid name Karl threw up in the hallway, which I didn’t see — thank god. Seeing throw up sometimes makes me throw up. :-( Apparently the sound of Karl barfing sounded like leaves crumbling.

I remember once I was on some kidney infection medication that upset my stomach when my mom and I were leaving for New York and I threw up outside a terminal at San Francisco International Airport. I pity anyone who saw that.

I’m chock full of more fun bodily function stories, but I’ll spare you. I can’t believe I wrote an entire entry on throw up. :-| Well, it was mostly to share my story about what happened at the Y. Happy Nikki? :-)

Young man, there’s no need to feel down…..

Matt and I are now proud members of the Newton YMCA!

Let me tell you, I am very satisfied with my membership thus far. Besides being a fraction of the monthly cost of a regular gym, the facilities are new, clean, and fantastic. All of the cardio machines (treadmills, elipticals, etc) have televisions attached to them…they get a ton of stations, and they also play DVDs. (As well as audio CDs and MP3 CDs) As I briskly walk on the treadmills, I am also going through the Freaks & Geeks DVDs.

Right now my exercising is fairly low impact, because this is the first time I’ve regularly exercised since my junior year of high school. (Eight years ago!) And let’s face it…for me, high school gym class was a period alotted largely for gossiping, NOT exercising.

Gym class was very traumatizing for me, ever since elementary school. I am very short, and I was always the tiniest kid in my class. Sometimes my gym teacher would use me as an example of someone who could not sufficiently participate in a given exercise, due to my height. “And everyone will do this…well, except for Kristine because she’s very, very short.”

And not only was I SHORT, but I was SLOW. Even the really chubby kids could outrun me. Whenever we played kickball, everyone knew that I couldn’t kick the ball very hard so the outfield would all move in really close. Playing freeze tag would give me panic attacks because I’d be “frozen” for 90% of the game.

I was in a “special gym” class in kindergarten because physically, I could not keep up with my peers. (Or tie my shoes for that matter…I think I got a “U” for unsatisfactory in that category on my kindergarten report card) My motor skills are still poor, as are my shoe-tying skills. I usually wear clogs whenever possible to avoid tying my shoes!

So, it never got better. My most embarrassing moment was in 9th grade gym, step aerobics…after forty minutes of step step step, up down up down, I started hyperventilating. My mom had to pick me up and they needed to get a wheelchair to bring me to her car. Mortifying. I guess this was karma for gossiping non-stop in gym class, because I’m certain that I was the object of some gossip after this happened — because it happened not once, but TWICE!

So, athletics was never my strong point although I was a decent tennis player. Besides playing tennis every now and then and walking places, I’ve been very idle over the past few years. And I no longer have that teenage metabolism that once allowed me to consume as much spaghetti and grilled cheese as I wanted. So we joined the Y. :-)

And I can do it all at my own pace. No “special gym class”, no wheelchairs, no being picked last for kickball, and no more being an example of someone who can’t properly exercise. I’ll be walkin’ on the treadmill, watchin’ “Freaks & Geeks”. :-)