Exercise is a dirty word…every time I say it I wash my mouth out with chocolate.
Still as you all know from my previous post no longer can I lounge about on the sofa all day, I am on a diet and a health kick (the kick being up my backside!) to get into shape. So we have the diet class sorted – Rosemary Conley is going to meet me on Wednesday evening (and I bet she cant wait!), meaning now all is needed is to increase my movement. This has been somewhat of a task and my usual stance on exercise is “if God had wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them higher up my body.”
I realised quite early on that I had to submerge myself into the world of exercising slowly and carefully, as up until now the most exercise I’ve ever had is jumping to conclusions. So with my newly found motivation (!) I recorded a few programmes from “Fitness TV”, (It’s amazing what you can find on Sky when you look hard enough!). There were various different programmes to choose from and quite quickly I ruled out a fair few:
- Hemalayaa Bollywood Dance – Sorry, last time I checked my Sari was at the drycleaners.
- Ballet Fitness – The idea of me in a tutu conjures up images that would require a lifetimes psychiatrist visit’s to cure.
- Fit into your jeans by Friday – I already fit into my jeans perfectly well it’s the size that they are that worries me.
- Kettle bell Cardio Shred – My lounge is quite small and I’m pretty certain if I start throwing my kettle around I’ll either brake something or burn myself with the scolding water.
- Ripped in 30 – This just sounds scary and painful and I’m really not sure if there is any part of my body I want to rip, this also applied to “The Crunch”.
I was tempted to join in with the “Chairobics” but even I felt embarrassed at doing such a pitiful amount so I finally settled on “Low impact aerobics.” I mean how hard can it be?!?
“Grab a bottle of water and a towel, you never know when you might need it.” The lycra clad figure beamed out at us. Water and towel, fine. Should I also ring the structural engineers at the housing trust to let them know I’m attempting star jumps at two floors up?
She started out with a few easy moves, marching on the spot, a couple of side steps and some shoulder rolls. Nothing to it, I thought, following along easily with her and the other two lycra clad participants behind her (neither of which, I might add, looked like they needed low impact aerobics) – maybe thin people get a discount on lycra, like old people get a discount on hearing aids?
My thoughts were interrupted by some new moves, that made me work a little harder – “the grapevine” – a mixture between the things footballers do up and down the pitch when warming up before a game, mixed with my mum dancing and “the easy walk” – which, quite frankly, should be sued under trades descriptions act as it is not easy at all, nor is it walking. It is more like the first bit of the Macarena, only without putting your arms behind your head, and to be honest, I’ve been walking for the last 25 years and I think I’ve got it down to a pretty fine art, but hand on heart I think I can say I don’t think I’ve ever attempted to walk to the shops, or anywhere actually, by taking two steps forward and two steps back.
Fast forward another 10 minutes of side steps, heel digs, grapevines and leg curls and I was well and truly spent, it was not a pretty sight, sweat coming out of places I didn’t even think it was possible to sweat from, my face redder than a lobster with sunburn and breathing harder than an asthmatic at high altitude….
“Well that’s the warm up done with, join us in part two where we’ll get properly stuck into the work-out…”
entersomethingfunnyhere 