Jazzercise - 1, Me - 0
Yesterday I took a Jazzercise class for the second time in as many weeks. I decided to start going because I need to get more exercise in, and Jazzercise was a good cheap option that meant I wouldn't have to cross rte 50 coming back from my temp job at Skyline.
I used to take it with Mrs. Pinchloaf, and it's cheap, cheesy and fun. You do simplified jazz routines to All Your Favorite Pop and Country and R&B hits with a group of (mostly) middle-aged ladies. The theory is that you work your way up the exertion curve and then back down and then do some light weights. You can be as high-impact as you want or as low-impact.
So last night I really got into it - I was more high impact than low and jazzmatazzed my velour sweatpantsed ass off. As a result, about 45 minutes in I got a monstrous headache. This is what happens to me when I work hard. I have to watch it because sometimes the monstrous headache leads to throwing up. So I went home, and ma soer had come over with sour weed so my dad could make his famous schavel, which is a very delicious sour weed soup. Sadly, I couldn't eat any of it. I had to soak in a hot tub and then lie very very still for the rest of the evening.
There's a very unfair set of contradictions involved in getting healthy. By getting healthy I mean eating lots of fruits and vegetables, exercising and getting down to my federally mandated healthy weight. (149 and not an ounce less I tell you.) All this stuff is supposed to add years to your life and make you feel good most of the time. However, it has to be approached carefully. I'm 30 pounds overweight and work a sitting-down desk job, so if I start working out an hour per day, I will probably injure myself. Apparently even if I work too hard in one jazzercise class, I'm out for the rest of the night.
It's the same with food: if I immediately change to eating lots of fruits and veggies, I'm going to have some serious intestinal distress. Furthermore, even though I know the overweight is complicating my ability to exercise, I can't lose it too fast or I'll eff up my metabolism or be malnourished and get sick. I know, I know, slow and steady wins the race, blah blah blah gradual lifestylechangecakes. I thought I WAS being gradual, but apparently not gradual enough.
The other night I caught a few minutes of Half Ton Mama, one of the shows on a 'check out how fat these people are!' night on some cable channel (TLC maybe?) There are a number of shows about people who have gotten so large that they can never leave their beds unless fifteen firemen come in and drag them out on a tarp. On every show, they have pictures of the people from ten or twenty years before, and they're all normal-sized. Chubby, maybe, but not scary fat. Then of course by the time they're huge, they can't just eat less or exercise more and have to have scary surgeries where they have an 80% chance of dying on the operating table because they're so big.
Thinking about these folks makes me uncomfortable because I could so easily see it happening to me. I'm pretty sure it won't happen to me, but still. It's so easy to eat a lot and sit around. And now I'm all hungry. And sore.
I used to take it with Mrs. Pinchloaf, and it's cheap, cheesy and fun. You do simplified jazz routines to All Your Favorite Pop and Country and R&B hits with a group of (mostly) middle-aged ladies. The theory is that you work your way up the exertion curve and then back down and then do some light weights. You can be as high-impact as you want or as low-impact.
So last night I really got into it - I was more high impact than low and jazzmatazzed my velour sweatpantsed ass off. As a result, about 45 minutes in I got a monstrous headache. This is what happens to me when I work hard. I have to watch it because sometimes the monstrous headache leads to throwing up. So I went home, and ma soer had come over with sour weed so my dad could make his famous schavel, which is a very delicious sour weed soup. Sadly, I couldn't eat any of it. I had to soak in a hot tub and then lie very very still for the rest of the evening.
There's a very unfair set of contradictions involved in getting healthy. By getting healthy I mean eating lots of fruits and vegetables, exercising and getting down to my federally mandated healthy weight. (149 and not an ounce less I tell you.) All this stuff is supposed to add years to your life and make you feel good most of the time. However, it has to be approached carefully. I'm 30 pounds overweight and work a sitting-down desk job, so if I start working out an hour per day, I will probably injure myself. Apparently even if I work too hard in one jazzercise class, I'm out for the rest of the night.
It's the same with food: if I immediately change to eating lots of fruits and veggies, I'm going to have some serious intestinal distress. Furthermore, even though I know the overweight is complicating my ability to exercise, I can't lose it too fast or I'll eff up my metabolism or be malnourished and get sick. I know, I know, slow and steady wins the race, blah blah blah gradual lifestylechangecakes. I thought I WAS being gradual, but apparently not gradual enough.
The other night I caught a few minutes of Half Ton Mama, one of the shows on a 'check out how fat these people are!' night on some cable channel (TLC maybe?) There are a number of shows about people who have gotten so large that they can never leave their beds unless fifteen firemen come in and drag them out on a tarp. On every show, they have pictures of the people from ten or twenty years before, and they're all normal-sized. Chubby, maybe, but not scary fat. Then of course by the time they're huge, they can't just eat less or exercise more and have to have scary surgeries where they have an 80% chance of dying on the operating table because they're so big.
Thinking about these folks makes me uncomfortable because I could so easily see it happening to me. I'm pretty sure it won't happen to me, but still. It's so easy to eat a lot and sit around. And now I'm all hungry. And sore.
posted by walkinhomefromthethriftstore at 5:41 AM
4 Comments:
it won't happen cos i'm pretty sure your friends will get mighty pissed off about having to bring a tarp every time we want to go out :)
Aw, I'm sorry; I didn't know how puny you were feeling (though passing up the soup should've been a clue).
This time of year seems to be very hard on people's brains, leading to despondent hibernation, so don't beat yourself up too much. If you do, the Novemberists have won. No. No, I say; the war against November must go forward, militant November extremists should not be allowed to cackle with glee, people who even LOOK like autumn/winters in their color charts should get frisked at airports, and so on and so forth.
The Post has some stuff about weight and the holidays in its Health section online. The writer (Sally...something?) is kind of dimly perky for my taste, but she has some good advice. One thing she suggested was not aiming to lose weight during the holidays but rather to focus on not gaining any; it keeps your expectations realistic while helping you set up good habits. Which still sounds like a pain, but there it is.
Ah, but you have tasted the sweet nectar of being in shape specifically for the purpose of kicking ass! It is a powerful motivation, and I know it can make me impatient. Baby steps, baby steps. Then three hours of kick-boxing. You can do it!
Well. I mean. I'D probably buy the tarp. Least I could do, and all.
Damn Novemberists!
Yay kickboxing! (altho' not for a very long while. In retrospect I first started noticing herniated disc pain during a kickboxing class at the Y. Being the smart girl that I am I ignored it of course.)
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