Feel the burn!

Funny comic Rita Rudner once told a story about a friend who was in labor for thirty-six hours. She winced and said “I don’t want to do anything that feels good for thirty-six hours.” 

OMG, so true.

It seems that the longer you do something, the less fun it becomes. But nothing worth having is ever easy. So I’ve been working out for weeks now, trying to lose weight and—more importantly—get fit and healthy. These work outs kick my butt. The reasons I work out are as follows: it’s good for me. End of story. Period. I’m no gym rat. I don’t feel energized after. I work out at night so that I can shower and die on the bed. But I’m pushing myself. I just keep repeating: it’s good for me.

So, I’ve been doing the Slim in 6 series and decided to mix it up. I added in the Slim and a Six-Pack routine to my evening. Hey, it’s only 15 minutes of intense ab work. Now I really need to work on my core, so I’m thinking it’s awesome. I can give this 15 minutes. How bad can 15 minutes be?

Five minutes in, I was loving the routine. I love Debbie Sieber because she always makes me think I can do it. She makes things as fun as possible, mixes it up so you don’t overdo on any one thing.

Me: Yeah, gonna have six-pack! Can I get an amen?

Teenage Son walks into the room. “What are you doing?”

I’m on my yoga mat in stretchy pants and an exercise bra with Debbie Sieber on my TV. I think this should be fairly obvious, but I answer him anyway.

Me: Working my core. Gonna have a six-pack.

Son: Okay, cool. I just wondered what all the grunting was in here. Can I have the Wii?

Me: It’s only a 15 minute work out. You can have this TV when I'm done.

Son: That’s not bad. Maybe I’ll start doing this DVD with you.

Me: I wouldn’t mind a workout buddy. We should do this together.

He keeps watching. He’s not actually watching me, just the screen. I’m guessing he was ogling the fit women in their cute little costumes, but whatever.

Son: We do those at the field house but with weights to make you really get a work out.

Me: You need to leave the room right now.

If I could have gotten up and chased him, I would have, but I was on my side participating in a little hell known as side planks. We were now 10 minutes into the routine. I was sweating profusely and struggling.

Me: Abs are hard. Core work is hard. This sucks. I can’t believe I’m doing this voluntarily. What’s the matter with me? I don’t need a six-pack. I just need to lose a little weight. Gah! Debbie Sieber is not a nice woman. Don't be fooled. She's a sadist. She's trying to kill me.

Those last five minutes were pretty much a stream of expletives with me just trying not to die.

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was waking up this morning. Can’t move. I have muscles there? How did I never know I have muscles along the sides of my torso and if you piss them off they burn like fire.

Two Advils and a hot shower later I was finally ambulatory. Now I’m proud of myself for finishing. I’m dreading tonight, but I just keep thinking it will be worth it.

If I don’t see anyone around in the next week, I’ve probably fallen and I can’t get to the keyboard without traumatizing my muscles further. I'll just lie there reminding myself that it's good for me.

Until next time, keep it regency y’all