Tag: out of shape

The Before

First of all, and I try never to express gratitude on the blog, as it implies that I believe there are real people out there reading, but I was almost overwhelmed by the support and camaraderie that yesterday’s post inspired. If it takes a village to lose weight, it appears I am in luck. So many folks sharing their struggles and desires to follow my own journey as a way of motivating. As an aside, that is a TERRIBLE idea. I support you, but I am the last person to be motivating anyone.

Many people emailed/commented about Kayla Itsines’ Bikini Body Guide. I went ahead and sunk some money into buying the guide, not because I’m committed, but because at this point there’s no sense in NOT throwing money at the problem. I downloaded the workout guide and spent some time last night reading through the workouts carefully but not actually doing (or even considering doing) any of them. I need to wrap my head around all that jumping. (Side note: I also have to buy some Depends if I am serious about any workout that involves a jump rope. On the long list of things I never got back after having the baby, my ability to keep the liquid IN my bladder is there at the top. A rogue or ill-timed sneeze can be the end of a perfectly good pair of pants.)

Kayla (we’re on a first name basis now that I spent $75 on a collection of photos of her doing physical exercise) feels very strongly about progress photos. She even puts little notes throughout the book reminding me how much she wants to see my progress photos. Initially I didn’t even consider taking “before” photos, but after a couple of hours I reconsidered. I thought that maybe if the diet doesn’t work and the exercise is a flop, my self-inflicted last resort will be to get thin because I have to take a photo of myself every week. And let me tell you, that shit is terrible. Just awful.

Corey asked if I needed him to take the photo for me, which I balked at because the whole point of these photos is to take them yourself because you have a selfie FREE PASS. I am not taking selfies because I’m a narcissistic asshole, I’m taking them because Kayla asked me to. She wants to see me. I also balked because there was no way in an unfrozen hell that I was going to let him be in the room while I figured out how to cheat on my before photo.

I was mindful that if I was successful losing this weight, the worse The Before, the more awesome The After. That was tempered, however, by the knowledge that if I don’t lose the weight, I’d like to be able to look at The Before and be like, “oh please. You don’t look that bad.” Turns out, the second scenario is completely impossible. It could have been my choice of horribly unflattering neon sports bra and striped shorts, but it’s more likely that when you put my tits and my gut into anything you’re going to get a bad photo. See below. (It looks like I’m in a halfway house. I’m not. Just my bathroom.)

Before_Front Before_Side

I’ll give you a second to regain your breathing and have a sip of water. For reference, I’ll share a few of the before and afters on my friend Kayla’s site:

before and after one before and after two

Not exactly a bunch of fatsos.  I agree that the girl in the wind shorts looks like she may have eaten a taco before her photo, but I’m also willing to bet the farm that her tiny little love handle isn’t muffining over a size XL. Those striped gems in my photo are an XL and I look like a ate a taco truck. But whatever, we all have our cross to bear.

So that’s pretty much it. The Before. It’s done. My next photo is supposed to be next week but that seems entirely too soon. Plus I think since I spent Day One reading the workout instead of actually doing it, I should probably delay the timeline by a smidge. I don’t want y’all to get bored.

Tonight I will attempt to NOT eat Aut’s dinner as an appetizer to mine and then I’m feeling really positively about spending 28 minutes with Kayla and a jump rope. After I get some incontinence panties.

welcome to kettle hell

rockyAfter the painful breakup with Lindsay, I was forced to find alternative ways to get slim. I started out by joining a more expensive gym because it stands to reason that the more expensive the gym, the thinner you get by being there. (Or if you can’t afford to eat, you can afford to get thin. Which reminds me, inappropriately, that I sometimes fantasize about getting dropped off in the depths of a third world country where I am forced to starve for 8-10 days because I wont eat mung. Of course when it’s all over, I magically wake up in the Back Bay. Left only with a new body and a deep, spiritual understanding of the horrifidy of the third world.) After joining the new gym, I immediately found a new gym BFF at my old gym, and now I feel like I’m marching towards doomsday. My membership is over in T minus 25 days and Nicole (my gym BFF) has given me new eyes for Equinox. With the help of her whimpering and somewhat self-sabotaging spirit, I am able to get my ass up at SIX IN THE MORNING to work out with George. The gym fairy. (Both because he loves him some Pussycat Dolls, and because he is light and springy like a wood nymph.)

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I don my finest lululemon headband and stretchy pants and spend one hour wishing whole heartedly that I were dead. Unlike yoga, true working out involves a delicate mixture of jiggly fat and mirrors that can cause a person to consider Ace bandaging their body ala a lesbian who can’t afford to have her tits cut off. As I cardio dance my way to anorexia, I am forced to look into the mirror at what is clearly not a severe case of anorexia. Instead, its pre-makeup, cant-afford-matching-gym-outfits, or wake-up-in-enough-time-to-get-the-cowlick-out-of-my-ponytail itis. It’s a painful, painful realization that there are more bad angles than good ones and if I cant stop eating fried scallops and oysters for dinner I am never going to look like a gym fairy.

These Tuesday/Thursday workouts are nearly indescribable. In addition to puffing an inhaler before, during, and after class (are you getting a good visual yet?), I sometimes step on my own shoelaces so that I can buy myself some time to kneel down and pray to Jesus that he doesn’t take me at the mainstudio. To die in that lighting would mean the blush was really, truly off the rose.

Tuesdays are all about weights and cardio. Dance, lift, dance, lift, and just when you think you might pass out, do a few jumping jacks. (I had to alter the jumping jacks to more of a Fonda workout move. I think I have a fat pocket behind my shoulder that keeps me from succeeding with that range of motion. I’ve also had to start dressing in layers. One fateful morning my shirt rolled over my midriff whilst jumping and I nearly passed out from the shock– not to mention I was wearing boxing gloves and couldnt pull it down. Now I’m a two t-shirt girl. No more of that shit.)

On Thursdays, George has crafted a kettle bell boxing routine that makes me hate pilgrims and immigrants. (Something about kettles makes me think of pilgrims, and you know how scrappy immigrants can be.) After thirty minutes of swinging a 15lb bell around, trying heartily not to embed it accidentally in someone’s skull, we put on our boxing gloves.

The gloves are a blog unto themselves. If you can imagine what it would smell like to rub the toe of a sockless, recreational-basketball-playing homeless man on your upper lip, then you can begin to understand what we are dealing with. When you get past the moisture of other peoples’ sweaty palms decaying inside a pleather wrapped piece of floam, you can enjoy an aroma like dead babies. Mid-workout my mind wandered to a very dark place, and I began to believe that when I removed the glove my hand would be nothing more than a shriveled black mass. Plus, because I have a smell compulsion, I treat myself to a deep whiff every few minutes. Just to make sure it still smells like Ghandi’s pits.

When the gloves are on, we commence to swinging at freestanding boxing bags like a bunch of pansies. If La Hoya saw what we’ve done to the sport of boxing, his balls would crawl back in his body cavity. And we listen to Britney and Leona.

This morning, after eating inappropriately last night, I was enduring the most painful hour in a long time. At a certain point I offered myself a break, and clung to the boxing bag for support. Looking at my gym BFF, her face turning ruddy and spirit failing, I thought about how depressing it was that we were doing this to ourselves. I was about to go all Norma Rae on her ass and tell her that we were leaving. Going to the Paramount for eggs. But then I caught a gander of myself in the mirror. Right then, as I was gasping for air, unsure that it was me (because in the past I have spent time being mortified by my own body, only to realize that I’m looking at someone else in the mirror…. clearly I get a little delirious while working out) George danced over and insisted we get our asses in gear.

I took a deep whiff of the cuff of my glove and continued.

There I was standing at the steps in Philadelphia, hands raised over my head, 12 raw eggs sloshing around in my belly, sweat dripping down my grey matching sweatsuit.

“You know what you are? You’re a tomato!”