A Rolling Muffin Gathers No Mass

I woke up this morning and my husband asked, "Hey, where did your muffin top go?"

Those are the most beautiful words to wake up to, next to, "Here's your coffee," and "Snow day."

I think it's because of a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I am behaving like I KNOW that I am what I eat.

No really, I am what I eat.

No really, yesterday I ate a "Personal Trainer" at Moe's.  It was AMAZING. 

I can tell you, I have stayed away from vegetarian restaurant items for a long time.  There is nothing about the word vegetarian that is appetizing to me.  Nor would I pay $7.99 for beans.  If I'm paying $7.99, I'm not paying for beans.  If I'm paying for $7.99, I'm getting something that took a lot of work to process :) But wow.  It was a welcome respite for sure.

My body has responded accordingly to other recent food choices.

Yes, exercise is important - but you must know, 80% of how you look is what you eat.  I'll leave it at that.  I think my personal training organization would disown me if I said much more.

I'm glad I ate a Personal Trainer.

HA!  I have to tell you I giggled the whole time, too.  Cheesy, eh?

Keep moving!

Extroverted?

I just wrote about the fun feeling of walking in to a hotel fitness room after waking up.  I do brush my teeth, but really, what does that count when I look the way I do?  Colgate can't fix this mug.

But I do love that feeling of rebellion.

In my view, and I sometimes feel like I am in the minority on this, the sweatier the better.  I mean, let it waterfall over my forehead and down my neck.  I gotta know I have EARNED that shower.

Here's another time I feel like I am the female version of Jack Bauer: walking into an-all male workout room - as a woman.

There are no such things as all-male workout rooms.  What am I talking about, right?  Wrong.  The all-male workout room is where there are free weights.  It's hilarious.  I mean, I hope that the Crossfit phenomenon is helping to change that - and that I have given some clients the know-how and confidence to bust up my stereotype - but thinking and believing in equality is one thing - seeing it happen in real life is another. 

Just like Idleman wrote in Not a Fan (can you tell I am loving this book?): thinking something and doing something in real life are two quite different things.

So, like I was saying, a friend and I recently walked into the free weight room.  The all-male dominion.  Don't think we weren't noticed because it's perfectly natural for a woman to want to work out there.  It's not.  You won't believe the following story if you think men and women are equal.  A Michelin man actually walked up to us once we finished some lifting and added weight to our barbell. "It's a weight room, not a bar room," he said.   He definitely was not accustomed to women working out near him.  How dare he! 

How dare WE, as we didn't sock him one.  Or subtly correct him, depending on which side of feminism you reside.

Regardless, I am STILL laughing about that. Hopefully, my friend gets to bust up in there again.  My plan is that she re-enters the all-male bubble armed in bright pink workout gloves with embroidered hearts and gems all over the place.

SO GREAT.  My own special blend of rebellion and residual feminism.

But hold on!  This blog is about stealthfully getting back in shape. What is this talk?

Well, I thrive on this stuff.  My blend of rebellion and a teensy bit of feminism is actually the result of latent spurts of extroversion: they pop up at the strangest times.  But I have to admit I do thrive on exercising outdoors because other people see me.  There doesn't need to be just one source of motivation; there is something to be said for getting motivation from lots of different ones.

But I do get energy from exercising where people will see me.  That's just the truth.  The rules of the game are tough:

1) Run faster than the person on the treadmill next to you so they poop out first.  It can be in intervals that you run faster, but make sure there are a lot of intervals, so that at any one snapshot, you are running "circles" next to the other.
2) Always run faster when a car is passing.  Try to outrun it if it is traveling in the same direction.
3) Make sure you are on a road with a lot of traffic (well heck, that's a safety thing too).
4) Definitely pass any Army Rangers ahead of you (that is THE BEST feeling, and who cares if they are on mile 20 and that is why you were able to pass them.  Pass them.  It's their problem if they have to go to counseling for getting passed by a girl).

I have to have this source of motivation once in a while.  It fuels me for days, so it's not always necessary.  I know I don't have a complex because I am not alone.  A buddy of mine used to lunge across the 200 meter quad at Fort Benning to keep motivated.  There, he knew at any one time, 50 people were watching - so he couldn't stop.  Excellent idea!!

To add my extroversion to a need to be suburbanly rebellious is just fun. 

So yeah, go to a gym without makeup on.  Go to an all-male workout room with bright pink workout gloves (heck, and fluorescent blue workout clothes, just so you stand out, and especially if you don't like pink, because, you know, you don't have to like pink if you are a girl but you could rebelliously perpetuate that stereotype while you are at it).

Regardless, keep moving!

In-Flux... er... Capacity

I am stealth, but not obsessively so.

In this venture to displace the muffin from its belly-wide domination, I am open to all techniques. 

That being said, I think I did admit I am prone to some extroverted exercise.  At times.

So let me tell you about my new digs.

I don’t have my studio set up yet.  My treadmill did have some damage in the move.  It needs a total rework in the space saver prop area.  Right now it is totally NOT saving space, just wasting it, as I can’t even use the thing.  It’s stuck in the up position.  Yes, it’s stuck up.  You would be too if you were as cool as my treadmill….

So I have ventured outside, despite the fact that rain is pretty much a thrice-a-day occurrence (and it's COLD! This is a huge deal for me.  I do not do cold).  And we happen to live near a well-trafficked road. 

This road is an 8.5 on the Extrovert scale.  In other words, if you get your energy from exercising around people, you are only 1.5 points away from perfection.  Why 1.5 points off from 10?  Well, this is not Los Angeles highway, where millions of people are stuck going 5 mph at all times of the day, and it’s not a college campus, where there is constant milling.  Those were the two detractors, and I think those two situations put any running route as a perfect extrovert's 10.  Here, the speed limit is pretty much the rate at which people drive on the road, if not faster.  So the speed is not slow enough to get a glance at the runner’s face.  However, there is enough traffic that a well-self-possessed extrovert could imagine that as people pass by, they are saying, “Man, she’s fast!”  It happens.

But hold tight: I am now going to RATE this route BASED on its STEALTH CAPACITY (don’t tell me, based on my terminology, that I watched too much Back to the Future and/or Star Wars: I am a child of the 80s and there is no such thing). 

The stealth CAPACITY of my most recent new running route IS a 10.

Holy smokes, girl!  A ten!?  Yes, a ten.

It’s not just my kickin shades that hide my eyes and cheekbones and make me look like a partner-less, informally dressed federal agent, which I could be but I would never tell you.   This route is a ten because I’m a new girl and I don’t know a soul here yet.  It’s awesome.  It’s just capacity, because if I continued down this trajectory of not knowing anyone, it could be maintained.  But like any capacity, there is room to make it, and room to let it go.  I'd prefer to let it go :)

Anyway, stealth.  Awesome run.  It’s not a rating of 10, mind you, because once I meet people, they’re going to be like, “Oh, it’s Wendy again, thinking she’s fast, trying to burn her muffin off,” and then it’s off to find another route for me.

Or maybe, I’ll fool all the psychologists, and continue to toe the line between “E” and “I” and just be stealthfully extroverted when I run this route. 

I know, I know.  You have to go on a run to figure out what I just said.  Go for it!

In Transit

I have had about 1300 miles to think about what to do while in transit from my last home to my new one.  This is a fresh start.  This is a new life.  This is why I love moving.

First off, all exercise equipment will be in one place.  This one place is going to be so rad.  It will be a place to which I enjoy retreating.  I might even stack up fresh white (scented?) towels and install my own water cooler in there.  For real. Yes. 

Secondly, I will start waking up earlier.  This would have been easier if I had moved west instead of east (judging by my normal time, it would have helped to move WAY west, like Thailand, but that's not possible yet).  It just must be done.  There are too many demands on my time to have it any other way. 

I also have to start taking responsibility for this action, this waking up early business.  It sounds strange, but since I've gotten married I have started to depend on my husband for a lot.  It's almost like I lived another life before we got together.  In any case, I actually got angry he didn't wake me up the other day.  After he apologized (he is amazing, yes), I realized I have gone wacko. 

But hey, this is all about being honest.

That's why they make annoying alarm clocks, gentle alarm clocks, big alarm clocks, small alarm clocks.... because no matter which way I need it, I need to set one.  Me.

But after all these thoughts, there must be action.  Do I believe exercise is important?  Well, yes.  Does my life reflect that?

As I was reading in Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman yesterday (p.106), Idleman quotes James of the Bible: "Faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead."  Idleman expounds the statement, "When I was studying about the word 'belief' I came across a secular article written by a psychiatrist.  In the article he addressed the beliefs of his patients that had no basis in reality.  A patient may sincerely believe he could fly - but that didn't mean anything because there was nothing to back that up.  The patient might be an abusive husband that sincerely believes abuse is wrong - but he doesn't really believe that because his stated belief is contradicted by reality.  But when the psychiatrist was speaking about his patients with beliefs that had no basis in reality he didn't call them 'beliefs.'  Do you know what he called them?  He called them 'delusions.'  We don't think of it this way, but here's an important truth that needs some attention in circles of faith: A belief, no matter how sincere, if not reflected in reality isn't a belief; it's a delusion."

Holy smokes.

How can I have evidence of my beliefs in real life?  I don't want to be delusional (especially in God's eyes)!  I can study and talk all day long, but if I am not like Jesus to people, what am I?  Delusional.

So I'll bring it around to exercise: must do what it takes.  I don't want to be a delusional exerciser.  I don't want to be a delusional personal trainer for that matter. 

Studying about exercising, knowing about exercising, and helping others exercise does not count as exercising.  For a while, it had to (bearing a child is really, really important!).  Now it doesn't have to. 

If you read the first post, I described how one evening the switch just TURNED ON again.  But I can't depend on feelings forever to get me out the door.  So today's experience was different.  It was a deliberate waking up early (courtesy of some discipline) - and it still felt good once I got there.  I mean, I love the feeling of going into a hotel workout room with my bedhead and - worse - bed face.  It's a posh place.  I am not posh.  YESSSS.  A small little rebellion.  My own.

[For more about rebellion, read again in a couple of days.]

Exercising for real is great.  I mean, just great.  The good stuff is flowing, my outlook on life is sunny, and - at least for today - I cannot be called delusional.

Get moving!