January 4, 2011 - Go to the gym

So this probably won't happen every day. I will be happy with six days per week. One of them has to be a spin class though. They should recommend spin class for recovering addicts. It's like an out-of-body experience where your mind goes on a magical journey to escape from the fact that every muscle in your lower body is begging for mercy but you can't leave the room because then you will never be able to make eye contact with the aggressively Scandinavian-looking instructor ever again. Endorphins, man. Wow.

On Christmas Eve last year, I got completely schooled by a Pump class instructor who was flinging a twenty-kilogram bar around with wild abandon, despite being heavily pregnant. It was one of the more shaming moments of my gym-going career as I struggled to hoist my dinky one-kilogram handweights in the air for a shoulder press. (I was TIRED, okay?) During a "Fat Burner" class (fifty-five minutes of brutal cardio, facing a MIRROR, you bastards) I noticed that the lady standing to my immediate right was exactly one-half my width. Astonishing.

Also my gym membership was expensive. I paid for a whole year to financially shame myself into going. I went for a fitness assessment where it was established that I cannot complete a single push-up, even the girly on-your-knees kind. Boo.

On a more positive note it is nice to know that even though I am a fitness noob, even on my worst days I am not such an epic failure as the person who shelves books at Borders.