Treadmills, Exercise, and Insanity

Doing less this year hopefully means having time to do what’s really important – even if it’s agonizing. I’d like to stand before you and say, “Hi, my name is Karen and I love to exercise. Heaving lungs, screaming muscles, and sweating like a St. Bernard in the Sahara as I jog another 27 seconds is what I live for. There is nothing on this planet quite like it.”

  

Indeed, there is nothing quite like exercise.

In many ways it’s like what was on the treadmill’s TV as I wogged the other day. (Wogging: my current walking/jogging exercise routine I'm using to see if I’m cool enough to run with the big dogs.) The TV must have been on the infomercial channel because for the first 6:34 minutes of my exercise Cindy Crawford advertised her new cosmetic line. I couldn’t hear what she was saying because I was at the YMCA and I didn’t have earphones for the TV; and if I had earphones, I wouldn’t have known where to plug them in. (Well,duh, yes, one end goes in my ears…).



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I would have changed the channel after 3:07 minutes of watching crow’s feet disappear, but I didn’t know how to change the channel either. So, I was left to endure what was next….Insanity.

Exercise is like insanity. After Cindy Sue finished gloating about her beautiful skin, (even at “her age” – I’m sure that’s what I lip read) the next infomercial was for a DVD exercise program. Its advertisers were mostly men with biceps the size of my thighs, who jumped and pumped like they were born in the gym (or were being paid way too much), and whose skin was way too shiny (I think there’s a remedy for that condition.) Oh, and they were obsessed with ripping off their shirts, showing off what Insanity can do for your abs, triceps, biceps, and leg-ceps.

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I watched (or rather tried to avert my eyes) for the next 28:43 minutes of wogging. Seemed like a rather long infomercial so I wondered if it might have been a reality show. In which case, somebody would have to find these guys a real life. But, apparently, these ADHD exercisaholics tried to convince the rest of the real people that we should also endure Insanity. For a small fee, of course.

My definition of insanity is different. Insanity, for me, is sweating it out at the Y, coming home to a dinner of baked chicken, broccoli, water, and salad . . . and topping it off with ice cream. My excuse is, “I ate healthy and exercised, so I can splurge a little.” I carefully measure out ½ cup of ice cream – only 120 calories – and . . .  it’s always the and that gets me in trouble. And the chocolate syrup.

As I gaze into the bowl, I see very little white. Family member says, “Hey mom, how about a little ice cream with your chocolate syrup.”

After an immediate rush of guilt, and visions of Insanity dancing in my head, I get a grip on myself.  I’ll do better next time. I figure I can save 120 calories if I skip the ice cream and just have a bowl of chocolate syrup.

Maybe it’s just me – but that’s my insanity.
















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Doing Less...Buffalo Style

I’m away on a personal retreat and when I look out the window of my loft-dwelling, this is what I see:

Don’t see much? Exactly.

Maybe it’s just me, but there are times when I need to get to those wide open spaces with no dirty dishes, no ESPN blasting from the TV, and no shopping malls calling my name.

One thing I hope to accomplish on my 24-hour-spa-for-the-mind is to schedule my life. Oh, you’re one of those, you’re probably thinking. One of those highly-driven, over-achieving, type-A, firstborn, OCD, Zig Ziglar groupies – planning goals with step-by-step execution details.

The truth is, I’m not. And that’s why it’s the middle of January and I’m just now working on my two-week old resolution. And, further, that’s why I need a little structure to my daily agenda.

I’m not huge on New Year’s resolutions, but I told hubby on New Year’s eve that I wanted to “do less” in 2012. I think he immediately feared for his evening meals. But I put his mind to rest when I told him that I simply wanted to limit my activities based on what I thought God wanted me to do. And I was pretty sure that included cooking for the family.

So, I need to clear my mind of my own agenda. You know, that agenda that consists of doing things because someone else thinks I should, or because no one else would do it, or so people would think I was a highly-driven, over-achieving, type-A, firstborn, OCD, Zig Ziglar groupie. 

Clearing my own agenda means not doing certain things, so I can do what is really important in life. It might require getting out of my nicely-padded, climate-controlled box, where I’ve found a goofy comfort in busyness, doing stuff that doesn’t even register on the “Things That Matter” scale. And, yikes! It might require not worrying what other people think of my choices.


Maybe I’ll be like my friends outside my door right now:  

They didn’t bother to comb their hair for the picture. They don’t get stressed because they missed the last 50% off sale. And they don’t even have a preference for the Super Bowl. They just stand there, looking around … doing less. And only doing what a buffalo was meant to do.

Along with doing less, my other commitment is to write more. So, if you want to check back in a week, you can see what more I’ve written as I look around and observe this thing called “life.”